It’s fascinating that Rebecca Black’s song Friday is receiving such extreme reactions and vicious criticism over its poor lyrics. Teen pop songs with nonsensical or ridiculous lyrics are remarkably commonplace, but it is this latest pop sensation who seems to be accumulating the hate mail just now. What is all the fuss about?
The little thirteen-year old who has shot to fame for warbling her startlingly auto-tuned and musically edited way through a cutesy and catchy pop number has been vigorously criticised for the admittedly ludicrous lyrics of her song Friday.
The problem lies in an apparently illogical narrative that defies time and upsets expectations, and a series of repeated questions and statements that are either contrary in themselves, or contradict what is being shown in the video clip on Youtube.
Setting the Scene? - The First Verse
The lyrics begin with a relatively straightforward story and situation:
7am - waking up in the morning,
Gotta be fresh,
Gotta go downstairs,
Gotta have my bowl,
Gotta have cereal,
Seein' everything,
The time is goin'...
The need to include a presumed bowl with the cereal and to claim rather implausibly to be ‘seeing everything’, is coupled with the fact this tweenie’s ‘friends’ then seen at the bus stop are driving a sports car. Thus, there are some redundant lyrics, and a fantasy scenario of kids driving dream cars – yet these are not particularly unusual features of pop songs. The problem arises with the chorus:
Kickin' in the front seat,
Sittin' in the back seat,
Gotta make my mind up -
Which seat can I take?
A Question of Rhetoric? - The Chorus
‘Which seat can I take?’ is answered visually: there is only one place left in the car shown. However, the song continues to reiterate this issue. Yet even if we take it metaphorically (ie. the choice is between going to school by bus and skipping classes to party with friends), the visual decision for the back seat (ie. the passive ‘sitting’, not the active ‘kicking’) suggests taking the ‘good girl’ option – which is belied by the apparent avoidance of school in order to party, since:
It's Friday, Friday,
Gotta get down on Friday,
Everybody's lookin' forward to the weekend!...
There is much repetition of these facts along with fun and partying, then the second verse commences:
7:45 - we're drivin' on the highway,
Cruisin' so fast; I want time to fly.
Fun, fun - think about fun,
You know what it is.
I got this, you got this,
My friend is by my right,
I got this - you got this,
Now you know it.
Forty-five minutes after the narrative story began, the character is now in new evening clothes and with new friends (although inexplicably, only the one on the right is now acknowledged as such). Perhaps we are actually twelve hours later? – however this does not explain why one would want time to fly when supposedly having excessive amounts of fun.
The ‘it’ and ‘this’ is apparently the fun (if we follow the grammar), though whether we’ve ‘got’ it because we’re presumably having fun too, or whether we ‘get it’ because we unpack the confused sentences enough to understand the character herself is having fun is debatable.
Of course, the point may be the situation is under control ('I got this'), or that she's got this friend, or that she and the friend have got these seats whereupon the 'you' is directed to the friend who now knows she is the chosen favourite. However, this particular ambiguity is not addressed again in the song,
Stating the Obvious Versus Missing Verbs - The Bridge
Yet even though Rebecca Black is shown clearly having chosen the back seat, the lyrics continue bizarrely to wonder which seat to choose, and then remind us of the time and date issue:
Yesterday was Thursday,Today is Friday,
We - we - we so excited,
We so excited,
We gonna have a ball today!
Tomorrow is Saturday,
And Sunday comes afterwards...
Leaving aside the remarkably ungrammatical lyrics (which we may perhaps attribute to modern teen parlance), the narrative has descended into truisms, but even more disturbing is the astonishingly nonsensical rap that then follows:
R.B - Rebecca Black ,
So chillin' in the front seat,
In the back seat,
I'm drivin', cruisin',
Fast lanes, switchin',
Wit' a car up on my side,
Passin' by is a school bus in front of me,
Makes tick-tock, tick-tock - wanna scream,
Check my time: it's Friday...
Spot the Stalker - The Rap
According to the visual narrative, an adult male is apparently stalking both Rebecca Black with her new friends, and also the missed school bus - in the middle of the night. If that were not worrying enough, the latter vehicle is unsettlingly able to be both in front of him and passing him at the same time, while Rebecca is explained to be simultaneously chilling in the front seat though clearly standing in the back seat.
While many music videos become disconnected from the actual lyrics of the song being performed, or offer a separate narrative to the song itself, the problem here is that the apparent story we are being shown now seems at odds with the spirit of the actual pop number (the seat question reiterated, the change of perspective to voyeur). This is in conjunction with some additional illogical claims in what is being said.
Why a bus ‘makes tick-tock’ is therefore beyond analysis, why the rapper wants to scream is ambiguous (perhaps at the quality of his lyrics), and why the time is being conflated with the date is incomprehensible. The song returns to Rebecca herself and ends with repetitions that it’s Friday, there’s partying, there’s fun, and there’s many ‘yeahs’ and ‘woo-s’.
'Not Great' = Hate? - The Friday Verdict
Ultimately though, this is a simple and catchy melody which thus supplies the principal component for any successful pop song in history. The lyrics and video are generally both silly and illogical, but this is also a regular feature of successful pop songs in their appeal to a teen audience. Finally, this is just the little claim to fame of a thirteen-year old girl who loves to sing, and whose parents are supporting her in her endeavour.
Forget this being defined as 'the worst song in the world', or 'the worst lyrics ever written' when there are racist, sexist, homophobic, violent and unethical songs still being created and performed every day. There might be plenty to parody in Rebecca Black's cute pop song Friday, but in conclusion and even under analysis - there is really very little to hate.
Kim Edwards - Dr. Kim Edwards holds a PhD in literature, and when not teaching English, drama, cabaret or writing, she is a freelance writer, scholar, ...
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