Bruno Mars: Great Voice, Terrible Lyrics

Last year Bruno Mars blew up with several of the top hits of the year. I was hearing the name Bruno Mars everywhere. When I pictured Bruno Mars in my head I assumed he was some big rough and rugged dude. After all the only Brunos I’ve known up to this point are Bruno the Bear from Bugs Bunny, WWF Superstar Bruno Sammartino, Bruno Diaz (that is Bruce Wayne in the Spanish Batman comic) and Joe Bruno, founder of the grocery store chain Bruno’s (Okay, maybe he’s not tough but he sounds tougher than Sam Walton).

I was surprised when I found out that Bruno Mars was known for having a beautiful voice and after looking at a picture of him I thought, this guy isn’t that tough looking at all. But the toughness of Bruno Mars wasn’t really what was in question. The question was, can this guy really sing? After listening to his album “Doo-Wops & Hooligans” I discovered two things. 1. Bruno Mars is an excellent singer. 2. The lyrics in Bruno Mars songs suck.

The most notable is “Marry You”, which has became a reasonable sized hit. Let’s take a deeper look at this “love song”:

It’s a beautiful night

Okay, no problems here. It’s a beautiful night. Beautiful nights are good. I like beautiful nights.

We’re looking for something dumb to do

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay, second line and we already have a problem. Not a good sign Bruno. As you can probably guess from the title of the song, this little doo-wop is about marriage. This defines a marriage as “something dumb to do.” Hmmm, let me check Lee Andrew Henderson’s list of dumb things.

Lee Andrew Henderson’s List of Dumb Things
orange juice pulp
Aquaman
buying a grilled cheese sandwich at a restaurant
Glee
the designated hitter in baseball
Auburn fans
video games with subscription fees
the Snuggie
saying I could care less when you mean I couldn’t care less
people that take a really good name (like Madelyn) and shorten it to a terrible name (like Maddie)
vampires that sparkle
redheads that dye their hair a different color
handheld video games

Nope, don’t see marriage. There is a lot wrong with the statement that marriage is a dumb thing to do. The obvious is that getting married should be a very serious decision in your life and, at least in my opinion, should be sacred ceremony between yourself, your spouse and God.

Second, if it’s dumb, then why do you want to do it? Okay, I get it. Sometimes when you’re in love you want to be spontaneous and do something “dumb”. You want to do something dumb? Why don’t you go skinny dipping in the ocean? Why don’t you go shoot firecrackers at your friends? Why don’t you go skydiving? Getting married is not dumb. Getting married because you want to do something dumb is dumb. If the lyrics were “we’re looking for something dumb to do and I think marriage is dumb therefore getting married would be dumb because I clearly would be an awful husband that would not at all respect the pact that we’ve made and don’t really like you at all” then the lyrics would be perfectly acceptable.

Hey baby

Salutation + perfectly acceptable term of endearment

I think I wanna marry you

You think? YOU THINK? Oh well, if you THINK you want to marry someone then go right ahead. It’s not like this is some kind of important lifetime decision. “Well baby, I think I want to marry you, but sometimes you’re a little annoying.” “Hey sweetie, I THINK I want to marry you but every once in a while when the light hits you just right you look like the caveman from the Geico commercial, so I’m not positive.”

When you say you “think” you want to do something it probably shouldn’t be something as important as marriage. Like, “I think I’m going to have a second doughnut” is perfectly acceptable. “I think I might stretch out my break at work for an extra five minutes” is something I or someone I know may or may not have said at work at some point. I think I want to make a decision that is going to change my life, another person’s life, their family’s life, my family’s life, all our friends life, possible the life of a kid or two and the lives of probably three or four future therapists” is not exactly the most intelligent thing to say.

Let’s skip ahead…

Who cares if we’re trashed

I don’t know about you but in my future wedding plan journal…I mean, I’ve never once thought about the wedding I’ll have some day but if I had I don’t think my dream would be to get married while trashed or thrashed or smashed or anything that rhymes with ashed.

Got a pocket full of cash we can blow

Oh. So now marriage is dumb and a waste of money. Well, with that kind of sentiment I can’t think of a single girl that wouldn’t want to marry Bruno Mars. Women love it when you tell them that their weddings are dumb and a waste of money and oh by the way I’m not even sure if I like you that much.

Then we get to the chorus

Don’t say no, no, no, no, no

Just say yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

And we’ll go, go, go, go, go

At this point you’re just wasting our time Bruno. Repeating words over and over again to stretch out this song long enough to be able to call it a song. I get it Bruno. Sometimes when one of my articles does not meet the minimum word limit I do the same thing, thing, thing, thing, thing. It’s a nice little trick, trick, trick, trick, trick. I just hope I don’t get caught, caught, caught, caught, caught or I won’t get paid, paid, paid, paid, paid.

Later…

If we wake up and you

wanna break up, that’s cool

So marriage is dumb. You don’t really like this girl that much. A wedding is a waste of money and you don’t ever care if this girl leaves you. You just want one night of fun? Ever heard of Red Box? Aren’t there any bowling alleys in your town? Frozen Yogurt maybe?

Right now you can scroll down to the comments and there will probably be at least one person that read the first sentence of this article and then immediately jumped down to comment. “This article is so stupid. The lyrics aren’t meant to be taken seriously. You’re an idiot!”

I get it. It’s a fun little song. It’s not meant to be taken seriously, but that’s the point. Since when is getting married something not to be taken seriously? If you want to sing a song about something stupid then why not write a song about matching tattoos? What? Are tattoos too permanent? I mean, it’s not like marriage is a lifelong commitment or anything. When did it become popular to treat marriage like it’s not important? When did it become popular to make fun of how awful marriage is? I know a lot of married people. Most of them aren’t miserable. Most of them are happily married. If your marriage sucks. Maybe it’s not marriage. Maybe it’s you.

STUPID BRUNO MARS LYRICS BONUS!
“Grenade” is also a stupid song. First of all grenades are naturally most associated with war and if society is going to get all up in arms when you compare football to a battlefield or football players as troops because that is offensive to real troops then using grenades in a love song is equally dumb.

Second, I have no reason to dislike Bruno Mars, but he would jump on a grenade to save his loved one? That’s a load of crap. Raise your hands if you have ever encountered a scenario where a grenade landed at your feet. Did you raise your hand? Nope. There’s a reason that when someone joins the army the go through training. Reacting to a grenade is not something that the average person can do. It’s not like learning to play Nintendo Wii or figuring out your iPhone.

If Bruno Mars was every faced with a scenario in which someone threw a grenade at him and his loved one-like oh I don’t know, maybe he decided to marry a girl even though he thinks marriage is dumb, she’s ugly and the wedding is a waste of money and somebody decides we don’t need these people on the face of our earth anymore-then this is what would really happen.

1. Bruno Mars would freeze
2. Bruno Mars would yell an expletive
3. Bruno Mars would crap his pants
4. Bruno Mars would blow up, along with his loved one whose last thoughts were probably, “wow, Bruno Mars has a dirty mouth! But not as dirty as his drawers!’

Lee Andrew Henderson has been writing for the Yahoo Contributor Network since 2006 and also writes a blog called Six Men, One Eagle.