Today, I’d like to indulge in two of my favorite hobbies: music, and complaining. Specifically, I want to talk about singers who are normally great, good, even excellent . . . until that one song. What the hell were they thinking, with that one song?
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We’ll start with some low-hanging fruit: David Bowie’s “The Laughing Gnome”
Ha, ha, ha, hee, hee, hee indeed. My son points out that Bowie was young when he made it. Well, when I was young, I made poo poo in the potty, and that poo poo was a better song than “Laughing Gnome.”
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And now for some high-hanging fruit: “Perfect Day” by Lou Reed, 1972
Fight me! It’s a bad song and it sounds bad. When it comes on the radio, I want radio never to have been invented. They will want you to believe that, just under an intentionally deceptive veneer of deftly-sketched urban optimism, this song quietly smolders with despair. But actually, it’s just a dumb little song that doesn’t make sense, sung unpleasantly by someone who has a very particular talent and definitely isn’t using it here. Nice violins, though. Geez. Fight. Me.
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Honorable mention: “New York Conversation,” also on Transformer:
I loves me some Lou Reed, but sometimes he needs to stop.
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Now back to something we can all agree on: Paul Simon’s inexcusable “Cars Are Cars”
It’s like a Paul Simon song that he forgot to put any Paul Simon in. It’s like when the recipe calls for heavy cream and you use reconstituted Coffee Mate granules, instead. It’s like when my daughter woke up in the middle of the night because she had thought of the most amazing invention in the world, and it was going to change everything, so she wrote it down and went back to sleep, planning to dominate civilization in the morning. When she woke up, it said “bag of bees.” We’re not sure where all that confidence came in, but mistakes were made, Paul.
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Next: I don’t know if Pat Boone counts as a singer who’s normally good and great and fine. I mean, I do know. We all know. Nevertheless, I absolutely had to include “Holy Diver,” one of many gems from his mind bogglingly ill-advised album, In a Metal Mood: No More Mr. Nice Guy:
I chose this one because of the video.
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Hey, here’s a steaming hunk of faux-hippie feculence: The Rolling Stones’ “Ruby Tuesday.”
What an absolute turd blossom of a song. It’s pure poetic justice that this song has a bland, pointless, pandering American food chain named after it. Ruby Tuesday is the microwaved mozzarella stick of the rock and roll world, and I’m glad that, whenever I think of the Rolling Stones, I think of Ruby Tuesday, because the Rolling Stones are jerks.
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How about “Obladi, oblada” by the Beatles?
It’s not actually structurally a terrible song, but why was it made? And what about when Desmond stays at home to do HIS pretty face, eh, eh? Blows your mind, don’nit, you PLEBE? Allegedly, this is the song that made John want out for good.
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Honorable Beatles mention: “Run for your life”
Not a bad song musically, but, like many of my peers, I’m over the whole “let’s have another chorus of domestic violence” thing. Pass.
Of course the Beatles also put out a lot of absurdly self-indulgent nonsense toward the end, but they were trying to be terrible and daring you to be so un-stoned that it bothers you, so that doesn’t count. I’m also not including anything by Paul McCartney or John Lennon’s solo careers, because Lennon + McCartney = genius, but McCartney alone is frosting without a cake, Lennon alone was just a whine in a bottle.
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Now for a song that brings out my inner murderer: “My Ding a ling” by Chuck Berry:
I’m going to start my own country just so I can make a law against this song.
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And just because I want to make some friends today: “Man in Black” by Johnny Cash.
Every time he says, “I’d like to wear a rainbow everyday!” I shout “NO YOU WOULDN’T!” He wore black because he liked to look awesome and cool and scary, and also very much because it’s harder to see ketchup stains on black. Nothing to do with the poooooor, or the hundred fine young men who died. Please. It’s actually a decent song, of course, because it’s Johnny Cash, but the penetrating, smarmy insincerity of it makes me want to get up and dismantle things with my teeth.
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Ready to really suffer? Here’s the execrable “Delilah” by Queen
This song is new to me, and now I feel so envious of my past self. That pulsing synth makes me feel like I’m in a car with a flat tire but there’s nowhere to pull over. I guess it’s about a cat? Why doesn’t that make it better? I am filled with horror.
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Finally, here’s a song that, in a just world, would have been taken out and shot: “Dancing in the Street” by Mick Jagger and David Bowie.
Now, I was actually around in 1985, and I remember how everything came ready-made with that “destined for a cheap car commercial” sound to it, but this song manages to stink so much harder than the rest because of how effortlessly these two shucked off their talent and integrity in favor of floppy clothes and loathsome hair. Oh my gosh, those prancing sneakers. Oh my gosh. There should have been a machine gun at the end, just as a palate cleanser.
In case you haven’t seen it, here’s a little bit of cosmic justice. Oh, internets.
How I wish every song on this list got the same treatment. Then I could die happy.
Now tell me what this list is missing, and how wrong I am about Perfect Day, and also how the tone of this post has you concerned about all my secret cancer.