This is a needlessly esoteric premise even by my standards, buuuut:
In the “Treehouse of Horror V”, The Simpsons‘ fifth Halloween special, Homer abandons attempted homicide to gaze at small, portable television lying in the snow and states, “T.V. Teacher, mother, secret lover.” He more or less coos the last two words.
Today, while listening to Colleen Green, I realized I knew of three songs about television that hit on at least one of those criteria pretty squarely while also generally being good songs, and decided I might as well preserve that thought for posterity in the form of this list.
- “T.V.” by Colleen Green
This power pop song off of Green’s third album, I Want to Grow Up, really covers the first two elements of Homer’s television triad very well within this song’s opening seconds. “T.V. is my friend/And it’s been with me everyday/From an early age,” succinctly sets the stage for a song all about forging a meaningful, lifelong connection bathed in the soft, blue luminescence of a television screen.
It really reminds me of that famous Freaks and Geeks scene where a latchkey kid played by Martin Starr makes a disgusting snack and hunkers down to watch t.v. and laugh riotously,even though it’s readily apparent his life is generally miserable.
- “T.V. Luv Song” by Wavves
Musician and delightful human waste product Nathan Williams definitely seems like a dude who watches a lot of t.v.–possibly immediately after ingesting drugs.So it wasn’t really a surprise that he penned a gleeful ode to getting trashed with only t.v. to keep him company.What is a surprise is that years after this tossoff single was released, I still return to it’s bubblegum garage sound fairly often.
This improbably falls into both the teacher and secret lover categories.
- “TVC15” by David Bowie
I thought I might have a tough time finding a song about a person with explicitly romantic feelings for an appliance, but thankfully, there’s this gem off of Station to Station.
As Bowie helpfully explains, “This is a love story between a girl and her television.”
It’s really that cut and dry.
The Ear Regular 