James Lileks: Worst Rock Song Ever? Give This a Spin

The Minneapolis/St Paul Star Tribune ^ | April 25, 2004 | James Lileks

[quidnunc]

It's the list of the 50 Worst Rock Songs Ever — and it surely must be authoritative, because it comes from Blender magazine!

You know, BLENDER?

So I'm not the only one who doesn't read it. Good. Anyway, Blender names the worst rock hit in human history. It's "We Built This City (on Rock 'n Roll)" by Starship.

Good choice. To assert that one can build a city on rock 'n' roll is simply bad urban theory. It is safe to say that rock 'n' roll provides an insufficient means of providing the infrastructure necessary for a large urban environment. If we could take the point further, any architect will tell you that a prerequisite for skyscraper construction is a sheet of thick rock into which the steel superstructure can be anchored. If you build a city on rock 'n' roll, as opposed to schist, your buildings will simply fall over and kill thousands.

Then there's the music. Empty '80s bombast married to '60s narcissism: surefire horror. "Starship" was another incarnation of Jefferson Airplane, a trippy Haight-Ashbury remnant best known for Grace Slick droning the interminable lyrics of "White Rabbit," a song that seemed to last for the entire Nixon presidency. (Both terms.)

But worst ever? I don't think so. Every generation moves the goal posts for the Worst Song Ever. Great-Grandpa thought that "The Horseradish Rag" was the Worst Song Ever, and Grandpa couldn't hear "I'm a Flapper in a Flivver" without spitting on the ground, and so forth. Hence most of my worst songs are from the '70s — to my weary ears, the absolute nadir of pop music. That's when pop split up into several irreconcilable factions:

1. Well-produced stoner operas for dateless guys whose idea of a Friday night was sitting in a dark dorm room, wearing headphones, waiting for a girl. Or the pizza. Or maybe a girl with a pizza! OK, just the pizza. She wouldn't understand this album anyway.

-snip-

[Vince Ferrer]

I Will Always Love You - by Whitney Houston (From the movie The Bodyguard)

Although Whitney has above average talent for a pop star, she always overreaches her abilities. In Spinal Tap terms, if she would just go for a 9, she'd be able to get it, and she'd be great. But she is always set at 11, and she constantly crosses the fine line between singing and screaming. This reaches its peak in I Will Always Love You, a song I believe in my heart she recorded intending to cause listener's pets to howl and nearby glass to shatter. I have never been able listen to it all the way through.

[CobaltBlue]

I really, really like old Fleetwood Mac, when they played traditional blues and British blues rock, before Peter Green lost his mind, and Jeremy Spencer joined the Children of God, and I can't remember what happened to Danny Kirwan.

I wore out a few of those albums myself.

Rumours was after that band broke up, and they went pop, with Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham. Very California, that band. Not my cup of tea at all.

Peter Green is back, by the way. He's lost his looks and is rather frail but he still can play. One of the greatest living blues guitarists.

[Willie Green]

Consider this a preemtpive strike:

Well if your gonna start playing rough,
I'm gonna have to deploy the nukes.

Muskrat, Muskrat, candle light
Doin' the town and doin' it right in the evenin'
It's pretty pleasin'
Muskrat Suzie, Muskrat Sam
Do the jitterbug at a Muskrat Land
And they shimmy, Sam is so skinny

And they whirl and they twirl and they tango
Singin' and jinglin' a jangle
Float like the heavens above
Looks like Muskrat Love

Nibblin' on bacon
Chewin' on cheese
Sam says to Suzie
Honey, would you please be my Mrs
Suzie says, yes, with her kisses
Now, he's ticklin' her fancy
Rubbin' her toes
Muzzle to muzzle
Now anything goes as they wriggle
Sue starts to giggle
 
And they whirled and they twirled and they tango
Singin' and jinglin' a jangle
Floatin' like the heavens above
Looks like muskrat love

[Euro-American Scum]

Well it was written , and first recorded by Mel Tillis, then Kenny Rogers did a re-make of it somewhere in the late '70s

Interesting.

[Euro-American Scum]

"Best(?) of the 70s"

There is no "best" of the 70s. The whole decade was a post-Vietnam, disco-crazed, drug-induced, Jimmy Carter hangover.

