Worst Song by a Respectable Artist

Subject: RE: Worst Song by a Respectable Artist
From: BlueJay
Date: 01 Apr 01 - 08:12 AM

Now I've always liked lots of Joan Baez's work, and she's a great singer. But one version of "Blowin' in the Wind" just makes me cringe. It's not that the entire song is bad, it's pretty good overall. But she insists on singing "Blowing" instead of the more natural sounding "Blowin'". I haven't checked, but I'm pretty sure the original title uses the more informal form. I grew up listening to Joan, and have always had great respect for her. But that one word... Thanks, BlueJay

Subject: RE: Worst Song by a Respectable Artist
From: rube1
Date: 31 Mar 01 - 07:02 AM

"The Boy Who Never Cried" by Steve Earle-an outtake that never happened

any song with didodiddlyoday type chorus

Subject: RE: Worst Song by a Respectable Artist
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 30 Mar 01 - 04:35 PM

Colliertown, by Garnet Rogers, off Night Drive... I just don't get it...

but how about a better thread, "Best Song By A Pervert" so all the Ashly Makes-I-sick (LOL!) fans will have a place to dribble all over each other

;-)

Subject: RE: Worst Song by a Respectable Artist
From: Mr Red
Date: 30 Mar 01 - 03:41 PM

Dave the gnome

OK I wuz wrong, Rod Stewart has done decent folk, but his Wild Mountain Thyme was recorded in a drought.
Anyway even Francis McPeake never admitted to writing it but......
WE ALL KNOW WHO IT WUZ.

Subject: RE: Worst Song by a Respectable Artist
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 30 Mar 01 - 02:55 PM

I think it was Peter, Paul, and Mary who first got me interested in folk music way back when. But they lost me when they recorded "I'm in Love with a Big Blue Frog." I think they recorded several stinkers on the same album. I had bought every one of their albums up to that point, but I never bought another one after that. But by that time I had discovered some other folk music.

Subject: RE: Worst Song by a Respectable Artist
From: GUEST,DonMeixner
Date: 30 Mar 01 - 02:40 PM

I always thot the Spot Welder line to be hysterical. I liked it even. AS to Joan Baez and ".....Dixie Down" I was always a little miffed that she couldn't get the lyric right. And her just plain bad version of San Francisco Mabel Joy plumbs several depths in my estimation.

Arlo Guthrie made Steve Goodman a hat full od money with The City of New Orleans which I thot was absolutely awfull. But Steve Said he thot it was a better version than his. John Denver re-wrote the last verse to City of New Orleans and recorded it but better sense prevailed and he rerecorded it the way Goodman wrote some years later. Steve said he didn't like it the first way but he got paid for it.

Here again, the beauty of The Cat is we can have opinions and no one in the forum will hoist us to rudicule and rebuke unless we are discussing the Corries.

Don

Subject: RE: Worst Song by a Respectable Artist
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Mar 01 - 02:26 PM

No, can't see the problem with the spot-elder who the Manchester Rambler never got round to marrying. Presumably there's an specific reference of some kind that lies behind it. But anyway, I can't see how it "ridicules the whole purpose of the song." Ewan MacColl was never noted for his sense of humour, couldn't accuse him of frivolity or excessive lightness of touch, and I suppose this is about as light as he gets. Cheerful rather than funny. But pretty good juvenilia.

Subject: RE: Worst Song by a Respectable Artist
From: Willie-O
Date: 30 Mar 01 - 11:41 AM

...because to get back to the point of this thread, there's Rick Fielding's recording of "In My Life", which has been reviewed previously as "the lamest version I ever heard in my life" by some innocent newbie Mudcatter...

you know, it came out on Boring Alice Records.

Willie-O

(OK, I've never actually heard Rick sing the Song of the Century, but I read about it...)

Subject: RE: Worst Song by a Respectable Artist
From: Willie-O
Date: 30 Mar 01 - 11:34 AM

Well I am going to leap to the defense of Joan Baez...I for one think she is a very fine interpreter, especially of traditional material, but does a good reading of contemporary classics like Dixie (hey, when you consider typical production values and arrangements you'd hear on the radio in the early seventies, there's all the reasons in the world her take got played to death and then some) ...and saying she doesn't know how to sing is just plain silly. You don't have to sound forced and quirky to be good. (I will agree that she's not a great songwriter--which is probably why she fell out of notice when she started concentrating on her original material).

But I digress...

Willie-O

Subject: RE: Worst Song by a Respectable Artist
From: Steve Latimer
Date: 30 Mar 01 - 10:40 AM

Thank God I have some allies here. I haven't heard a lot of Joan Baez, but what I have heard is like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down is a shining example of a good song that I think she ruined.

