Annoying Songs to Play at Bars: Vol. 4

Band: The Bloodhound Gang
Album: Hooray for Boobies
Song: "A Lap Dance Is So Much Better When the Stripper is Crying"
Length: 5:38

"I was lonlier than Kunta Kinte at a Merle Haggard concert," kicks off perhaps one of the funniest -- and most disturbing -- songs of the last 20 or so years. I've been a Bloodhound Gang fan since I first heard "Fire Water Burn" in '96, so I'm quite used to their demented -- and oh so clever -- brand of humor. The patrons of your favorite drinking establishment, however, may not agree with you.

I can't imagine the three of you that read this blog have never heard of the BHG, so I don't have to describe their overall sound to you. As far as this song is concerned, it's basically Jimmy Pop talking over -- and I believe I stole this from a review of a Madonna song -- game boy synths about picking up this trashy girl and having sex with her. From that description it sounds like it could be a lame-ass hair metal song, but when Jimmy goes on and on about his fantasy of "Jesus Christ jackhammering Mickey Mouse in the doo-doo hole with a lawn dart while Garth Brooks gives birth to something resembling a cheddar cheese log on his tummy-tum," you know that you have entered the world of the extremely bizarre.

(You know what's sad? I didn't even have to look that line up. Maybe now I know why I couldn't get girls in college.)

I can personally vouch for this song being annoying on not one but two occasions.

The first was in college: Me and a buddy went to a bar on a Wednesday night, before it got very busy. (All you can drink for $7 was the deal that night) So I decided to play some music while I still had the chance, and when the song came on we both giggled like schoolgirls because the song is just so damn funny.

The "bouncers" (read: ID checkers) were split on their opinion of the song. One guy thought it was awesome, the other guy thought it was total shit and bitched about it through the entire song. We decided to leave soon thereafter, but because the one guy was a dick and complained through the whole thing (there weren't a whole lot of people at this point, so we heard it all) I left him a little present on the jukebox: a first-ballot hall-of-fame annoying song - "2112" by Rush. All seven parts of it totaling just over 20 minutes. Fuck him.

The other occurrence might just be more heinous. This particular bar has been problematic at skipping my songs (see "God Only Knows") so I don't really know why I keep trying. But I soldiered on, and decided to play it cool with Pink Floyd's "Time." Well, they skipped that one halfway through, and I had had a few whiskey and cokes before I went out so I was ready to riot. Of course the next song had to be 'Lap Dance' and I knew the douchebag bartender wouldn't stand for that. It lasted maybe a minute and that was it.

I have devised a ratings system just for fun, and mostly because I thought it incredibly funny to use "Lars Ulrichs" as my rating instead of stars or numbers.

Ratings go from 1-5, least to most.

Obscurity: 2.5
A lot of people are familiar with the Bloodhound Gang, yet I think that familiarity stops with the big hits like "The Bad Touch" and "Fire Water Burn." Still, if you like the BHG, chances are you've heard this song at some point. And if not, you owe it to yourself to check it out.

Length: 3
The five minutes and thirty-eight seconds really aren't that bad, but the droning nature of the song makes it seem so much longer.

Tuneoutability: 2
If the volume isn't turned up in the joint, this song will not rise above the din. If it is, that's great, but once again the droning nature and the monotone vocals make it kind of easy for someone to ignore the song. Then again, a country-style vocal of "A lap dance is so much better when the stripper is crying" might cause people to take notice.










The ratings betray how annoying this song actually is, as I've personally had this song skipped twice, so we'll split the difference and give it two-and-a-half Ulrichs.