Dave Barry's Book of Bad Songs (Backlist eBook Program) (4 page)

⁷
For some of this evidence I wish to thank my friend and bandmate Al “Bobby” Kooper, who also performed with the Royal Teens on the original version of “Short Shorts.”

⁸
Paper Lace, making a bid for bad-song greatness, also recorded “Billy, Don’t Be a Hero,” but the hit version was recorded by Bo Donaldson and The Heywoods (see “Teen Death Songs”).

⁹
For example, they don’t need the part about “If there’s a bustle in your hedgerow.”

¹⁰
Yes, this band is named after a stapler.

Weenie Music

“I write the songs that make the whole world nauseous”

W
hat, exactly, do I mean by the term
weenie music
? I mean “The kind of sniveling, pouty, hypersensitive, self-absorbed song, usually performed by males, that makes you want to pick up the singer by his pencil neck and shake him until he stops.”

A classic example of a weenie song—one that did very well in the Bad Song Survey—is Morris Albert’s “Feelings,” which gave the world this unforgettably eloquent expression of heartfelt emotion:

Feelings

Wo wo wo

Feelings

Wo wo wo

Probably the most violently hated of the weenie songs cited in the survey was “Sometimes When We Touch,” sung in a very emotional manner by Dan Hill, who sounds as though he’s having his prostate examined by Captain Hook. Voters were especially incensed by these lyrics:

I’m just another writer

Still trapped within my truth

and

I want to hold you till I die

Till we both break down and cry

Expressing a typical voter opinion, Laura McCusker wrote: “I always thought dentists should pipe this song into their waiting rooms. After sitting through it half a dozen or so times, patients would be BEGGING for root canal.”

I think the same could also be said for another weenie classic, Bob Lind’s “Elusive Butterfly,” wherein he tells us that if we hear a sound, we should not be concerned, because it’s only him, chasing “the bright elusive butterfly of love.”

Yo, Bob: We’re
not
concerned. Leave us out of it.

Of course when you talk about weenie music, there’s one name you have to bring up, although I am very reluctant to do so, because on those occasions when I have said anything even remotely negative about this person in my newspaper column, I have gotten an
extremely
angry reaction from his many, many fanatically loyal fans, so let me preface this with the following:

Barry Manilow got votes for several songs, including “Mandy,” “Looks Like We Made It,” and of course the truly hideous “Copacabana (at the Copa),” but he really scored big with “I Write the Songs.” The irony here is, Barry DIDN’T write “I Write the Songs”: it was written by Bruce Johnston,
¹
and it was also recorded by (since we’re talking weenies here) David Cassidy, who is also Donny Osmond, who in addition to “Puppy Love,” recorded “Too Young,” “The Twelfth of Never,” and a number of other hit songs, despite the fact that he had, by actual count, over forty thousand teeth.

Another leading vote-getting weenie in the Bad Song Survey was Gilbert O’Sullivan, who was singled out for “Alone Again (Naturally),” in which he cheers everybody up with these words:

In a little while from now

If I’m not feeling any less sour

I promise myself to treat myself

And visit a nearby tower

And climbing to the top

Will throw myself off...

Don’t let
us
stop you, Gilbert!

Other songs getting votes in the you-don’t-love-me-so-it’s-time-to-jump-into-the-bathtub-with-an-electrical-appliance genre were Eric Carmen’s “All By Myself” and Randy Vanwarmer’s “(You Left Me) Just When I Needed You Most.”

In the Group Weenie Efforts category, the survey leader was Bread, which got votes for:

• “Diary”—“I found her diary underneath a tree and started reading about me.”
  
• “If”—“If a picture paints a thousand words, then why can’t I paint you?” (Huh?)
  
• “Baby I’m-a Want You”—“Baby I’m-a too lazy to write lyrics that scan, so I’m-a just add an extra ‘a’ whenever I’m-a need a syllable.”
  

Another weenie band I’d like to take special note of is Climax, whose hit “Precious and Few” sounds roughly like this:

Precious and few are the moments we two can share
So it seems kind of odd that when we are together
All I do is keep repeating the same statement, namely
Precious and few are the moments we two can share

With those precious words echoing in my few remaining brain cells, I think I’m-a stop here.

¹
Who, speaking of writing songs, also wrote “Do the Surfer Stomp.”

Love Songs

Words from the Heart(Or Somewhere Around There)

L
ove can be wonderful, but it also can be very destructive. It can cause people to lie, to cheat, to steal, to commit murder, and—worst of all—to write lyrics like these:

Why do birds suddenly appear

Every time you are near?

These lyrics are of course from the Carpenters’ huge hit “(They Long to Be) Close to You,” which received a solid vote in the Bad Song Survey. You frankly have to ask yourself: “Do I really want to be near somebody who causes birds to appear suddenly? Didn’t Alfred Hitchcock do a
horror movie
about this?”

