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22 Responses to “The Stupid 365 Project, Day 39: Hell’s Playlist” -
Larissa Says:
November 9th, 2010 at 10:28 am
Luckily the only one I’ve ever even heard of on this list was “Tie a Yellow Ribbon”…which is truly awful. I think we should add the song “Morningwood” to the list…sung by the band cleverly named…Morningwood…in which they sing about nothing but, well, you get the point…and they even spell it out! Just in case we were all too stupid to spell either the word “morning” or “wood” all by our widdle selves…
Ahem.
Any song where all the “artist” does is sing their own name in conjunction with a bunch of one syllable words should be thrown into the Hades Greatest Hits…
I think I’d rather have to stuff hot coals in my eyes for eternity than listen to this play list. It’s perfect! 
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Bonnie Says:
November 9th, 2010 at 11:12 am
Oh, god, with Honey I think you’ve nailed my personal hell muzak. Let me offer, however, for further consideration:
Red Roses for a Blue Lady, which I think actually was by Wayne Newton,
and
To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before by the diabolical duo Julio Iglesias and Willy Nelson
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Suzanna Says:
November 9th, 2010 at 11:48 am
Okay, I cheated, and looked online at a few worst songs list. SOORRRRRYYYYYY! I don’t have very good instant recall when it comes to song titles and dates.
However, I have personally been assaulted by each and every one of these songs. But anyone who is deserving of ETERNAL HELL FIRE and DAMNATION would probably agree these songs are awful.
From earliest to latest record release date:
“I am Woman” Helen Reddy, 1972
“Ebony & Ivory” Paul MacCartney, Stevie Wonder, 1982
“I’m Too Sexy” Right Said Fred, 1991
“Achy Breaky Heart” Billy Ray Cyrus, 1992
“Macarena” Los Del Rio, 1995
“Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It” Will Smith, 1998
“She Bangs” Ricky Martin, 2000
“I Write the Songs” Barry Manilow, 2002
Please insert your own Manilow, um, favorite here.
“My Humps” Black Eyed Peas, 2005
“I Like the Way She Do It” 50 Cent, 2008
Phew, gives me the creeps just writing the titles.
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Eric Stone Says:
November 9th, 2010 at 11:51 am
Strawberry Fields – The Beatles. Although it is useful if you get a song stuck in your head and you can’t get it out – it is so vacuous and so forgettable that whistling, humming or singing it out loud will drive anything else out of your brain and yet leave you alone as the moment you stop it disappears.
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Beth Says:
November 9th, 2010 at 12:21 pm
I went back to the 60′s for some truly awful songs:
“Big Bad John” – Jimmy Dean
“Ode to Billy Joe” – ???
“Sugar, Sugar – The Archies
“Wooly Bully” – ????
“Roses are Red” – Bobby Vinton
and I think the all-time winner……
“The Ballard of the Green Berets” -
a real Green Beret who would likely have been a target of other Green Berets when this song came out.
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Catherine Says:
November 9th, 2010 at 1:03 pm
I haven’t had coffee yet, so for the moment I can only contribute my agreement that ‘Tie a Yellow Ribbon’ is a song worthy of hell.
In some personal foreshadowing this was the song that had me quitting the local community gym. This gym had a large ratio of older people. On one level I would look at all the older people working out as a healthy proactive approach to health, with the understanding that with luck we all get that old.
I managed to maintain this level of positivity even when watching a man who looked like a gnome work out with a lot of attention getting sounds. I broke when they started playing ‘Tie a yellow ribbon’, loudly, to work out to.
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Timothy Hallinan Says:
November 9th, 2010 at 3:34 pm
Wow, Riss, I really am old. I hadn’t for a moment realized that all of these turkeys came out before you (and, probably, most people) were born. “Morningwood” is a worthy addition (and see? By implication, it’s got trees in it. I’m telling you, a song with trees in it is a rotten song.)
Bonnie, put your fingers in your ears. AAAAAGGGGHHHHHHHHH. “Red Roses for a Blue Lady?” AAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHH. There were not one but TWO records, both hits — the aforementioned Fig Newton and the appalling, but at least forgotten, Vic Dana. “Por ahh da girss I lobbed bepore” — you don’t like that? What the hell was Willie smoking when he agreed to do that? Oh, right. Never mind.
Suzanna, cheaters never prosper. But THANK YOU for adding to the Playlist of the Damned “I am Woman,” “She Bangs,” “Macarena,” all of Manilow, and “My Humps.” I hate the others, too, but these I hate with a special, even radiant, intensity.
Eric, I disagree about “Strawberry Fields” being Hellworthy, but you get the biggest thanks of the day for pointing out its erasing powers. I had “I Write the Songs” embedded in my head until I read your note, and “Strawberry Fields” promptly replaced it. I WILL remember this for the next time I get “The Ketchup Song” surgically implanted. Funny Los Ketchups haven’t had a follow-up, isn’t it?
Beth, sterling suggestions all, except I have to admit a sort of sneaking appreciation of “Ode to Billie Joe” by (I think) Bobbie Gentry. But “Sugar Sugar” occupied a rarefied position in the awfulness spectrum. And I was going to include “Green Berets” myself, but I got caught up in how much I hate the others and forgot it.
