Songs that have awesome intros and then turn to crap:

Cafe Society
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Exhibit 1: The Eagles - One of These Nights

The beginning of this song kicks ass! It sounds like the foreboding baseline of a Lou Reed and Tom Waits Duet about loneliness and decadence in the big city, and instead, exactly 36 seconds into the linked video, it turns into a shitty shitty interchangable Eagles track when Don Henley leans into the mic.

Exhibit 2: Sheryl Crow - My Favorite Mistake

With that backbone slippin’ guitar riff paired with a simple yet satisfying beat, it sounds - when the crooning oooooohs come in, like the beginning of an epic Stones or even Zeppelin track. Nope. At the 28 second mark, shit flips, and it’s your mom’s favorite Sheryl Crow song. Fuck.

What do you have?

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ETA: I wrote oohs with a lot of Os. You pedantic assholes better abide my onomatopoeia-for-effect. I swear to Christ.

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Band On The Run, by Wings.

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INXS seemed to have too many songs like this. “Heaven Sent” is the first one that comes to mind.

Say what you want about the band but they did know how to do openings.

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Hooked on a Feeling It’s the one that starts with the ooga chocka, then turns to crap.

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Agh! Beat me to it!

Ok, for my distant second choice: I used to dislike the turn that the Specials’ Ghost Town took at the part that starts “Do you remember the good old days before the ghost town?” But I was stupid - this song is now one of my favorites.

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Spaceman by Babylon Zoo.

It was used in this groundbreaking Levi’s ad from 1994: beautiful interplanetary daughter scandalises residents of Martian Truman show by wearing Levi’s (and oh how she wears them) - which still stands the test of time IMO.

However, the bit used by the Levi’s campaign was actually from someone else’s remix. The original song was a dirge. They re-released the song with the remix intro, but I believe in the long run it proved profoundly disappointing for the people who propelled it to no. 1.

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Peter, Bjorn, and John - Young Folks

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In my group of friends we call that phenomenon a “monkey man”, named for the Rolling Stones song.

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I don’t see anything wrong with ‘Hooked on a feeling’ at all.Nice late '60’s pop and a pretty good example.

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Around the World by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. It’s like the first 25 seconds are a rocket preparing for liftoff, but instead of blasting into space, it turns into bubbles. It doesn’t help that the lyrics (which start after the 25-second mark) are insipid.

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Along that vein, “Uncle Albert” by Paul McCartney just turns ridiculous after Uncle Albert’s done.

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The Stones’ “Gimme Shelter” is that way, too.

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Wrong.

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I love the violins at the beginning of Aerosmith’s “Don’t Want to Miss a Thing.” Too bad the rest of the song is glurge.

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Well…I love this song end-to-end…but then

I’M A MONKEY!

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OK - this is the one I came in to post. Seriously. So much promise the first time I heard this one on the radio.

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Led Zeppelin- Whole Lotta Love, and Rolling Stones- Can’t You Hear Me Knocking

Both songs have a great beginning and great ending but everything else in between is a LONG meandering jam session. I know musicians and music reviewer snobs love the jam sessions but not me.

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That’s the original version. TriPolar was referring to the wacked out cover by Blue Swede.

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It’s probably heretical to say it, but for me Michael Jackson’s Beat It qualifies. The lyrics are borderline silly to me.