Swedish Songwriters Take Lots of Acid

That's the only way I can make sense out of the current 1,300+ songs that SVT has on the shortlist for Melodifestivalen 2006.

Some of the god-awful examples:

• New York Reggae Day (How much you want to bet the writer is some pock-marked kid with blond dreadlocks from Malmo?)
• Welcome to the freakshow (High school goth band most likely)
• U smell (U suck already. I want to see your English scores.)
• This is my city (Ah, but did you build it?)
• Straight flush i kärlek (The latter part translates as "and love, I believe." A poker love song. No thank you.)
• Som en Boeing ("Like a Boeing." Sample lyric: "Baby, I love your 747 size behind.")
• Shut Up & Kiss Me (How about stop writing until you get an original thought?)
• Run, Wendy, Run! (Peter Pan meets German cinema in a Swedish penned song?)
• Paparazzivärld ("Paparazzi world." L. Lo sings in Swedish.)
• Oooh-lah-lah (I'm a fool for you) (Nobody, but nobody should attempt a song like this unless they are part of The Stylistics.)
• Mi chico latino (Why do you want to inflict the Swedish public with the tales of your Argentine trick?)
• Kiss me like they kiss on film (What? With no tongue or saliva? Do you mean with fake emotion?)
• I.L.O.V.E.U. (G.O.2.H.E.L.L.)
• How the hell edit (How the hell edit what?)
• Don't be such a Garbo (If Sweden's answer to Harvey Fierstein doesn't sing this, I'll be pissed.)

Geez, VH1 Classic is playing Johnny Hates Jazz right now and "Shattered Dreams" sounds like "Strange Fruit" compared to some of this lot--which admittedly I haven't heard, but still... There's a lot of crap for the people at SVT to sort through.

I think all the (non-Maltese) Anglophone lyricists should buy language books and flood the various national finals across Europe with the local equivalents of "This is a pen," "Mark is at the market," "He gave me the clap," and the perennial favourite "My lovely horse."