Ray Stevens * Mr Businessman

 It's a dubious proposition when a compulsive jokester like Ray Stevens --Guitarzan, The Streak, Ahab the Arab--attempts to play catch up with trends and commence writing songs of a critical, scolding nature. Witness here his two-dimensional denunciations against the easiest of straw men targets, the American business executive. You can see that Stevens brainstormed over the wordplay in the lyrics--he was a clever rhymester if nothing else--but his judgment is shallow, let us say..shallow. But it sold, the public was buying, placing the song in the Billboard 100 where it reached number 28. But truthfully, the fad for topical songs passed quickly enough and to be honest no one, virtually no one, mentions this tune when Stevens is brought up in conversation. The song is painful to revisit, basically because it severely reminds me of what a naive and jerky student radical I tried to be in high school. I remember every stupid proclamation I said or printed in the school paper, and Stevens' lyrics echo the cardboard morality. But, to be sure, even pop geniuses make fools of themselves when they attempt to say socially relevant things in their music, an example being the Beatles emulation  of Dylan with their grating put down Nowhere Man. Had the tune been written and performed by a band from the Jersey Shore, critics would have crucified them for their horrible assumption that they had anything worth listening to. But the Beatles were the Beatles, after all, and got a pass and another hit on the radio.