Dave Barry's Book of Bad Songs (Backlist eBook Program)

WARNING!

Do not read this book. It will put bad songs into your brain.

Actually, that statement is not quite accurate: The bad songs are already
in
your brain. Your brain has an amazing capacity to remember bad songs. This is because of the way your brain assigns memory priority, as shown in this chart:

So I can guarantee you that many, if not most, of the bad songs discussed in this book are already festering somewhere in your brain. The good news is, most of the time these songs are dormant. The bad news is, every now and then something will wake one of the songs up, and you will have a hard time making it go back to sleep.

For example, you’ll be enjoying a pleasant day at home, reading a book, when suddenly somebody—perhaps a trusted family member—will, out of the clear blue, hum just a few notes of the song “(I Never Promised You a) Rose Garden.” Since this is a song that you have detested from the first instant you heard it, your brain has assigned it a prime memory location. The song immediately wakes up and starts echoing in your skull so that no matter how hard you try to focus on your book, all you can hear is that woman’s smarmy voice singing

I beg your PARdon...

I never promised you a ROSE garden!

And since this is the only part of the song your brain remembers, it repeats it over and over and OVER AND OVER AND OVER, sometimes for
days
, until you want to commit suicide by driving off a cliff, except you can’t remember where you left your car keys.

That is the danger posed by this book. This book lists
dozens
and
dozens
of songs that are so bad they make “(I Never Promised You a) Rose Garden” sound, in terms of musical quality, like “The Messiah.”
³
If you keep reading, you’re going to have all
kinds
of bad songs waking up and creeping around inside your brain, refusing to die, just like the corpses in the movie
The Night of the Living Dead
, except all the corpses did was eat innocent civilians, which is not nearly as bad as causing innocent civilians to hum “A Horse with No Name.”

You may ask: “Dave, if this book is such a bad thing, why on Earth should I buy it? What can I do with a book that I’m not supposed to read?”

The answer is: You can give it to somebody you don’t like. This book is an
extremely
powerful psychological weapon; it can immobilize even the most powerful intellect.

Suppose you’re a candidate for a big promotion, but the other candidate is a coworker who happens to be very smart. All you have to do is surreptitiously leave this book on his desk (after first tearing out this warning section). After he reads just a few pages, he will have the brain functionality of an ashtray. He’ll be staring at important work papers, trying desperately to read and comprehend them, but he will be unable to do this because he will hear Gary Puckett’s voice inside his brain, howling:

YOUNG girl, get out of my mind!

My love for you is way out of line!

His career will be over. The end will come when he tries to make an important presentation, and he blurts out, in front of the corporation’s top-ranking officers, that he is too sexy for his shirt.

That is the kind of weapon this book is; that is the power it has. Use it wisely.

And whatever you do,
don’t turn the next page
.

I’m Really
Serious.

Do
Not
Turn
the Page.

You
Will
Regret It.

Okay,
I see I’m going to have to use drastic measures to get your attention. I didn’t want to have to do this to you, but it’s for your own good:

Muskrat Suzy

Muskrat Sam

Do the jitterbug

Out in muskrat land...

Had enough? I’m warning you, it’s going to get worse! I haven’t even mentioned Barry Manilow yet! Let alone Bobby Goldsboro! Turn back now, while you still have some, umm, some

Floatin’ like the heavens above, looks like

OH NO! I CAN’T STOP MYSELF! I CAN’T STOP

Muskrat Loooooooove

Too late.

¹
Montpelier.

²
“I LOVE Bosco! That’s the drink for me! Momma puts it in my milk,” etc.

³
“The Messiah” was a 1973 hit by Three Dog Night.

Introduction

Why You Should Not Blame Me for This Book

T
his book, like so many of the unpleasant things that we encounter as we go through life, is Neil Diamond’s fault. Here’s what happened:

One day back in 1992, I was doing what I am almost always doing, namely, trying to write a newspaper column despite the fact that I have nothing important, or even necessarily true, to say.

In this particular column, I was complaining about the fact that they never play any good songs on the radio. When I say “good songs,” I of course mean “songs that I personally like.” For example, I happen to love “Twist and Shout” as performed by the Isley Brothers. As far as I am concerned, oldies-format radio stations should be required by federal law to play this song at least once per hour.

But they hardly ever play it. Instead, they play “Love Child” as performed by Diana Ross and the Supremes, which is a song that you can listen to only so many times. And when I say “only so many times,” I mean “once.” And if they ever do play “Twist and Shout,” for some bizarre reason they play the Beatles’ version, which, according to mathematical calculations performed by powerful university computers, is only 1/10,000 as good as the Isley Brothers’ version.

So anyway, in this column I was ranting about songs that I don’t particularly care for, and I happened to bring up Neil Diamond. I didn’t say I hate
all
Neil Diamond songs; I actually like some of them.
¹
Here’s exactly what I wrote:

It would not trouble me if the radio totally ceased playing ballad-style songs by Neil Diamond. I realize that many of you are huge Neil Diamond fans, so let me stress that, in matters of musical taste, everybody is entitled to an opinion, and yours is wrong. Consider the song “I Am, I Said,” wherein Neil, with great emotion, sings:

I am, I said

To no one there

And no one heard at all

Not even the chair.

What kind of line is that? Is Neil telling us he’s
surprised
that the chair didn’t hear him? Maybe he expected the chair to say, “Whoa, I heard THAT.” My guess is that Neil was really desperate to come up with something to rhyme with “there,” and he had already rejected “So I ate a pear,” “Like Smokey the Bear,” and “There were nits in my hair.”

So that was what I wrote: A restrained, fair, and totally unbiased analysis of this song. Who could possibly be offended?

Well. You think Salman Rushdie got into trouble. It turns out that Neil Diamond has a great many
serious
fans out there, and virtually every one of them took the time to send me an extremely hostile, spittle-flecked letter. In a subsequent column, I combined the key elements of these letters into one all-purpose irate–Neil Diamond–fan letter, as follows:

Dear Pukenose:

Just who the hell do you think you are to blah blah a great artist like Neil blah more than twenty gold records blah blah how many gold records do YOU have, you scumsucking wad of blah I personally have attended 1,794 of Neil’s concerts blah blah What about “Love on the Rocks,” huh? What about
“
Cracklin’ Rosie”? blah blah If you had ONE-TENTH of Neil’s talent blah blah so I listened to “Heart Light” forty times in a row and the next day the cyst was GONE and the doctor said he had never seen such a rapid blah blah What about “Play Me”? What about “Song Sung Blah”? Cancel my subscription, if I have one.