I feel much better for having got that off my chest!!!

Subject: RE: Worst Song by a Respectable Artist
From: Plume
Date: 30 Mar 01 - 09:17 AM

I remember Joan Baez doing a really appalling version of Jackson Browne's Fountain of Sorrow on one of her 70's albums. I actually have problems with most of Joan Baez — earnestness in the service of art is invariably deadly, as others have observed in this thread — but the fact that it was a Jackson Browne song, and one of his loveliest to boot, makes the crime particularly noteworthy.

Subject: RE: Worst Song by a Respectable Artist
From: LR Mole
Date: 30 Mar 01 - 09:00 AM

Joan Baez never learned to SING? Oh, glory, I thought I was alone. I find her treaclier than Barry Manilow. But, as my mother used to say, they aren't waiting for us...

Subject: RE: Worst Song by a Respectable Artist
From: GUEST,John Hill
Date: 30 Mar 01 - 07:21 AM

I have to vote for the Manchester Rambler too .. that line about the spot welder ruins the whole thing. It ridicules the whole purpose of the song. McColl (or James Miller as he surely still was at the time, before he pretended to be Scottish) wrote the song for the mass trespass of Kinder Scout in 1932. He was born in 1915 .. he was only 17 at the time... so I guess he can be excused.

Subject: RE: Worst Song by a Respectable Artist
From: Jim the Bart
Date: 29 Mar 01 - 05:55 PM

One man's meat. . .But rather than point out where I disagree with some of the previous submissions I'll throw out two of my own - and then you can throw me out with 'em. One is a major dislike, the other a minor gripe.

The major one is Joan Baez' version of "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down". What a horrible reading (or misreading) of the song! Not that I think she's ever learned how to sing with that beautiful voice of hers. . .

The minor one is Steve Goodman's version of "Jazzman" on his first LP. It's a great song that he does little with and that I don't feel has ever gotten its due. I blame it on the producer, who I believe was Kris Kristofferson.

The song is too fast ("peppy" is the word that comes to mind) for Steve to really dig into, as he does on other blues tunes. Much of the production on that album is horribly dated. I'd love to hear Steve sing those songs again; that would mean he'd still be alive. . .

Subject: RE: Worst Song by a Respectable Artist
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Mar 01 - 01:12 PM

Most of the songs people have quoted here are either ones I've never heard, but where I have heard them, they tend to be ones I reckon are pretty good.

If a song isn't in some way pretty good it'll never stick in the memory long enough to get into a list of worst ever.

How about a list of songs-other-people-think-are-crap-but-I-don't. Largely consisting of Dylan.

Subject: RE: Worst Song by a Respectable Artist
From: Whistle Stop
Date: 29 Mar 01 - 12:56 PM

Great thread. Peter T., thank you for pointing out that the emperor has no clothes -- I have always felt that John Lennon's "Imagine" was an incredibly insipid piece of work. As for "Across the Universe," I agree that the version by the Beatles was weak. However, David Bowie did a duet of that (with John Lennon) on Bowie's "Young Americans" album; a complete overhaul, much more passionate than the watered-down Beatles version. It's worth checking out if you've never heard it.

Unfortunately, the task that this thread sets is an easy one, since a lot of truly brilliant people have put out their share of bad stuff. Paul McCartney is such an easy target that I won't bother with him. Dylan (who is at the top of my most-admired list generally) has done some terrible work; I happen to like the "Nashville Skyline" album, but most of "Self Portrait" was awful, as was much of his work after "Blood On The Tracks". Somebody cited a line from "Hurricane," with the disclaimer that they just disliked the line, not the whole song; for myself, I consider the whole song simplistic, forced, and patronizing (to say nothing of "Joey" off the same album). And despite my generally positive opinion of most of his recent "Time Out Of Mind," I think, the last song ("Highlands") sounds like he was making it up as he went along just to provide filler for the album.

Subject: RE: Worst Song by a Respectable Artist
From: Willie-O
Date: 29 Mar 01 - 12:03 PM

Well, I'd give Stan Rogers the nod for "First Christmas Away From Home"--which he mercifully hardly ever performed. Kind of an anti-Christmas song, I think the cheeriest line is: "At least it means no beating from her dad..."

Talk about cheap emotional manipulation! At least with "Yeastcake Jones", mentioned above, he had the excuse that he didn't write it, and that album was for the family, not for us.

