Barry - Dave Barrys Book of Bad Songs

This book is dedicated To whoever put the bomp In the bomp ba-bomp ba-bomp

Wo wo wo

Feelings

M ORRIS A LBERT

Wo wo wo wo

My Love

P AUL M CCARTNEY

Wo-o-o-o-o-o-o

Whats New Pussycat

AS SUNG BY T OM J ONES

I said na

Na na na na

Na na na na

Na na na

Na na na

Na na na na

Land of 1,000 Dances

Cannibal and the Headhunters

Contents

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, youll be enjoying a pleasant day at home, reading a book, when suddenly somebodyperhaps a trusted family memberwill, 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 womans 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 cant 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. If you keep reading, youre 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 Im not supposed to read?

The answer is: You can give it to somebody you dont like. This book is an extremely powerful psychological weapon; it can immobilize even the most powerful intellect.

Suppose youre 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. Hell 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 Pucketts 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 corporations 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, dont turn the next page .

Im Really
Serious.

Do Not Turn
the Page.

You Will
Regret It.

Okay, I see Im going to have to use drastic measures to get your attention. I didnt want to have to do this to you, but its for your own good:

Muskrat Suzy

Muskrat Sam

Do the jitterbug

Out in muskrat land...

Had enough? Im warning you, its going to get worse! I havent 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 CANT STOP MYSELF! I CANT STOP

Muskrat Loooooooove

Too late.

Montpelier.

I LOVE Bosco! Thats the drink for me! Momma puts it in my milk, etc.

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 Diamonds fault. Heres 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 dont particularly care for, and I happened to bring up Neil Diamond. I didnt say I hate all Neil Diamond songs; I actually like some of them. Heres 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 hes surprised that the chair didnt 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.