"The Most Sanctimonious Song Ever Written"

A few months ago I was watching "Weeds" on Netflix; and I picked up an earworm in the process: a tired little ditty entitled "Little Boxes," by Malvina Reynolds. To my disappointment, each episode of "Weeds" started with that same irritating song while the opening title was shown. Something about it moved me -- close to nausea. It prompted me to turn the sound off for the opening of each episode of "Weeds." For the record, Pete Seeger did the more widely known cover of that unfortunate song.

Overreaction? Maybe. But there was just something about the sheer attitude that was being expressed in the song. To put it mildly, Angelique got extremely pissed off by it.

It turned out that Malvina Reynold's inspiration was the large tract housing being built on hillsides in Daly City, CA. Just out of curiosity, the unassuming Daly City did not make the list of the ten worst cities in California, according to certain YouTube websites. (Tip: YouTube has generic topics such as Worst Cities in (State), Most Dangerous Cities in (State), and others of that ilk. Choose any state you wish, and some unfortunate communities will be shown (?) to merit those dubious distinctions. Please watch these, if you must, with a lot of healthy skepticism.)

Anyway, the song satirized the bourgeois conformity supposedly taking place in shoddily-built communities like Daly City allegedly was.

I looked up the song title and musical satirist Tom Lehrer described it as "the most sanctimonious song ever written." Right on target, dude! I think those Daly City dwellers should have gotten some slack and not be judged by some arbitrarily-selected criteria. After all, all of us are not blessed with unlimited resources to choose locations or provide housing like we might wish. Most of us have to make do!

However, this allegedly stultifying bourgeois conformity attributed to those 1950's Daly City residents may simply be their individual wishes for the style of life that they aspired to. Mainstream culture and its alleged attributes seem to be an easy target for the hip aspirants, much like on Mad Men.*

With respect to this song, a few other sanctimonious songs floated on the airwaves of that A.M. sound track era: "Well-Respected Man" by The Kinks also comes to mind. Also should be mentioned is "Pleasant Valley Sunday" by the Monkees. 

But then, maybe sanctimoniousness was not the only issue from popular music. After all, a number one record from back in that era honored a woman-killer ("Tom Dooley").

This sort of makes "Baby one More Time" or "I Kissed a Girl" seem inoffensive, doesn't it?

Have you any thoughts on songs that rile you? Are are you moved in only one way? After all "Musick has Charms to soothe a savage Breast."