200-151 - Phineas and Ferb Song Ranking
Continuation of Tier 8: Songs Which Provide Me with Mildly Pleasant Feelings
200. The Shark of Danville Harbor
Section 2 ended with “Ballad of the Black Knight,” and section 3 opens up with its sibling, “The Shark of Danville Harbor.” Both are very successful in mimicking the style of a classic folktale song that’s passed through generations. This song gets the slight edge because of its more interesting melodic material, and the more frequent inclusion of funny oddball specificities, like the shark eating the curriculum advisor. Not to mention, the women folk in this tale save the day #girlboss
199. Here's Why It Is Great to Be a Baby
This song gets the award for worst title in the entire show. They could’ve called it “Great to Be a Baby,” or “It’s Great to Be a Baby,” or even “Baby Song.” Instead, we are graced with a full sentence, which comes across as would the title of a fourth-grader’s essay. But this is just a minor detail! The clowny-circussy sound is extremely deliberate and fulfilled to the maximum, thanks to a simple melody, some goofy vocal glissandos, and even a kazoo solo. Who doesn’t love a kazoo solo?
198. Give Me Your Money Today
The funniest part of this short, sweet snippet of music is the line: “too lazy to get a job.” The listener expects that a rhyme with “cash” is incoming, and this subversion is not only funny in and of itself, but in that the line which subverts indirectly explains the reason for the subversion. He’s lazy! Too lazy to get a job, and too lazy to rhyme! As for Lawrence, I am in awe of someone whose tastes are so free-floating, that he will announce, with full confidence, after watching a program for under 20 seconds, “It’s my new favourite show!”
197. Bad Luck
Man, I tell ya, there’s not a cursed necklace that could give that girl worse luck than she already has!
196. Breakin' Out
One of the things I enjoy about this song is that it’s quite difficult for me to wrap my head around. The harmonic progression feels intentionally disorienting, not in a chaotic way, but in a methodically unpredictable way, one might even say jazz-influenced. Every direction you turn, there’s a new flat-7, a new dominant of the dominant, some new way in which the chords are “breaking out” of the key. The eccentric logic to its tonal ambiguity is what helps it land nearly 100 spots ahead of “You’re Not Ferb,” whose eccentricity has no logic.
195. Playing a Game of Sports
I question the decision not to figure out a way to make the “rules of the game” section a part of the lyrics. Doing so would have likely given a tremendous boost to this song, instead it only amounts to gentle fun.
194. Baliwood
One wonders whether this song is racist, and weighs the evidence. What I believe is in poor taste is not the portrayal of a particular Indian family, and of a particular Indian boy (Baljeet) being unequivocally obsessed with academic success. What I do believe is in poor taste is the implication, through allusions to India as a whole, that such values are the cultural standard in India as a whole, and moreover, that folks in other parts of the world ought to frown and laugh upon these values collectively due to some kind of supra-cultural morality. The fact that such an angle was largely abandoned for the remainder of Phineas and Ferb is a great relief. And despite this, I do not believe that any issue should be taken with the imitation of a classic style of Indian music, like we find here, in terms of instrumentation, and in terms of the effective usage of phrygian mode.
193. Flashing Back to Fashion Forward
Sure, it’s only my 193rd favourite Phineas and Ferb song, but it would definitely be in the top 10 list of my favourite choreography.
192. The Beak
My alarming lack of superhero knowledge would have shone through if I wrote here what I originally intended, which was something in the vein of how this song successfully parrots the style of “superhero theme songs.” It wasn’t until I went on this song’s Phineas and Ferb fandom page that I learnt it’s a direct homage to the original Spiderman theme song. To someone who was familiar with the latter, this wouldn’t have been hard to detect at all. “The Beak” improves upon the original, not just with 21st-century recording technology, but with its thoughtful inclusion of insults directed at the listener.
