And the nominees are...
-The Doo-Doo
Third-Eye Blind's "Semi Charmed Life"
Suzanne Vega's "Tom's Diner"
The Police's "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da"
The Rolling Stones' "Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker)"
Simon and Garfunkel's "Mrs. Robinson"
Some pretty solid candidates and memorable choruses. "Semi-Charmed Life" is, for better or (more often) worse, the standard by which all others are measured, though "Tom's Diner" always holds a special place in my heart for taking about 10 years to figure out the name to. YOU try asking all of your friends about "that song that goes "doo doo doo-doo, doo doo doo-doo...", and see how that goes...
- The Na-Na
Wilson Pickett's "Land of a Thousand Dances"
Cake's "Short Skirt, Long Jacket"
J. Geils Band's "Centerfold"
The Beatles' "Hey Jude"
The Counting Crows' "A Long December"
The Band's "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down"
This might have to be the winner in terms of pure quality. Where the Doo-Doos have a couple bad apples in the bunch - the Stones tune is from the critically-assailed Goats Head Soup, and let's not try to pretend that "Semi-Charmed Life" isn't unbearably annoying about 75 percent of the time - but you can't argue with the Liverpool Four or Wilson Pickett, and even that Crows tune ages pretty well.
(I'm not the only one with a thing for the Na-Nas...)
-The La-Las
Bob Dylan's "The Man In Me"
Van Morrison's "Caravan"
Van Morrison's "Brown Eyed Girl" (noticing a trend?)
ATC's "All Around the World (La La)"
Kylie Minogue, "Can't Get You Out of my Head"
HONORABLE MENTION: Ashlee Simpson's "La La (You Make Me Wanna)"
An eclectic mix of old-school and new-crap, from Dylan's most joyous song to date, a couple of solid hits from Van and a couple of naggingly catchy electro-pop goodies. I don't even know what making someone want to "la-la" really means, but I'm intrigued and hoping that Ashlee will enlighten me....
The Others
-Hey!: Gary Glitter's "Rock & Roll Part II (The Hey Song)"
-La-Da: Jack Johnson's "Bubbletoes"
-Yeah!: The Flaming Lips' "Yeah Yeah Yeah Song"
-Fa!: Guster's "Fa Fa"
Can you think of any others in these categories? Johnson's frequent "Da"s skew very closely to the aforementioned "Do"s, and I'm sure I'm missing more. Usher's "Yeah" could qualify, though he doesn't really repeat the word like Wayne Coyne does. You'd think there would be more "Heys," wouldn't you? Which brings me to the double-espresso of the bunch...
Extra credit goes to star pupil...
Steam, for "Na Na Hey Hey Goodbye", which manages to swing both a "na na" and a "hey hey" into its chorus.
Where does your vote go? What songs am I missing? And isn't there something refreshingly cheery about a song that doesn't feel like it has to resort to these inane, loaded "words" that everyone else subjects us to?
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6 comments:
I'd like to enter in "foux de fa fa" as a consideration under the "fa fa" category
I humbly submit the Proclaimer's "I Would Walk 500 Miles", specifically "haver." What is haver? Nonsense? Ancient Celtic tongue? ACS?
I'd like to submit any and every song by the Fratellis. But for the sake of simplicity, I'll single out the song "Flathead" which people may remember from the ipod commercial. This song manages to use a barrage of nonsense words, including ah's, da's, and in an unprecedented move, links ba duh bop ba. Clearly this song should have made your list.
Isn't Mrs Robinson "Dee-da-dee-dee-dee-dee"? That's one for you. And how about "The Boxer"'s "li-la-li"? I know some of Bruce's 80s stuff includes some nonsense words. So whatever he went with is what I'll go with. Besides that Police song is their worst one. Doos suck.
Obla dee Obla da, life goes on... beatles
As much as I like Tom's Diner, I think I have to agree that Doo's kinda suck.
I'd also like to nominate Hanson's "mmmbop" for honourable mention.
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