Dave Barry's Book of Bad Songs (Backlist eBook Program) Read Free Page A

weeks squatting on the floor, sifting through huge mounds of survey-response postcards, virtually every one of which triggered some god-awful song in my brain (“My boy LOLLIPOP! You make my heart go GIDDY UP!”).
    It was painful, but I did it.
    I did it for you .
    You you bo boo, bo nana fana fo foo, fee fie mo moo, you.
     
    1 For example, I really like “Play Me,” especially the part where Neil sings, “Song she sang to me; song she brang to me.”
    2 If you want to call it that.
    3 Whatever the hell that means.
    4 I realize this statement makes me sound like an old fart, but in many ways I am an old fart.
    5 This guy was kidding, right?

Bad Song Survey Results: The Big Vote Getters
    “I don’t think that I can TAKE it...”
     
    I won’t keep you in suspense. The worst song in modern history, at least in the opinion of the people who responded to the Bad Song Survey, is—better sit down and put your head between your legs—“MacArthur Park,” the 1968 hit written by Jimmy Webb and sung hyperdramatically by Richard Harris. Come on now! Everybody sing along:
    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 againnnn...
    Oh NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
    Although there are many songs that I hate more than “MacArthur Park,” it’s hard to argue with survey respondents who chose it as the worst. All the elements are there: A long song with pretentiously incomprehensible lyrics that was popular enough to get a huge amount of air play and thus was hammered deeply and permanently into everybody’s brain. Most of the votes for this song included some comment along the lines of “What the HELL is this song about?”
    Naturally it turns out that there is a small but vocal group of people who like, even LOVE, “MacArthur Park.” After the survey results were published, these people wrote me irate letters arguing that this song is a masterpiece and that the people who hate it do not understand that the cake is a metaphor . This is known, in legal circles, as the “metaphor defense.” My response is, okay, maybe it’s a metaphor, but it’s a really stupid metaphor.
    One of the people who voted in the survey, Lee Jones, told this amusing story:
    During high school, I played electric bass in the school jazz band. The night of the final spring concert, we were performing one of our band director’s favorites, “MacArthur Park”—a song well established in the Pretentious Trash Hall of Fame. We get to the very end of the song, the band plays “BOM! BOM! BOM!”; the band director pauses to give the signal for the last crashing chord...George Roth, a senior trombonist, stands up (in the front row), slaps his forehead, and says, “Oh, Jesus! The CAKE!”
    What I think really put “MacArthur Park” over the top on the Bad Song Survey Hostile-O-Meter is the fact that in 1978, just when it had started to fade from the national consciousness, it was brought back to life, Jason-like, by Donna Summer. This meant that in addition to the length factor and the cake factor, you suddenly had the disco factor. Oh NOOOOO...
    Donna Summer also sang another song that got some votes in the Bad Song Survey; this is “Love to Love You Baby,” which is about three hours and fifty-two minutes of Donna singing the words “I love to love you baby” and moaning like a person in the throes of either uncontrollable passion or severe intestinal distress.
    Speaking of intestinal distress: The number-two 1 song in the Bad Song Survey was “Yummy Yummy Yummy (I Got Love in My Tummy),” the 1968 hit by Ohio Express. This is the same group that later did “Chewy Chewy,” which is not to be confused with another much-hated song, “Sugar, Sugar” 2 which was performed by the Archies, who were so soul-free they made Ohio Express sound like Wilson Pickett. The Archies and Ohio Express, along with such bands as 1910 Fruitgum Company