What kind of woman did you have to be, Flora wondered, to publicly sing “Uptown Funk” in a subway tunnel? (Though maybe some would wonder what kind of woman you had to be to get a name like Flora.) Perhaps one whose first language was not English, therefore someone who couldn’t fully grasp the nuance of how terrible the song actually was…though surely, Flora thought to herself, this is the kind of badness that transcends language barriers.

In any case, the whole “English as a second language” “excuse” was the only exception she would have allowed for this strange—to say the least—song choice wielded as a means to get some extra “doubloons” into the open guitar case (at least Miss Uptown Funk was playing an electric guitar and not an acoustic). And yes, being that Flora was walking through the tunnel of a Parisian metro, it was not surprising to hear the would-be “troubadour” singing the lyrics with a more than slightly detectable accent to her English. Not a French one necessarily…no, to Flora, it sounded more like an Eastern European-tinged form of English. One that unabashedly—and with such conviction—belted out the lyrics, “Girls hit your hallelujah/‘Cause uptown funk gon’ give it to ya/‘Cause uptown funk gon’ give it to ya/Saturday night and we in the spot/Don’t believe me, just watch!”

Meanwhile, it was a Wednesday. Hardly an appropriate time to sing any songs mentioning Saturday or referencing the weekend whatsoever this soon in the week, when it was masochistic to think about how far away it still was. But then, Flora imagined that this “performer” didn’t have much in the way of a “concept of time.” Her “everyday” was performing in a liminal space, an environment where any notion of “time” went even further out the window if you already didn’t need to be that mindful of it. Oh sure, Miss Uptown Funk probably had to pay some mind to time in the sense of making sure she showed up to the metro at an hour of the day when people were at a peak of coming or going, but, apart from that, Flora doubted she had much adherence to “the clock.” And maybe she made Flora jealous in that sense. Maybe this was a key aspect of where her real “contempt” for Miss Uptown Funk was coming from, and not from the actual song itself.

But no, as Flora found herself being “boxed in” and held at a standstill by the bottlenecked hordes trying to funnel themselves through the apparently limited space (every hour was “peak” in Paris, n’est-ce pas?), she could feel her skin crawl over being subjected for far too long to these lyrics and its “signature” rhythm. A rhythm that clearly felt very signature to many other musicians as well, seeing as how multiple copyright infringement lawsuits arose in the aftermath of the song’s release. Even more than there were for “Blurred Lines.” A song that Flora deemed to be in the same category of “rape music” (that’s right: rape, not rap) as “Uptown Funk.” Though, in “fairness” to “Uptown Funk,” it wasn’t the lyrics, specifically, that were rape-y, but the “general vibe” and sound of it. To Flora, it simply reeked of the sort of thing that would be playing in a frat house as some Sigma Chi fucker filled a red Solo cup with Rohypnol.

Still, it would probably be less ominous to hear Bruno Mars singing his bullshit on “Uptown Funk” than Robin Thicke on “Blurred Lines” singing the horrifying “rape’s no big deal” chorus, “I hate these blurred lines/I know you want it/I know you want it/I know you want it/But you’re a good girl/The way you grab me/Must wanna get nasty.” For whatever reason, and as if to prove both songs were made to cultivate a “rape playlist” for men of all creeds, these singles were released essentially back-to-back—“Blurred Lines” in 2013 and “Uptown Funk” in 2014. From what Flora could tell, with Miss Uptown Funk being the latest “evidence” (she would decline to use the phrase “piece of evidence” in a situation like this), it was harder to shake the latter from the collective consciousness than the former. Not least of which was because packaging not-so-discreet rape lyrics in a “got to move to it” beat wasn’t kosher then, and it was even less so now.

Besides that, for whatever reason, “Uptown Funk” had transitioned into a new echelon of cultural pervasiveness: becoming the kind of song that always got played at wedding receptions. Joining the ranks of such other atrocious fare as DJ Casper’s “Cha Cha Slide” and The Black Eyed Peas’ “I Gotta Feeling.” Trying to push her way out of this “rat king” of a crowd, Flora mused to herself that even Kool & the Gang’s “Celebration” was more tolerable than that kind of “new-fangled” shit. And certainly more tolerable than “Uptown”-Motherfucking-“Funk.” In fact, continuing to be subjected to it delivered in this still worse manner (and no, the accent didn’t help—Flora didn’t care if that somehow made her a “racist” against a white European) wasn’t doing much to quell her anxiety. The kind of anxiety she always felt to begin with whenever she was forced to be in a public space for too long, let alone a cramped and overcrowded one where a “harbinger of doom” song was being played badly.

To be sure, the “Uptown Funk” factor was making the feeling so much worse. And Flora genuinely believed if she didn’t get out of this setting in the next minute, she was going to pass out from the sheer torturous weight of it all. Alas, her prayer to be set free went unanswered as Miss Uptown Funk kept leaning into the bassline that continued to “captivate” the masses all these years later. And it was at that moment that the crowd, ostensibly “giving up” on trying to break out of its own chokehold, burst into something like a spontaneous flash mob. At which time Flora really did faint from her utter sense of panic and revulsion. However, in keeping with what Flora viewed as the “sinister nature” of the song, her minor tragedy went unnoticed by the throng as it proceeded to crush her. Her only saving grace being that she wasn’t conscious to hear “Uptown Funk” as she was being summarily snuffed out.