Catherine, thanks for seconding “Tie a Yellow Ribbon.” It really is almost uniquely wretched. (And I’m one of those old guys grunting at the gym, so careful or I’ll sing “Whip My Hair” to you for half an hour.)
Boy, you guys came up with some real stinkers. My kind of people.
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Beth Groundwater Says:
November 9th, 2010 at 3:46 pm
I can’t believe no one’s mentioned this yet: Barney the purple dinosaur’s obnoxious “I Love You” song:
“I love you
You love me
We’re a happy family …”
Gag me with a spoon!
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Laren Bright Says:
November 9th, 2010 at 3:55 pm
I can’t believe it — I thought Tie a Yellow Ribbon was recorded by Tony Orlando & Dawn and, son of a bitch, Wikipedia (which I don’t like at all) says I’m right.
Now, as for songs with trees, while I am inclined to agree with you in general you must remember Trees by Al Hibler (we won’t get into who’s old enough to remember that), which inspired me to write this poem when I was old enough to know better;
I think that I shall never see
Said Helen Keller once to me
She tapped the message on my knee
And then she walked into a tree
(This is not a nice poem)
So, what do you think. Do I have a future?
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Gary Says:
November 9th, 2010 at 4:16 pm
(emotional voiceover):
“There’s a guard and there’s a sad old padre;
“On and on we’ll walk at daybreak…”
Is it just me? Am I the only one who thinks “The Green, Green Grass of Home” should be right up there near the top?
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Bonnie Says:
November 9th, 2010 at 4:19 pm
Beth: I admit I kind of liked Woolly Bully (Sam the Sham and the Pharoahs (sp?) IIRC); in fact, I think I fell asleep during one of their concerts at the Fillmore. But I had just arrived on a plane from Vienna (give or take 12 hours back then). My best friend was married at the time and living in a hairy-leg-and-armpit wannabe hippie colony in Berkeley, and I think her husband scored tickets because he was something in the music industry.
She now has a much better and I hope final husband.
Oh, and just thought of some more bad songs:
Havin’ My Baby (need I say more?)
These Boots by Nancy S.
Summer Wine by Nancy S. and…gosh, was it somebody like Lee Marvin?
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Bonnie Says:
November 9th, 2010 at 4:50 pm
This is terrible; I had to get these songs out of my head so went to Youtube and listened to some old André Heller and Erika Pluhar chansons, then wrapped up with Hair. Love the songs from that musical.
Heck, compared to some of the monstrosities you guys are coming up with, give me Falco and Rock me Amadeus. Or Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights.
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Timothy Hallinan Says:
November 9th, 2010 at 4:55 pm
Thanks, Beth — You could have jammed my receptors for weeks with that f*cking Barney song, but now all I have to do is sing, “Let me take you down . . .” and bingo, “Strawberry Fields.” Thanks again, Eric. It’s like magic.
Laren, you definitely have a future, and all this music is in it. Anyone who makes a Helen Keller joke gets to hear all this stuff in stereo.
Ahh, Gary — TOM JONES!!!!!!! WHAT WOULD THIS LIST BE WITHOUT TOM JONES!!!!
Just sayin’.
However, I think Bonnie tops us all. The single worst record of all time, and therefore the top of the Hell Playlist (for the moment, anyway) is (You’re) Having My Baby.” Can you BELIEVE that “You’re” is in PARENTHESES??????? Like she’s a LAMPSHADE or something?????? AAAAAGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH. Of course, this is the same highly sensitive Lothario who opened his first big hit with the words every woman dreams of hearing: “I’m so young and you’re so old.” How did he live so long?
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Bonnie Says:
November 9th, 2010 at 5:21 pm
I believe the you’re is in parenthesis because as initially conceived (ouch) the song is a duet between the, er, donor and the, ah, vessel. (Shuddering)
Damn you all, see what you made me do? Just just 1-click ordered a 3-CD set of André Heller’s 1967-2007 hits from amazon.de. When it comes, I have something fun to share, though I’ll have to translate it. Heller sings about the souffleur, the guy in the box at the front of the stage who prompts the actors. He criticizes all the performances and in the chorus he dreams of how much more enthusiastically he would be received if he were up there performing Faust. It’s a tour de force for sure.
Of course, I will also be undergoing about a month of nostalgia when the darned thing arrives.
Heller, who at least at one point had “poet” (not Dichter, which would be the German word) in his passport under profession, was briefly married to Erika Pluhar, a popular actress. They both recorded Jacques Brel chansons, translated and performed in the vernacular Viennese that was just being revived in the late 60′s, and Heller wrote a good many, some of which Pluhar performed, as well.
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Stephen Cohn Says:
November 9th, 2010 at 5:24 pm
I think “These Boots Were Made For Walkin’” by Nancy Sinatra could provide many wonderful hours of agony…and if Hell can’t afford the rights to that recording then perhaps we can get Sarah Palin to record it.
