Worst pop song ever!

Subject: RE: Worst pop song ever!
From: Jim the Bart
Date: 29 Aug 00 - 02:23 PM

I believe the first half of the chorus to Good Morning Starshine is actually "Gliddy gloop gloopy, nibby nabby noopy, sha la la lo lo, abah sibby saba, nooby aba naba lee lee lo lo". I never got to hear the second half as my dear father flung the record into the sky and skeet-shot it at that very point. And then the same for the album liner. Got Oliver square in the schnozola. Better him than me.

Subject: RE: Worst pop song ever!
From: GUEST,ABBYSMOM
Date: 29 Aug 00 - 02:48 PM

As with many of you, my votes are with "Love to love you Baby", "Feelings" and "Havin' my Baby" - each makes me gag horribly. But to jog your memories on another bad song, does anyone remember "The Night Chicago Died"?

Subject: RE: Worst pop song ever!
From: Bernard
Date: 29 Aug 00 - 02:50 PM

Itchy-coo Park by the Small Faces...

The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore - the Walker Brothers...

If You're Going To San Fransisco (Be Sure To Wear Some Flowers In Your Hair) by Scott McKenzie... (I think that also qualified for the all-time longest title to make the 'Top Ten')

Another bit of trivia - 'Space Oddity' was the only 'serious' pop song to feature the dreaded Stylophone - without Rolf Harris!

Subject: RE: Worst pop song ever!
From: Steve Latimer
Date: 29 Aug 00 - 03:19 PM

Good call Abbysmom.

How about "Indiana Wants Me"

Subject: RE: Worst pop song ever!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Aug 00 - 04:01 PM

Those same people who did "The Night Chicago Died" did another dreadful song....but I can't remember what it was! Aaargh! Does anyone remember the group's name and the other song?

How about "Sylvia's Mother"?

Subject: RE: Worst pop song ever!
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 29 Aug 00 - 04:34 PM

Sylvia's Mother was Dr Hook's Medicine Show, who were also responsible for Cover of the Rolling Stone,a blatant self-promotional attempt that worked.

Subject: RE: Worst pop song ever!
From: Kim C
Date: 29 Aug 00 - 05:51 PM

Nobody's mentioned Mairzy Doats or Achy Breaky Heart.

I had the 45 of The Night Chicago Died when I was in the first grade! My big brother took me down to the record store to get it. And I used to LOVE Barry Manilow. And I used to rollerskate to Disco Duck and anything by the Bay City Rollers. S-A-TUR-DAY----NIGHT!

I think this is a fun thread because some of us like the songs that others don't. It's not all about hatred and stuff like that. Differences of opinion make for a fun discussion, I think.

And I just thought of another one: Hey Paula.

Subject: RE: Worst pop song ever!
From: Mbo
Date: 29 Aug 00 - 06:02 PM

Ain't nothing wrong with Achey Breaky Heart! And it's not pop!

Subject: RE: Worst pop song ever!
From: alison
Date: 29 Aug 00 - 06:20 PM

"the night Chicago died" was Paper Lace... their other appalling song being "Billy don't be a hero"......

there are 4 of us sitting here.. our votes go for......

torn between 2 lovers
I've been to paradise
Oh superman (huh huh huh huh)... can't remember who by

personally I LOATHE "Teddy Bear" by ?? Red Sovine, (crippled boy meets friendly truck drivers via CB radio.... ARRRGGHHHH!!!)

slainte

alison

Subject: RE: Worst pop song ever!
From: hesperis
Date: 29 Aug 00 - 06:23 PM

I liked "Achey Breakey Heart" and "More than Words" even though a lot of my friends hate them. I don't listen to the radio, though, so I don't get sick of the really popular stuff.
"More than words" does have a point, but those words are nice to hear sometimes. (Depends on who's saying it and whether you believe them.)

Subject: RE: Worst pop song ever!
From: The Beanster
Date: 29 Aug 00 - 09:46 PM

Troll-- lol!

Bernard, what's a Stylophone? And speaking of trivia, I believe Itchy-Koo Park was the first song ever to use the phlange (flange?) sound effect...ah, historic moments in music.

And speaking of skeet shooting (which is a wonderful way to finally get some use out of these horrendous records), when I found myself with an album that I didn't like, I would hold it over the flame on the gas stove. What you do is, as the vinyl gets more and more pliable, you keep turning up the edges. Eventually, you're left with this wavy-edged "bowl" which can serve many purposes...as a candy dish, let's say.

