In Medias Res: Friday PSTSS: "If I Had A Million Dollars"

Friday, October 19, 2007

Friday PSTSS: "If I Had A Million Dollars"

Back to blogging, and back to my silly little once-a-week exercises in pop music pedantry.

So, how old was I when I first heard this song? Around late 1992, I think, when the Barenaked Ladies's Gordon was released; at least it started showing up on alternative radio stations in Utah sometime around then. All the hip people loved it, of course. What is it with this ridiculously simple song? It's a love song, sort of, though not really; nor is really just a joke song, because of the really rather humble and honest message behind all the whimsy....even though, well, of course it is a joke song, only that and more. Maybe it's just the quintessentially Canadian song: not quite this, and not quite that, but pretty damn funny and decent all the same, in a low key sort of way. Fifteen years after first hearing it, it still cracks me up when Steven Page, in one of the innumerable versions of this song, starts going on about fancy ketchups, and laughs at himself, in spite of the lyric.

Ed Robertson: If I had a million dollars
(Steven Page: If I had a million dollars)
I'd buy you a house
(I would buy you a house)
If I had a million dollars
(If I had a million dollars)
I'd buy you furniture for your house
(Maybe a nice chesterfield or an ottoman)
And if I had a million dollars
(If I had a million dollars)
Well, I'd buy you a K-Car
(A nice Reliant automobile)
If I had a million dollars I'd buy your love

If I had a million dollars
(I'd build a tree fort in our yard)
If I had million dollars
(You could help, it wouldn't be that hard)
If I had million dollars
(Maybe we could put like a little tiny fridge in there somewhere)
[You know, we could just go up there and hang out...
Like open the fridge and stuff...
There would already be laid out foods for us...
Like little pre-wrapped sausages and things--
They have pre-wrapped sausages but they don't have pre-wrapped bacon.
Well, can you blame 'em?
Uh, yeah!]

If I had a million dollars
(If I had a million dollars)
Well, I'd buy you a fur coat
(But not a real fur coat that's cruel)
And if I had a million dollars
(If I had a million dollars)
Well, I'd buy you an exotic pet
(Yep, like a llama or an emu)
And if I had a million dollars
(If I had a a million dollars)
Well, I'd buy you John Merrick's remains
(Ooh, all them crazy elephant bones)
And If I had a million dollars I'd buy your love

If I had a million dollars
(We wouldn't have to walk to the store)
If I had a million dollars
(Now, we'd take a limousine 'cause it costs more)
If I had a million dollars
(We wouldn't have to eat Kraft Dinner)
[But we would eat Kraft Dinner
Of course we would, we’d just eat more
And buy really expensive ketchups with it
That’s right, all the fanciest ke... dijon ketchups!
Mmmmmm, Mmmm-Hmmm]

If I had a million dollars
(If I had a million dollars)
Well, I'd buy you a green dress
(But not a real green dress, that's cruel)
And if I had a million dollars
(If I had a million dollars)
Well, I'd buy you some art
(A Picasso or a Garfunkel)
If I had a million dollars
(If I had a million dollars)
Well, I'd buy you a monkey
(Haven't you always wanted a monkey)
If I had a million dollars
I’d buy your love

If I had a million dollars
If I had a million dollars
If I had a million dollars
If I had a million dollars
If I had a million dollars
I'd be rich

6 comments:

John B. said...: This reminded me a lot of the sort of thing the Flight of the Conchords do.

Whimsy out there on the fringes of the Empire. I wish we had more of that in our culture, frankly.; Saturday, October 20, 2007
Rob Perkins said...: Almost... *almost* as fun as learning to deliver all the lyrics to "One Week" correctly, at proper tempo. I really do like the sushi, precisely because it has never touched the frying pan.

BNL is a favorite of 3/5 of my immediate family. And like John Mayer, I had the dubious privilege of realizing the artistry much later than the peak of the artist's popularity.

