This screenshot came from the video for today’s song…. which is about to get skewered on Cupid’s arrow.
Happy Valentine’s Day! Yeah fucking right. The Nest is not a fan of either the commercialism or the sentiment of this unholiest of holidays (usually)… unless it involves VD unicorns that I can turn into blog stars. But needless to say… since the day that men everywhere dread happened to turn up on a Wednesday this year, you can bet we’re going to ironically douse another chocolate covered turd of a song with a thick coating of red velvet hate for the next entry in our Top 30 Iconic Songs I Can’t Stand countdown! Today we enter the Top 10 by smacking the shit out of a thoroughly boring silly love song that the radio just won’t stop playing…. even after a couple of blasts with a shotgun.
#10. “In Your Eyes” – Peter Gabriel
There may be no pop/rock musician I have more of an extreme love/hate relationship with than the man who nobody remembers was once the creative force behind Genesis before Phil Collins sold them out, Peter Gabriel. “Sledgehammer” was one of my absolute favorite songs when I was an 11 year old boy, and he followed it up with “Big Time” which I liked almost as much. “Shock the Monkey” and “Games Without Frontiers” from earlier in his solo career are also pretty good efforts…
The monkey’s behavior is quite shocking.
But almost everything else Gabriel did on his own is an enormous pile of steaming, burning, festering sewage. I do not use such descriptively vulgar words like that lightly (usually, anyway). He teamed up with the equally eardrum stabbing Kate Bush to record the ultimate cure for insomnia “Don’t Give Up.” His ode to leaving Genesis, “Solsbury Hill,” is literally one of the worst songs ever written and is damn near what I chose to “honor” Peter Gabriel with in this countdown. But in the end… radio overplay won out and I had to go with this five and a half minutes of utter claptrap that is the worst music to ever come out of a boombox in the 80’s…
Amazingly, this song came off the same album (So) that gave me such great pleasure with “Sledgehammer” and “Big Time”… and was even released as a single in between those two songs in 1986… at least only in the US. He spared his fellow Brits the torture of having to listen to this utter rubbish. Well… until the movie Say Anything came out in 1989 and took this song from a long forgotten black sheep into one of the decade’s most iconic movie songs in a decade that was already chock full of iconic movie songs. Commercial radio hasn’t stopped playing it to death 30 years later…
I hope the neighbors call the fucking SWAT team…
Not so coincidentally… this was the same year US troops smoked out Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega by blasting his compound with loud rock music. Yeah right… we just sent John Cusack down there to put this fucking song on 11 and even a hardened dictator like Noriega had to think that was unnecessarily cruel and inhuman torture…
Much like Manuel Noriega’s face.
I’ll return next Wednesday with another song I love to hate…
Evil Squirrel's Nest 
✅ Amen. So were you partially responsible for putting the bug in the church’s de-saint-ifying Valentine? 😆
Now that’s the second time I’ve heard about that today… so it must be a thing I missed since I’m so uninformed. I wasn’t aware one could be de-sainted… is that like getting unfriended?
Pretty much. Only worse. I mean, who takes away a saint designation after eons??? Talk about cold-hearted toward the namesake of a day associated with love and all that gushy stuff?
I had all but forgotten about that song. Gee, thanks.
Sorry! I wish I could forget about it…
Confusing video, skip the lyrics, but there was always something (not sure what) about the music (or parts of it anyway) that I liked……..must have had something to do with what I was going through at that point in my life (slightly messed up). Since you aren’t a Valentine’s Day affecionado may I wish you a Happy UN-Valentine’s Day???
Pam
Thank you for the unvalentine’s wishes! I think this is one of the first positive comments you’ve had for one of the songs in this countdown, so we finally don’t agree on something!
HAHAHAHA……we can agree to disagree……!
?? Never heard this – and I think I can count myself lucky. And I am the ultimate Genesis-Fan …
It may have only been released as a single over here. And honestly, other than the references to this song, I have never heard of the movie…
We are non-celebrators too. I think probably more me than Garry, but I really don’t need the chocolate and we can’t afford the roses. But have a brilliant Wednesday!
I never have a reason to celebrate it anyway, and the commercialism is just way over the line. The jewelry chain ad this year trying to guilt men into buying all of the females in their life (relationship AND family) expensive jewelry for VD makes me want to rip the radio out of the car every time it’s played…
ody N biskit…..songz oh kay… but like dad sayz….sledgehammer and games waz WAAAAAY better !! 🙂 ♥♥
And the videos were awesome!
Yep, time to change the station.
Or smash the boombox…
don’t throw nuts at me but I like this song ;O))) it’s not as mighty as sledge hammer but a nice tune for lonely times with a bottle of wine and a smoke…
I think this is two in a row for you! I get scared when my musical tastes are too close to those of everyone else…
This one is okay. At least we’ve heard of it here at the Hotel Thompson – snorts with piggy laughter. Not bad though. Beats old country songs. HA! XOXO – Bacon
Well… there isn’t much worse than old country songs. Maybe whatever that Spanish crap is the Beaver kid is doing these days…
I couldn’t place this song right away. For the first 30 seconds or so, I thought, “this isn’t so bad.” And then the chorus started and I remembered it and agreed that it’s horribly overplayed and just plain horrible.
Yesterday day in the grocery store I heard a song that I predict will make your countdown: Lady in Red by….Chris…something. I am SO sick of that song! It also reminded me of another vomit-inducing song that uses the word lady 50 times too many: The Power of Love by Celine Dion. Thankfully, the overplay of that seems to have died out, so I don’t know whether to predict it will make your countdown. But, gag!
LOL! Someone else made a correct prediction about a song that’s in the Top 10…. and I’m gonna leave you in suspense for now as to whether that one is here or not. I’m glad I didn’t listen to current music radio for much of the 90’s, because by 1999, the Celine Dion phenomenon was already on its way out. I can’t think of a single Celine song I even kinda like, and that’s very rare for even the worst of singers…
Oh, now you’ve gone and done it…not only do you torch this song, but take out “Don’t Give Up” and “Solsbury Hill” with it. Of course, I don’t listen to the radio so I can listen to this song when I want to, not when it’s forced down my throat by radio programmers. And, continuing in the “to each his own” category, I can take or leave “Sledgehammer” lol.
I would have been disappointed if this didn’t draw a rant from the Lord of the Boneys! I honestly did not know what you thought about this song, but knew you were a big fan of both the other ones…
This is actually the only Peter Gabriel song that I do like, partially because of Say Anything. What can I say, I have a thing for John Cusak.
As I mentioned above, I only know that movie exists because of the references to this song. I must have completely missed it back in the day…
All I can say is that it won’t make you ask for your $2.
I used to love this song back in the day, but not so much anymore. Nice choice, never saw that fucking movie, yay me.
I’ve got another sappy ass overplayed movie song next week. Hopefully you didn’t see it either…
Finally, after all these weeks, we are in agreement. This song is indeed shit. I’m off to listen to some classic Gruppa Alyans to clear out my ear channels.
That singer’s voice does make a wonderful drain cleaner…
I can take or leave this song… I’m a little behind in reading blogs but what else am I going to do on a Friday night March 02 ?? I don’t particularly like the video, and never knew it was a movie song.so I guess I didn’t miss much!