First off, I want to apologize that on a site dedicated to analyzing bad lyrics I haven’t discussed Nickelback’s “Rockstar” yet.
The reason why I’ve avoided it so far is that its lyrics are so bad that it feels too easy. Nickelback’s “Rockstar” is like batting practice for a lyrics critic. In fact, every time I sit down to write a post about another song I actually write out three or four practice posts about Nickelback’s “Rockstar” just to warm up and get loose.
Anyway, I’m tired today so I’m going to give myself a mini-vacation by finally addressing it.
The hero of Nickelback’s “Rockstar” is a down on his luck guy (the “Narrator”). When we meet him he tells us he’s through with standing in lines to clubs he’ll never get in. His life hasn’t turned out quite the way he wants it to be.
But then at the end of the first verse we’re introduced to a mystical figure of some sort (“Devil Guy”). Devil Guy first appears by saying “tell me what you want.” This begins our journey. From what I can tell, Devil Guy is sort of a genie, like the “Murder was the Case” voice or the “Devil Went Down to Georgia” devil. The Narrator is immediately receptive and describes for the Devil Guy what he wants, which essentially boils down to “I wanna be a rockstar.”
That’s the basic premise and it’s fine, but the way the Narrator and Devil Guy describe the rockstar life is so incredibly odd it almost defies analysis (almost). As a result, there are more bad lyrics in this song than good ones, so I’m going to have to pick my spots or I’ll be here all day…
On the method for becoming a rockstar:
“I’m gonna trade this life
This is the Narrator’s response to Devil Guy’s question “So how you gonna do it?” The Narrator says these lines like it’s just an option we all have, to simply trade our current lives for fortune and fame. Although maybe that’s part of his bargain with Devil Guy? I don’t know. The weird part is what he says he’s willing to do to get there…
Think of a rockstar. Do you have a mental image? Good. Now, what does this platonic ideal of a rockstar’s hair look like? Long, right? Right. Of course. Outside of leather pants, long hair is probably the only universal defining characteristic of a rockstar. And since that’s the case, what on earth does the Narrator’s hair look like now, if he would need to cut it in order to be a rockstar? Is his hair somehow so long that it would look weirdly long on a rockstar? The Narrator says this line as if cutting his hair and changing his name are sacrifices he’s willing to make in exchange for all the rockstar perks; as if those two things are somehow an unpleasant but tolerable prerequisite to becoming a rockstar; as if becoming a rockstar is some weird combination of getting traded to the Yankees and a woman getting married to a guy who refers to himself “traditional.”
On rockstar food and eating:
Narrator: “sign a couple autographs/so I can get my meals for free”
Devil Guy: “I’ll have a quesadilla on the house”
This is my favorite part of the whole song (and not just because of the awesome Devil Guy’s voice). The Narrator has been listing all of his dream things: a private jet, playboy bunnies, lots of drugs, etc. but the best meal the Devil Guy can come up with is… a free quesadilla!!!! That’s the ultimate? Not like 1000 lobsters or a steak covered in booze or something rockstar crazy like raw jaguar meat or scrambled komodo dragon eggs? Nope, Devil Guy suggests he order a quesadilla, on the house.
“we’ll hide out in the private rooms
with the latest dictionary and today’s who’s who”
Ok, now we’re really getting going... This line is way weirder than the gourmet quesadilla line. I imagine some people really like quesadillas, so I can sort of conceive of a quesadilla that’s so good or a person with such a limited imagination that a free quesadilla would be his fantasy food. But, this dictionary stuff is inexplicable. The Narrator can have anything a rock star has access to and the thing he pictures having (in a private room, no less) is the latest dictionary!!!! I don’t know a word in the English language to describe how dumb this is (then again I’m just a poor schlub with an outdated dictionary…).
I honestly can’t even comprehend what he’s referencing here. I know I like to make fun, but, I’m really trying to give the benefit of the doubt and I keep coming back to the fact that he’s fantasizing about a dictionary!!! Has anyone ever wanted a dictionary, ever, at all? Forget rockstars, I’m talking about any human being. Maybe in the middle ages when books had to be handwritten and had all those illuminated drawings, but since then? Sure, people used to sometimes acquire dictionaries, in the days before the internet, but they’d get them as graduation gifts or after being pressured by a door-to-door salesman in the 1950s -- wait, that's an encyclopedia, so a dictionary is exclusively acquired via graduation gift. Point is, no one ever fantasized about one!
And what good is the “latest” dictionary anyway? Like it has the words “hipster” and “bridezilla” in it? The “latest” dictionary in any given year is probably 99.9% identical to the previous version. Also, this song came out in 2005! By then couldn’t a rockstar in a private room just go on Wikipedia if he needed to look something up?
And then (and then!) as if the “latest dictionary” weren’t weird enough, in his fantasy the Narrator rockstar also has a copy of “today’s who’s who.” What even is that? At least I know what a dictionary is. I have no conception of what “today’s who’s who” might be. Seriously, what is it? Is he referencing that book that they try to get high school kids to buy claiming it will help them get into college? Is it some quarterly periodical of rockstars that the rockstar trade association puts out for marketing purposes? Does it have informative features like “The Top Forty Rockstars Under Forty”?
