# Hit Songs in Bad Taste **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 30, 2019, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hit-songs-in-bad-taste/834784 "2019-05-30T16:39:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2019, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hit-songs-in-bad-taste/834784/1 "2019-05-30T16:39:56Z")
Songs in the Top 20 or 25 that make you question the taste of your fellow human beans. My entry is “Timothy”(1970), which made #17 on Billboard’s Top 40. It is a whiny little ditty about three minors trapped underground for days, and only two of them leaving…with their bellies full and no memory of what happened. [This song was actually designed to get banned for the sake of publicity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_(song)), and it succeeded beyond all expectations. So, watcha got? ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2019, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hit-songs-in-bad-taste/834784/2 "2019-05-30T16:41:18Z")
Muskrat Love ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2019, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hit-songs-in-bad-taste/834784/3 "2019-05-30T16:43:43Z")
> [@Procrustus](#): > > Muskrat Love Why is this one in bad taste? ---
**Author:** ![BubbaDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bubbadog/32/333_2.png) [@BubbaDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BubbaDog)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2019, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hit-songs-in-bad-taste/834784/4 "2019-05-30T16:49:49Z")
[My Girl, Bill](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHGV3PhEg5c) ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2019, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hit-songs-in-bad-taste/834784/5 "2019-05-30T16:53:42Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Songs in the Top 20 or 25 that make you question the taste of your fellow human beans. > My entry is “Timothy”(1970), which made #17 on Billboard’s Top 40. It is a whiny little ditty about three minors trapped underground for days, and only two of them leaving…with their bellies full and no memory of what happened. [This song was actually designed to get banned for the sake of publicity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_(song)), and it succeeded beyond all expectations. > > So, watcha got? I had never heard of this song until I read about it in **Dave Barry’s Book of Bad Songs**. I still have never heard it. So, despite my prodigious ignorance of popular music, I have to ask how effective the strategy of getting banned was. Looks to me like the banning was more successful. Barry said something like “at least they resisted the urge to call it _Yummy Yummy Yummy, I’ve got Tim in my Tummy_.” ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2019, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hit-songs-in-bad-taste/834784/6 "2019-05-30T16:56:34Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > I had never heard of this song until I read about it in **Dave Barry’s Book of Bad Songs**. I still have never heard it. So, despite my prodigious ignorance of popular music, I have to ask how effective the strategy of getting banned was. Looks to me like the banning was more successful. > Barry said something like “at least they resisted the urge to call it _Yummy Yummy Yummy, I’ve got Tim in my Tummy_.” When a song hits the Billboard Top 20 it is considered successful whether _you_ heard it or not. ---
**Author:** ![Helmut\_Doork](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e8c25b/32.png) [@Helmut\_Doork](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Helmut_Doork)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2019, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hit-songs-in-bad-taste/834784/7 "2019-05-30T17:02:49Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Songs in the Top 20 or 25 that make you question the taste of your fellow human beans. > My entry is “Timothy”(1970), which made #17 on Billboard’s Top 40. It is a whiny little ditty about three minors trapped underground for days, and only two of them leaving…with their bellies full and no memory of what happened. [This song was actually designed to get banned for the sake of publicity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_(song)), and it succeeded beyond all expectations. > > So, watcha got? Great choice and NOT to be pedantic but just to clarify for those not in the know-(and to make the song a bit more palatable) that would be miners, not minors. Cannibalism among kids would be TOO much. 🙂 And written by member Rupert Holmes, of The Pina Colada Song fame/infamy! ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2019, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hit-songs-in-bad-taste/834784/8 "2019-05-30T17:06:10Z")
A song mistakenly thought to be in bad taste was Alice Cooper’s “Only Women Bleed”(1975) from _Welcome To My Nightmare_, because a lot of people thought it was about menstruation. It was actually about spousal abuse. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2019, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hit-songs-in-bad-taste/834784/9 "2019-05-30T17:07:12Z")
> [@Helmut\_Doork](#): > > Great choice and NOT to be pedantic but just to clarify for those not in the know-(and to make the song a bit more palatable) that would be miners, not minors. Cannibalism among kids would be TOO much. 🙂 And written by member Rupert Holmes, of The Pina Colada Song fame/infamy! Sorry-my SpellCheck is slightly pervy. ---
**Author:** ![Helmut\_Doork](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e8c25b/32.png) [@Helmut\_Doork](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Helmut_Doork)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2019, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hit-songs-in-bad-taste/834784/10 "2019-05-30T17:16:36Z")
You have a lot of general misogyny of course in your 60’s and 70’s hits (You’re Having MY Baby, Treat her like a Lady, anything by the Eagles), and your various odes to 16 or 17 year olds which were more acceptable back then vs. now, but wouldn’t call those bad taste. Some may point to Ram Jam’s Black Betty, but that was of course not an original but a remake of a Leadbelly tune, plus the song lyrics mention race, but aren’t racist per se. #92 peak position is way out of the guidelines, but the fact that “I want my Baby Back” by Jimmy Cross could chart at all, especially in the early 1960’s, when it is about a guy so broken up about his girlfriend’s death he digs up her coffin and joins her, should earn special mention! ---
