Late last week, jen of one plus two wrote an in-depth discussion of an important and versatile word of our times: dude. In that post, she suggested that if I were writing that post, I would include a list of song titles with the word dude. I took this as a challenge.¹ But being really, really freakin’ tired, it’s taken me a few days to get up off my metaphorical butt and figuratively rise to the challenge.
When I read her suggestion, the first song that popped into my head was the Beatles’ classic “hey, dude”. Following along with this, I bring to you a selection of dude songs from those fab four dudes.
- hey, dude
- baby you’re a rich dude
- love me dude
- I wanna be your dude
- dizzy dude Lizzy
- nowhere dude
- Norwegian dude
- with a little help from my dudes
- Martha my dude
- can’t buy me dude
- you’ve got to hide your dude away
- a hard dude’s night
- the dude on the hill
- why don’t we dude it in the road
- ob-la-di, ob-la-dude
- eight dudes a week
—-
¹ jen also offered a more direct challenge: for commenters to use the word dude in a haiku. My own dude haiku, which featured somewhat traditional references to nature, made me laugh. But it was late at night.
collecting tokens 
given the flexibility of meaning of the word, given proper intonation, i believe the best haiku possible is as follows. (i’m linking to an image b/c i don’t trust the wordpress formatting. please forgive me.)
if you can’t tell, it’s a love poem.
hey, it didn’t show!
it’s at http://laloca.org/photos/random/dude-haiku.jpg if anyone’s looking. *sigh*
Wow! Who knew The Beatles were so eminently dudifiable?
I prefer the little-known Aerosmith song, “Dude Looks Like a Dude”.
jenny-
A beautiful love poem. Quite moving.
NotSoSage-
Yes, more dudifiable than expected.
jwbates-
He, he.
dude. i loved your peach dude haiku. #15 had me snorting.
I am the dude.
i wanna hold your dude
helter skelter (dude)
talking about a dude-a-lu-tion.
i so adore you, sister. thank you.
I want to hold your dude.
gary thinks the dude haiku looks more like a warning against imminent shark attack. i ask: is there a difference between that and a love poem?
anyhoo. shaka, bra. dude.
jen-
You are the dude. Dude.
Julia-
That one seems somehow…suggestive…
jenny-
I wonder how many of the romantic poets were really warning against shark attacks? I’m starting to re-evaluate Byron’s “She Walks in Beauty”.
And I’m afraid I must ask for elucidation: “shaka, bra”?