No Vacancy: The Best of The Motels
Artist: The Motels
Year: Songs (at least the ones I used) released 1980-85
Average fodder rating (out of 5): 4
Difficulty: Easy
The Motels were nothing too extraordinary in the lyrics department. They seldom had either a lot of words or a lot of syllables in the words they did use. Like many rock bands, they were often singing about some kind of relationship, not uncommonly a troubled one.
As for me, I started by seeing hooks in Only the Lonely, Cries and Whispers, and Apocalypso. I could also guess that Take the L was worth getting to know, having learned it was about going from lover
to over.
You may notice many songs missing, however. Of the songs my friends knew and could share, there were a few (Celia, Total Control, Bonjour Baby) that were too slow for me to even find out what the lyrics were like. Careful had never been a song that particularly excited me, and coming at it from a parodying angle did not change that - the line Please don’t leave me
could have been a hook, but that was about it. Suddenly Last Summer was not particularly relevant because summer never ends in the Caribbean. Icy Red was a perky song but again, not fitting for the tropics. As for Remember the Nights. . . hard to decide what to make that. Remember the Blights? No, you bother! Remember the Sights? Maybe, but anyone could have come up with that, and then what for the rest? Never mind.
Album categories: 4-fodder albums, easy albums
Song categories: 1980s songs, 4-fodder songs, 5-fodder songs
Parody subject categories: Story of Davy Jones and Calypso, literal heart misplacement, parodies about pirate lifestyle, about transformation into a monster, Pirates of the Caribbean as a franchise
Parody style categories: Clever uses of songs, repurposed songs, others
Other parody categories: Parodies that are accessible to everyone