**Author:** ![Stephe96](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Stephe96](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stephe96)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2019, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hit-songs-in-bad-taste/834784/11 "2019-05-30T17:21:56Z")
“He Hit Me (And It Felt Like a Kiss)” by the Crystals in 1962, written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King (!) ETA: not sure if it was a, um, “hit” though ---
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanub/32/132_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUB)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2019, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hit-songs-in-bad-taste/834784/12 "2019-05-30T17:23:42Z")
Is anyone else chuckling that **Czarcasm’s** example of a song that is in “bad taste” just happens to be about cannibalism? 😛 I think Heart’s awful song _All I Wanna Do_ is pretty tasteless. I suppose there have been women who picked up total strangers and boned them for the sole purpose of getting pregnant because their partner couldn’t, but maybe lets not sing about it. Hinder’s _Lips of an Angel_ never fails to piss me off, even though I like it, musically. Schmucko is having a secret conversation with his old girlfriend while his current girlfriend is in the other room, as he tells her, among other things, “sometimes I wish she was you”. Dickhead. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2019, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hit-songs-in-bad-taste/834784/13 "2019-05-30T17:29:05Z")
> [@Stephe96](#): > > “He Hit Me (And It Felt Like a Kiss)” by the Crystals in 1962, written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King (!) > > ETA: not sure if it was a, um, “hit” though I don’t know if it was a hit, but it was definitely about hitting. From Wiki: > [@](#): > > “He Hit Me (And It Felt Like a Kiss)” is a song written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King for girl group the Crystals under the guidance of Phil Spector in 1962. Goffin and King wrote the song after discovering that their babysitter and singer Little Eva was being regularly beaten by her boyfriend. When they inquired why she tolerated such treatment, Eva replied, with complete sincerity, that her boyfriend’s actions were motivated by his love for her. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2019, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hit-songs-in-bad-taste/834784/14 "2019-05-30T17:34:15Z")
Gary Puckett’s Young Girl gets called on this all the time. He doesn’t specify the age of the girl in the song but it clearly sounds like a girl who is not simply days away from legal age. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2019, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hit-songs-in-bad-taste/834784/15 "2019-05-30T17:36:20Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Gary Puckett’s Young Girl gets called on this all the time. He doesn’t specify the age of the girl in the song but it clearly sounds like a girl who is not simply days away from legal age. Definitely a wide Gap age-wise in _that_ Union. ---
**Author:** ![Helmut\_Doork](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e8c25b/32.png) [@Helmut\_Doork](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Helmut_Doork)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2019, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hit-songs-in-bad-taste/834784/16 "2019-05-30T17:36:29Z")
> [@Stephe96](#): > > “He Hit Me (And It Felt Like a Kiss)” by the Crystals in 1962, written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King (!) > > ETA: not sure if it was a, um, “hit” though Didn’t chart of course but a wonderful example of a really well produced, well played, well written (by top writers) and catchy tune about a terrible topic- the joys of domestic abuse! The Crystals are also the artists credited to (Let’s Dance) The Screw, an early 60’s Phil Spector release solely produced to get out of a contractual obligation, with no thought it would be aired or released (it wasn’t). IIRC there are no other lyrics but the title is chanted several times over a backing track. ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2019, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hit-songs-in-bad-taste/834784/17 "2019-05-30T17:36:31Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > A song mistakenly thought to be in bad taste was Alice Cooper’s “Only Women Bleed”(1975) from _Welcome To My Nightmare_, because a lot of people thought it was about menstruation. It was actually about spousal abuse. Oh, well then, no problem. Glad it’s not about something awful like I thought. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2019, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hit-songs-in-bad-taste/834784/18 "2019-05-30T17:39:31Z")
> [@markn\_1](#): > > Oh, well then, no problem. Glad it’s not about something awful like I thought. The song is definitely against wife beating. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2019, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hit-songs-in-bad-taste/834784/19 "2019-05-30T17:40:31Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Gary Puckett’s Young Girl gets called on this all the time. He doesn’t specify the age of the girl in the song but it clearly sounds like a girl who is not simply days away from legal age. Also This Girl Is A Woman Now is in bad taste because the idea that a young girl becomes a woman by having sex is wrong on a lot of different levels. The Bouys always claimed that “Timothy” was a mule. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2019, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hit-songs-in-bad-taste/834784/20 "2019-05-30T17:45:44Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > Also This Girl Is A Woman Now is in bad taste because the idea that a young girl becomes a woman by having sex is wrong on a lot of different levels. > > The Bouys always claimed that “Timothy” was a mule. It wasn’t the band that made the claim. From my cite: > [@](#): > > Scepter Records executives tried to claim that Timothy was really a mule, not a person, in order to get radio stations that had banned the song to reconsider. When asked about this claim, however, Holmes refused to play along with the Scepter executives. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hit-songs-in-bad-taste/834784.md?page=2)