I Write The Greatest Song In History

There are certain groups of people who take themselves so seriously that it’s just entirely too much fun NOT to fuck with them. These are the individuals who are so into their thing that they’ve lost all perspective of the outside world. Much like the people who think that Mullets are still cool.

Among my favorite groups of people to insult are Ani DeFranco and Dave Mathews fans. Why? It’s not really because I hate the musicians themselves—it’s that people who listen to them have completely become brainwashed and incapable of any sort of judgment calls.

This is the conversation I’ve had at least 20 times with every single Dave Mathews fan I’ve ever spoken to.

Me: So what music are you into.
Dave Fan: Dave Mathews is GOD. GOD. You like Dave, right?
Me: eh…it’s not really my scene.
Dave Fan: You HAVE to hear this song off the new album. It’s AMAZING. It’s the greatest song EVER.
Me: yeah, I’ve heard him before. It’s really not my thing.

At this point the Dave fan shushes me and proceeds to play one of those lame acoustic numbers that really never goes anywhere. I politely pretend to listen.

Dave Fan: GOD, he’s so talented. Wasn’t that absolutely perfect?
Me: I told you, I’m not into this.
Dave Fan: No, you must not have heard it. Really listen.

Whereon the freak proceeds to play the same weak-ass whiny bitch-fest that I had already suffered through. At this point I usually get up and leave. Because the alternative is being stuck in an infinite loop of sucky music and a person in denial that they like sucky music. Dave fans are literally unable to accept that there are people out there who don’t think Dave Mathews is the second coming of Jesus—provided Christ One cried about his feelings all day and sang as if he was perpetually 5 seconds recovered from being kicked in the nuts.

Ani Defranco fans are similar. Every single Ani fan I’ve ever met speaks about her in a hushed tone. It’s as if they think she’s a god whose wrath you could awaken simply by breathing her name. Ani fans are the only people I’ve ever met who really take it personally if you say anything bad about their favorite musician. You can be joking around with them having a great time, but the second you say anything about Ani, forget it. It’s as if you just told them that you want to fuck their underage sister.

“Hey man. Ani isn’t just the greatest musician in the history of the world; she’s a hero, ok? She’s out there every day making the world better for all of us. It’s not cool, man. It’s NOT cool.”

At my college we had a girl who played at every single coffee-shop and open-mic. She had quite a following, too. Basically she would play bad Ani knock-offs while unwashed hippies applauded hysterically. The worst part about her act was that she would get up on stage and every single tune had a long preamble like:

“Ok, I wrote this song like two years ago when my fish died. It was then that I like totally realized that death is bad and stuff. So I was so sad and no one understood. Like, I tried talking to my parents and they were all like, ‘blah-blah-employment, blah-blah-snorting kitchen solvents, blah-blah hygiene.’ They totally didn’t understand that like, Flippy was like my soul mate and now he's gone. And not gone like the time I got sent to rehab for spending $15,000 of my parents money on acid, weed and Burning Man tickets. Like, gone forever. It was like, sad and stuff. So I wrote this song to really express like my emotions or something.”

Then she would sing the most horribly banal song you ever heard and the idiotic hippies who followed her around would applaud like they had just heard that washing your hair caused cancer.

Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. I sat down and I wrote a song purely out of rage. I then proceeded to follow this hippie at coffee shops and sing the song over and over again. My tune was actually picked up by the college TV station. They ran a video of one of my performances over and over again. The name of the song was “Ani Fucking Sucks.”

Essentially, the song accused anyone who listened to Ani of being an idiotic, unwashed, talentless, drug-addicted hack who would never amount to anything past mooching from their parents and living off food stamps. The greatest part about the song wasn’t the stunned silences I’d get when I walked off the stage; it was that for months afterwards, I had Ani fans storming up and trying to reason with me.

“Man, you don’t get it. You should totally listen to her music and you’d see that she’s really just an amazing spirit. Why are you hating on such an inspirational goddess?”

My response was always the same.

“Because she’s a dirty, talentless skank. Get a job, hippie!”