Why Won't You Just Let Me Hear It, Already???

What the hell is with the 'hidden song'? Is it necessary, really?

I got to thinking about it while I was listening to the Kings on Leon the other day in my Jeep. The end of the CD came up, I was in traffic, paying attention like I'm supposed to be doing (in actuality, I was lighting up a cigarette, updatine my FaceBook status on my Blackberry and checking out the brunette in Acura next to me. All during a red light, I might add. I'm quite the multitasker).

So, the light changes and I continue on my to wherever it was I going and several minutes go by before I realize that there is no sound, no music and all I can hear is the sound of the snow crunching underneath the tread of my vehicle. I look to the CD player and see the track seconds ticking by, so I decide to check to see if this is indeed a case of the 'hidden song'.

I begin fast forwarding and sure 'nough. Another song starts, still on the eleventh track, some four and a half minutes after the four minute original song ended. The song was a little country diddy, purdy good but the name I couldn't tell you because the god damn thing isn't listed in the jacket.

Now this got me to thinking. Is there a reason for it, who does it and has anyone been sucker punched in their lip for doing it? All good questions.

I got some answers. Not all of them, but some.

The Beatles are credited with being the first to do it. They did it on Abbey Road. 'Her Majesty' was the thirteenth track and was never listed on the UK version but did indeed show up on the U.S. version. This decision was based on the fact that people just didn't get the whole 'Paul is dead' message, heard played backwards on 'Revolution #9 and their popularity started to wain, so they had to do something creative like place a song on an album that no one could find. This tactic proved to save their careers (except of course Ringos.) Funny sidenote to this whole story, Paul happens to be the only one alive, whether in life or career. Ha ha ha!!!

Other reason that artists do it is as simple as just to surprise the fans with a hidden 'gem', just to be sneaky, I guess. Or scare the bejeezus out them. Wierd Al Yankovic tried this after his song 'Bite Me' ended. A ten minute pause ensued before the new song came on, thus scaring the shit out of the listener because they had gone into a kneeling position, thanking God that the CD was finally over when all of a sudden a new one came on.

The Ramones, the Clash, Lauryn Hill have all done it and the Counting Crows and Marilyn Manson have done it countless times. The Blur did it, calling the song effectively enough 'Me, White Noise'. Cold Play did it a couple times on their latest album, 'Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends'. I have to presume they did this because they didn't have any money left to actually put the names of the 'hidden songs' anywhere on the jacket because the whole budget for the album art went to just the name of the album itself.

So as you can tell, I put a lot of research into figuring this out and I still don't get it. It confuses and frustrates me, which I think might be a 'hidden' reason for the artist doing it.

Let me put into another sort of perspective. A demonstration of how I see a 'hidden song', a comparison to what hiding a song might be if an author did the same thing. Here goes.

After writing in a normal font, now I've changed to the smallest possible one I could come up with. It probably has you pissed off, because you're desperately straining to see it, and if your like me, your vision isn't so good any more so it makes it a major pain in the ass. You're probably having to get right up close to your monitor, maybe rubbing your eyes trying to focus on a type set that's way to fuckin' small, and if I was writing in a normal font, you wouldn't want to walk away, maybe never reading my blog again. Right?

Okay, back to normal. So you see, the product may be there but why in the hell should we have to strain to find it? Sucks!!! Please don't do it.

Which leads me to the fact that the next time I'm checking out the hotty in the car over from me and I suddenly find myself in a state of musical void, you can count on that I'll be cussing those hippy sons of bitches and not so secretly hoping there is someone that has taken me up on my proposition of punching these punkass' in their face.

David Caruso must die!!!

I watch way too much CSI-Miami.

For one thing, it's on all the damn time, doesn't matter if it's prime time or three in the morning. It's on. And since I'm an imsomniac (and pyro, but thats a different story) I can't help flipping channels, always finding my way to the South Beach. For obvious reasons, I like the show, though, just as everyone else must, due to the constant and steady high ratings. The scenery, the bikinis, the detail to rotting corpses and flights of slugs intercepting beating aortas, the bikinis (said that already, didn't I?), the cool Hummers that speed across the long ocean bridges, and especially the hot little blonde investigator played by Emily Procter with her tight little butt and southern accent. These are the main reasons that bring me back, time and time again.

But there are things that drive me nuts, to the point where I would like to pick up the t.v. and drop it on the remote, crushing it into tiny plastic pieces, putting me out of my misery.

The black Chief Medical Examiner, Alexx Woods. Why the fuck does she have to talk to the bodies that have sawed open chests or the front lobe of there brain blown to mush? Not just that she talks to them but she talks to them as if they were past sex partners. Yick!!!

Goes like this, in screenplay format.

Int-Morgue

A beautiful hispanic thirty year old woman lays on the cold, metal examiners table. CHIEF MEDICAL EXAMINER, ALEXX WOODS strokes the woman temple, slowly moving down her cheek, her neck...

ALEXX WOODS

Oh, sweety, why? Why does this always happen to the beautiful ones?

A tear begins welling up in her eye.

ALEXX WOODS

God, baby, we could have had it all.

As she lays her head between the hispanic womans ample cleavage, the door opens and in walks DET. HORATIO CAINE.

HORATIO CAINE

Uh...uh. You, you aren't molesting the vic again are you?

Speaking of David Caruso. God! Why!? What made the producers decide this guy should be cast as the lead character? Am I the only one that thinks this guy should quietly slink away into the Florida Everglades and be swallowed up whole by a hungry alligator?

What the hell is with the idiotic one liners? Makes me want to be the victim of a drive by shooting in southern Florida, where I would be the guy lying on the table with the black coroner touching me in indecent locations. Okay, I understand the cheezy one liners began with the likes of Stallone's Rambo character or Bruce Willis in the Die Hard movies, but good god damn, this is David Caruso. The tilting of his head, whipping off his Silhouette sunglasses and proclaiming to the smug, yuppie sailboat owner, that he knows raped and killed the 18 year old college student on spring break, "Oh, the DNA will put you there. Count on it." Then he gives that 'make-you-wanna-rip-my-spleen-out-with-a-spoon' grin before he stiffly walks away.

And I understand that there are writers that make this shit up, but even Stallone pulled it off better then David Caruson. At least you walked out of the theater enjoying the blood shed and the cool slo-mo shots of his overly built up biceps leading to a 22 inch knife that you knew was going to slice some Vietnamese throat. The point is, even with the written in one liners, David Caruso isn't a pimple on Stallones ass.

And, as far as I'm concerned, Clint was the only guy that could pull off the one liners. Spaghetti westerns, Dirty Harry. Now that guy was a stud in his day, and even now he could still pistol whip Caruoso into oblivion with a good, "Go ahead, make my day!"

So Caruso, go away, and let someone that can actually act, that can step into the role and pull off the one liners, be the guy for a while. Then at least I'll know that when I'm lying awake, not able to sleep and watching the fake scientific study of the maimed and murdered beautiful people of South Beach, knowing I'll be exhausted in morning, I won't have completly wasted my time.

Not completely.