I used to use them as planters because not only were they large enough to hold a decent-sized plant, but they even had a hole at the bottom (in the middle of the label) for water drainage. I had them all over my apartment. See? And you thought these records were useless...

Subject: RE: Worst pop song ever!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Aug 00 - 10:54 PM

Hesperis - Achy Breaky Heart is a superb line dancing song...with really dumb lyrics...and 2 chords. Anything anyone decides to say about it (pro or con) is probably true! My friend "Johnny Death" (John Ashe) went to a Billy Ray Cyrus concert once for some reason. He said the audience was 95% composed of hysterically overwrought women, trying to get nearer to the stage. He said it was quite an experience just being there. He said some other things that could get him (and me) into trouble on Mudcat (John is a pretty graphic guy)...so...too bad, you'll just have to wonder what he said! Ha, ha!

Alison - Thank you so much for remembering "Billy Don't Be A Hero"...the antiwar song that makes even Joan Baez (one of my heroes) want to lie face down in the gutter and retch. The ne plus ultra of annoying songs.

Subject: RE: Worst pop song ever!
From: hesperis
Date: 29 Aug 00 - 11:57 PM

So it has dumb lyrics!
Not everything has to be esoteric and high-falutin' in order for me to like it!
*Sheesh*-ka-bob!

Subject: RE: Worst pop song ever!
From: Mbo
Date: 30 Aug 00 - 12:02 AM

Damn straight, hesp!

Subject: RE: Worst pop song ever!
From: catspaw49
Date: 30 Aug 00 - 12:10 AM

Achey Breaky Heart has lyrics? No shit? I guess I missed them amidst the drivel. Right up there with the Hanson moptops wonderfully deep, MMMM-BOP.......What a piece of work. Simply wonderful.....Makes me wanna' fart. Let's put 'em all in a Mercury capsule and ship 'em off with Major Tom, psychotic astronaut.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Worst pop song ever!
From: Mbo
Date: 30 Aug 00 - 12:15 AM

Just shut up, Spaw. Check this out.

Subject: RE: Worst pop song ever!
From: catspaw49
Date: 30 Aug 00 - 12:36 AM

Hey Meebo...Nice retort........I love those heartfelt romantic lyrics. So deep, so meaningful, so passionate, so painful, so truth filled, so immature, so completely fucked. I took them and had them analyzed to see if any sense could be made of them and after the work of the most brilliant and literate minds available, they came back with THIS.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Worst pop song ever!
From: hesperis
Date: 30 Aug 00 - 01:43 AM

But Spaw... Everything makes you want to fart, don't it?

Subject: RE: Worst pop song ever!
From: GUEST,Michael in Swansea
Date: 30 Aug 00 - 07:20 AM

What about Bobby Goldsboro's first shag? "Summer, the first time" I wonder if he did it with Honey. "I saw the sun rise as a man." Crud.

M

Subject: RE: Worst pop song ever!
From: GUEST,Fibula Mattock
Date: 30 Aug 00 - 08:58 AM

Mbo et al, if you're looking for some extra deep, heart-felt, fart-inducing lyrics, why not make your own using
The Amazing Alanis Morisette Crappy Lyrics Generator!

And while we're at it, I revoke my previous nominations in this thread as I have just recalled the pop song which fills me with fear, dread and loathing and creates psychopathic tendancies in my normally sane existence. It's "Don't Worry, Be Happy", and it makes me want to boke, as they say in Norn Ireland.

Subject: RE: Worst pop song ever!
From: guinnesschik
Date: 30 Aug 00 - 09:14 AM

The Bobby Goldsboro song put me in mind of another stinker. The Statler Brothers recorded a song called "This Bed Of Rose's." (Rose is a name.) Really crappy piece of dreck:

This bed of Rose's that I lay on Where I was taught to be a man This bed of Rose's that I lay on Is the only kind of life I'll understand.

Okay...what is he, a gigalo?

Subject: RE: Worst pop song ever!
From: Steve Latimer
Date: 30 Aug 00 - 09:21 AM

Mbo,

There's nothing wrong with Achy Breaky Heart????? What a complete piece of crap. Nothing going for it at all, the "melody" sounds like a tape loop, the lyrics are inane. I've heard some great two chord songs, this sure ain't one of 'em.

