Oh, Bobby

As you may know, I spent a fair amount of time last weekend in the act of painting a room. I was in said room, alone, with my thoughts and a good deal of paint fumes, which I'm not sure my head has adequately recovered from as yet, and since my television was unplugged and I couldn't very well watch it anyway, seeing as how I was painting and all, it was the sound of music from my computer that proved my salvation.

In other words, thank God for iTunes. Party shuffle, no less.

Well, thank God for the most part. I mean, iTunes on party shuffle is a blast, but there were times it absolutely freaked me out. Here are random songs being spat at me by my computer, a machine with a very large brain but supposedly no capacity for humor or irony, right? So then how in the hell do you explain such in-jokes as David Bowie's "The Man Who Sold The World" being followed by Nirvana's "The Man Who Sold The World?" Or even more bizarre, the Aames Brothers' "Ragg Mopp" followed by Stan Freberg's parody of it, "Ratt Fink?" When you're alone in your house sniffing paint fumes at 3am, that kind of stuff will make you question your existence, I'm telling you.

One of the main advantages of using iTunes while taking on a (spread over three days) 26-hour task is that, not to blow my own horn, but with a random shuffle of my own songs, it was like listening to the coolest radio station in the world. And without commercials.

However, even the best radio stations in the world fire out a clunker every now and then.

Back during the last CD Mix Exchange (and another is on its way, folks, beware), you may recall that I went into iTunes and gave it a complete overhaul, making sure every file had a title and artist attached to it, and that most of them also had a genre attached. I used genres from my old Napster days, "Memory Lane," "Guilty Pleasures," "50s" - and I carried over another to iTunes as well. "Horrid."

The "Horrid" genre basically came about as a joke with all the regulars in #squeeze, when we began the discussion - the discussion that raged for years and even crops up to this very day - of what is the worst song of all time. You know, we all have ours. Our songs that seem to become huge hits even though they're horrible, and every one of the 14 million times they're played on the radio we sit and marvel at who in the hell could possibly stand this song enough to buy it or request that it be played on the radio. You've got your "Seasons In The Sun," your "Patches," your "Playground In My Mind." In #squeeze, we basically narrowed it down to four. The Quadumvirate of Doom. "Honey," by Bobby Goldsboro, "Never Been To Me," by Charlene, "Havin' My Baby," by Paul Anka, and as kind of an afterthought, "Clowny Clown Clown," by actor and all-around weirdo Crispin Glover ("I'm strong - I can kick!"), who for this recording goes by the name of Crispin "Hellion" Glover.

And thank God again, only "Clowny Clown Clown" came up on the party shuffle, but also, when alone in your house smelling paint fumes at 3am, that's not really a song you're longing to hear. Or at any other time, I'm afraid.

Now, I sit square in the middle of that camp that says "Honey" is the worst song of all time. I mean, there's so much there to hate I don't know where to begin. The schmaltzy swelling violins, the story of the girl who's "kinda dumb and kinda smart," and the mentioning of the angels coming to take her away (ha ha, hee hee, ho ho - no, wait, that's another song). But probably the worst thing about it for me, and this is worst in a long line of worses, is how the song tells its sad and sorry tale and winds back around to the beginning again, where the song ends by telling the story again from the beginning. It conjures up making the mistake of sitting beside the worst person you could possibly pick to sit beside in a bar, there telling his story for every guy who walks in to buy a drink. If only the bartender had an assault rifle behind the bar. That song could have finished in short order. "See the tree how big it's grown, but friend, it hasn't been too long..." *Ka-Blaaaam!* And the bar goes up in spontaneous applause.

"Honey" was not written by Bobby Goldsboro, it was written by a guy named Bobby Russell (and shame on him), but I place the blame square on Mr Goldsboro's shoulders for recording the damn thing and having a hit with it. Bobby G could have easily said, "Holy shit. This song's a piece of trash. I need something upbeat and fuzzy, another 'Watching Scotty Grow.'" (Yet another shitty song, this one written by Mac Davis, but we won't even go there.)

But as I said, I was very lucky indeed that this little nugget from my "Horrid" file went unplayed. However.

However, another little Bobby Goldsboro nugget from my "Horrid" file did get played. And it's made me have a re-think of "Honey" being the worst song of all time. The Bobby Goldsboro nugget that did get played was "Summer (The First Time)."

From all I've gleaned while doing a bit of internet research, Bobby G himself wrote this one. It's the story of a young man losing his virginity to an older woman, a subject I'd frankly rather not hear even alone in my house smelling paint fumes, much less over the public airwaves. (Or pubic airwaves, as they become for this number.)