191. Ferb Latin
With regards to some entries thus far, I’ve expected backlash and gotten practically none. With regards to others, notably “Perry’s Hat,” I have expected no backlash and gotten some. I am not sure what to brace for as it pertains to “Ferb Latin.” As for my complaints, I shall begin with the lyrics, or rather, the content of what “Ferb Latin” is episodically. Its customs are too quirky to be funny in the slightest. If you give someone your left shoe when they sneeze, you will soon have no more left shoe, and therefore, be unable to adhere to the custom the next time someone sneezes. Exchanging a piece of meat with someone every time you end a conversation is an atrociously inconvenient rule, and a total waste of time. Phineas and Ferb typically use their creativity to make everyone’s lives more fun, not more complicated! These lyrics are one of the key elements, but not the only element, which puts this song in a family with “Backyard Hodge Podge,” the family of songs which sound like they were made for Disney Junior. The instructional nature of the lyrics play a role in this. The persistence of the I - vi - IV - V chord progression plays a role in this. Thanks to all these details, the overlapping vocals fail to excite me like such a manoeuvre typically would in another song. Sorry if this review sounded negative, I don’t think the song is that bad.
190. Phintastic Ferbulous Car Wash
Some can’t stand Phineas’s talk-singing, but in my opinion, its great infrequency is what makes it enjoyable. This song has a definitive groove, and a cool bridge which makes heavy use of the flat-7 chord. (Plus of course, Danny Jacob’s voice coming out of the Fireside Girls’ mouths.)
Tier 7: Songs Which Barely Qualify As Bops or Equivalent
189. Let's All Dance Until We're Sick
What can I say? It’s a bop!
188. Be a Squirrel
This song gets progressively worse as it goes along, but even the chorus is stomachable, and the earlier portions are crafted so thoughtfully that “Be a Squirrel” is decidedly a net-positive experience. If I were really bending the rules, I could count this alongside “To War” and a couple others as “military marches,” but I have no real reason to do so. The point is, I appreciate the very quiet marching-snare in the verse, counterposed subtly with the delicate squirrelly xylophones and other similar flourishes.
187. Football X-7 / Hockey Z-9
Somehow, I never came to the realization that these songs are, in numerous concrete senses, the same, until I began this project. For all intents and purposes, they differ only in lyrics; they’re as closely related musically as “Busted” and “Rusted.” “Hockey Z-9” is the one which came second, so it’s technically the parody, but it doesn’t come across as such. It is more descriptive of the game itself, whereas “Football X-7” focuses more on the game’s lore. This differentiation is one of the things which makes each song ✨special in its own way ✨
186. In the Empire
I’m pretty sure Star Wars isn’t a musical, (I don’t know for sure, since I’ve never actually seen any of those movies,) and somehow, I still get the sense that this song is a parody of a song from Star Wars. So, hats off to the CSWPF I guess.
185. Rollercoaster
Through its lyrical and musical elements, this song very effectively builds towards its satisfying culmination: “I got the poster.”
184. History of Rock
This song of course falls victim to being drastically overshadowed by the other three songs in Dude, We’re Getting the Band Back Together, all enormously superior to it. It’s two minutes long, and therefore easily on the longer side of Phineas and Ferb songs, but I believe it actually could have benefitted from being even longer. Each style depicted: blues, psychedelia, funk, and metal, gets such a brief amount of time on the shelf that the entire song can feel incohesive. Even circling back to blues at the end of the song could have been a simple way to tie this chaotic number up in a nice little bow. All in all, I do enjoy this song quite a bit, but only when I put in effort to do so.
183. Where Did We Go Wrong?
“No.”
182. We'll Save Everyone
Another shoutout to the Phineas and Ferb wiki for teaching me that this is a 15-second parody of the Baywatch theme song. I listened to the Baywatch theme song for the first time upon learning that news, and I was constantly half-expecting it to break into a chorus of “I’ll save you! You’ll save me!” I am totally convinced that these two songs should be fused together to create one which is monumentally better. The Baywatch theme song comes across like a bunch of verses and pre-choruses which never cut their tension loose, and “We’ll Save Everyone” sounds like a chorus forced to stand on its own. Put the two together, and you’ve got a real heads and tails situation!
181. Give Up
This song’s refreshing “B-section,” or as it could be called, the “Candace choir” section, or the “I gave up,” section, is what seals this song’s fate as a bop or equivalent, not because it’s so special on its own, but because it is so unique in contrast to the larger chunk preceding it. It’s hard to ignore the fact that this song is pretty funny too, but it becomes less so when you realize that Candace should probably honestly take this advice, and indeed she does in Last Day of Summer.
180. Heck of a Day
If only there were a high-quality version of this song without Heinz talking all the time. Perhaps the demo could be of interest to you if that is what you too seek, but this demo also includes an unnecessary bridge, and some wonky lyrical placements near the end, which the CSWPF was wise to cut. I’m under the unfortunate impression that this excellent core song was particularly victimized by the Disney time crunch; its arrangement and musical material is very good, but it doubtlessly left some potential on the table.