This is the big music marketing machine at it's worst.

Subject: RE: Worst pop song ever!
From: Kim C
Date: 30 Aug 00 - 11:17 AM

Achy Breaky isn't country either, even though that's how it got famous. Most of what's on country radio now IS pop but no one wants to admit it. I guess if it's got a good beat and you can dance to it... :)

Subject: RE: Worst pop song ever!
From: sledge
Date: 30 Aug 00 - 11:38 AM

Billy Ray would probably be even more popular with an Achy Breaky NECK.

Subject: RE: Worst pop song ever!
From: M.Ted
Date: 30 Aug 00 - 11:57 AM

Speaking of "Billy, Don't Be a Hero", when that song was popular, I was working as a teaching aid and naturally spent a lot time playing guitar with the kids and singing. If the kids wanted to sing a song, I played it, which meant that we did "Joy to the World"(a song so despised at the time it was popular that I can't believe no one has mentioned it) as well as "Billy, Don't Be a Hero" and "Cover of Rolling Stone"--

At an rate, one day, a long-haired, corduroy jacket and blue-jeans "Dad" came in and met with the director of my program, and demanded that I be terminated because I was singing "Billy" with the kids. The director never mentioned it to me, but the kid's mom told me what had happened in one of those "I am really sorry if my husband caused you any trouble..." sort of apologies--

The strange thing was that we had two boys in the class whose father was killed in the war, later that year--

Subject: RE: Worst pop song ever!
From: Mbo
Date: 30 Aug 00 - 12:36 PM

HEY, Billy Ray Cyrus has done some good stuff BESIDES Achey Breaky Heart, and have gotten compliments on his songs from unsuspecting HearMe listeners. And if I hear one more ultra-violent statement about hurting people because of their music, well....I wouldn't recommed it. I'm in a bad mood already today.

Subject: RE: Worst pop song ever!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Aug 00 - 12:41 PM

M.Ted - It's a shame about that guy that got killed...I generally like antiwar songs (like "Universal Soldier" or "Masters of War"), but "Billy Don't Be A Hero" is an abomination. If they had songs in hell it would be one of them.

Spaw - There are so many things that make you wanna fart...maybe you should consider seeking employment in the alternative energy field. :-) Didja get my PM on "Space Oddity"?

IT'S NOT MEEEEBO!!!!! ARK!@&* SCREETCH@#$!!!

New Country? - that's pop music with a stetson and a slight twang. Just call it Old BS instead.

As for "alternative", some kids on the street once asked me "Do ya play any alternative?" I said, "Everything's an alternative to something else..." They gave me a weird look and went on their way. Poor lobotomized victims of marketing, I call them. I played a Dylan song, and then a couple of my own to the heedless masses streaming by.

"Advertising signs that con you into thinking you're the one, that can do what's never been done, that can win what's never been won, meantime life outside goes on all around you." - Bobby D.

BTW, it's too bad Billy Ray Cyrus can't step in here and defend his honour, eh? Oooooo...he'd be ticked!

Subject: RE: Worst pop song ever!
From: catspaw49
Date: 30 Aug 00 - 12:42 PM

No problemmo Meebo...........Something in a nice lethal injection perhaps then?

Oh Billy Ray!!??!! C'mon and lay down over here buddy and we'll make it all better.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Worst pop song ever!
From: Mbo
Date: 30 Aug 00 - 12:51 PM

Don't start with me. And BTW Achey Breaky Heart is a 3 chord song, you morons. If you'd actually ever played it, you might know that. BTW Modern country sucks. It's not because it's pop with Stetsons. Furthest from that. In the 80's country was cool cause it was poppier. Now everyone's trying to make the same insipid steel-guitar/fiddle/wimpy electric guitar sound hip. It's not working. We need Dan Seals back.

Subject: RE: Worst pop song ever!
From: Bernard
Date: 30 Aug 00 - 01:37 PM

The Stylophone, dear Beanster, was the crappiest attempt at producing an 'instrument for the masses'.

If you've never seen one, be thankful!

Basically, it was a small battery powered electronic 'organ' with markings to represent piano keys. Attached by a flimsy piece of wire was a pen-thingy, which played a note when brought in contact with one of the 'keys'.

It had a sort of primitive 'vibrato' effect, and sounded like a fart in a drainpipe.