The really greatest songwriters seem to be able to come up with the worst songs, sometimes... Willie-O

Subject: RE: Worst Song by a Respectable Artist
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Mar 01 - 10:40 AM

I go for the ones by those disrespectables called traditional singers.

Subject: RE: Worst Song by a Respectable Artist
From: Steve Latimer
Date: 29 Mar 01 - 10:18 AM

LR Mole,

So it's a bad line, but the follow up, "He ain't no Gentleman Jim" succintly says an awful lot about racism, which Bob fought against in many of his songs.

Subject: RE: Worst Song by a Respectable Artist
From: LR Mole
Date: 29 Mar 01 - 10:03 AM

Dylan is also reponsible for "They're gonna put his ass in stir: They're gonna nail this triple mur
der on him..."But that's not worst song, just one of the worst rhymes.

Subject: RE: Worst Song by a Respectable Artist
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Mar 01 - 09:49 AM

I should eloborate on my last posting.
"Electric Mud" was Leonard Chess's sons Idea, record a pschadelic rock album with Muddy Waters ....Shiver....
I bought the reissue on cd having no idea. they had the nerve to admit it was an ill concieved idea and a horrible album in the new liner notes after you laid down your money and unwrapped it. Shameful.

Subject: RE: Worst Song by a Respectable Artist
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Mar 01 - 09:34 AM

Some folks are picking popular songs? I don't like most of them, but, if you want to name the worst tripe from respectable artists go to the same albums and go to the bottom. Ex. - Some one picked "LaY lady lay" , I agree it is awful, but I can't even remember the names of the other more pitiful songs on "nashville skylines"......Oh maybe that is the problem. forget I said anything.
maybe it should be a worst album contest
I vote for Niel Young "reactor".
Dylan -"Nashville skylines"
Muddy Waters "Electric Mud" *** That's the winner, what a horrible thing electric mud is.

Subject: RE: Worst Song by a Respectable Artist
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 29 Mar 01 - 04:53 AM

That's the one! Wasn't thingamijig written by whatsisname? In which case what are you doing with it???

Suppose you like Bobby Goldsboro as well.. *BG*

DtG

Subject: RE: Worst Song by a Respectable Artist
From: Bugsy
Date: 29 Mar 01 - 03:31 AM

There you go Dave, just goes to show that we don't all like the same thing", 'cos if you're talking about "Tell Me There's a Heaven" from the "Road To Hell" album, I think it's a pretty good song. Then again I have problems remembering my own Thingamijig, so what would I know.

CHeers

Bugsy.

(goingslowlysenile)

Subject: RE: Worst Song by a Respectable Artist
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 29 Mar 01 - 03:16 AM

Rod Stewart does do quite a bit of folk music - Reason to Beleive adn Mandolin Wind to name but two. Probably his Celtic roots! I don't think he did too bad a job of either and his only fault on Wild Mountain Thyme was saying he wrote it - but what do I know...

Chris Rea (Rhea?) seems to purposely put at least one piece of drivel on each of his otherwise (IMO) excellent albums. My mind closes itself down when I try to remember the title but the song with the Father/Daugter conversation about people dying and all the ills of the world is a real vomit inducer for me...

DtG

Subject: RE: Worst Song by a Respectable Artist
From: Bugsy
Date: 29 Mar 01 - 03:07 AM

Bugger! Another Senior Moment. I forgot that I'd pushed the "Submit Message" button and did it twice!

I'll be forgetting my whatchemicallit soon!

Cheers

Bugsy

(I think)

Subject: RE: Worst Song by a Respectable Artist
From: Bugsy
Date: 29 Mar 01 - 03:04 AM

RtS, Lonnie Donegan is a Most Respected artist in my book, and I think would be to most muso's who grew up in UK in the 50'60's.

The other one I was thinking of earlier (When I had a senior moment) was Elton John - "Song or Diana". I can't believe that two people with as much talent as Elton John and Bernie Taupin couldn't come up with something a little better than that!

Cheers

Bugsy

Subject: RE: Worst Song by a Respectable Artist
From: Bugsy
Date: 29 Mar 01 - 03:03 AM

RtS, Lonnie Donegan is a Most Respected artist in my book, and I think would be to most muso's who grew up in UK in the 50'60's.

The other one I was thinking of earlier (When I had a senior moment) was Elton John - "Song or Diana". I can't believe that two people with as much talent as Elton John and Bernie Taupin couldn't come up with something a little better than that!

Cheers

Bugsy

Subject: RE: Worst Song by a Respectable Artist
From: GUEST,Roger the skiffler
Date: 29 Mar 01 - 02:57 AM

I now some of you wouldn't class Lonnie Donegan as a respected artist but I'd nominate two of his as his worst: Ding Ding and World Cup Willie.
RtS

Subject: RE: Worst Song by a Respectable Artist
From: DonMeixner
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 10:49 PM

Come on Debra! You know what was in Ian's head when he wrote that, Don't You?

