Song #86: Denis Leary - "Asshole"

Song #86: Denis Leary - "Asshole" (1993)

No Cure for Cancer

"Folks, I'd like to sing a song about The American Dream..."

One huge part of my childhood was when my uncle and I would spend hours in his room coming up with songs to compile on to a CD-R. When I'd sleep over at my grandma's house, where my uncle lives, he'd ask me to create a list of ten to fifteen songs that we could download online, burn on a CD-R, and proceed to play in my mother's car at leisure. The act of searching for songs, downloading them, and arranging them into a riveting playlist was something I cherished and my uncle's devotion to this little ritual of ours is what birthed my love for music early on. He'd smoke a cigar while I'd drink Diet Coke, careful not to spill on his crowded desk of papers, ashtrays, flash drives, and stray papers, and we'd have ourselves an afternoon of bonding time. The next morning, when my mother would pick me up, I couldn't wait to play the CD in her car on the way home. I would purposefully discard my previously written list of songs so, sitting in the backseat of my mother's Bonneville Pontiac, I could be totally surprised at what song would come next.

Denis Leary's "Asshole" is one of the first blatantly vulgar, satirical songs I heard as a kid, with Leary playing the typical middle class, American male, who cherishes his average house, his hardwood floor, his wife, his job, his kids, and his car, and looked forward to putting his feet on his table and chomping on a Cuban Cigar. Yet, despite Leary's content life of acceptable luxury, he felt he needed something a bit more in his life. He resorts to mindlessly harassing innocent people on the streets, doing things like driving really slow in "the ultra-fast lane," parking in handicap parking spaces, and so on just to give his life some spice.

Leary is absolutely zealous in this song, especially during the last half of the song, where he descends into rapid-fire, nonstop dialog about what extent he'll go to be an asshole and how angry and livid he'll make other people around him. The song is simply hilarious, illustrating a man who has it all but wants to give others a little bit of misery so he can feel better about his own life. Even the music video - which was the very first music video I ever bought for my first iPod - never ceases to bring a smile to my face when I'm feeling like an asshole. There's something seriously ingenuous about this song and its underrated status makes me even happier, as if something like this were to waltz on the mainstream, would instantly be an overplayed, overblown little tune.

Give "Asshole" a listen, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrgpZ0fUixs