YMMV / Paula Cole

• Anvilicious: Most of her political songs are this to some degree, but special mention must be made of the following:
  • "Hilter's Brothers". If your song title breaks Godwin's Law, it's already pretty Anvilicious. However, Cole doesn't stop there, following it up by graphically describing a Ku Klux Klan cross burning, a racially motivated gang rape, and the particularly gruesome lynching of a Hispanic man. The bridge of the song is Adolf Hitler giving a speech.
  • "Be Somebody" starts with the line "I want to be somebody / I want to make a difference" and manages to invoke gang violence, Malcolm X, and police brutality before it gets done.
  • This was largely the reason why her album Amen bombed. See They Changed It, Now It Sucks!.
• Awesome Music:
  • The full-length version of "I Don't Want to Wait", especially the verse that was cut from the radio version.
  • "Tiger", especially those wails Cole does at the climax.
• Genius Bonus:
  • One needs to have a least a passing familiarity with New Left thought and identity politics to get a few of the references in Cole's first album.
  • And don't even try to offer an interpretation of "Nietzsche's Eyes" if you're not familiar with the titular figure's work.
  • Subverted by "Chiaroscuro". Cole apparently felt the word was so obscure that the liner notes include a definition separate from the song lyrics.
• Les Yay: "Carmen".
• Nightmare Fuel: The unexpected backmasking at the end of "Tiger",^note It's just the first few lines of the song played backwards. to say nothing of Paula's wailing at its climax.
• Signature Song: "I Don't Want to Wait", thanks to Dawson's Creek. She even re-recorded the theme just so it could be used as the show's theme again for streaming releases.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: On Amen, Cole learned the hard way that R&B and white bourgeoisie liberalism just don't mix that well.

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