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Get Together



If you're ever driving and you suddenly smell patchouli, turn your radio off immediately, because you have just smelled this song coming from a block away. This song is so full of saccharine love and peace clichés and platitudes that it reads like it was written by some crude first generation chatbot. The reason the hippies failed to do anything of value during their stink in the sun can be understood through this song. They had absolutely no message whatsoever, and were just an echo chamber of poorly thought out sentiments. Lyrics this terrible could only be perpetrated on us from a band who thought it would be a good idea to name themselves The Youngbloods.

Go grab something to punch before we get started.

Love is but a song to sing
Fear's the way we die

I don't know about you but I've already had to start punching. Love is but a song to sing? That is a completely meaningless statement. It doesn't even count as a metaphor. If you started a poem in 4th grade with that line you would be lucky to get a D on it, no matter what came after. 'Fear's the way we die' is just straight up stolen from the Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear from Frank Herbert's monumental novel Dune. Right from the start we have corny nonsense followed by plagiarism.

You can make the mountains ring
Or make the angels cry

Guess what, I called the mountains, and they emitted no ringtone. Make the mountains ring? What kind of nonsense is that? I mean, you can make rocks ring, but that just means hitting them with something. There is nothing special about that and I don't need you to tell me that I can do it. And how is making angels cry the opposing choice? If I have to hike out into the deep wilderness searching for rocks that might ring, or make angels cry, there are going to be a lot of angels bawling their fugkn eyes out.

Though the bird is on the wing
And you may not know why

Guess what, I know exactly why the bird is on the wing, it's because the fugkn bird is trying to get from point A to point B. There is no deep mystery here. This shameful attempt at profundity never even gets a foot off the ground.

Come on people now
Smile on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to love one another
Right now

Smile on? How do I smile on someone? Do I have to put my smiler on them? You want me to get together with other men and put my mouth on them while loving one another? Right now? Maybe this song is about something completely different than I have previously thought. In fact I would probably appreciate it a lot more if it was a call to gay men to have group sex, but the music would have to be changed completely. How many Village People are left to to work on this?

Some may come and some may go

Okay, I was definitely completely wrong about what this song was about.

We shall surely pass
When the one that left us here
Returns for us at last
We are but a moment's sunlight
Fading in the grass

Kinda weird to put so much religious language in an orgy anthem, though, right? Have you ever met a Christian who defends the Bible by citing the quality of the poetry in the Book of Psalms? Well The Youngbloods are those kind of Christians. Don't go to their orgies or you'll have to listen to this claptrap bullshit while trying to concentrate on performing quality reach-arounds.

If you hear the song I sing
You will understand (listen!)
You hold the key to love and fear
All in your trembling hand
Just one key unlocks them both
It's there at your command

Well shit. Prior to this lyrical appraisal I just thought this last verse a giant clusterfugk of abstruse prattle. But after unlocking the song's true meaning during the course of this writing, this whole bit is obviously just about dicks. Just use those dicks, boys. That will transform the world!

Okay now, to be fair, the song was actually written and originally performed by Chet Powers and his band Quicksilver Messenger Service. Both versions are awful, but this is the one we all know. I have fixed the song by creating a mashup with it and Macho Man by the Village People. CHECK IT OUT.

Well, I'm not punching anymore. Guess where my hand is? I HOLD THE KEY!

LYRIC SOURCE



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