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Here's a little song for everybody out there

The song Crazy Nights has gotten a lot of mileage here of late. I can’t say why for sure. It was just one of those songs I hadn’t thought of for about ten years that suddenly came back to me one day. Cultural bits from childhood crack me up; you store up the memories of what songs you liked, or what shows you thought were cool, and until you’re physically confronted with them again you tend to maintain those classifications (i.e. Crazy Nights: rocked pretty hard; The A-Team: crack squad of commandos I’d like at my back.)

Last week, I listened to Crazy Nights for the first time in a long while. (Amazon.ca tells me the song is actually titled Crazy, Crazy Nights, but I refuse to call it that except for just that once. Apparently KISS had discovered the advanced literary device known as ‘repetition’ on this album. Other songs include No, No, No, and Bang Bang You. Seriously.) I knew the song wouldn’t be as good as I remembered, but Jesus H is it ever godawful. Go, download it. You owe it to yourselves. The only good thing I can say about it is that it’s not pretentious bad, or atonal bad, it’s just funny bad. Less Paula Cole Where Have All the Cowboys Gone, more Steve Miller Abracadabra (I wanna reach out and grab ya!)

Words courtesy of lyricsfreak, the song goes a little something like this:
(Handy reader’s guide footnotes below)

Whoo! Here’s a little song for everybody out there(1)
People try to take my soul away(2) , but I don’t hear the rap that they all say
They try to tell us we don’t belong, that’s alright, we’re millions strong(3)
This is my music, it makes me proud(4), these are my people and this is my crowd

Chorus:
These are crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy nights
These are crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy nights(5)

Sometimes days are so hard to survive, a million ways to bury you alive(6)
The sun goes down like a bad bad dream
You’re wound up tight, gotta let off steam
They say they can break you again and again, if life is a radio, turn up to ten(7)

Chorus repeats 2x

And they try to tell us that we don’t belong
But that’s alright, we’re millions strong
You are my people, you are my crowd, this is our music, we love it loud(8)

Yeah, and nobody’s gonna change me, ’cos that’s who I am

Chorus repeats out

1. Thank you Paul Stanley for being so inclusive. This may have been chosen in place of such epigraphs as “Yeah! Here’s a little song we tossed of on the bus ride here,” and “Boo-yah! Here’s one for just the retarded people.”
2. Really? What people? Vampires? Cenobites? Is it The Rapture?
3. No—there’s probably a couple dozen of you at best, and you’re all look like you’ve been rode hard and put away wet
4. Dollars to donuts this actually makes you more ashamed than anything ever.
5. Far crazier then crazy, crazy, crazy nights, and it makes crazy, crazy nights look like crazy nights in comparison.
6. Definitely vampires.
7. Yeah, you don’t need me on this one folks
8. This is actually the only time this song approaches cool—gets postmodern, even. But when you hold it up in contrast to I Love it Loud, you might throw up in your mouth just a little.


To close with a more well-rounded opinion, I’ll share what the fans think. Amazon.ca has some stellar revues of the entire Crazy Nights album. Customer from the USA gives it four stars and titles his revue “Lighten up and get ready to rock!” In a five star revue, Virginia’s Mike Clor says: “This album has everything a KISS album should have: hard rock anthems, fast-fingured(sic) guitar solos, explosive lyrics, heart-felt power balads(sic) and the fun spirit of KISS.” Then finally, there’s reason. The best revue posted, in its entirety:

(one star) The most Shocking release in the last 20 years, June 22, 2004
Reviewer: cordell_252000 from Australia
There is no forgiveness for this album, JUST BLOODY TERRIBLE.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Best.
Entry.
Ever.
Jay said…
I hope this little reminisence made you feel damn old.

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