“I’ll be lounging on the couch, just chilling in my Snuggie. Click to MTV so they could teach me how to dougie.” – Bruno Mars “The Lazy Song”
Powerful. Potent. Poetry. In 2010, Bruno Mars dropped the ultimate rebellion song for junior high students.
“The Lazy Song” is an auditory abomination. Yet it was sickeningly popular. It peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100. It topped the charts in Denmark and the United Kingdom. It was everywhere. There’s even a Kidz Bop version of the song where they sing: “Tomorrow I’ll wake up do some P90X. Meet a really nice girl, send a really nice text.”
Despite the song’s lack of quality, it became a staple of my sixth grade life. My friends and I loved it. God, it was the best song ever. It was a slick, simplistic reggaeton jam. It had an easygoing acoustic guitar and he even whistled in it. Amazing.
We didn’t care about the music, though. Bruno Mars could have sung over audio of him hitting an aluminum garbage can with a sledgehammer and we’d still listen to it if it was on the radio.
It was all about the lyrics. Those glorious lyrics about the proletariat revolting against the bourgeoisie. Bruno Mars took a stand. He said the types of things our stupid, underdeveloped voices were too nervous to say. He sang about how he was going to lay in bed all day. So cool. He sang about how he wasn’t going to get his college degree. Awesome. He sang about throwing his hand in his pants. I didn’t really get that part, honestly.
Every sixth grader wants to be cool. They want to be able to say and do whatever they want. Authority is this gross thing, an ugly mask adults wore when they forced you to do something menial or educational. All I wanted to do as a kid was play Runescape and not get hit by a car. I didn’t want to do dishes or mow the lawn.
My dumb, bowl-cut head conjured images of a world where I could do whatever I wanted. I lived vicariously through Bruno Mars.
“The Lazy Song” ushered my subconscious into this alternate dimension where I was in charge. Dishes were stacked hazardously, always one second away from toppling over. The lawn was a jungle. Everything was disorderly and beautiful.
But disorder becomes less beautiful as you grow older, and eventually “The Lazy Song” morphed from this bare-chested declaration of independence into a dumpster on fire in a back alley.
Now, “The Lazy Song” is an annoyance, a rock in the shoes of those who once enjoyed its juvenile sensibilities. Truly, I am ashamed to have ever enjoyed this song. I’m ashamed – as most people are – to have been 12.
