And they ate everything in that short amount of time. There weren’t even any bones left. People forget this.
[quote=“gkster, post:72, topic:807745”]
My brother and I had parody lyrics to this one:
“we had joy we had fun we had seasons in the sun
but the smell of your breath was what caused my early death”"
And I’m surprised that nobody has mentioned “Feelings” yet?
[/QUOTE]A friend and I sang similar lyrics:
“We had joy we had fun we had seasons in the sun
But now that you’re dead I’m gonna kick you in the head”
Your lyrics are better, I need to send this to her 
“Timothy” was written by Rupert Holmes, who also wrote The Pina Colada Song." What people don’t understand is that Holmes was a brilliant humorist and satirist. He wrote “Timothy” to make a deliberate stink.
Look at Holmes’ entire career. It’s brilliant. Even “The Pina Colada Song” is a great, fun tune mocking the singer, though it doesn’t stand up to repeated listenings.
I’m compelled to share one of my most heartbreaking musical moments.
Last summer we were outside watching one of the dogs cavort with a butterfly – it was very sweet, the butterfly would glide around doggy, who would leap in the air to catch it (no one died). It was the moment I’d been waiting for my whole life; I burst into song (see if you can guess which song before scrolling down):
“See the dog and butterfly
Up in the air he likes to fly
Dog and butterfly
Below she had to try
She roll back down to the warm soft ground, laughing
She don’t know why, she don’t know why
Dog and butterfly”
Mrs. Shark looked at me blankly. “Did you just make that song up?” She’s five years older than I am (55) and I couldn’t believe she’d never heard this song by Heart. My moment was over. Gone.
Dog and Butterfly may have insipid lyrics, but it’s a beautiful song.
I’ll vote for ‘What is Love’ by Haddaway. If you don’t recognize the title, it’s the song that just repeats, “Lady Don’t Hurt Me’ over and over again. If you did any clubbing in the 90’s, you could not avoid this dreck. And it was a global hit and sold millions of copies.
Then there are all those novelty songs, like “Mr. Jaws”, or “The Streak”. Gah.
I have to take exception to ‘Gimme Three Steps’. Great song, great guitar work, great energy. Sure, it doesn’t have deep lyrics, but then neither does ‘Boom Boom’, ‘Mannish Boy’, and lots of blues classics. Skynyrd comes from that tradition.
My friend’s ex-boyfriend and his friends would holler “Enema!” whenever they heard it. 
If being nonsensical makes a song undeserving of being a hit, then pretty much any hit from Duran Duran.
There are many, many popular recording that I hate. But if millions of people liked a record enough to put up money for it, where do I come off telling them they’re wrong?
The only way I’d call a #1 hit “undeserving” would be if someone falsified the sales record and made it look more popular than it was.
Isn’t it “Baby don’t hurt me”? Or have I been hearing it wrong all this time?
For all the love that Seasons in the Sun is getting, I remember listening to the billboard top hundred on a transistor radio in a cold December basement when it took second place for the year. Why has the #1 song for that year been passed over? Was it actually good? Because the lyrics are meh, but my god the singing was suffocatingly unctuous. I mean, I get that Babs often sings like that, but damn. I really do want to forget about the way we were.
How about payola?
(Warning: old thread!)
This.
Yes and no.
When Paul Simon was inducted into the Hall of Fame, he thanked the late Alan Freed. He said that, when he and Art Garfunkel were kids calling themselves Tom and Jerry, they played him “Hey Schoolgirl,” a song they’d just recorded. Freed told them, “I like it. Here’s the deal- pay me $500, and I’ll play the song on my show every day for two weeks. If kids like it, it’ll be a hit. If not, I stop playing it.” Somehow, Paul; and Art raised the money, and paid Freed. Sure enough, he played the song on his show, and that became their first hit.
Simon added wistfully, “I wish it was STILL that way today.”
See, Freed wouldn’t take money to play just ANY song. He only too money to play records he thought were genuinely good and that had a chance of being very popular.
I have NO musical talent. If I made a lousy record and somehow got it into heavy radio rotation, would it sell? Not a chance!
William Hung made the Top-40. 
Huh. You know what, I’ve always thought it was “baby don’t hurt me,” and the lyrics sites seem to think it is, too, but now listening to it many years yonder, it actually does almost sound more like “lady” than “baby.”
Repetitive lyrics, though, were part and parcel of a lot of club music back then, it seems to me.
Looking at that old thread, I see I made the exact same comment (“[L]istening to ‘I’ve Never Been to Me’ is like being forced at gunpoint to read Danielle Steele”) about the exact same song nearly ten years ago. I guess that proves I’m getting less creative as I get older.
I have to agree with Dave Barry that Yummy Yummy Yummy (I’ve Got Love in My Tummy) wasn’t worthy of hit-ness.
Anything by Smash Mouth that ever charted. I’ll happily listen to the entire Nickelback catalog on a loop forever rather than hear a single note of “All Star,” or any of the other pretentious, derivative shit that band has produced, ever again.