Last Saturday night, party animals that we are, some friends and I went on Rhapsody and searched for pop songs that mention "hurricanes." Sweet Jesus, there were a lot of them. And a large percentage used "eye of a hurricane" as a bad love metaphor. So we were inspired to make a hurricane music soundtrack, which we'll be playing today at my D.C.-based party for Storm World. For pop culture mavens (like Sheril), here are the songs, beginning with the classic "The Hurricane" by Bob Dylan--which, of course, isn't really about a hurricane, and which is the best song of the bunch IMHO. After the jump, I've included some lyrical selections, chosen mostly for their incredible badness:
Hurricane, Bob Dylan (And She Said) Take Me Now, Justin Timberlake Eye Of The Hurricane, Blue Oyster Cult Hurricane, Joan Osborne Hurricane Eye, Paul Simon One Of The Survivors, The Kinks Hurricane, Bette Midler Hurricane, Bush Sky Is Falling, Blackalicious Rock You Like A Hurricane, Scorpions Lost And Found, The Kinks Like A Hurricane, Neil Young Pancake, Tori Amos The Word "Hurricane," Air Hurricane, Lisa Loeb Rain, KISS Ain't Wastin' Time No More, The Allman Brothers Band Hurricane Years, Alice Cooper Strength To Endure, The Ramones Cannibals, Mark Knopfler When You Were Young, The Killers Life Goes On, The Kinks Otis Redding, Sara Evans Savannah Fare You Well, Jimmy Buffett (Hurricane) The Formal Weather Pattern, Something Corporate All Hands, Blues Traveler Lost In The Flood, Bruce Springsteen Feels Like Rain, Buddy Guy Novacane, Beck It's The End Of The World As We Know It (...R.E.M.)
And now some lyrics. We turn to Justin Timberlake:
I'm like a hurricane Just coasting along You better grab me girl I hope you take me now
Huh? On to....The Kinks:
Waiting for the hurricane To hit New York City Somebody said it's hit the bay This is the nitty gritty
Such effortless rhyming. And here's Neil Young:
You are like a hurricane There's calm in your eye. And I'm gettin' blown away To somewhere safer where the feeling stays. I want to love you but I'm getting blown away.
See? I told you these lyrics were bad. Still, I don't think Young is quite as unabashedly awful as the classic from the Scorpions:
It's early morning The sun comes out Last night was shaking And pretty loud My cat is purring And scratches my skin So what is wrong With another sin The bitch is hungry She needs to tell So give her inches And feed her well More days to come New places to go I've got to leave It's time for a show Here I am, rock you like a hurricane Here I am, rock you like a hurricane
What can you say about a song like that? Better not to, I think. On to the most meteorologically explicit lyrics, from Air:
The word hurricane is the name given to natures strongest storm. A hurricane occurs when high pressure and low pressure masses of air come in contact with one another. There is often a significant difference in temperature between the two masses. One mass is warm, while the other is cold. The warmer air rises, and the cooler air falls. Likewise, the low pressure area slides down the sides of the high pressure area. They swirl in and around one another, creating the beginnings of the storm.
This just so happens to be spectacularly, totally wrong. Air doesn't know the difference between hurricanes and extratropical cyclones. I've been complaining about bad hurricane metaphors, but bad hurricane facts are even worse. I'll leave you with something kind of profound, in its simplicity, one again from the Kinks:
Tornado, cyclone and hurricane Can batter the houses with the thunder and rain. Blizzards can blow; the waves hit the shore, But the people recover and come back for more.
