Author Christopher Moore on the lingering skunk smell of Mr. Mister’s “Broken Wings”
In HateSong, we ask our favorite musicians, writers, comedians, actors, and so forth to expound on the one song they hate most in the world.
The hater: Christopher Moore writes hilariously zany stories, many of them set in San Francisco, many of them told from the perspective of already anxious people thrust into extraordinary circumstances—like saving the world from the forces of evil. After traveling to Shakespeare’s England, 19th century France, and gothic Venice for his latest books, Moore returns to San Francisco to pick up the story of the city’s death merchants. A sequel to 2006’s A Dirty Job, Secondhand Souls is just as good as its predecessor, and comes out next week.
The hated: Mr. Mister, “Broken Wings” (1985)
The A.V. Club: Good choice on this. It’s a doozy.
Christopher Moore: It’s so annoying. I can’t even tell you. I didn’t even have to think. When [my publicist] told me what the assignment was I was like, “‘Broken Wings,’ no question about it.” I’ve almost torn a rotator cuff diving for the radio knob whenever this comes on, because I can’t turn it off fast enough.
AVC: So you mostly hear it on the radio?
CM: Yeah, it’s never voluntarily. Oh—you know what, they also play it occasionally in Trader Joe’s. They’ll be doing ’80s music and stuff like that and I’m all fine and bouncing along and there’s a Go-Go’s tune on or something like that and then it comes on it’s like, “Must take my own life.”
AVC: Trader Joe’s definitely likes that ’80s upbeat music that maybe makes you want to buy more things—this sort of fits in there.
CM: Yeah, and there’s this sort of genre of whiny, ridiculous ballads that—I think it goes through every period, I don’t want to say it’s exclusive to the ’70s or ’80s, it’s like, every period had their whiny, insipid ballads. But this one—as a writer it’s especially offensive because the clichés are strung one right after the other. “Can we just hold each other’s hands,” and the chorus: “Take these broken wings.” Stolen—widely stolen—and from a great song. If you take The Beatles’ “Blackbird”—okay, you really shouldn’t use that metaphor anymore because The Beatles got that covered. And then, “The book of love will open up and let us in”—at that point you’re just pulling the hammer back on the gun and putting it in your mouth. Like, please let this end now, it’s such a horrible song. And I really think it is because I’m a writer and there’s certain—it’s always pounded into your head, “Don’t use clichés, don’t use clichés” and that’s all this horrible, horrible song is.