A Double-clutching weasel? My favorite Car-talk (the radio show) was when Leonard Bernstein's son called in to ask if it was true that he should double-clutch his Dad's vintage Italian sports car. Or did the Italian mechanic give him wrong information? The answer was that an Italian mechanic giving wrong information was almost redundant, and it was proposed to name the habit of double-clutching a synchronized transmission "Bernsteining."

It's interesting that so many really horrible songs become so intensely popular. Maybe narcisistic fantasy helps explain it, as it does with so many odd human behaviors. Like those singers who milk a song just to show off-- maybe their fans project their own narcissim into it, identify with the singer, to enjoy it?

The two awful songs (from the previous incarnation of this thread) I thought were redeemed by use in movies, it occurred to me later, were both used in sex contexts. Which sort of makes sense--areas where people are prone to glaring temporal errors of judgement and taste. Bad songs work great in film to show the overblown emotions characters get caught up in, but from a detached, sad/comical point of view.

I always thought Cat Steven's Wild World was really genuinely horrible, with it's condescending, patronizing, arch-menacing tone. It sounds like a mob guy extorting protection money, in the form of a relationship plea. "If you want to leave me, okay, but I'd sure hate to see something happen to you." "Hope you have a lot of nice things to wear"--? What the hell is that? Like wearing clean underwear in case you get hit by a car? But of course I loved his song "I'm being followed by a Big Muslim."