Hope things are well with you, Russell.; Monday, October 22, 2007
Anonymous said...: "As Canadian as possible under the circumstances."; Friday, November 02, 2007
Anonymous said...: Parenting dilemma: explaining to your kids why you listen to a band called the Barenaked Ladies. We tried "BNL" for a while but eventually we had to 'fess up.

Other difficulties: describing to a 4-year-old why "not a real green dress--that's cruel" is funny. And why green dresses really aren't cruel.; Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Anonymous said...: I had the misfortune to hear this song playing at the Gap the other day. (A fitting place for it, I guess.) It really is one of the most boring songs by one of the most boring bands of all time; Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Anonymous said...: Great blog you got here. I'd like to read more concerning this matter. Thanx for giving that information.
Sexy Lady
London escorts; Thursday, December 17, 2009

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(Glenn Tinder, The Political Meaning of Christianity: The Prophetic Stance [HarperSanFrancisco, 1991], 215)

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"All those rely on their hands, and each is skillful at his own craft. / Without them a city would have no inhabitants; no settlers or travellers would come to it. / Yet they are not in demand at public discussions, nor do they attain to high office in the assembly. They do not sit on the judge's bench or understand the decisions of the courts. They cannot expound moral or legal principles and are not ready with maxims. / But they maintain the fabric of this world, and the practice of their craft is their prayer."

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(Wilford Woodruff, Millennial Star [November 14, 1887], 773)

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(J.G. Herder, Metacritique of the Critique of Pure Reason in Werke in zehn Bänden [Deutsche Klassiker Verlag, 1985-2000], 8:508, translated by Sonia Sikka)

"'Business!' cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. 'Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!'"

(Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol [Candlewick Press, 2006], 35)

"The Master said, 'At fifteen, I set my mind upon learning; at thirty, I took my place in society; at forty, I became free of doubts; at fifty, I understood Heaven's Mandate; at sixty, my ear was attuned; and at seventy, I could follow my heart's desires without overstepping the bounds of propriety.'"

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"That drunken poet from whom you would not take a dreary tragedy, he believed in himself. That elderly minister with an epic from whom you are hiding in the back room, he believed in himself. If you consulted your business experience instead of your ugly individualistic philosophy, you would know that believing in himself is one of the commonest signs of a rotter. Actors who can't act believe in themselves; and debtors who won't pay. It would be much truer to say that a man will certainly fail because he believes in himself. Complete self-confidence is not merely a sin; complete self-confidence is a weakness."

(Gilbert K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy [Bradford and Dickens, 1957], 10)

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(Aristotle, On Generation and Corruption [translated by H.H. Joachim, Oxford, 1922], lines 316a5-9)

"The man who has gone through college or university easily becomes psychically unemployable in manual occupations without necessarily acquiring employability in, say, professional work."

(Joseph Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy [Harper Perennial, 1975], 152)

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(C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, revised paperback edition [Macmillan, 1982], 69)

"Money is simply a tool. We use money as a proxy for our time and labor--our life energy--to acquire things that we cannot (or care not to) procure or produce with our own hands. Beyond that, it has limited actual utility: you can't eat it; if you bury it in the ground, it will not produce a crop to sustain a family; it would make a lousy roof and a poor blanket. To base our understanding of economy simply on money overlooks all other methods of exchange that can empower communities. Equating an economy only with money assumes there are no other means by which we can provide food for our bellies, a roof over our heads and clothing on our backs."

(Shannon Hayes, Radical Homemakers, [Left to Write, 2010], 57)

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"What from your fathers you received as heir, / Acquire [anew] if you would possess it. / What is not used is but a load to bear; / But if today creates it, we can use and bless it."

(Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Faust [translated by Walter Kaufmann, Anchor Books, 1963], lines 682-685)

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(Tom Stoppard [spoken by A.E. Houseman], The Invention of Love [Grove Press, 1997], 37)

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(Henry Adams, Democracy: An American Novel [Farrar, Straus, and Young, Inc., 1952], 53)

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(T.S. Eliot, "East Coker," Four Quarters [Harcourt, 1943])

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Friday, October 19, 2007

Friday PSTSS: "If I Had A Million Dollars"

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