Don

Subject: RE: Worst Song by a Respectable Artist
From: SINSULL
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 08:39 PM

Frank Sinatra in white tux singing "Old Man River". Unbelievable. Of course I can't stand his voice anyway. Yuk!

Subject: RE: Worst Song by a Respectable Artist
From: Bugsy
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 08:23 PM

American Trilogy - Elvis Presley (makes you want to puke)

There was another but I just had a senior moment and away it went.

Cheers

Bugsy

Subject: RE: Worst Song by a Respectable Artist
From: Jeri
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 07:51 PM

Mollificent, I was going to say that, but I can never tell whether something's a parody of Cohen, or Cohen.

Subject: RE: Worst Song by a Respectable Artist
From: DebC
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 07:18 PM

"Bungle In the Jungle" Jethro Tull

Where was Ian's head when he wrote that?

Debra

Subject: RE: Worst Song by a Respectable Artist
From: Justa Picker
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 06:19 PM

Well Amergin, although I have a tremendous amount of respect for Sting, he was really slumming when he came up with that one.

I believe he should be entered into the Guiness Book of World Records, for the number of ways you can voice a suspended chord. :-)

Subject: RE: Worst Song by a Respectable Artist
From: Amergin
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 06:15 PM

I always thought Every breath you take was kinda creepy.....

Subject: RE: Worst Song by a Respectable Artist
From: Justa Picker
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 06:08 PM

On The Road Again - Willie Nelson
Every Breath You Take - Sting
Philadelphia - Bruce Springsteen
Candyman - Sammy Davis Jr.
Ceilia - Paul Simon
Nothing Compares To You - (Prince, for) Sinead
Stand By Your Man - Lyle Lovett (version)

...and anything performed by Kate Moss or Rickie Lee Jones.

Subject: RE: Worst Song by a Respectable Artist
From: harpmolly
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 06:06 PM

Although it kills me to say this (I adore Leonard Cohen), the above parody is hilarious. There. I said it. Don't expect me to say it again. ;)

I also agree wholeheartedly about Tom Jones' "Tennessee Waltz". That album had several great songs on it, but that wasn't one of them. Ick.

(Reminds me of the hilarious scene in "Little Voice"...the one where LV is upstairs rapturously listening to Judy G, and her mother is downstairs snogging with Michael Caine and decides to drown her out with Tom Jones' "It's Not Unusual". Those are two performers that should NEVER be mixed. Eurrgh.

Luckily, the fuse then blows, giving LV a chance to show her stuff. God, I love that movie. :D

M

Subject: RE: Worst Song by a Respectable Artist
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 05:51 PM

Bert's right: Pete Seeger gets WAY too earnest sometimes.

My nomination for worst song by a respectable singer (in this case St. Pete) is If I had a Golden Thread. He's trying SO hard to be high-minded and meaningful, he ends up being dull, dull, dull, without a song worth singing.

Despite his sainted status, Pete sold his birthright for a pot of message!

DAve Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Worst Song by a Respectable Artist
From: Mr Red
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 05:17 PM

Rod Stewart trying to do Wild Mountain Thyme.
There is something almost acceptable about an amatuer having a go but sorry folks its not his kinda song.
Lets face it as a folkie he's an amatuer.

Subject: RE: Worst Song by a Respectable Artist
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 05:03 PM

Outdid himself with "married a maid, a spot welder by trade". Not to mention rhyming "grouse", with "louse". This was NOT a man who would have married a factory girl.

Not with you there on either point, Rick. For one thing the bloke in the song is the bloke in the song, not Ewan McColl. For another if you read the words again, the whole point is he doesn't marry her, he sneaks off and has a ramble instead. (And female spot-welders played a significant role making Spitfires and such in what we still call the last war over here, though it wasn't. Not obnly here either - ever see Rosie the Rivetter?)

But as for the line: He called me a louse and said "think of the grouse" - nothing wrong with that, far as I can see, it's a jokey sneer at the posh sod who thinks he owns the mountain, and the incongruity of the two words is part of it. (Or is it that in Toronto there'd something wrong with the rhyme as such, like you pronounce the words differently or something?)

Oh yeah, a nomination. Chuck Berry, My Dingaling.