179. Questing Song
This sounds like one of those harpsichord pieces I had to listen to in music history class, except those pieces didn’t include Mr. Jeffrey Swampy Marsh pronouncing the ‘e’ in “cursed” like some kind of Shakespeare situation.
178. Flawless Girl
Somehow, this show’s mock commercials are on-the-nose critiques of advertisements in general, while simultaneously being entirely divorced from reality, in that commercials at present practically never include fun and catchy songs like this.
177. Skiddley Whiffers
Somehow, this show’s mock commercials are on-the-nose critiques of advertisements in general, while simultaneously being entirely divorced from reality, in that commercials at present practically never include fun and catchy songs like this.
176. Shimmy Jimmy
Somehow, this show’s mock commercials are on-the-nose critiqOK OK I’ll stop. This one’s actually different from the other ones since it isn’t a satire commercial, or at least it doesn’t appear that way. We’ve got semi-sincere lyrics, a groovy double shuffle, and of course, Shimmy Jimmy himself doing the coolest dance in the world, the closed-fists, straight-arms, moving up and down situation. I’m not sure if it has a name.
175. Pinhead Pierre
SoMeHoW, tHiS sH Never mind Ha Ha ha. Just kidding. What always strikes me most about this song is how out-of-left-field the concluding line is: “Life’s cruel and unfair to Pinhead Pierre.” Especially since he doesn’t seem sad at all! The other moment that I deeply associate with this song is not found within the song itself, but later on in this episode, when all the kids, and maybe Lawrence too, if memory serves, are singing this song to themselves for fun. “Pinhead Pierre,” they sing, “has the smallest head of which I’m aware.” I only wish they would have gone on to joyfully and childishly sing the entire thing.
174. Ducky Momo Theme Song / Ducky Momo Theme Song (Rock Version)
It’s an ironic enjoyment. Yeah, that’s it. Ironic.
173. Square Dance
This song is pretty much exactly what you would expect it to be, and sure, some of the lyrics are clunky, but it gets tons of bonus points on account of it being a very funny and satisfying means to culminate Mind Share, which is, I venture, a good episode. As for a highlight, it would have to be the very start of Candace’s spiel, when she violently shoves Mr. Vocalist into oblivion, and immediately takes over without missing a beat, and with a chaotic grin on her face.
172. Moon Farm
It’s amusing to me that exactly 50 percent of this song, down to the second, is spent on Baljeet arguing with the Disembodied Reggae Space Voice.
171. Unsung Hero
I’ve swung back and forth on this song so drastically over the past couple years. The thought has occurred to me that this should be considered one of the quintessential anthems of Perry the Platypus, and that its spacy, airy, consonant arrangement is among the most beautiful the show has ever made. This thought has tended to be fleeting, and increasingly infrequent. On the other hand, the thought has occurred to me that this song’s explicit sincerity is forced into a situation where it is uncalled for, or rather, its sentimentality is much too overt, and “shoved down our throats.” Without putting too much effort into the listening experience, this song stands on its own extremely pleasantly. It’s when I start thinking too hard that the sappiness begins to turn me off.
170. Professor Elemental Future Past
Maybe this is my piano bias shining through, but the choruses are many times better than the verses, thanks to the piano, which sounds, in playing style and in type of instrument, almost like it could have been recorded during the industrial revolution.
169. What Does He Want?
It doesn’t move the plot of Phineas and Ferb: Christmas Vacation forward in the slightest, but that special is paced at such a breakneck speed that this little breather, just like “Where Did We Go Wrong?” is not unwelcome. This song is a much more successful attempt at greaser shoo-bee-doo-wop than “You’re Going Down,” especially evident in the bridge, which ends by leaving the key briefly by resolving to the major chord build upon the sixth scale degree, a technique that was perhaps lifted directly from the Beatles’ Day Tripper. I do think, however, that Phineas and Ferb “list songs,” with apparently random items like singing trouts and leather wallets, are better suited to nearly any other character than Candace.
168. Girls Day Out
Omg I love the Cheetah Girls (part 2)
167. J-Pop (Welcome to Tokyo)
This song is very interesting.
