The only song of theirs I remember is from '81: “Don’t Let Him Know”. I saw them warm up for Quarterflash.
+1. Vile tune, that.
The song is awful, but seeing Sally Carr is never a bad thing.
There are two songs that qualify for me as being some of the worst songs of the 70s. One is “Ariel” by Dean Friedman. It was just corny to me. The other is Chicago’s “If You Leave Me Now,” which probably isn’t mentioned on most people’s Worst Songs lists but to me was an overwrought, overly depressing monstrosity that had me thinking morbid thoughts and turning it off the second I heard the first note.
^ Who the hell put this on?
It’s on random.
It always makes me think of @Sampiro’s mom.
Sampiro was a former (?) poster who wrote tons of entertaining stories for us about his family. When his mom died, that song was mentioned in the very moving piece that he posted. Ever since, I really pay attention to the words when I hear it (or if possible, change the station).
Here we are at post #247 and we seem to have collectively blotted out the memory the #1 song of the 1970s. The song that spent 10 consecutive weeks as the top song on Billboard and 13 weeks atop Record World. A song so execrable that not only does it make your ears bleed, but also your gums and eyes. even posting a link would cause our membership to flee and the very Board software to crash. I mean, of course, Debby Boone’s You Light Up My Life.
Post 146…
“Physical” wasn’t until the 80s though. That’s a separate thread.
Another thing “You Light Up My Life” has against is the guy who wrote it turned out to be a disgusting creep. The song also has the distinction of being one of those big hits that seemed to disappear from pop culture once they fell off the charts. I heard it rarely played on the radio after its chart run in 1977-78 and even now, oldies stations avoid it.
This thread has turned me into a Prism fan.
I had not known that. Yeesht.
To show how tastes differ, about a year ago there was a live radio station oldies show, and this was the song I requested, because I’ve always liked it.
On the same oldies program, while I was waiting for my request to be played, a women requested this. I gave her the benefit of the doubt and decided she wanted it to be played as a warning to later generations who might not have heard it.
I was too young for “You Light Up My Life”’s run on the charts, and I’m very familiar with it, so somebody must be playing it. I feel like it was a staple of adult contemporary stations or something.
Wasn’t “YLUML” retconned into being about a relationship with Jesus?
Right after NDP’s post I fired up Spotify for a re-listen of YLUML and was going to write a tepid defense, but then I saw NWH’s cite and now the only thing I want to say is that I fervently hope that Ms Boone was not victimized by that monster.
On the other hand, Patti Smith did her version of YLUML:
Not so much a retcon as a contemporaneous alternate interpretation by Debbie Boone herself That didn’t really hold up on close listening to the next to the last line of the song, “It can’t be wrong, when it feels so right.”
The song has a terrible background in general. It was written as as the title song for a tepid romantic film starring Didi Conn (Frenchy from Grease.) Conn wasn’t a singer, so the song was dubbed by commercial singer Kasey Cisyk. Cisyk’s husband later claimed that Joe Brooks both made sexual advances to Cisyk and tried to stiff her out of payment. Brooks then gave the song to Boone, but didn’t want to pay for re-recording it, so he ordered Boone to cover Cisyk’s version exactly and simply dubbed Boone’s voice over Cisyk’s.
Originally, Cindy Williams was supposed to star in You Light Up My Life. From Wikipedia:
Yeah, I’ll go with you about Chicago, but “Ariel” is a pretty interesting musically. I really enjoy playing the bass line. And it’s meant to be corny/punny/over the top.
Ooo-wee.