I’ve got a few:
“The night Chicago Died”
“Billy, don’t be a Hero”
“I Started a Joke”, by the Bee Gees
“Run, Joey, Run!” Daddy, please don’t. It wasn’t his fault. He meeeeeeeeeeans soooooo much to meeeeeee…
My 1970’s childhood was rich with such dubious treasures.
I hadn’t wanted to mention this “song,” because quite frankly, the memory of it makes the top of my head explode and my eyeballs melt. But, since I don’t listen to pop radio, I had no idea that someone had covered it.
IRL, I tend to live by the philosophy of “live and let live.” I also have two toddlers and a government job, so you KNOW I’m a tolerant woman. But this bit of knowledge has just sent me completely over the edge.
OH no. Now, I’ve done some bad things in my day, but MAN, this is just SICK and WRONG. There are some things that one just DOES NOT DO in polite society, and covering that…that…&^%#!!@#!! is one of them! Dear Goddess, there oughtta be a law!
[sub]note to self: call psychiatrist in the morning…get meds adjusted immediately…[/sub]
No offense, Tabathina, but may you burn slowly in hell over a slowly turning spit while being sliced with little paper cuts and marinaded with lemon juice as Terry Jacks is played at maximum volume without distortion.
[sub]ohmygosh, did I say that?[/sub]
My 70’s childhood was traumatized by this ditty, and apparently the scars run deep. Again, I apologize for the outburst. Nothing personal. You couldn’t have known.
UncleBillyDon’tBeAHero
You bastard. That one sentence, like some sort of effed-up post-hypnotic trigger, has brought rushing back all my memories of singing “Voices that Care” in middle school, accompanied by a dual slide show (one projector on each side of the chorus, dontcha know) of inspiring Gulf War images. Gaaahhhhhh! I’m off to find out the going rate for trepanation, because the evil spirits must be released from inside my skull.
Hey, Lux Fiat. I aim to please!
Truly heinous. Written by the Department of Redundancy Department.
No, they have always sucked…and at the same time turned sucking into an art form.
Sorta like Fleetwood Mac.
::dodging bricks:::
Well, well, only three of my all-time faves (in a positive way) have been named so far as out-right stinkers and two of them indirectly. Could have been worse.
Personally, I absolutely loath novelty songs like the smurfs, bird dance, mister blobby, etc etc. Yuck. And most rap, no scratch that, all rap.
I loathed it when it came out, and it still makes me cringe while all around me idiots cry out “turn it up!”
“Creep” by Radiohead.
“Jack and Diane” has already been mentioned, so my work is done.
Perhaps a more challenging thread would be a list of songs by artists you love who decided to betray you by penning some unforgivably awful song which subsequently became their most popular and well known track.
I’m looking at you, U2.
-fh
If we get these songs stuck in our head, can we sue Fogglethorpe? just curious
I want to add “Hey Mickey.” To me it’s like a spinal tap of glass shards or a nice spiky catheter or some other horrible instrument of torture. shudder
If however you were to measure the disparity between the overall good quality of a band and the bad quality of a song by them then I would nominate “run for your life” by the Beatles. What the hell are they doing? Why are they singing a song about this guy threatening to kill his ex if she goes out with anyone else? Could there be a worse ending for Rubber Soul? “…Cause baby I’m determined that I’d rather see you dead.” I am literally baffled by why Lennon and McCartney wrote this song? What, were they trying to be hard? Get away from their clean image? What I imagine for the video is Jack Nicholson in the Shining singing this song, yeah different story but that’s the kind of guy whom I’d think would sing a song like this, ewwwww. Only song I didn’t put on my Beatles CD.
So those are my two votes, worst song by a bad artist, and worst song by a good artist
Thank you Silky, I thought I was the only one who didn’t care for Led Z.
Also, the song that gives me shudders: D.O.A. by Bloodrock.
We Built This City by Starship (or whatever the hell they were calling themselves at the time).
This pile of dreck got so much airplay in the late 80s you couldn’t escape it. It remains to this day my all-time most hated song.
Anything by The Doors.
The theme from the Brady Bunch.
And – hey! I’m not alone about U2 anymore! Yay!
Anyone for Rolf Harris’ version of “Stairway to Heaven”?
How about singers or groups that overstay their welcome, and become parodies of themselves? For example, Bob Dylan. Yeah, I know, American poet and all that crap. But truthfully, Bob Dylan was never exactly an operatic tenor or anything, but as he approaches the century mark, he sounds like he gargled with rusty nails and dry toast. And incidentally, does anyone know what the hell ANY Dylan song is about?
