Bad exists only as far as it defines what you don't want at the moment. The calculated worth of a song is arbitrary and situational.

The best position to be in is to be open to using what fits your need-the widest range-a large palate. A "bad" song may be helpful in some ways in other contexts for other purposes. "bad" is an assessment based upon measures on variables sampled situationally. (the victorians for example considered all songs bad which mentioned sex! We have never recovered from their use of a situational assessment good only from their period.)

Remaining open and doing the measurement and calculation each time is important. Yes math is hard but someone has to count up the values of coins who is not overly concerned with their artistic beauty.

By the way I also find that quality of performance is simmilar. My golden rule is that a song song poorly is better than a song not sung at all. Knowing about quality can also help you cope with poor performance better. I am often reminded of a song by even a poor performer. I can patch in a good version in my mind and still enjoy things. Adaptation is the essence of existence. If we threw out everything that was imperfect we would have very litte. Again "good" is a variable you set. You can always pull out a fine tuner and find even the best voice a little off. I prefer using my ear to compensate rather than to rule out.

It was once felt that songs did fine in books. The reliance on recording and publishing has allowed folk to stop singing. We should try to avoid this by preserving a wide view which will allow the greatest number and variety of songs exercise.

Criteria based primairly upon divisiveness,intolerance,religion and politics are very poor ones to use when considering whether or not to sing a song.

One's calculation of suitability should utilize as many dimensions of a work as possible.

As for the divisive nature of some songs and the potential bigotry and intolerence of audiences- well I think there are a few easy tricks which can be used to part the seas of intolerance to get a song through from the oblivion of record and book into ears and minds. People need to start applying them.

Songs are all treasures and resources. You cant toss out coal just because it is dirty and black.

Conrad