Some very minimal research has taught me that it is, or at least that it was at the time this song was written, or at least that it was thought to be at the time this song was written, the case that Japanese media, and specifically anime, with which I am not familiar at all, was haphazardly and often carelessly translated into English. According to this song’s Phineas and Ferb fandom page, its lyrics were actually written (or at least partially written) by translating some facts about Tokyo from English into Japanese and then back to English. The corresponding scene in Summer Belongs to You also includes some dances which were apparently popular in Tokyo at the time, and even without all this insight knowledge, one can probably appreciate the odd mix of the vocals which are just barely low enough not to be annoying, and the instrumentation which is just barely in-tune enough not to cause irritation. It all culminates in what can be best described as an aggressive homage to the state of Japanese media as it related to America in 2011.
166. Don't Look Down
The core of this song is extremely strong, but some small flubs in the superstructure stopped it from being excellent. It’s a little bit off-putting to me to spend so little time in the verse before moving right along to the “follow your nose” section, which I suppose qualifies as the chorus. One would probably expect the verse to be repeated one time, since it’s so short, with different lyrics of course, before the chorus could be “earned.” I enjoy the interplay between the major key and the relative minor, which takes place not between the verses and choruses, but within each one. The quick movements in this regard make it odd to me that the melody at the end of each chorus: “don’t look down,” is exactly the same at each instance, except for the end. It should have been a no-brainer to throw in some melodic colourations there routinely.
165. All the Convoluted Reasons We Pretend to Be Divorced
The benefits of this song lie not in its music, which is nothing to write home about. It would even be misguided to say that they lie in the lyrics, because the truth of the matter is that, much like “Pyramid Sports,” they lie in the absurd story-related content, or as it relates to the song alone, the absurd content of the lyrics. Not the lyrics themselves. Whereas many songs thus far on the list, including some truly abysmal entities like “Back in Gimmelshtump” and “Whatcha Doin?” suffer from an inability to create momentum, either intrinsically or narratively, this song is a key tool for the propulsion of Tales from the Resistance. This song could have been butchered if it tried to be too unserious, but each and every convoluted reason actually makes sense!
164. Pin Bowlin'
I don’t care much for the sections of this song with actual lyrics. What I love is the hook: “Pin, pin, pin, pin-bowlin’ along (do do do do…)” I love the way it walks down the scale. I love the way it’s sung. I love the vocal harmonies. When it’s not happening, I’m merely waiting to hear it again.
163. Music Makes Us Better
I used to be sad that there existed no full version of this song, but I no longer am; thirty seconds is a perfectly adequate length. We get a slightly bigger glimpse into the repertoire of Love Handel’s heyday, and perhaps even more importantly, we get a beautiful bow on an episode whose main message is that music does indeed make us better and bring us together. I only wish Perry were seen dancing somewhere in the crowd, instead of all alone in the lair 🙁
162. My Evil Buddies and Me
If I were to ever find myself in a situation where I am forced against my will to watch Phineas and Ferb: Mission Marvel, I would be grateful for the small reprieve provided my “My Evil Buddies and Me,” a song which seems to aim to replicate “My Nemesis” in its whimsical harmonic patterns and its double-shuffle groove. Of course, it falls short in this lofty goal, but it fulfills its goal as a straightforward feel-good sunshine song. It even mentions wieners!
161. Phinedroids and Ferbots
I, Brobot, and on a smaller scale, “Phinedroids and Ferbots,” is a great lesson in the labour theory of value, so for that reason alone it gets a thumbs-up from me. When evaluating the objective characteristics of the song though, one thing is clear: this was made in 2008. In my opinion, enough time has passed that that is a part of its charm, and those robot voices are now appealing in a nostalgic way. And although the lyrics can be difficult to decipher, it’s worth the hassle, just to know that the robots are switching to decaf latte.
160. Chupacabra Ho
This one was a late riser on my list. There are some little lyrical and harmonic details that I had overlooked, which after some thought, I have learned to appreciate, like the unexpected resolution to the major tonic on lines like “What just jumped the wire?” and “I’m starting to perspire.” Kind of similar to “Ballad of the Black Knight” and “The Shark of Danville Harbor,” this song is stylized as if it’s been passed down orally through generations, making it once again even funnier that it ends with a line about a bully on a string.
159. Izzy's Got the Frizzies
Carmen Carter returns to perform the vastly superior counterpart to “There Is No Candy in Me.” Both of them are songs which occur at the tail end of an episode and bear almost no relevance to the plot whatsoever. I wonder whether this one will ever become popular online; it seems to have all the ingredients, at least visually and contextually speaking.