…in the jingle jangle morning I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more. How poetic…
Another song that needs to be mentioned is Heart’s “All I Wanna Do is Make Love to You.” Or anything by Heart, really, but especially that one.
For me, to call a song the worst of all time it had to go to number one on the pop charts or at least be very popular. The sort of song that your friends and peers would sit and listen to while smiling like an idiot, while your BP went through the roof. The song should make you feel like you are surrounded by pod people and make you fear for your life if you let on to anyone that you did not totally love the song.
These are the songs that made me feel like the last ‘human’ on earth.
The Night Chicago Died
Billy don’t be a Hero
You light up my life.
One Tin Soldier (sung in school)
The Wind Beneath my Wings
The entire soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever
Hand Jive from Grease (Clapton does a decent verison)
You Don’t Bring me Flowers
Three Times a Lady
Gypsies Tramps and Thieves
Convoy
On the Road (Bob Seager)
and the song that people loved, love, and will love that I will never love. The song that haunts me to this very day for all the High School dances where I stood alone in the dark listening to while my peers coupled up while reveling in the excitment on rubing up against a teenager of the opposite sex and were totally amazed at the ‘deepness’ of this song is
Freebird
[brando]the horror…the horror…[/brando]
I’m surprised that no one’s mentioned “My Heart Will Go On” yet. (When Canada is dead and gone, there’ll be no more Celine Dion!)
For many years, I agreed that “MacArthur Park” was the worst song ever to make the Top 40. But MHWGO and Whitney Houston’s cover of “I Will Always Love You” both give it a run for its money.
More also needs to be said about the Bee Gees on this thread. Tabathina mentioned “I Started a Joke,” but that’s far from the worst of their songs. I think “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart” and “I’ve Just Gotta Get a Message to You” are probably their two most abominable hits, though I’m willing to consider other nominations.
It’s my conviction that, in terms of total production and infliction of bad songs, the Bee Gees take the cake. Consider this measure of total infliction of badness: if you could take how bad a song is, and multiply that by the amount of airplay it got, you’d get the Infliction Factor of a song. Sum that up for all songs by a particular singer or group, and the result would be the Infliction Factor for that group.
The Bee Gees have had a string of abominable hits, from the late 1960s to the mid-90s. It’s hard to see that any other musical entity could have inflicted as much bad music on the general public as the Bee Gees have.
This line from Paul McCartney’s “Live and Let Die” makes me cringe everytime I hear it:
…this ever changing world in which we live in
From your Department of Redundancy Department, along with America’s “Horse With No Name”
…for there ain’t no one for to give you no pain…
Thanks for bringing it up… Now I will have to remember these songs all day!
“American Pie” Madonna-style…
“Under the Bridge” Red Hot Chili Peppers…(I personally love the Peppers, but if I have to hear this song one more time, I am going to load up on heroin and sit under a bridge and wait for death…)
“Achy Breaky Heart” Billy Ray Cyrus. I think I am the only person in America that has NEVER heard this song… I always got smart and changed the radio or ran screaming from the room.
Anything by the Spice Girls, Backstreet Boys, N’Sync, O-town, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Mandy Moore, yadda yadda yadda.
“Islands in the Stream” Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers. My parents used to listen to a country station every morning, and this song played, literally, every other song… They had some contest about guessing how many times they played it in a day… Absolute HELL, I tell you. I still go into fits and seizures whenever I hear this song.
“Ironic” Alanis Morrisette… No, it’s not ironic…it’s MORonic…
4.“Smack My Bitch Up” Prodigy… No, I’m not all feminist about this song, although I think someone should bitchslap this guy… But prodigy sold out a lonnnnnnnng time ago, and this is the epitome of crap.
“Eternal Flame” The Bangles. My little sister copied this off the radio, (you know, old school style!) and played it OVER AND OVER AGAIN… I don’t know why, but she thought this was the best song EVER! Gag…
“Sharp Dressed Man” ZZ Top… I don’t know why, I mean, I grew up in the 80’s… But this song just sucks. As does anything else by ZZ Top.
ANYTHING by Morrissey and/or The Smiths. I just can’t comprehend how anyone can listen to the whinings of this dork. (I’m sure I’ve offended someone… I’m sorry… ) I was forced to listen to every recording Morrissey ever made by a psychotic girl that was totally obsessed with him… If Morrissey had burped on the mic somewhere, she would have a copy of it and call it a musical masterpiece. I never liked Morrissey before I met her, and it certainly didn’t help to be forced to listen to “how sad he sounds!” or (actual quote) “his miserableness is what makes the music great!”
Stepping off her musical soapbox,
SKerri