If you’ll remember last Saturday’s post here, some online magazine published their list of the worst songs of all time. It was a dumb list, a tedious list, and a pedantic list. Anyone could call “Who Let The Dogs Out?” the worst song of all time and feel accomplished. But that’s the journalistic equivalent of calling a beach sunset beautiful, or putting Gail SImmons of Food & Wine Magazine on a list of best tits. It’s also not a good method for captivating an audience. If you’re going to claim songs are the worst of all time, you’ve got to do more than just look for one hit wonders or a song that came along and defined the spirit of whatever week, month or year in which it was recorded. You have to be willing to call “bullshit” even if a song sold millions of albums. That’s what my list is about. These are the ten worst songs I’ve ever heard. The numbers are pretty much irrelevant, as any time I hear these songs I want to jump out a window, but I guess for the sake of finding literally the worst song of all time, we’ll pretend the numbers mean something.
The Top Ten Worst Songs Of All Time
10. Bon Jovi “Livin’ On A Prayer” – I grew up in New Jersey. Jon Bongiovi grew up in New Jersey. You would not believe how many people only know that Bon Jovi is from New Jersey. It’s all people can reference when I tell them where I’m from — moreso than Springsteen. To makes matters worse, Bon Jovi a fucking atrocious musician with not a single good song to his name. His most criminal contribution to the history of music is a song about a fictional couple named “Tommy” and “Gina”, two of the most Jersey-trash working class douches ever written into existence. The only remotely redeeming factor to this song is that if you’re at a party and a small group of chicks start screaming along to this song, at least one of them is drunk enough to fuck you.
09. The Who “Won’t Get Fooled Again” – If only because it’s the opening theme from CSI: Miami, which is a horrible television program. It’s also nine minutes long, which is long even by most “epic” standards. Pete Townshend wrote some classic songs, but trying to pen a double concept album about oppressed people being saved by a rock concert is more retarded than a mentally handicapped child’s monochromatic, finger-painted self-portrait. And THIS song was to be the centerpiece? It’s fucking dumb. At the end of the song comes a shocking ironic twist: the new regime that forms following the defeat of the old regime turns out to be just as oppressive! Too bad irony in songwriting is as useless as a condom in a porno flick.
08. Bruce Springsteen “Thunder Road” – Hmm…another guy from New Jersey…another song about a fictional couple trying to reconcile their hopeless existence with their boundless love for each other. Sounds just as bad as — if not worse than — “Livin’ On A Prayer”. There aren’t many Springsteen tunes that I like, and although I can appreciate his career longevity and the fact that he’s sold millions of records, that doesn’t mean that anything he’s recorded is musically pleasing.
07. Van Morrison “Brown Eyed Girl” – One of my favorite albums of all time is Astral Weeks. The fact that this piece of shit song is what Van Morrison is best known for is a travesty. I guess his having a song about sex reach as many ears as it did is commendable, but I’m pretty sure his song about stalking an under-aged girl (“Cyprus Avenue”) is both dirtier and better. That song (or “Madame George”) should be his legacy. Not some stupid pop song they use in Julia Roberts movies.
06. Billy Joel “Scenes From An Italian Restaurant” – At seven minutes and thirty four seconds, this piano ballad runs seven minutes and thirty four seconds too long. I’m pretty sure Billy Joel never wrote a good song, and the music world would not feel any emptier should he have never existed. We’d just have less gay songs in the world. Trust me, you would not miss “We Didn’t Start The Fire” at all.
05. Nirvana “Smells Like Teen Spirit” – One of the worst songs on Nevermind, it is considered to be the song that changed music forever…especially if you happened to work at MTV or Rolling Stone in the year 1991. Blah blah blah zeitgeist blah blah blah anthem for a generation…To people who actually enjoy music, “Smells Like Teen Spirit” is the song that you skip over to get to “In Bloom”.
04. Bob Dylan “Visions Of Johanna” – What the HELL is this asshole mumbling about? Look, everybody knows Bob Dylan is the most overrated lyricist of all time, but this one reaches a new low, even by Dylan’s standards. From a purely musical standpoint, nothing is more boring than a Bob Dylan song. Except, of course, for Bob Dylan’s lyrics. Oh, wait, that reminds me of a joke I’m making up right now as I go along. What do you call a self-conscious Jew who can’t sing, can’t play guitar, and can’t write a memorable verse? Answer: Bob Dylan.
03. Blue Oyster Cult “Don’t Fear The Reaper” – There was a time when this ranked as one of my favorite songs. To put that in context, though, there was also a time when I really liked Silverchair and thought that Family Guy was funny. I don’t think anybody is going to deny that Blue Oyster Cult sucks, so the question of the moment becomes, “What’s worse, ‘Don’t Fear The Reaper’ or ‘Godzilla’.” You already know my answer. What’s yours?
02. Grateful Dead “Uncle John’s Band” – Everything by the Grateful Dead sucks, so I just picked this song because its one of the only ones whose title I actually know.
01. The Beatles “Hey Jude” – It was a toss up between this and about five other songs. I get that the Beatles invented modern rock’n’roll and have since been anointed the greatest band of all time by just about every musical authority in the universe, but…I mean…really? They had about a dozen great pop songs (“I’m Only Sleeping”, “Eleanor Rigby”, “Help!”, “Norwegian Wood”) and one or two albums that are strong from start to finish (Revolver, Rubber Soul) but they also had a ton of crap that should never have been recorded (“Revolution”, “Strawberry Fields Forever”, “Yellow Submarine”…). Worst of all is “Hey Jude”. It is quite possibly the worst song I’ve ever heard. I can’t stand it. It’s horrible in every way. It’s so bad, that when I hear it I unconsciously start to sing, “Hey Jew / Don’t eat a bage [short for bagel] / Just take a french roll / And add some butter” … It goes on like that for SEVEN MINUTES. Mostly because of the refrain, which includes the nonsense syllablic sound “Na” followed by, of course, “Hey Jude”. JUST SHUT UP AND END THE SONG. SEVEN MINUTES!!! It’s the most mind-numbing, deplorable shit that has ever passed through a set of headphones or speakers. Ever. I defy you to find a worse song.
The end.