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Suzan G. Says:
November 9th, 2010 at 5:27 pm
Hi Everyone, I’m one of those new readers Tim’s been asking for, although I’ve long been a fan of the Poke Rafferty series and am currently tracking down Tim’s other work. I love ths blog and would would like to make my own modest proposal for the Hell Playlist. Does anyone remember Seasons in the Sun by Terry Jacks? It gets my vote for most appalling piece of drivel of the decade and Tim…wait for it…it has TREES in it!
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Gary Says:
November 9th, 2010 at 5:32 pm
Speaking of Paul Anka, here’s the actual live origin of that celebrated showbiz phrase “The guys get shirts”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LsnW0WZlKQ
Not to mention the other classics: “Don’t make a f***ing maniac out of me,” and “Slice like a f***ing hammer.”
Those of us who grew up to the moving strains of “Diyanah” were a privileged generation indeed.
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EverettK Says:
November 9th, 2010 at 6:27 pm
I hesitate to jump on board with this one, as I’m sure some of the songs I hate others love, and vice versa.
But regarding using Strawberry Fields as a de-ear-wormer, any time I get a song stuck in my head for days, I start singing “Midnight At The Oasis.” Works for me. The words are totally silly, and the tune has NEVER gotten stuck in my ear. But it’s a little like the medicine our mom’s used to make us swallow… cures worse than diseases, and all that. Anyway, a few minutes with the sheiks and I’m usually cured. If that doesn’t work, I move on to “The City of New Orleans.” I actually like that one, and it CAN get stuck in my ear, so it’s a good back-up cure.
Speaking of Arlo Guthrie (weren’t we?), I went to a John McCutcheon concert several years ago, and in between songs he was describing how he’d been complaining to some other singer once that he was REALLY tired of singing “Christmas In The Trenches,” as everyone always requested that one at EVERY concert. The other singer, I forget who it was now, told him, “John, you should be happy. Imagine being Arlo Guthrie. His fans DEMAND that he sing Alice’s Restaurant every time, and if he gets one word or nuance wrong in that damn 30-minute song, they give him hell.” From that point on, he didn’t mind having to sing his little 3 minute song at every concert.
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Lil Gluckstern Says:
November 9th, 2010 at 7:38 pm
I first read this in the AM, and I have had “Tie a Yellow Ribbon” in my head ever since. I had to take care of business so now I’m back.
Thank you, Suzan G., for naming a truly maudlin, saccharine song that I was trying to remember-when I wasn’t humming. I have a friend and we like to sing together. She was delighted with this as an exercise. Your blog, Tim, is truly bringing a lot of fun to a lot of people. (And if I offended anyone yesterday, I apologize. I can get rant-y at times).
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Timothy Hallinan Says:
November 9th, 2010 at 8:40 pm
My, my, we never know what subject will open the Pandora’a box, do we?
The idea that Anka conceived the song as a duet is interesting, Bonnie, but I cling to my initial interpretation that the only important people in his world are him and the infant carrying his DNA. What a putz. It would seem, Bonnie, from the rest of your post, that this discussion has somehow put you in a nostalgic frame of mind, which I find extraordinary. I would gladly erase all the bits of my past that have these songs in them.
Stephen, I’ll buy Sarah Palin’s record of “Boots” if she’ll keep walking for a long, long time. Eight or ten miles beyond the coastline would be nice.
Gary, THANK YOU for the link. Everyone who wants to know what kind of an (fingers in your ears, everyone) asshole Anka is should look at the clip. The video is a restaging but the rant is real — that’s just how Paul Anka is. What a flaming piece of fecal matter.
Hey, Everett, two more earworm remedies, and thanks. Imagine being Don McLean. He’s been singing “American Pie” every night for — hold on — FORTY years; it came out in 1971. It amazes me that he can still get through it. In fact, I just finished Keith Richards’ autobiography (I read it in between snatches of Stendahl, of course) and they’re still playing “Satisfaction,” but they only tour every 3-4 years. One of the nice things about writing novels is that no one ever yells, “Hey, Tim — write THE MAN WITH NO TIME.”
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Bonnie Says:
November 10th, 2010 at 7:43 am
The nostalgia is not for these songs. Ugh. Rather in self-defense I had to go back and find some good music. Which led to the nostalgia, etc.
As for the duet concept, I am not making this up:
After more than ten years without a hit record he signed with United Artists and in 1974 teamed up with Odia Coates to record the number one hit, (You’re) Having My Baby. They would record two more duets that made it into the Top 10, I Don’t Like to Sleep Alone (#8) and One Man Woman/One Woman Man (#7).
(from Wikipedia)
I wonder how sorry Odia Coates is, whoever she may be. Hmm…would make a good captcha.
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EverettK Says:
November 10th, 2010 at 8:08 am
Tim: One of the nice things about writing novels is that no one ever yells, “Hey, Tim — write THE MAN WITH NO TIME.”
Well, writers (of series stories) have their own problems. The most famous, of course, is A. Conan Doyle, who got SO tired of writing about Sherlock Holmes that he finally killed the character off… and then had to resuscitate him later when the outcry became too great.
But, better to weary of success than to forever toil at failure, I suppose.
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