Incredibly boring songs to play

[ChiefDanG]

Wagon Wheel

[Mike Warren]

Groupies can be the opposite of boring.

 

Sounds like you're really a guitarist or vocalist rather than a keyboard player.

[Adan]

Groupies can be the opposite of boring.

 

Sounds like you're really a guitarist or vocalist rather than a keyboard player.

 

I get what you're saying. Had this conversation many times:

 

"Oh, are you the keyboard player?"

 

"Why yes, yes I am."

 

"Can you introduce me to the [drummer/guitarist/singer]?"

 

Another thought on this thread topic: if you were a painter and someone suggested you paint some fruit sitting in a bowl, would you say no, those subjects are too boring?

[DJkeys]

OK, the winner for me is "Family Affair" by Mary J Blige. Fun for the singers, I guess, but I fell asleep playing this one.

 

-dj

[KuruPrionz]

Werewolves of London. I win.

 

Big Warren Zevon fan right here. If you put in all the little subliminal bits, that song is hilarious. DIT!!!!!

 

We don't play it but we do play Lawyers, Guns & Money and Carmelita.

 

They won't let me play Play It All Night Long or I would play it right after Sweet Home Alabama - play that dead band's song...

[mcgoo]

Wagon Wheel

Normally I would agree. But one band I was in had this rather attractive fiddle player that was a total bad a$$ player. I was happy to play that song and just sit, accompany and listen (& maybe stare a little).

[KuruPrionz]

Wagon Wheel

 

Spot on, I would be happy if it went away forever!!!!

 

Mcgoo's defense has validity but this attractive fiddle player is nowhere to be found in these parts. So it goes.

[PianoMan51]

There"s different ways to be boring.

 

Maybe it"s a song like Feelin" Alright that starts with a great signature piano riff and then goes nowhere. Two chords and no signature groove.

 

Another kind of boring is when the band thinks that pop songs have to be performed like the record. After the 20th performance it"s like dying onstage.

 

The final kind of boring is when the band itself is boring. Play ten rounds on a blues (like C-Jam Blues or After Hours) and every time through it sounds just like the last one.

 

Most of the time boring is self inflicted.

[Doerfler]

Another thought on this thread topic: if you were a painter and someone suggested you paint some fruit sitting in a bowl, would you say no, those subjects are too boring?

 

[mate stubb]

Werewolves of London. I win.

 

So I'm guessing you would not appreciate my old show band's version, wherein yours truly came out from behind his keyboard stack to front the song dressed like Sherlock Holmes, with the horn players behind me wearing coat and tails and werewolf masks.

[Polkahero]

White Wedding. Keyboard part is literally three notes. . .

[Tom Williams]

Werewolves of London == Sweet Home Alabama == Shambala == All Summer Long == Magic Carpet Ride.

[harmonizer]

White Wedding. Keyboard part is literally three notes. . .

 

I have sang lead on that song, and even doing that is not that interesting.

It has only persisted in our song list because we learned it once upon a time, and it is one of the songs we can pull out of our back pocket when our lead singer gets sick.

Definitely a "last set" song when we do it (there are fewer people during the 3rd set of the bar gigs we typically play, and those remaining are better lubricated.

[niacin]

Although I've been blessed with never having to actually play it Dreams by Fleetwood Mac gets my vote as the most boring song in the history of Rock n' Roll.

 

yeh another vote for Dreams, and no i don't think it matters how you slice it. Achy Breaky Heart would be a close second for me.

[elif]

Forty choruses of the A section of Yellow Bird, "while they eat".

[TommyRude]

Another thought on this thread topic: if you were a painter and someone suggested you paint some fruit sitting in a bowl, would you say no, those subjects are too boring?

 

Petunias are boring. Tulips, on the other hand, are drooling with excitement

[Groove On]

It's not boring - but I'm getting bored with Smooth by Santana, mainly because my small amateur band overplays it.

[The Real MC]

White Wedding. Keyboard part is literally three notes. . .

 

There's far more than that. Listen closer. Not just the intro motif.

[El Lobo]

Roadhouse Blues. I practically fall asleep playing it. But it fills the dance floor.

[GRollins]

Any 12-bar, 1-4-5 blues tune.

Mic drop.

 

No, seriously...speaking as a bass player, it's a friggin' wasteland. There's nothing there. At. Fucking. All. Zero. Nothing. Nada.

Now everybody starts telling me how wrong I am, because [fill in song title] is such a great song. I ask them what instrument they play. Invariably guitar, keys, or vocals. (Drummers don't seem to care, one way or another--there's a doctoral thesis there, with a little research.) Never bass. Anything but bass. Even kazoo players can find something, but bass, not a chance.

