Add Hot Dog by Led Zeppelin to the list. Among my least favorite Zeppelin tracks for sure, but it’s all good fun.
The Stones must have at least a couple more such tracks, because Jagger did that country-twang thing a lot.
Here’s a list I found of (all?) the Stones’ Country songs, along with an article beginning with a supposed second-hand quote from Mick:
Mick Jagger has always said that, as much as he loves it, he could never quite perform country music seriously.
I think the closest the Stones came to a straight-up, non-parody Country song was “Wild Horses”. “Sweet Virginia” and “Torn and Frayed” from Exile on Main Street are also fairly non-ironic.
“Dear Doctor”, on the other hand, wow, look up the lyrics. It’s complete farce. I have no idea of the timing between DD and Rocky Raccoon, but it almost seems like the Stones heard ‘Rocky Raccoon’, and Mick and Keith said “so the Beatles think they’re clever at making fun of yokels? Hold my beer.”
https://holler.country/lists/guide/a-guide-to-the-rolling-stones-country-songs
I’d like to offer up this one … devoid of any comment:
I see your Glen Campbell version, and raise you this version, with a bonus bit of MacArthur Park goodness at the end.
La la la la la la lalalalala la la la la la la lalalalala LIIIIIIIINE!
My reason for hating “Afternoon Delight” is the lyrics. As noted, skyrockets are cliche, etc.
Years ago I was sort of studying the classic song “Danny Boy” and I learned that it wasn’t uncommon in the old days to have a tune with multiple sets of lyrics set to it.
Would I like “Afternoon Delight,” say, if it were instrumental? I’m sure I would loathe it less. Take an instrumental I really like, such as Edgar Winter’s Frankenstein. Could hokey lyrics ruin it completely? I doubt it.
I’ll present my list in poll form.
- Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da/Beatles
- Day in the Life/Beatles
- Midnight at the Oasis/Maria Muldaur
- Lights/Journey
- Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves/(Sonny and?) Cher
- Ariel/Dean Friedman
- Brand New Key/Melanie
- Rocky Mountain High/John Denver
- Mandy/Barry Manilow
- Just When I Needed you Most/Randy van Warmer
- Hooked on a Feeling/Blue Swede
- One Night in Bangkok/Murray Head
- Heart of Rock and Roll/Huey Lewis and the News
- My Heart Will Go On/Celine Dion
- We Built This City/Starship
- One Week/Barenaked Ladies
- How Bizarre/OMC
- Feelings/Morris Albert
- We Didn’t Start the Fire/Billy Joel
- I like more than half of these
0 voters
That’s one of my favorite songs of all time. Does it really get dissed?
I like that song, too. The guitar player is terrific. Probably Amos Garrett.
Do you mean “A Day in the Life”? If so, who reviles that song? It usually tops the list of greatest Beatles songs.
Kokomo, The Beach Boys. It isn’t deep, the lyrics are sappy, but it’s a really fine example of the harmony that they were capable of. I don’t get the hate, other than it makes people think of Tom Cruise.
Yes, I love that song as well. I’d read it in magazines and books in the 80s and 90s. Perhaps its true greatness is finally shining for all to see?
Oh Mandy
We Didn’t Start the Fire
[I feel like a parent whose child is asking if they were adopted]
Good question. My take is that it’s a polarizing song – love it or hate it. It’s pretty saccharine in its own way but it’s also rather artfully done.
Some good thoughts here:
Dos this mean I win the thread? 
Absolutely Amos Garrett. One of the best guitar solos ever recorded.
“Every time Kokomo is played, an angel loses it wings!”
Put me in the group that didn’t know Witicha Lineman was reviled. I always thought it was fine. But hey, I like Macarthur Park. Maybe Jimmie Webb speaks to me,
Sorry - what are we voting on: songs we like or songs we revile?
I love the strings and the complicated relationship. I would suspect some don’t know why he doesn’t just go home. The answer: reasons. Maybe you’ll understand when you’re a little older.
Let’s consider Jimmy Webb, who wrote it. And he wrote Galveston (love that one) and Up, Up and Away, which was a monster hit. Plus “By the Time I Get to Phoenix.”
He also wrote MacArthur Park, which is mentioned in this thread. Well, they can’t all be gems.
Hey, remember this one of his?
Here are a few other tasty tracks from that album, in case you’re jonesing for some Jimmy.
We’re confessing to liking songs that most people revile. I like all that are in my poll but many diss them. If you vote for one, you’re joining me, taking up your position at the barricade, etc.
I didn’t appreciate that song nearly as much till I started playing guitar. Remember when the done thing to do was to buy sheet music, books, etc.? I had a book, that was in it, and whoa! Really hard fingerings! But it made me slow down and listen to the chord transitions.
In that case I like most of them (some quite a lot) and don’t mind the rest with the exception of “My Heart Will Go On” which I could happily do without.
Thanks, good to know.
I know he has worked with her, but I wasn’t sure if that was him on that record and I was too lazy to look it up.
Oh hell, there’s one! I love that song. Bet that’s not a common opinion.
A problem I have with songs from a certain era, say beginning to mid 70s, is in distinguishing between a pleasant sense of nostalgia and whether I actually like the songs now on their own merit.
This includes songs like “Horse With No Name” and “Midnight at the Oasis”, to name a couple. They bring me back to when I was a kid. My parents had the radio on a lot while driving or doing stuff around the house, and I’d listen to those songs and others on the local AM radio station they had on. CKLW I think? WXYZ as well, I believe.