Feel free to click on the first Global Song Competition post in which we determined “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap” was Australia’s best ever contribution to music to learn the rules of this game. In short, we didn’t want to talk about the aftermath of the last regular season baseball series, so I started a distraction contest to...

...determine the greatest song of all time, based on my limited knowledge of music and other countries.

First, we’ll go with the smattering of countries I can accurately point to on a globe and spell correctly—sorry, Kyrgustan (nope: it was Kyrgyzstan)—and then, we’ll go state by state in the good ol’ US of A.

*Note: Feel free to disagree with my choices violently, and suggest better songs in the comments. I will not listen to you, nor will it affect the outcome of this ridiculous distraction contest, but I want you all to feel both seen and heard, even though I don’t know what most of you look like, nor sound like, but I want you all to feel effectively placated.

For the letter N, you voted for New Zealand, despite Dear Leader’s promise to not assassinate your older brother with the nerve agent VX at an airport in Kuala Lumpur—after having tricked two young women into committing the crime, thinking it was just part of a prank show—if you vote for the Glorious Nation of North Korea.

So... umm... good on you for exercising your democratic rights, here at Anchor of Gold, but, uhh... also... keep your head on a swivel when in any Malaysian airports for a while just to be sure.

Anyway, back to New Zealand—home of the Toothbrush Fence. They are a culture rich in having been the location for the Lord of the Rings films, getting quite mad when you confuse them with Australians after having heard their accents, and sheep. Mostly sheep.

The Songs

1) Flight of the Conchords—Business Time

All long term couples know what time it is... put on your business socks, as it is Wednesday and you’ve already taken out the recycling and brushed your teeth. Whereas Italy’s Adriano Celentano might be the king of getting your lady ready for a night of animal passion where you abandon yourself completely to sexual desire, Jemaine Clement understands that most of the sex you have in your life will be when you are in a committed relationship and are lucky if even the pilot light of passion is still flickering. Still, he argues, scheduled, routine, jejune, quotidian, passionless sex is still sexy in a Pavlovian sense. Whether it’s on nights when she doesn’t have her netball team practice, or it’s just the one night of the week she allows you to go the full two minutes, two minutes of pleasure is better than one minute... of pleasure, Ooohhh!

2) Flight of the Conchords—Robots (The Humans Are Dead)

In this age of AI scientists sounding all the alarms against reaching The Singularity with a completely untethered artificial intelligence—and, you know, fuck everyone who even needs them to warn you, and those who created this, as if you haven’t had a near-bottomless amount of sci fi books and films to tell you exactly what might happen—this song might be too much for some of you, emotionally. Too raw in its dystopian prediction/inevitable truth.

Well, you could have done something about it beforehand, but now? Binary solo!

3) Flight of the Conchords—The Most Beautiful Girl (In the Room)

Back to very honest romance through the mind of Jemaine Clement. As we all know, the idea of a perfect soulmate is complete and utter bullshit, and, like Santa Claus, primarily believed by idiots and/or children, but perpetuated en masse by the general culture in what is, let’s just be honest, a fantastic cultural prank on us all. Okay, back to the song. In it, Jemaine points to the truth that when someone special catches your eye, you still have to consider the mathematics of Set Theory. Sure, she’s the most beautiful girl in the world... considering you have reflexively limited your entire world to the set of people in that room, at that precise moment. The entire song explores that very conceit, that all romance and romantic feelings must then be put in their proper context. Nothing hits the nail on the head more than the lyrics, “You’re so beautiful (beautiful), you could be a waitress.”

Just fucking nailed it, you know?

Similar qualifications have been made in many romantic songs. Think of Joe Cocker. Sure, the song’s titled “You Are So Beautiful,” but we all know the qualifier “(to me)” follows that lyric. Cocker’s admitting without saying directly that while the woman in question may not be objectively beautiful, he considers her subjectively beautiful, accounting for both sample size errors (he did grow up in Crookes, Sheffield, UK, so there’s certainly a “prettiest Denny’s waitress” effect/conditioning factor going on there) and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle (by observing her beauty, you have changed her beauty).

Anyway, all that to say that does not change that when you met your significant other, you likely did find her to be the most beautiful girl in the... room (in the whole wide room). It’s different for women, presumably, as all men are various levels of disgusting.

4) Flight of the Conchords—Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros

Mother-flippin’.

Honorable Mention

Flight of the Conchords—Too Many Mother ‘Uckers

Crowded House—Don’t Dream it’s Over

Tim Finn—Six months in a leaky boat

Wayne Mason—Nature

Bic Runga—Sway

Lorde—Royals

(Insert Randy Marsh voice) I am Lorde. Ya ya ya.

Vote in the Poll (no more Twitter votes on songs, as you weirdos have lost the right)

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