There were two models, one of which played in the treble register, the other played an octave below - the horrifying idea was that more than one of these dreadful things could be played simultaneously as some sort of hideous orchestra...

Rolf Harris was picked to market the thing, and it was moderately successful.

To pick it out on 'Space Oddity' - the 'glissando' at the start of the instrumental break is achieved by sliding the 'pen' along all the keys from left to right. Once you've established what the thing sounds like, you can hear it right at the very beginning, and pick it out all through if you're really that sad!

Maybe there's a website dedicated to the infernal things somewhere, but I'd rather not look!

To quote 'Itchy-coo Park' - It's all too beautiful...

Another bit of trivia/bragging - I recently acquired a Selmer Clavioline... It's the instrument made particularly famous by recording engineer Joe Meel in the '60's - it was the solo instrument on 'Telstar' by the Tornadoes, and also on 'Runaway' by Del Shannon, to name but a few.

Anyway, I'm in the middle of restoring it - some of the switches are broken, and the contacts were filthy. Good old valve (tube?) technology...

Subject: RE: Worst pop song ever!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Aug 00 - 01:59 PM

The Stylophone sounds like "a fart in a drainpipe"??? Cool. Let's all buy one and mail it to Spaw. BTW, I've seen Cleigh O'Possum, and he's neat! I love the Niagara Falls shot.

Who ya calling a moron, Mbo? I've PLAYED Achy Breaky Heart and it's got 2 chords. There's a parody of it called Achy Breaky Song...also has only 2 chords.

(start on E)
That song just makes me ill
I think I'm gonna kill
The DJ if he plays it one more (change to B)time And if it lasts too long
It just might make me lose my (back to E) mind

And so on...and so on...

The only way to get beyond those 2 chords is to do that bogus key shift up a whole tone or a 1/2 tone like they do in so many country songs, to give you the impression that there's something new happening, when it's really just the same lame thing all over again.

Okay. Your turn. "Hit Me With Your Best Shot"

Hey! There's another one.

Subject: RE: Worst pop song ever!
From: wysiwyg
Date: 30 Aug 00 - 03:18 PM

Well, OK, diue to computer problems I didn't post I HONESTLY LOVE YOU in time, but what about I HONESTLY LOVE YOU, the SECOND time she released it! A whole new version for TODAY!!! WITH VIDEO!!!!!

WHY????????

Hey. Hee hee!!! Won't it be funny in times ahead when someone comes here looking for the lyrics to these very songs, does a search, and up pops this thread of mockification!!!!

~S~

Subject: RE: Worst pop song ever!
From: Charlie2
Date: 30 Aug 00 - 03:38 PM

Anything and everything by Don Henley and Phil Collins. These men need to have their union cards revoked.

Subject: RE: Worst pop song ever!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Aug 00 - 03:42 PM

Something went wrong with that last posting of mine...

Here we go...

That song just makes me ill
I think I'm gonna kill
That DJ if he plays it one more time
And if I hear that song
That Achy Breaky song
It just might make me lose my mind

So don't you play that song
That Achy Breaky song
That song could make a hunchback lose his hunch
And if you play that song
That Achy Breaky song
It just might make me lose my lunch

Subject: RE: Worst pop song ever!
From: Mbo
Date: 30 Aug 00 - 04:32 PM

Ah well, when in Rome...

I'm glad Stan Rogers bit the dust, so I don't have to hear that stupid Barrett's Privateers dreck anymore. God damn you all.

Subject: RE: Worst pop song ever!
From: Steve Latimer
Date: 30 Aug 00 - 04:41 PM

Yeah, The plane crash thing was a cover, Stan actually offed himself because he sensed that music would go so low as to not only allow but to embrace no talents like Billy Ray Cyrus.

Subject: RE: Worst pop song ever!
From: Mbo
Date: 30 Aug 00 - 04:46 PM

Hey, Billy is the only one to come down here to Camp Lejeune and write a song for the people he met here. Hmmph, A.C.Doyle said never to trust anyone named Latimer, they're bad news.

Subject: RE: Worst pop song ever!
From: Lepus Rex
Date: 30 Aug 00 - 04:53 PM

Mbo, please say you're joking with all personal hostility. Are you really that passionate about... Billy Ray Cyrus?!

