 Good morning, John. Songwriting is amazing. Fitting meaning into an aesthetically pleasing structure is a really interesting challenge and one that creates a lot of beauty in the world. But this video is not about those times. It is about the worst moments in top 40 songwriting. I get that this is extremely subjective, but what I'm thinking about when I'm talking about bad songwriting is when aesthetics is deeply sacrificed for meaning or meaning is sacrificed for aesthetics. The most clear example of that second thing being LFO summer girls, right? This song has a preamble. Let us listen to it. Do you remember when we met that summer? So he's saying this song is gonna be about the summer we met. New kids on the block cat a bunch of kids. Okay, excellent. You are describing the summer in question. Chinese food makes me sick. What just happened? We are suddenly no longer talking about the summer. We are now talking about a man's currently somewhat racist stomach. I'm not upset that sick and hits is kind of a forced rhyme. That's fine. But if you're gonna make a stretch, make a stretch for a reason. Especially in the first line of the song. An example of a bad line being less intrusive because emphasis isn't placed on it is the meteor men beg to differ judging by the hole in the satellite picture. Yes, this is a forced rhyme that doesn't seem to understand climate science at all. That is inside of a verse that essentially could be summed up by saying it's cold. No, wait, it's hot. It's not great, but it's not emphasized. So you don't really notice. It doesn't change the feeling of the song. As opposed to Eminem undoubtedly has a mastery of language and rhyme and storytelling and meter and I do not understand how his brain works. But I also do not understand how you do this. Like there's no Nintendo game, but you lie to king. Now you get to watch a read about the window. Guess that's why they call it window pain. It's just when it existed in the middle of the verse it would have been a throwaway little fun pun. But because it ends and there's this huge space it like places so much emphasis on this terrible pun which would be okay if the song were not a deeply troubling exploration of domestic violence. It's not the worst though. We're still gonna get there. Though it does hurt a little extra because it's Eminem and I do not like the way it hurts. What about then when a song sacrifices aesthetics for meaning? Listen to this. Wait, do it again. The worst thing is that we've wrapped around to another line, which is okay if there's a reason but there's no reason. Just leave the word book out. I get that it's a page in a book. Or am I a page in your history book? But the worst line we have arrived is not one that sacrifices aesthetics for meaning or meaning for aesthetics. It's one that just does not even try to do either. We were trying different things and we were smoking funny things. Smoking funny things I will allow but trying different things, why, why? That means nothing. Did you try a bokeh burger for the first time, Kid Rock? It's not like other things don't rhyme with things. Were we listening to the songs that Skinnerd sings? Were you feeling like kings? Did Red Bull give you wings? Was it something about the joy that summer brings? Trying different things. Double rhyming is an aesthetic sacrifice and in this case, it happens for no reason. It's the worst thing I've ever heard. Done. I'm a little warm. To go outside. I'll see you on Tuesday. Where the skies are so blue Sweet home Alabama Love the skies are so blue like it's the equivalent of that. If you wanna buy a book by this guy it's available July 7th for pre-order now including at bookshop.org where the price is the same as it is on Amazon but you get to support local bookshops. I'm fine.