Worst Songs to Get a Lap Dance To

Today, I was sitting at my internship, writing a motion to deny a bankrupt debtor's discharge.  And, naturally, I started thinking about lap dances.  Now, just for the sake of disclosure, I should admit that not only have I never gotten a lap dance, but I've never even been to a strip club.  I think the idea always felt kinda grimy to me.  But this post is NOT about why I've never been to a strip club.  Rather, I got to thinking-- I don't really know what makes a good lap dance song.  But there are definitely songs that are bad for lap dances.  I had a few ideas of my own, but then I asked some of my friends for advice.  I've gotten some solid suggestions, and now I've got a decent list.  Here goes:

1. Cotton Eye Joe, Rednex

If cowboy songs that sound like they were written and performed by your drunk uncle Cletus from West Virginia are your thing, then maybe Cotton-Eye Joe is an option.  If not, it's too fast, too country, and doesn't have a regular enough beat.  Also, the dude who sings it is toothless.

2. Down in Mexico, The Coasters (Suggested by Precious Benally)

I'm not gonna lie, I'd never heard this song before Precious suggested it here.  But it's painfully slow.  Great song, but it sounds like a song you'd hear in a black barber shop.  NOT in a strip club.

3.  Candle in the Wind, Elton John (Suggested by Dan Boyle)

This song was written by Elton John to commemorate the life of his friend Princess Diana after she died in 1997.  A ballad by Elton probably isn't getting much airtime at the strip club in the first place.  A ballad by Elton about the poor Princess's candle burning out long before... probably never will.

4. Friday, Rebecca Black (Suggested by Christine Brozynski)

Hating on this song is kinda cliche at this point.  Hating on it as a song to get a lap dance to... NOT cliche.  This is a pretty ordinary bad song with bad lyrics.  But Rebecca Black is, what, 14 years old? Lap dances to songs by 14 year olds are most definitely even more inappropriate than lap dances to tributes to dead princesses.

5. It's Raining Men, Weather Girls (Suggested by Steve Wolf)

I can't say I entirely agree with this one.  It's got a steady beat, a catchy hook, and isn't too slow or too fast.  I think Steve threw it out there because it's possibly the gayest song of all time.  Which still doesn't necessarily make it a bad song to get a lap dance to, as my good friend Noam Fliegelman would without a doubt attest.  I'll leave it on, but I'm not convinced.

6. Kim, Eminem (Suggested by Matt Allen)

From Eminem's Marshall Mathers LP, this song makes people uncomfortable.  Em spends the track fantasizing about killing his ex-wife in front of their daughter.  It's raw, it's emotional, and while Em's rhymes are as great as ever, it's also INCREDIBLY graphic.  The subject matter is so violent that I'm not even gonna get into the reasons the flow of the song is all wrong for lap dances.  But this is definitely one of the last options for anyone requesting a lap dance.

7. Barbie Girl, Aqua (Suggested by Sonalee Joshi)

I'm not actually sure what the video I put up with this is, but Barbie Girl is a song everyone loved in middle school.  The band is Eurotrash, but the real reason it makes the list is that the singer sounds like she's 9 years old.  I don't care how old she actually is, any female singer who sounds younger than 25 is borderline when it comes to lap dance tracks.

8. Never Gonna Give You Up, Rick Astley (Suggested by Chao Huang)

Because no one wants to get Rick Roll'd at the strip club.

9. Amazing Grace, Any Church Choir (Suggested by Steve Wu)

This is a song normally played at military funerals.  I think.  Even if it's not, you definitely hear it in churches.  And a divine guilt trip is definitely the opposite of what the strip club experience is supposed to be about (I think). 

10. Funeral March, Chopin

On a related note, funerals and strip clubs definitely do NOT go together.  And the slow track they play when they carry a casket to its final resting place probably isn't up there on the list of songs people like to hear at the strip club.

11. Imperial March, Star Wars (Suggested by Christine B.)

This is Darth Vader's theme from Star Wars.  Meaning it's a terrible pick for lap dances for the same reasons as the funeral march.  Only instead of thinking about how someone close to you is dead, you're thinking about how Darth Vader's gonna kill you.

12. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (Suggested by Sonalee J.)

Holiday songs are a bad idea at strip clubs.  Holiday songs about animals are a worse idea.

13. The Chicken Dance (Suggested by Jason Anton)

A song that has its own dance is probably not a good candidate for a lap dance.  Also it has its own absurd dance where you impersonate a chicken.

14. Tears in Heaven, Eric Clapton (Suggested by Dave McCallum)

I like Eric Clapton.  I like this song.  I don't like this song for a lap dance.  Eric Clapton wrote this song after losing his four-year old son.  Which makes it bad for lap dances for a combination of reasons-- basically, most of the reasons Friday is bad (child references) and Candle in the Wind is bad (commemorates a dead person).

15. Hakuna Matata, The Lion King (Suggested by Matt A.)

Hakuna Matata has the problem of the singers sounding like, well, kids.  Also it's an upbeat kids' song about not worrying about anything.  It's also sung by one guy imitating an overweight pig and another one imitating a talking muskrat.  Not so great for lap dances...

16. Puff the Magic Dragon, Peter, Paul and Mary

Peter, Paul and Mary claim this song isn't about smoking pot.  I actually believe them.  But, either way, it's now associated with pot.  And Peter, Paul and Mary all sound super blazed the entire song.  Listen to it once, and you wanna pull out a tub of chocolate-chip ice cream, eat the whole thing and watch cartoons.  Which is pretty much the opposite of getting a lap dance.

I think 17 is enough for now, but feel free to send others if I didn't include them.