People I Want to Punch in the Face Pt. I - Bruno Mars

If you know anything about me, you know that I love music. I listen to just about every genre outside of country and enjoy most of the songs that play on the radio. If you know me well, you also know that I harbor an undying hatred for Bruno Mars. In fact, if I could punch one person in the face with no consequences, I would probably punch Bruno Mars.

Now you may ask, “Steven, why so much hatred for a guy you’ve never met who is just trying to live out his dream?” Well, for starters, thank you for reading my blog. I could go on for days about my distaste for the man, but I think a breakdown of one of his most popular songs, “Grenade,” should be sufficient to justify it.

Let's get started. "You had your eyes wide open...why were they open?" Bruno asks at the beginning of the song. Now, this is a fair question if he’s referring to her behavior during opening prayer at a BYU basketball game, but what kind of self-respecting man whines about the way a girl kisses him? And one must wonder how much dating experience he even has when he's complaining about a girl who "takes, takes, takes...but [she] never give[s]." That sounds a lot like every girl in the world, Bruno...Besides, every man knows that a few simple mind games will cure any problems with the ladies.

Now let’s skip to the chorus. "I would catch a grenade for you" he begins. Yeah...because beautiful women are getting grenades thrown at them all the time in modern society. And why the heck would you catch the grenade? I’m assuming the grenade was thrown at the girl, and unless the assailant has terrible aim, catching the grenade just means you are both going to die in a fiery explosion. A smarter strategy would be to swat the grenade away, allowing both of you to escape to safety and work out your issues in a more productive manner.

"Throw my hand on the blade for you," he continues. Once again, how is this helping anyone?

"Jump in front of a train for you." Are you beginning to see the theme here? Unless he is Superman or Spiderman...or maybe even Harry Potter, jumping in front of the train does nothing to improve her predicament. And even if she does survive the train incident, she will now have to live out the rest of her life with the guilt of driving a psychotic man to his death. Maybe she wants a man who would choose to save her from dangerous situations rather than display his love in a selfish, suicidal, psychotic, self-defeating manner.

In short, I dislike this song, and Bruno Mars in general, because beneath his façade as a hopeless romantic, Bruno Mars is cheesy, uncreative, unrealistic, borderline-psychotic, and un-man-like in every way. Every lyric of every one of his songs insults my intelligence to a degree that I want to do him physical harm. If I had the choice of being locked in a room with either a hundred birds or Bruno Mars, I would probably choose Bruno Mars…but it would have less to do with my crippling fear of birds than with my desire to seize an opportunity to punch him in the face.