158. Real Boy
I routinely forgot how long it takes this song to get the show on the road. The song is already nearly halfway over before Norm exclaims: “I want to be a real boy!” to kick off the famous rap and make the crowd go crazy. Where this stands above “There’s a Platypus Controlling Me” is, for one, that this rap actually has a harmonic element, notably in the backup vocals, anchoring it down. Not to mention, the rap itself is actually much better written, from rhymed couplets sometimes being skillfully shifted to various different points in a given bar, to the concluding string of jokes, culminating in “but thanks for asking, seriously!”
157. Spa Day
Our next entry is the slightly superior rap. The CSWPF’s idea that rap as a genre is funny by virtue of its contrast to a spa environment is incorrect, but this one is thankfully strong enough to stand on its own without that other attempted layer of humour. The “calm” opening here is pleasant by itself, and Ferb’s sneeze is the unequivocal highlight.
156. Deep Into Your Mind
Monster of Id is another one of the very underrated episodes of the show, and from every musical angle, this song depicts the power of ‘fear,’ even if it’s a funny fear, very effectively, by unleashing instruments and creating a ‘wall of sound’ at several instances. It’s with the lyrics where I feel as though there was room for improvement. I’m especially frustrated by the line about Candace being afraid of the number seven, extremely obviously utilized just to rhyme with “Kevin.” Candace has never been afraid of the number seven! All the other lines in that verse called back to actual events! Get it together!
155. They Left Me Standing Outside
This song bears a similarity to “Yellow Sidewalk.” The hooks in the backup vocals are by far the best part of each respective song. In “Yellow Sidewalk” it was the “oo-hoo, oo-hoo, oo-hoo, la la la la la la.” In “They Left Me Standing Outside,” it’s the “ooh, ooh-woo-woo-woo, yeah-yeah-yeah,” which moves melodically in brilliant cohesion with the underlying harmony, accompanying the mixolydian flavour with some excellent flavours of its own. The rest of the song, i.e. the real lyrics, are decent in and of themselves, but there’s no doubt that the “filler” vocal hook is what steals the show. The CSWPF seemed to know this too, since they repeated the riff for the better portion of the second half of the song.
154. Der Kinderlumper
It’s practically impossible not to enjoy the Louis-Armstrong-esque muted trumpet, intermittently and tastefully placed throughout this fun little number. The embryo of “Der Kinderlumper” is in the 8-bar phrase, which, like the entire song, has a very clear minor tonality, and a typical chord progression. Small details, like the appoggiaturas in the respective sixth bars of the phrases, like for example on “blink your eyeballs,” make the progression unique, (an appoggiatura meaning a note that is not part of a chord being accented on top of that chord.)
153. He's a Bully
The CSWPF displays lyrical excellence in “He’s a Bully;” I have to direct special attention to the line: “He’s big, he’s dumb, he’s got the IQ of gum, he’s got the brain about the size of a sourdough crumb.” Everything else though, from the arrangement, to the mix, to the rock-vocal, are only average, and were pulled off more effectively in higher entries.
152. Bee Song
None of the following is a joke: This song is mostly extremely melodically and harmonically appealing and interesting. There is a normal helping of secondary dominants in the verse, that is to say, the first 23 seconds, and then in the bridge, per se, there are a ton of interesting secondary dominants of various kinds, and the melody follows suit, climbing to more intense levels. Perhaps we should have seen that final chord coming, based on the foreshadowing which came immediately prior: “They pay for it with their lives.”
151. Handcar
I close out section #3 and tier #7 simultaneously with a song that I always wished I could like more than I do. Unfortunately, there is an almost Disney-Junior-like singing performance and melody, and the melody almost evaporates once the handcar starts heading downhill and a stable tempo is established. Beyond that, however, is some glorious feel-good content. For Perry, often depicted as an infallible hero, it is incredibly refreshing to see some of his flaws exposed in Sidetracked, (and later in O.W.C.A. Files,) notably, that he is a lone platypus. Not only does he have no clue how to work with a partner, he has no interest in doing such a thing. Throughout “Handcar,” in just a short minute and a half, he learns the meaning of teamwork! He doesn’t have to push up! She’ll push down on her side. It’s a heavy-handed metaphor for how they work together! *sniff.*
To be continued.
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