Worst song ever?

[calimac]

I see where "We Built This City" by Starship has been named the Worst Song Ever by something called Blender magazine.

Huh. I kind of liked that song, the last chronologically of the few songs I did like during the short period in the early 80s when I was actually listening to pop radio. (Others included: "Bette Davis Eyes" by Kim Carnes, not a song by any definition that requires a song to have a tune but I liked it anyway; "Angel of the Morning" by Juice Newton, and what kind of name is that?; "Down Under" by Men at Work, speaking of cryptic lyrics; "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" by Cyndi Lauper, but even more so the Big Daddy cover version; "Eat It" by Weird Al Yankovic but not the Michael Jackson original; and the Robey version of "One Night in Bangkok," which is the only rap song that I like. Oh yes it is a rap song. What about rhythmic speaking to a rhythm track, occasionally breaking out into actual singing, makes it anything else?)

Of the other songs on Blender's top ten list, the only one I know (I told you I don't listen to much pop music) is "Ebony and Ivory" by Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder, and they're right, that's a terrible song, sappy both musically and lyrically. "Ebony and ivory / live together in perfect harmony / on my piano keyboard." Do they? Try pressing two adjacent ebony and ivory keys on your piano keyboard, Sir Paul, and hear the clashing dissonance. The technical term for this sound is a minor second interval, and congratulations, your metaphor is telling us that black and white folks can get along, but only if they aren't close neighbors. Is that really what you wanted to say?

But I see that the beef Blender has against "We Built This City" is for the hypocrisy of its anti-corporate lyrics. OK, that's a fair cop. Needling the changes in corporation names is pretty ironic coming from a band which changed its own name four or five times. I enjoyed the song because it was catchy; I've never found much profit in trying to make sense of pop lyrics.

But that gives me a good opportunity to flog one of my favorite topics: the unreliability of the Web as an information source. People think that if you want to find out anything, just Google it. And if there's any field of which that's true, it's contemporary pop culture. So let's find the lyrics to "We Built This City" by Googling the title.

After dumping all the references that don't give lyrics, we find that one phrase has been variously transcribed as:

Ma Coley plays the mamba
While Tony plays the mamba
Marconi plays the mamba
Marconi does the mamba
Marconi played the mambo
Marcone plays the mamba
My pony plays the mamba

I think - I say I think - that the third one is correct, because it's the one that makes the most sense. But see above about not trying to make sense out of pop lyrics.

Your choice: it must be true, it's on the Web.

Comments

[athenais.livejournal.com]

I like that song just fine. It's not one of the worst songs ever, it's merely hypocritical. The lyrics don't make sense, but it's half-decent pop. I reserve my use of the word "worst" for songs that can't be bothered to make up new lyrics for the bridge and just repeat the stanzas, and for music that's wholly uninspired.

[cynthia1960.livejournal.com]

I like this song, too. My favorite bit is the portion of a Bay Area traffic report. But then living on the edge of the Hayward Fault like I do, building a city on rock and roll is a daily reality.

[sturgeonslawyer.livejournal.com]

Goodness. I never much liked that song (or, indeed, much of anything the band did after they ceased to be an Airplane), but the very worst I could call it is "annoying." "Achy Breaky Heart" might be make a reasonable ten worst list, but I come to it with a deep prejudice against genre C&W, so it's hard for me to really judge.

Sticking to straight pop & rock that actually charted, though, there are songs far, far worse songs in living memory (by which I mean mine, since I'm alive and I remember them):

Where, for example, was "Disco Duck" on this list? Okay, it's a novelty song, but it wasn't even much of a novelty song. To call it "awful" is to degrade awfulness.

Can with a shred of dignity or integrity claim that "Ebony and Ivory," bad as it is, is actually worse than Sir Paul's stunning collaboration with Michael Jackson, "The Girl is Mine," a song that made strong men wretch and brave women whimper in terror?

Not a song on their top ten strikes me as more consummately despicable, now that I think of it, than Genesis' "Misunderstanding," a paean to overarranged whining. (Of course, most of Genesis' hits during the "Phil Collins era" were whining of one sort or another, usually about women; the only exception I can think of are the hits from the Invisible Touch album, which are more in the way of growls, which was something of a relief.)

Where is Lou Reed on this? "My red joy stick / my red joy stick / all I'm asking you to leave me is my red joy stick" - a less sophisticated remake of Chuck Berry's only #1, and a pretty nasty song in itself, "My Ding-A-Ling."

Sigh. I could go on for hours. There is so, soooo much bad music out there...