“(They Long to Be) Close to You” was written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, who also wrote many fine songs. On the other hand, they wrote “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head,” not to mention “Wives and Lovers” (see “Songs Women Really Hate”) as well as the Perry Como hit “Magic Moments,” which contains these lyrics:

The way that we cheered whenever our team was scoring a touchdown

The time that the floor fell out of my car when I put the clutch down

But getting back to love songs: The voters in the Bad Song Survey singled out several songs that, although they seem to be intended to stir romantic feelings in a person of the opposite gender, seem more likely to stir some other emotion. Fear, for example. I am referring here to Steve Miller’s “Abracadabra,”
¹
which begins with this sensitive and poetic statement:

Abra, abracadabra

I wanna reach out and grab ya

A similar sentiment is expressed in the Four Seasons’ “My Eyes Adored You,” wherein Frankie Valli sings these classy lines:

My eyes adored you

Though I never laid a hand on you

Speaking of romantic sentiments, one of my personal favorites, even though it got only a couple of survey votes, is “Girl Watcher,” sung by the O’Kaysions, which features a line that would surely melt any woman’s heart:

Hello there female

My my, but you do look swell

Gosh! Thank you, male! Let’s have sex relations!

Another very romantic song receiving survey votes was Rod Stewart’s “Tonight’s the Night,” in which Rod wins the Mr. Subtle Award for this line:

Spread your wings and let me come inside

In the same song, Rod also wins the Mr. Logic Award for singing:

Just let your inhibitions run wild

Don’t worry, Rod! Our inhibitions are completely out of control! Which is why we’re keeping our wings tightly folded!

A somewhat less direct approach was taken by Tony Orlando when he and Dawn sang “Knock Three Times,” a song about a guy who is infatuated with the woman in the apartment underneath his, but he’s apparently too shy to talk to her, so instead he sings to her, at the top of his lungs:

Knock three times on the ceiling if you want me!

Twice on the pipe, if the answer is no!

I hate to suck the romance out of this story, but there’s a good chance that if Tony keeps
that
up, the neighbors are going to get some pipes and start knocking on
him
.

There are a lot more bad love songs, but in my opinion one of the worst, when you consider who wrote it, is “Silly Love Songs” by Paul McCartney because it...it...how do I find the words...it just
sucks
. And so does “My Love,” wherein Paul, apparently too busy to write actual words, goes with:

Wo wo wo wo

Wo wo wo wo

My love does it good!

The big question is: What happened to Paul? Did his brain get taken over by aliens from the Planet Twinkie? I mean, he was a
Beatle
, for goshsakes, a certified
genius
, a man who wrote
dozens
of truly great songs, including such butt-kicking rockers as “I’m Down,” and then for some mysterious reason he began cranking out songs like “Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey,” “Listen to What the Man Said,” and “Let ’Em In,” which expresses this powerful and universal theme:

Someone’s knockin’ at the door

Somebody’s ringin’ the bell

Someone’s knockin’ at the door

Somebody’s ringin’ the bell

Do me a favor, open the door

And let ’em in

Paul also got a number of votes in the Bad Song Survey for one line in “Live and Let Die”: “But if this ever-changing world in which we live in...” Mr. McCartney, step up and receive your Certificate of Redundancy Certificate!

Not to keep picking on Paul, but, he also co-sang on another truly bad love song, “The Girl Is Mine,” with (speaking of aliens) Michael Jackson. This is the one wherein Michael, needing a romantic, tender two-syllable adjective to describe the girl he loves, came up with:

The girl is mine

The doggone girl is mine

Fine piece of writing, Michael! Reminds me of Cole Porter! (“I’ve got you under my skin, doggone it!”)

Michael Jackson was of course married for several sincere and meaningful minutes to Lisa Marie Presley, daughter of Elvis. The King sang all
kinds
of wonderful songs, including “Do the Clam,” and in his early hit “All Shook Up” sang what I consider to be one of the finest expressions of love in all of music:

I’m proud to say

She’s my buttercup

Yes, love is a beautiful thing, but when love goes bad, it can be a terribly painful thing. I will close this chapter by quoting from a song that, in the opinion of some survey voters, most eloquently captures this pain. The song is “Backfield in Motion,” recorded in the 1960s by Mel and Tim, who conveyed the anguish, the despair, the loss, and the heartache of the jilted lover as follows:

I caught you with your backfield in motion, yeah

I’m gonna have to penalize you

Backfield in motion

Baby you know that’s against the rules!

¹
Steve also got a number of Bad Song votes for “Take the Money and Run,” in which, in a single verse, he rhymes “Texas,” “facts is,” “justice,” and “taxes.” But we can forgive Steve for any bad lyrics he wrote because he also wrote “The Joker,” thereby guaranteeing that thousands of years from now, people will still be wondering what the hell a “pompatus” is.