---Lepus Rex

Subject: RE: Worst pop song ever!
From: Steve Latimer
Date: 30 Aug 00 - 04:54 PM

Mbo, I take offense to Mr Doyle's inference that Latimers are untrustworthy, but have to agree whole heartedly about the bad news thing.

What did he have to says about Mbo's?

Subject: RE: Worst pop song ever!
From: Mbo
Date: 30 Aug 00 - 04:56 PM

Yes, I am.

Subject: RE: Worst pop song ever!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Aug 00 - 05:08 PM

This damned thread is taking forever to finish loading...and my life is slipping away through the cracks in the keyboard.

Hey Mbo, I've got a parody of Barrett's Privateers that has even more verses than the original. It goes on almost forever. It's about a bunch of aging hippies who try to drive a dilapidated school bus from Moncton, New Brunswick across the USA to Mexico so they can score some good dope. They are led by an American draft-dodger named "Clive Barrett" (he was tall and lank and smelly and weird, had a colony of weevils in his beard...God damn them all!...etc.). Somewhere in the Midwest they run afoul of the highway patrol, and almost all of them end up dying hideously in a bus/train wreck at a level crossing under a hail of paramilitary gunfire, but Fat Freddy's Cat escapes and makes it all the way to Cancun, where he is probably still basking in the sun, and ordering cervezas.

Subject: RE: Worst pop song ever!
From: Bernard
Date: 30 Aug 00 - 05:09 PM

OOOO-ERRRR!

There IS a Stylophone website, and they're even offering the bloody things for sale! Even worse, you can download a virtual Stylophone...

Subject: RE: Worst pop song ever!
From: Bernard
Date: 30 Aug 00 - 05:18 PM

HREF="http://www.stylophone.freeserve.co.uk/"

Subject: RE: Worst pop song ever!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Aug 00 - 06:42 PM

I've got nothing against Billy Ray Cyrus. I imagine he's probably a very nice guy.

Subject: RE: Worst pop song ever!
From: Steve Latimer
Date: 31 Aug 00 - 11:20 AM

Danka Scheinn, by Wayne Newton, Tiny Bubbles, Don Ho, Life is a Rock, But the Radio Rolled me, can't remember who did that one.

Subject: RE: Worst pop song ever!
From: Skivee
Date: 31 Aug 00 - 11:29 AM

The "Life is a rock, but the radio rolled me" song...I believe it was Tracy Ullman. And I dug it. Gave it a 79

Subject: RE: Worst pop song ever!
From: LR Mole
Date: 31 Aug 00 - 12:03 PM

Well, "They're coming to take me away, Ha-Haaaa)(sp?) had as the B-side the A-side pressed backward. But I suppose that was neither pop nor a tune. The same thing was done some years later with "Yellow Balloon" as "Noowllab Wolley", by Yellow Balloon. Hm.

Subject: RE: Worst pop song ever!
From: Charlie2
Date: 31 Aug 00 - 12:16 PM

I don't know, the music on the radio is so bad these days I can't even make comment. What is going on with that anyway?

Subject: RE: Worst pop song ever!
From: hesperis
Date: 31 Aug 00 - 09:45 PM

How about a pair of opposites:
"ring-a-ling" - Carlo
"the wanderer" - Dion
One of them wants to get married, and the other leaves whenever he gets serious...

I could probably just type all the titles off this CD, (20 Collector's Records of the 50s and 60s,)as the only somewhat good one on it is "Spirit of Woodstock" - Ernie Maresca.
One friend of mine is totally into metal, and he loves the early 90s stuff. He told me that he couldn't wait for his music to be the 'nostalgia' music. I told him they'd probably just package up all the 'crappy' songs from those years. He looked really startled.

~*sirepseh*~

Subject: RE: Worst pop song ever!
From: The Beanster
Date: 31 Aug 00 - 09:54 PM

Bernard, thank you so much for that detailed (and I'm sure, painful-to-write) explanation of a Stylophone. And I hate to tell you this, but I LIKE what it sounds like--I never actually knew which instrument that was but you pointed it out so well, I know exactly, now! I promise, though, just for you, I WON'T learn to play one, AND I hereby swear that I will never endorse its use for any private or commercial purpose. Okay? lolol

Fibula Mattock--I can never thank you enough for posting that hilarious Alanis Morrisette crappy lyrics site! It's SO funny and it works! Priceless.