You’re No Good for Me, I Don’t Need Nobody
When electronic dance music (EDM) group The Prodigy released their first studio album, Experience (1992), I hadn’t heard of the ensemble. Therefore, I missed out on what could’ve been a transformative anthology regarding my emerging eclectic music tastes. Too bad!
Also, even though the first album I purchased by The Prodigy was their third album, The Fat of the Land (1997), which I thoroughly enjoyed, I’d heard their song “No Good (Start the Dance)”, from their second studio album, Music for the Jilted Generation (1994), at high school parties.
Notably, the track is comprised around a repeated vocal sample from the house music song “You’re No Good for Me”, a track released by singer Kelly Charles in 1987. The lyrics state, “You’re no good for me, I don’t need nobody. Don’t need no one that’s no good for me.”
Listening to The Prodigy song over three decades since its release, I’m reminded of the ‘90s rave scene, as I retain gratitude for having experienced that era of EDM! Now, when contemplating the lyrics of the track, a lesson on Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) comes to mind.
REBT uses the ABC model to illustrate that when an undesirable Action occurs and you Believe an unhelpful narrative about the event, it’s your unfavorable assumption, not the occurrence itself, that causes an unpleasant Consequence. This is known as distress or disturbance.
Noteworthy, with virtually any undesirable Action that occurs, it’s your unfavorable Beliefs which cause unpleasant distress or disturbance (Consequence). Given this framing of self-distress and self-disturbance, it’s worth noting that one REBT source states (page 71):
REBT conceptualizes [distress] as healthy even though it is intense. Other approaches to therapy have as their goal the reduction of the intensity of negative emotions. They take this position because they do not keenly differentiate between healthy negative emotions (distress) and unhealthy negative emotions (disturbance).
Now, REBT keenly distinguishes between healthy distress and unhealthy disturbance. Healthy distress stems from your rational beliefs about a negative activating event [Action], whilst disturbance stems from your irrational beliefs about the same event.
Complete elimination of distress is highly unlikely in an impermanent and uncertain world, wherein people conceptually suffer, struggle, and battle with, or merely experience hardship. Still, individuals often make matters worse for themselves by disturbing about such instances.
In particular, there are four predominate irrational beliefs which people often use to distress or disturb themselves: global evaluations, low frustration tolerance, awfulizing, and demandingness. When contemplating these unproductive scripts, think of the acronym GLAD.
Addressing how people upset themselves with unhelpful attitudes, the ABC model incorporates Disputation of unproductive philosophies of life in order to explore Effective new beliefs. Whereas rigid beliefs cause self-disturbance, flexible beliefs result in an un-disturbed condition.
Pertaining to the sampled lyrics from “No Good (Start the Dance)”, Charles sang, “You’re no good for me, I don’t need nobody. Don’t need no one that’s no good for me.” When evaluating or appraising someone or something as all good or bad, a global evaluation may be in play.
For example, had Charles simply stated, “You’re no good,” then she would’ve negatively and globally evaluated the worth of hypothetical person X. In essence, it would’ve been as though Charles appraised person X’s worth as entirely bad.
Suppose person X volunteered at the local cancer ward of a children’s hospital, donated half of one’s income to charitable endeavors, or one selflessly took a bullet for Charles when someone else shot at her. Too bad! Person X’s global evaluation would’ve already been sealed: no good!
However, that’s not what the sampled lyrics by Charles actually state of infer. Rather, she claimed that person X is “no good for me.” This key distinction doesn’t globally evaluate person X, who’s merely a fallible human being – not a worthless individual.
Instead, Charles evaluated the presence – not the fallible human being – of person X in her life. Let’s think of this matter differently. I enjoy eating Greek yogurt mixed with presoaked chia seeds, overnight oats, and fresh fruit. I then say that you recommendatorily should try this dish.
Being that I’ve used a flexible form of demandingness, rather than inflexibly demanding that you absolutistically must try the dish, you decide to follow my recommendation. Yet, the recommended dish then leads to your excessive flatulence. I don’t have that problem, but you do.
Therefore, you make the healthy decision not to eat the recommended dish. You say, “It’s no good for me, though that doesn’t mean that it’s no good for you.” You then add, “I don’t need the dish,” wish is a true statement about reality. You don’t need to eat what I’ve recommended.
With this understanding, Charles appears to have flexibly determined that person X is no good for her, though she made no claim about this individual being bad for others. In fact, she added, “I don’t need nobody,” making use of a double negative that suggests she doesn’t need anyone.
She didn’t claim anything different than you did in our imagined scenario about a food dish. Ergo, it’s as though Charles flexibly stated to herself, “I preferably shouldn’t be with person X,” not inflexibly maintaining, “I absolutely mustn’t be with person X,” as she doesn’t need anybody.
Albeit a somewhat nuanced psychoeducational lesson on global evaluations and demandingness, I offer this blogpost for your consideration, because the words we use matter. Flexible scripts suggest something far less disturbing than do inflexible narratives.
So, perhaps this blog entry is deemed as no good for you. Maybe you don’t need any blogposts of mine. That’s fine. Your proposed conclusion doesn’t diminish my worth. Likewise, “you’re no good for me,” I presume, though “I don’t need nobody,” so we can carry on about our own lives.
If you’re looking for a provider who tries to work to help understand how thinking impacts physical, mental, emotional, and behavioral elements of your life—helping you to sharpen your critical thinking skills, I invite you to reach out today by using the contact widget on my website.
As the world’s foremost EDM-influenced REBT psychotherapist—promoting content related to EDM, I’m pleased to try to help people with an assortment of issues from anger (hostility, rage, and aggression) to relational issues, adjustment matters, trauma experience, justice involvement, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, anxiety and depression, and other mood or personality-related matters.
At Hollings Therapy, LLC, serving all of Texas, I aim to treat clients with dignity and respect while offering a multi-lensed approach to the practice of psychotherapy and life coaching. My mission includes: Prioritizing the cognitive and emotive needs of clients, an overall reduction in client suffering, and supporting sustainable growth for the clients I serve. Rather than simply trying to help you to feel better, I want to try to help you get better!
Deric Hollings, LPC, LCSW
References:
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