Hey Pookie: Top 5 Cheesy Love Songs

We recently started getting fan mail in addition to the more… creatively worded correspondence that we’ve always gotten in response to our articles. The accolades are worth almost as much as the paycheck, but we wanted to take this opportunity to pass on that praise to one of our favorite people.

The Wife With One F is our muse, and some of our best work has come straight out of her head with only a few factoids and dick jokes thrown in by us for style’s sake. Without her we never would’ve gotten out of our hair metal phase and into music that digs a little deeper into the human soul than simply decoding the meaning behind the phrase “unskinny bop.”

With that it mind, our playlist this week is dedicated to her, and the five cheesy love songs that make up the mixtape of our heart. Happy birthday, Pookie, and thanks for all the help you’ve given us over the years.

Though she got us into non-guitar solo centered music, the Wife With One F likes a little metal herself every now and then, particularly Queensryche when they’re not screaming about mindcrimes. We were gone a lot on gigs ourselves, though “Ford Focus City Woman” would’ve been more appropriate in our case. Still, she was always waiting for us when we got back from annoying dozens of fans in the far reaches of the state.

We’re perfectly happy to admit that this song is god awful. It has all the depth of the kiddie pool, and probably half the urine content. What it does have in its favor is one brilliant throw away line in the chorus, ‘I’m standing here until you make me move.” That lyric always kills us, the perfect sentiment to fidelity.

Now this is one of the best songs off one of the best alternative albums of all time. Everclear has never put out a bad record in our experience, and this tribute to a long, convoluted courtship through an insane and cold world with only each other to hold onto is the number one hand holding song on car rides in our family. The key to a happy relationship truly is stopping pretending there’s a finish line in life, and that as long as your struggling together you’ll make it. Art Alexakis says that better than anyone else ever could.

Michael Hutchence looms large in our house. He smiles down from the living room wall from his place in the Dogs in Space film poster. The Wife With One F actually met him at a hotel when he toured with Duran Duran, and she was very glad she could tell him how much she loved Dogs in Space before he died. This is one of the few songs we can use to call her beautiful without getting an argument in return. Thanks Michael, rest in peace, brother.

This song was our first dance when we got married, and we’ll always remember every word. The live performance from the Rock Steady tour remains such a perfect expression of the soulmate message of the tune that we actually prefer it to the original recording or official video. There’s no topping it, or the girl we think of when we hear it.

This article appears in Nov 24-30, 2011.