In Defense of Poppery, VI: "Dog Park"

Pop example: "Dog Park" by Saturday Knights

What redeems it: "Dog Park," as one online reviewer states, straddles rap and rock -- with, I'd say, an occasional hint of much-hated reggae. It's shamelessly themed, discussing the abandonment of the singer in terms of the dog his (now ex-) girlfriend also left behind.

Everything in the song is sung in terms of the dog -- which is what redeems it.

The humor inherent in discussing your girlfriend's leaving you in terms of having to take her Chow Chow (my most hated of dogs) to the dog park causes "Dog Park" to be the essential opposite of Across Five Aprils' "A Year from Now" (see "In Defense of Poppery, V"). Where Across Five Aprils laments in glorious, melodramatic detail, the loss of the singer's first (AND ONLY, EVER) love, the Saturday Knight's singer is mainly concerned with the practical ramifications of his girlfriend leaving -- like his having to take care of her stupid dog.

Except that the dog isn't stupid. The singer takes the dog to the dog park, in fact, and meets someone new. He suddenly becomes a very enthusiastic dog owner. Promising to shower the dog with gifts, he says to the dog:

I wouldn't trade you for a stone fox terrier
I wouldn't trade you for a Spanish waterdog

This is where the song goes from maintaining a metaphorical thematic connection to dogs to a ridiculous, LOLly reference-on-every-line preoccupation with them. The singer begins chanting "best in show" in the background, presumably about both the dog and the woman the dog has allowed him to meet.

The references become so hyperbolic that by the end, the song ends up having an "It's Raining Men" optimism without even the seriousness included in that song. (Recall that in "It's Raining Men," the single-girl angel had a problem that she ultimately solved by "raining men"; plus, if you think about it, men falling from the sky is a scary rather than a fun-and-fancy-free proposition, and wouldn't be very sexy if it actually happened).

The song satirizes itself -- which is the best kind of satire.

Rating: Three whippets.