I'm a musical idiot savant!

I fully admit that I do not know much about music. My friend Nick, he knows music. But me, I listen to Top 40 and the best of the 80’s. My first concert was Bon Jovi and I have seen Green Day three times. I am not exactly in the know. The closest I’ve come to liking someone before they were mainstream was when I bought a Brandi Carlile album a year ago. (About 4 months before she was featured on Grey’s Anatomy - I know, it's scary how much ahead of the game I was on that one!) The last time I actually got to introduce someone to new music was when I came home for winter break freshman year of college and got to introduce my best friend to Tricky’s Maxinquaye album.

So it’s well established that I am not a music connoisseur.

One of the ‘classics’ I never heard before and had the wonderful opportunity to listen to this weekend was Warren Zevon’s breakout from 1978, Excitable Boy. It has a catchy tune you feel like tapping your feet to and then this verse comes along:

“He took little Susie to the Junior Prom

Excitable boy, they all said

and he raped her and killed her, then he took her home

Excitable boy, they all said

Well, he's just an excitable boy

After ten long years they let him out of the Home

Excitable boy, they all said

And he dug up her grave and built a cage with her bones

Excitable boy, they all said

Well, he's just an excitable boy”

Um, what?

I thought at first that maybe this song was like Polly and was a commentary on some real life event, but no. Apparently Warren was just a freak. And songs like that explain why I am never going to be a music critic. I.don’t.get.it. I am sure there is some deep meaning behind this song that is a commentary on Larry Flint getting shot or Pope Paul VI dying, but its way above my head. And I soooo don't want to figure it out.