Both in terms of your degree of dislike of it and its ubiquitousness.
Basically if a genii said that you could pick one song, and he would make it so that whenever it was played in your vicinity you would hear it as white noise, which song would you pick.
I have an answer but I’m worried that its genre would set a theme for the rest of the thread so I will wait for a few replies before posting it.
This one, hands down. Like a nail thru the skull.
‘Turn the Page’ ( Bob Segar )
Every time I hear the opening screech of that saxophone, I want to bury myself into a hole and cover it up before the rest of the song plays.
That “Proud to be an American” thing. On it’s own it’s just syrupy patriotic glurge, but its enthusiastic adoption by right wing politicians and causes makes it intolerable.
Free Bird. In approximately 1987, I made myself a promise that I would never allow it within my earshot again. In all those years, I’ve only had to tolerate it once or twice. I’ve told the kids they can play it at my funeral, because if I’m not really dead, I’ll get up and leave.
Ewww. Good choice!
Yup, that was going to be my pick and hearing it is what prompted me to start the thread.
Its not only the glurge, but its also a really bad song musically with an inconsistant random rhythm that is derived from the lyrics rather than the other way around, add to that its earworm quality and you have a true abomination.
Stairway to Heaven, it is a good song but I have heard it a million times too many.
Amazing Grace It’s slowness just irks me.
I was the leader at a scouting campout which had a boy-planned religious service. I was dismayed to see AG as the final song. The whole service was much too long to begin with, and the sheet the scout had given everyone had four stanzas - ugh. To top it off, it starting raining just then. We started singing (if one could call it that), when I, sitting in the back row, started singing loudly at three times its normal speed. I got a few glares, but at least we got through it quickly.
“Christmas in the Northwest”. It’s the most sccharine overwrought holiday song I’ve ever heard, and that includes “Christmas Shoes”.
Y.M.C.A. for songs that still get played a lot.
Worst ever though is this one:
SDMB, I once more present to you (yeah, I’ve posted it before in a similar thread) the worst pop song of all time (which of course is also a terrible earworm like all bad pop songs, so better don’t click):
Opus- Live Is Life
(though the video is funny, they obviously didn’t think too much of themselves and the song either, but it became a big hit)
‘I Want a Hippopatamus for Christmas’.
I used to work at a place that played an easy listening radio station over the speaker system. By mid-November it switched to 24/7 Christmas music. Fortunately I couldn’t hear it in my office, but as the company IT guy I had to visit many different areas of the building. That song must have played 20 times a day for a couple months.
The absolute inane idiocy of the lyrics, coupled with the grating faux-child voice of the singer, played ad nauseum, made me want to jam pencils in my ears to escape it. But I knew it would do no good because it would just continue to play in my head as an accursed ear worm.
Behind the Kars4Kids jingle, I’d have to go with “We Are The World”
Ok, that’s bad, but “Do They Know It’s Christmas” is even more cringeworthy.
I absolutely cannot stand this kind of Americana. It’s like corn syrup.
I also have a big, huge, strong dislike for “God is Watching Us”, and similar Christian music. It’s totally tripe, covered with corn syrup.
Good choice! Can’t believe that one wasn’t the first to come to my mind.
Feliz Navidad.
“Young Girl” by Gary Puckett. I’d be driving along and the very second I heard the first note that song I couldn’t hit the button fast enough. He didn’t even get to finish the first word.
I also have always detested “To Sir with Love” by Lulu. I never, ever played that on the radio when I was a DJ. I didn’t hate Lulu particularly. I just hated that song.
Another song I always avoided playing if it ever came up in the rotation was “Sugar Sugar” by the Archies. For 30 years I always skipped it. Then I was hired to work part-time weekends at a very tightly formatted “Oldies” station (which only had about 300 songs in the library, so you couldn’t skip anything) and I had to play that song every damn time I was on that station. It was like I was doing penance for avoiding it all those years.
sweet child of mine by guns n roses …in the 80s we had one rock and one country station and they’d play the exact 40 songs that were on the chart
I heard that damn song for 9 months …and I didn’t even like the song all that much in the first place