Subject: RE: Worst Song by a Respectable Artist
From: Steve Latimer
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 04:28 PM

For William Shatner doing Mr. Tambourine Man and Bing Crosby doing Hey Jude, Sebastian Cabot Doing Dylan, Yoko Ono doing Yoko Ono, Pat Boone doing Heavy Metal (the whole CD), Joel Grey doing White Room and much much more completely horrible stuff, go to the Rock & Roll Hall of Shame thread that I started yesterday, there is a link to all of this stuff. 'Spaw says he's bookmarked the site to entertain his friends. (Sorry, I can't Blueclickything)

And Peter T. I thought I just didn't get Leonard Cohen's stuff. I'm glad to hear your opinion.

Subject: RE: Worst Song by a Respectable Artist
From: WyoWoman
Date: 06 Jul 99 - 12:59 AM

Has anyone heard of some dreadful compilation albums called "Golden Throats," or maybe "Golden Voices," featuring famous artists and actors allegedly "singing" various songs. Such as William Shatner doing a deeply awful and massively dramatic version of "Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man?" You have to imagine that those people hear these recordings now and wish they'd paid someone to burn the masters... And, Rick, how did you arrive at your assessment of "First We Take Manhattan?" I"m not saying I disagree, I"m just saying I wonder how you decide if someone's being intentionally goofy and mock-deep, or if they're being utterly pretentious and only sounding deep and meaningful.

KC

Subject: RE: Worst Song by a Respectable Artist
From: Peter T.
Date: 05 Jul 99 - 10:11 AM

"I've had nails in my hands, baby, and thorns on my face,
It's two A.M. and there's no one in the place
If your life is a leaf, or a bug or a tree,
slit your wrist with my mythology.
It's only the universe unfolding,
like a Swiss Army knife,
and the face in the mirror beholding
Is my first or second wife.
I can't remember which,
But my songs are half-baked,
and half not;
And I play where I ached
, and now I Zen where I thought.
It's my new bag:
Post Performance Drag!!!
Sincerely, L. Cohen (Sensei)

Subject: RE: Worst Song by a Respectable Artist
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 05 Jul 99 - 02:06 AM

Don Meixner. 10 points plus a roll on the old snare drum.

Peter T. KC. No, No, No! "First We Take Manhattan" is a satire! It's comedy (and good comedy, in my occasionally humble opinion) from beginning to end. If I could produce Leonard Cohen right now (the way Woody Allen produced McLuhan in "Annie Hall") he'd tell you. I know he would!

Subject: RE: Worst Song by a Respectable Artist
From: DonMeixner
Date: 04 Jul 99 - 10:06 PM

No That was Paul McCartney

Subject: RE: Worst Song by a Respectable Artist
From:
Date: 04 Jul 99 - 07:20 PM

Was it Bing Crosby or Frank Sinatra who did that appalling version of "Hey Jude"?

Subject: RE: Worst Song by a Respectable Artist
From: Peter T.
Date: 04 Jul 99 - 07:10 PM

KC, in case you hadn't noticed, I go rhetorically overboard every once in a teeny while. I think Song of Bernadette is a great song (especially JWarnes' version: great version of "Ain't No Cure for Love" too. Judy Collins' "Bird on a Wire" is far superior to JW's). I do get tired of all the Joan of Arc stuff, though.
yours, Peter T.
P.S. I connected the fashion business references to overthin models looking like concentration camp survivors. Though if I think of it that way, it is basically tasteless.

Subject: RE: Worst Song by a Respectable Artist
From: WyoWoman
Date: 04 Jul 99 - 04:59 PM

Well, you've got me there, Peter. That is my favorite line from that song. It's how I feel about the passing of the Sixties, sho nuff. But the "fashion business" and "sister" stuff just makes me scratch my head.I do like the imagery of the lines of combatants of some sort lined up in the stations. I suppose this means you don't like "Song of Bernadette," which is one I actually sing from time to time...

KC

Subject: RE: Worst Song by a Respectable Artist
From: Peter T.
Date: 04 Jul 99 - 10:21 AM

Gee, KC, Leonard Cohen did so many bad songs, that I am surprised to see this one top your list!!I think "We Take Manhattan" is one of Leonard Cohen's few songs that sounds deep and may actually be not completely shallow (as opposed to all the dreary ones that paste religious imagery and romantic imagery together as if this was something St. Teresa didn't do first and better). Don't you like "They sentenced me to 20 years of boredom, for trying to change the system from within?" I admit the sister lines are a bit weak. But the neo-fascism of contemporary Manhattan and Berlin...lines moving through the station taking people where exactly? (O.K., O.K. so it isn't The Wasteland, but it has a nice beat and you can dance to it. I give it a 9, Dick).
yours, Peter T.