The song begins with a sound effect of ocean waves, then actually sucks us in for a few seconds with a piano line and a rather interesting chord. Then the vocals begin, and it's all downhill from there. This song has such embarrassing lyrics that it comes as no surprise to me that we don't hear about Bobby Goldsboro anymore. One can only hope he's in his home, hiding, with the drapes drawn, in his bathtub, with the shower stall door locked, hunched up in a ball, with a bag over his head. You know it's going to be bad when the first line of your song is, "It was a hot afternoon, the last day of June, and the sun was a demon/The clouds were afraid, 110 in the shade, and the pavement was steaming." Steaming? This man rhymes "demon" with "steaming?" He won't even use "steamin'?" Oh, Lord have mercy. (And by the way, "The clouds were afraid?" Now there's a lovely line to remember. "Mommy, look how blue the sky is!" "Yes, that's because the clouds are all afraid, dear.")

We go on to discover that Bobby's with Billy Ray in his red Chevrolet, and tells old Billy he needs time for some thinking. As all teenagers do, you know. I mean, don't all teenagers say, "Sorry, can't go to the game tonight - I need time for some thinking." Oh, but when Bobby goes out for a walk to do some thinking, guess what. He meets a woman and he swore she was winking. Listen, she was either winking or she wasn't, Bobby. Don't overthink, your black lacquered haircut might catch fire.

Then we find out that she was a ripe 31 while he was only 17, and he knew nothing about love, but she knew everything. And yes, I'm supposing that "everything" includes how to snag jailbait.

And so her wink, come hither look, and probably a wagging finger entices Bobby to her house, where they sit on the porch and we get even better rhymes, like sweat trickling down the front of her gown (Gown? She was there winking at him on the streetcorner in her gown?), the sun starting to swelter while he thought it would melt her, and what should be a hanging offense for lyricists and no mistake, she sipped on a julep, and he stared at her two lips. (Which actually brings to mind a joke, but it's rather vulgar and shan't be repeated here for fear of my being called Lowest Common Demoninator by Mr M.)

Oh, but while they sat there on the front porch swing, Ms 31 told Bobby (he heard her softly say) that she knew he was young, and didn't know what to do or say (hey, now there's what I want in a lover!), but if he'd only stay with her till the sun was gone away, and I quote, "I'll chase the boy in you away." With a broom, if necessary, I'm sure, just like a hound dog being chased off a lawn. (Oh, and how imaginative to rhyme "away" with, well, "away.")

So then our happy couple walks a mile or so down to the beach, and by gum, right there on the sand a boy took her hand, but he watched the sun rise as a man. What, did he get some hot older woman action, or was there some sort of weird seaside bar mitzvah that night?

Anyway, the deed done, now Bobby tells us all that though ten years have gone by since he looked in her eyes, the memory lingers, and also that he goes back in his mind to that very first time, and the touch of her fingers, which worries me because I have a feeling that judging by all of the above, those fingers probably weren't overly clean, and I wonder if Bobby had to make a little trip to the health clinic afterwards for a shot.

But then - then! Once Bobby tells us he goes back to that happy place and the touch of this old bag's disease-ridden fingers, you know what he says? "It was a hot afternoon, the last day of June, and the sun was a demon." He starts the whole fucking story over again! He steals the worst feature of "Honey," a song he didn't even write, and yet again becomes that guy in the bar we all wish would just get blown away by the bartender's AK-47.

Did he think this terrible song device was actually clever? Did Bobby G actually do this, maybe in real life? Did all of his stories start over and then over, and over, and over? Did the man have any friends at all, or did they all run when he entered a room?

Nevermind. It's a horrible song, just like "Honey" is a horrible song, and "Watching Scotty Grow" is certainly no prize, either. And while we're at it, Bobby had the most annoying vibrato in his voice, enough to send a chill up your spine, which just adds to the horridness of these numbers.

Oh well. This woman's in her 70s now, I guess, and I wonder if she's still standing out on the streetcorner in her gown winking at underage boys. If she is, fine. At least she has the good graces not to tell us about it. Over and over.

Betland's Olympic Update:
* Acrowinners, we have acrowinners. So, what is the worst song title of all time?
- Honorable mention goes to River Selkie, with her psychedelic rock number, "Nigel Makes Hot Iguana Pancakes."
- Runner-Up goes to LilyG, with what I'm sure will be a rap classic, "Nutz, My Head, It's Painin'."
- And this week's winner is Mike, with that country tear-jerker, "Now My Heart's In Prison."
- Thanks to all who played! You've all done very well!