« SETTING THE STAGE | Main | RITES OF PASSAGE »
July 31, 2004
WORST. SONGS. EVER.
Those of you who know me personally know that I've never quite gotten Florida out of my system - even months after it really ought to be completely out. No, despite all of your advice -- and the occasional slaps to the side of my head -- some elements of that whole experience continue to be part of me. (Doc & Erika... please, let's not start using the comment field to smack me -- or anyone else -- around, okay?)
Some of it is conscious - like my oft-stated desire to quit the rat race, go open up my beach bar down along the Palm Coast, and spend the rest of my life in a Tommy Bahama print shirt and cargo shorts, listening to Jimmy Buffett and Stevie Ray Vaughn while watching other people get drunk in my bar. (Cousin Joe... I'm hereby naming you my head bartender when I open the place up someday!) Other vestiges of my Florida time pop up unexpectedly - like when a few specific Buffett or Toby Keith songs come on and I need to skip them on the CD.
One of the habits I never ditched is reading the Palm Beach Post. I check it out online now - and it's a good thing I do, because otherwise I might have missed this fun little exercise a few weeks ago. (Yeah, I am just getting around to blogging it now. Sue me.)
The Post did an article about the admittedly subjective subject, "worst songs by great rockers." By including "by great rockers," please note that this eliminates 98.9% of the guiilty pleasure synth-songs of the 80s, prog rock or disco from the 70s, or those god-awful novelty tunes from the 60s. (If we were counting those, "I've Never Been To Me," "Wooly Bully," and "Desert Moon" still make the list.)
No, to make this list, a song has to be an utterly lousy song by an artist who is otherwise at least respectable, if not flat out great. In other words, it's a song by an artist who really should have known better.
The Post's writers came up with a whole bunch of good ones... "In the Ghetto" by Elvis. "Shiny Happy People" by R.E.M.. And my least favorite song of the last five years, "Don't Wanna Miss A Thing" by Aerosmith. Their list is great. To it, I would add the following suggestions (note: we're picking songs, not careers, otherwise I would say "anything Paul McCartney recorded after 1975"):
The Beach Boys: Kokomo I usually like beach-themed songs, so I don't know exactly why I hate this one so much. Maybe it's because of the hideous Tom Cruise flick it was attached to. Maybe it's because songs with cheesy geographic rhymes belong on Sesame Street. Maybe it's because John Stamos played on it. Or maybe it's just because this song freaking sucks.
The Beatles: Octopus' Garden Did Ringo have it in his contract that the boys had to let him sing on every album? Hey Ringo... I say, you're lucky the other three let you carry their amps into the studio - so be glad you're there, shut up, and just drum when Paul tells you to.
The Who: Athena She's just a girl????? She's a bommmmmmmmmb. And so is this freaking song.
Elton John: The Disney Years I realize that, as I do not have children yet and many of you do, this will be an unpopular choice. But I honestly think that Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductions should be revocable if the artist proves himself unworthy of the distinction after they slow down. And anything that ol' Reggie Dwight did for "The Lion King" certainly qualifies as slowing down. I hate "Circle of Life" too, but if I had to pick one, it's that insipid "Can You Feel The Love Tonight" that drives me most up a wall.
Pearl Jam: Last Kiss Hi, we're Pearl Jam. We're great, but we've lost urgency. And our label is pressuring us for a single or something that they can release. So we're going to record a version of one of the singularly most overly melodramatic and silly songs the early 60s ever produced... and release that as our big single! We sang with a cutting eye about violence in our schools in "Jeremy," about incest in "Daughter," and hauntingly about lost love in "Black" -- but now we're reduced to copping bad 60s melodrama. What's next - a cover of "Honey" by Bobby Goldsboro?
Your submissions now being accepted in the comment field below.