Worst of the 70s is more like it. Come to think of it, if some enterprising young entrepreneur gathered a collection of some of the truly horrendous tunes mentioned on this thread, they could sell it via infomercial as a "Worst of" and clean up.

Have at it, boys.

[Erasmus]

No question. I'm sure somebody has already mentioned it:

"Honey" - Bobby Goldsboro

[Saints fan]

Oh, heck. I knew that was wrong. I can't remember the title of the Dr. Hook song. The refrain is "And the operator says forty cents more for the next three minutes."

"Sylvia's Mother"

[Rate_Determining_Step]

"Signs" by the 5 Man Electrical Band

Hearing that bed-wetting, hippie-freak, quacking away his twaddle makes me fry.

And the sign said "Long-haired freaky people need not apply"
So I tucked my hair up under my hat and I went in to ask him why
He said "You look like a fine upstanding young man, I think you'll do"
So I took off my hat, I said "Imagine that. Huh! Me workin' for you!"
Whoa-oh-oh

I damn near literally shake with rage when I hear that lame-ass boomer ode. I'm all primed to beat some hippie ass about then.

[Willie Green]

Yummy, Yummy, Yummy.
I got love in my tummy,
And I feel like a-lovin you:
Love, you're such a sweet thing,
Good enough to eat thing
And that's just a-what I'm gonna do.
Ooh love, to hold ya,
Ooh love, to kiss ya,
Ooh love, I love it so.
Ooh love, you're sweeter,
Sweeter than sugar.
Ooh love, I wont let you go.

Yummy, Yummy, Yummy,
I got love in my tummy,
And as silly as it may seem;
The lovin' that you re giving,
is what keeps me livin'
And your love is like
Peaches and cream.
Kind-a like sugar,
Kind-a like spices,
Kind-a like, like what you do.
Kind-a sounds funny.
But love,honey
Honey. I love you.

Yummy, Yummy, Yummy,
I. got love in my tummy,
That your love can satisfy;
Love, you're such a sweet thing,
Good enough to eat thing
And sweet thing, that ain't no lie.
I love to hold ya,
Oh love, to kiss ya,
Ooh love, I love it so.
Ooh love, you're sweeter,
Sweeter than sugar.
Ooh love, I wont let you go.

[dts32041]

so that's why i could never find Mersey beat.

[weegee]

Extra annoyance for having some lyrics in French.

Sweet City Woman - The Stampeders


Bon c'est bon bon
bon c'est bon bon,
Bon c'est bon, bon, bon, bon, bo-n
Bon c'est, bon, bon
bon ci'est bon bon,
Bon c'est bon, bon, bon, bon, bo-n

(and then there's...)

Swee-ee-eet, sweet city woman (oh, she´s my)
Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet city woman
Swee-ee-eet, sweet city woman (woah my)
Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet city woman (everybody)
Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet city woman (ba da da da, ba da da da)
Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet city woman (ba da da da, ba da da da)
Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet city woman (ba da da da, ba da da da)
Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet city woman (ba da da da, ba da da da)

[weegee]

Maggot infested long hair type rock and roll nominee:

Ten Years After - "I'd Love To Change the World"

Everywhere is freaks and hairies
Dykes and fairies, tell me where is sanity
Tax the rich, feed the poor
Till there are no rich no more

I'd love to change the world
But I don't know what to do
So I'll leave it up to you


Population keeps on breeding
Nation bleeding, still more feeding economy
Life is funny, skies are sunny
Bees make honey, who needs money, Monopoly


I'd love to change the world
But I don't know what to do
So I'll leave it up to you


World pollution, there's no solution
Institution, electrocution
Just black and white, rich or poor
Them and us, stop the war


I'd love to change the world
But I don't know what to do
So I'll leave it up to you

[NaughtiusMaximus]

The utterly ghastly and horrible "A Different Drum" by that insufferable Linda Rondstat who now, thank the lord, is ugly, fiftyish and weighs about 300 lbs.

[alnick]

Karma, karma, karma cameleon.

Well, anything by Boy George.

[BOBWADE]

WE ARE DEVO, D-E-V-O

[alnick]

I never could stand that song where the woman screeches, "One less egg to fry, one less egg to fry."

[ChadGore]

The Internationa'l

[ChadGore]

"Please Mrs. Avrery I just have to talk to her . . "

[BOBWADE]

[Mike Darancette]

Sid Vicious singing "My Way".