Da-da-dah, da-da-dah, da-da-dah...

All night long. Every song. Nothing changes but the key. Jeez, just fire the bass player and use a loop, okay? Why torture the guy with this Seventh Ring of Hell crap?

It's not like the bass player's going to get the groupies anyway, so what's in it for him? Free beer? Bah! He just broke his back carrying in a half-ton of gear and will have to do it again at the end of the night. It's a losing proposition.

AAARGH!

And don't say anything stupid like, "make it your own," because by the time you make it interesting, it's no longer 12-bar, 1-4-5, and everyone is giving you the evil eye. Next thing you know, you're out of the band and they're looking for someone who'll do as he's told. "Play it the way it sounds on the record." No latitude there. Even the drummer can switch things around (okay...mystery solved, strike the doctoral thesis), but if the bass player deviates from the original, everybody's up his butt with a chain saw.

Or, as posted above (by Adan, I think): No song is boring as long as you can do what you want with it.

But what if you can't do what you want with it? Ever. The bass lines for that stuff were chiseled in granite eons ago and Thou Shall Not Fuck With The Original In Any Way. It's heresy. The gods will smite you with thunderbolts if you so much as think about it and I've got the 3rd degree burns to prove it.

Given a choice between playing 12-bar and nothing, I choose nothing. That ain't music, that's slow motion brain death. Other instruments can argue all they want, but for bass...nah...I win.

 

Grey

 

FOOTNOTE: If I sound grumpier (read: more curmudgeonly) than usual, chalk it up to the fact that my daughter's in the ICU in a coma with a collapsed lung, bleeding on the brain, multiple broken bones, etc. Not good. Not good.

Try to ignore grammatical errors in this post. I'm tired and don't want to proof read anymore.

I still hate 1-4-5 music, irregardless...

[moj]

Christmas songs, every year, every family get together...zzZZzz

[MikeT156]

Twist and Shout.

[rogs]

What about the double bass part for the orchestral version of Ravel's Bolero? ( ....well, until the very end of course! )

 

Or, another candidate for the most boring tune of all time? -- 'Wheels' cha-cha

 

And the most annoying song ever? ( one that was virtually compulsory in gigs in the mid 1970s, here in the UK ) --- 'Y Viva Espana'

[Adan]

 

 

 

FOOTNOTE: If I sound grumpier (read: more curmudgeonly) than usual, chalk it up to the fact that my daughter's in the ICU in a coma with a collapsed lung, bleeding on the brain, multiple broken bones, etc. Not good. Not good.

Try to ignore grammatical errors in this post. I'm tired and don't want to proof read anymore.

I still hate 1-4-5 music, irregardless...

 

Very sorry to hear this, and wishing her a strong and speedy recovery. Good health is everything.

[lightbg]

Grey,

 

That"s one hell of a footnote to leave a post with. Prayers are with you and I hope she overcomes this tragic setback.

 

Jake

[analogika]

White Wedding. Keyboard part is literally three notes. . .

Doubling the hookline, well-placed choir patch, piano doubling the chord before "â¦start again", synth pad starting in the last verse, plus choir and all the FX stuff the guitarist can't handle in the breakdownâ¦

 

Pretty involved, if not particularly difficult to play, if you ask me.

[analogika]

Grey, all the best. My heart goes out to you and your family.

[analogika]

SWEET HOME ALABAMA!!!!! Gah!!!

 

I hear that and raise you: All Summer Long.

 

Sweet Home Alabama has a couple of arrangement clinchers that really make the song and break the monotony, if everybody is on the same page. (IF!)

 

All Summer Long removes every single thing that makes the original bearable.

[PianoMan51]

 

 

 

FOOTNOTE: If I sound grumpier (read: more curmudgeonly) than usual, chalk it up to the fact that my daughter's in the ICU in a coma with a collapsed lung, bleeding on the brain, multiple broken bones, etc. Not good. Not good.

Try to ignore grammatical errors in this post. I'm tired and don't want to proof read anymore.

I still hate 1-4-5 music, irregardless...

 

Very sorry to hear this, and wishing her a strong and speedy recovery. Good health is everything.

Sometimes it takes a personal disaster to allow us to hear what we really think. Maybe about music. But I and your friends here are thinking about you, your daughter, and what"s most important. Aw hellâ¦.

[BenWaB3]

GRollins - Very sorry to hear about your daughter. I hope she makes a full & complete recovery. You are especially allowed to be curmudgeonly now but I hope the extenuating circumstances all resolve to the best and you can just be curmudgeonly on your own.