Picture the Narrator as a rockstar now. He’s hiding out in a private room with short hair eating an awesome quesadilla and going back and forth between seeing if “ROFL” is in the dictionary yet and reading about high school kids’ GPAs, or he’s reading about what other rockstars have been up to (depending on what a “who’s who” is – I truly have no idea).
Rockstar Narrator: “Interesting, says here that Joe Rockenstein (nee Rothstein) has cut his hair even shorter and expanded his practice to include rock ballads. I should send him a congratulatory email.” Devil Guy: “I just did. I got his out-of-office.”
I don’t know what this Narrator currently does in his real life besides wait in line at clubs, but this imaginary “rockstar” life that he’s describing can’t be an upgrade on his current life. It just can’t.
On baseball (really, there are multiple baseball references in this song):
“it’s like the bottom of the ninth and I’m never gonna win” and “a bathroom I can play baseball in”
I have to downshift here, I’m getting too fired up. After the dictionary stuff these two lines are refreshingly (relatively) logical. But they’re still really weird.
You see, puzzlingly, the first two verses of a song by a Canadian band about a rockstar include baseball references. That’s weird because (i) this song has nothing to do with baseball and (ii) baseball adds nothing to what he’s saying.
The bottom of the ninth thing gives an unnecessary sense of urgency (is he dying? Is the club about to close with him still in line?). But whatever, I mostly point it out because having two baseball references in this song is idiotic. What’s worse is the second baseball reference.
What is a “bathroom I can play baseball in?”
First off, I have never heard the phrase “big enough to play baseball in” before. As far as I know it’s not a common expression to describe the size of something -- besides maybe the field behind someone’s house if you’re currently looking for a place to play baseball. Why not say “a bathroom I can have concerts in” if you want to indicate that it’s really big and still keep your rockstar theme?
So if it’s not an expression maybe he’s saying that he wants to actually play baseball in a bathroom? Would he play on the tile? Wouldn’t that make fielding hard? Or would he have grass and dirt on his bathroom floor making it really gross in there and impossible to clean? Is he actually going to throw a baseball around in a room filled with porcelain and mirrors? What if he has to pee during the game?
While we’re still in the bathroom, he also wants:
“a king size tub big enough for ten plus me”
That’s a big bathtub. Notice it’s not a hot tub or a pool. It’s just a tremendous tub. And who are these ten people? I get that he will have eight teammates on his bathroom baseball team (assuming the rules of Canadian Bathroom Baseball are the same as American regular baseball) but who are the other two? Does he invite two of the umps? A manager and bench coach? Two of the grounds crew/maids? Two of the opposing team’s dirtiest players? By the way, this is the least troubling lyric in the whole song and even it doesn’t make any sense. He wants a bathroom to play baseball in featuring a tub that can accommodate eleven people. Think about that. I hope he also wants a regular bathroom with like a shower in it, otherwise this fantasy rockstar life of his is just terribly inconvenient from a grooming and hygiene perspective.
Finally (for today, I may actually have to revisit this song since there are like 40 other problems in it),
“my own star on Hollywood Boulevard/Somewhere between Cher and James Dean is fine for me”
We’re almost done here, but I can’t let this one go. This seemingly innocuous line is emblematic of the laziness of the songwriting in Nickelback’s “Rockstar.” It doesn’t matter, really. I know that. In a world where there is so much suffering and injustice (like the fact that people are occasionally subjected to Nickelback’s “Rockstar”) these minor mistakes are not that big a deal. I know.
But we’ve come this far, so here goes:
First off, Cher doesn’t have a star. She’s on one with Sonny, but she doesn’t have one herself (she was offered one and refused to show up for the ceremony, which is a requirement, so she didn’t get one). Second, James Dean does have a star but it’s a mile away over on Vine Street, i.e., not on Hollywood Boulevard. So what the Narrator has done here is list two non-rockstars, neither of whom has a star on Hollywood Boulevard.
Now, I admit, the Narrator could have a star on Hollywood Boulevard that is sort of between the Sonny & Cher one and the James Dean one on Vine, but why would he pick these two people? If he had said “somewhere between Axl Rose and Mick Jagger” I would not have even thought twice about it. Or if he had picked two random people who both actually had stars on Hollywood Boulevard, that would have been ok. But why would Nickelback write a line in a song mentioning two people for no reason at all that also has two anomalies in it? Why not just do ten seconds of research first? The new dictionary might even have that information in it! It makes absolutely no sense to say “Cher” or “James Dean” in this song unless they both have stars that are near each other in a prime location on Hollywood Boulevard. But, neither of these non-rockstars even has a star on Hollywood Boulevard at all!
Ugh. I’m sick. I’m done. It turns out Nickelback’s “Rockstar” isn’t so easy after all. I feel like I’ve just spent hours discussing it and I haven’t accomplished anything. It’s like the second game of a doubleheader and we’re losing by seven runs I’m two for eight on the day with two singles and no RBIs and now they’re bringing their designated lefty out of the bullpen to face me.
I just want to get a haircut and curl up in a giant bathtub with my team and eat my way through a pile of quesadillas until I fall asleep.
