They May Have Been Hit Songs, But They’re Still Bad
There is no accounting for taste. And nowhere is that more apparent than in humorist Dave Barry’s latest book, “Dave Barry’s Book of Bad Songs.” (Andrews and McMeel, $12.95).
Inspired by a column he wrote that provoked 10,000 letters, Barry rolls out one nightmare song after another for 87 pages, each song worse than the one before: “My Ding-a-Ling.” “I Am, I Said.” “(You’re) Having My Baby.”
They’re bad on their face - with pretentious, nonsensical lyrics and cloying music - but what makes them truly bad is that a lot of us actually think they’re good.
The song that Barry dubs the all-time worst is also a song that hit No. 2 in May 1968: Richard Harris’ version of Jimmy Webb’s “MacArthur Park.” The song sums up all that makes a song really bad, says Barry, speaking by phone from his office at the Miami Herald, where he is a columnist.
“To win the worst song, the song has to be really famous, and really awful,” he says. “‘MacArthur Park’ seems to be the song that pulled those things together. It’s sort of a miracle song. There are worse songs, but that one was chosen by the most people, and it really is unbeatably bad.”
Here, for those who have managed, through steady, dogged effort to forget them, are the opening lyrics of “MacArthur Park”:
“Someone left the cake out in the rain
I don’t think that I can take it
‘Cause it took so long to bake it
And I’ll never have that recipe again
Oh noooooooooo!”
For those to whom that is not obviously stupid, Barry explains his criteria.
“It’s a combination of factors that make that song bad,” he says. “It is incredibly bad poetry - it is so pretentious. People tell me it’s a metaphor, like I’m an idiot. But I went to college, I know what a metaphor is, and it’s a terrible metaphor! Then the melody is so pretentious, it’s just awful.
“But what cinched it was that ‘MacArthur Park’ came back as a disco song (by Donna Summer), which just tied it all together. If there had been a rap version, that would have worked, too.”
The songs Barry skewers range from Paul Anka’s smarmy “(You’re) Having My Baby” (“You could have swept it from your life/But you wouldn’t do it”) to Neil Diamond’s pompous, idiotic “I Am, I Said,” which says, in part:
“I am, I said
To no one there
And no one heard at all
Not even the chair.”
About which Barry writes, “What kind of line is that? Is Neil telling us he’s surprised the chair didn’t hear him? Maybe he expected the chair to say, ‘Whoa! I heard THAT!”’
It was that commentary that started the flood of letters Barry received, the most he’s ever gotten on any subject in years of writing his Pulitzer Prize-winning column.
While “MacArthur Park” and “I Am, I Said” provoked particular loathing in Barry and his readers, he holds a special place for Anka’s nauseatingly self-satisfied “(You’re) Having My Baby.”
“That song is particularly hated by women,” says Barry. “I say, next time get the guy a putter or something. It’s a much cheaper, less painful way to show him how much you love him, and it doesn’t involve bringing another human into the world.”
In order to give some form to the list of bad songs, Barry’s criteria limited songs to the period from 1960-1990, for history’s sake, he says.
“I decided to limit it to older songs because you never know what song is going to turn out to be bad for the ages, a song that, 10, 15 years from now, people will still hate,” he says. “I’m sure that there will be another bad song book for someone to write.”
And Barry doesn’t always agree with his survey results. There are some songs that readers voted for (that is, against) overwhelmingly, that Barry likes, and vice versa.
“I would have voted for ‘Stairway to Heaven’ (by Led Zeppelin), but a lot of people like it,” he says. “They’re stupid, but they like it. What can you do?”
On the other hand, he says, “One that was chosen was ‘Midnight at the Oasis’ by Maria Muldaur. I love that song. It has one of the best guitar solos, clever lyrics … but people just hate that song. What are you going to do?
“So I left it out of the book.”