amuse yourself while i have a liquid lunch
Some people are angry at me, and with good reason. So I hereby apologize for making you think about the song Freebird, which you had all but banished from your mind since 1980 or so.
Which leads me to the Question of the Day for Monday:
What song did you once love, but now makes your cringe in agony - both at the song itself and at the realization that you once thought it was the greatest thing ever recorded?
Comments
The entire Def Leppard Hysteria album?
Posted by: dave | February 23, 2004 11:50 AM
TAINTED LOVE - SOFT CELL
oh, sweet baby Jesus, get it out of my head!!!!!
In highschool my friends and I had a game going in which you attempted, when seeing each other in passing between classes, to stick a really annoying song into each other's heads to haunt them through the next class. So you'd see them and stop and sing a few lines from a catchy tune and hope the loop gets stuck in their head.
After a while we outlawed the use of Tainted Love because it was just too easy to get stuck in your head, and too cruel.
great. now it's in my head now...
AARRRRGGHH!!!!
Posted by: celestial blue | February 23, 2004 11:58 AM
Hmmm. Either I still have a soft spot for every song I've ever liked, or I've suppressed the memory of ever having liked a song I don't like now.
If anything, I seem to find that songs I hated when they were being overexposed on every radio station, grow on me once the hype dies away and something else is annoying the hell out of me on the radio.
Posted by: McGehee | February 23, 2004 12:00 PM
Oooh. Tainted Love -- Liked it then, like it now.
Sometimes I feel I've got to
Run away
<ducks>
Posted by: McGehee | February 23, 2004 12:01 PM
I've gotta go with "Electric Youth" on this one.
Posted by: Jeff | February 23, 2004 12:01 PM
If everyone would just be honest, I think we could all agree on Survivor's Eye of the Tiger.
Posted by: Matt | February 23, 2004 12:09 PM
Queensryche: Operation Mindcrime. Yes, the entire album. It was my obsession once, now it makes me want to vomit.
However, I am not ashamed to admit that I liked Eye of the Tiger. How sad is that?
Posted by: Annastazia | February 23, 2004 12:16 PM
The song "Purple Rain." Plodding, depressing, inane.
Posted by: david | February 23, 2004 12:26 PM
Hmmm....an entire album gets the honors for this question. And that'd be 10,000 Maniacs' In My Tribe. It was 1987, I was in seventh grade, and I was easily impressed. Looking back, there's so much instrumental clutter bogging down the songs, and Natalie Merchant comes off as strident and didactic. Our Time in Eden, their 1992 release, sounded much better thanks to a different producer.
Posted by: Anne | February 23, 2004 12:28 PM
Bohemian Rhapsody, the post Wayne's World revolution. I thought it was the greatest thing ever, and then one day, I woke up to that song on my clock alarm, and I realized, in a deep moment of sleepy insight that, hey, this song really fucking sucks.
Posted by: Ryan | February 23, 2004 12:38 PM
Anything by Creed, most of the time.
Posted by: Ryan J | February 23, 2004 12:42 PM
Either "Cum on Feel the Noize" by Quiet Riot or "We're Not Going to Take It" by Twisted Sister. Junior high. I thought I was so damn BAD.
Posted by: murdoc | February 23, 2004 12:46 PM
Love Boat Song...ack
Posted by: J | February 23, 2004 12:49 PM
"The Miracle" by Queen. In fact, several songs by Queen, to put it delicately, including "Melancholy Blues" and "Jealousy."
I must aver that "Bohemian Rhapsody" is still good, though.
Posted by: A. | February 23, 2004 12:51 PM
Roberta Flack "The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face"
omigod, my senior year in high school, head over heels in love with my boyfriend and I couldn't get enough of that song.
argh
Posted by: darleen | February 23, 2004 01:12 PM
"Meat is Murder." The Smiths. Not the whole album by the same name, just that particular track.
Then again, "How Soon Is Now" from that album comes close to qualifying. I still love beat and Johnny Marr's guitar in that one, but the lyrics, oh man. "I am the son and the heir, of a shyness that is criminally vulgar"? Heh heh ...
Posted by: Edw. | February 23, 2004 01:21 PM
Most anything by Def Leppard or Bon Jovi . . . well, I actually
still enjoy that stuff if I hear it come on the radio(sorry, can't admit that). But I definitely cringe at the fact that at one time I was not embarrassed to listen to those bands.At the other end of the musical spectrum, let's not talk about Debbie Gibson. Just don't go there.
Posted by: Crank | February 23, 2004 01:32 PM
Most songs by Bob Seeger or Pat Benatar!
Posted by: eli | February 23, 2004 01:33 PM
"Don't Stop Believin'" by Journey.
I defy any other early '80s pre-teens to come up with a lamer middle school anthem.
Posted by: Pete | February 23, 2004 01:48 PM
Baby I Love Your Way by Frampton...eeewwww!!!
Posted by: Mel | February 23, 2004 01:52 PM
Paradise by the Dashboard Light.
One semester back in college I must have played it 50 times in the architecture studios late at night. I didn't understand why someone tried to poison me.
Now I know.
Posted by: RobO | February 23, 2004 01:56 PM
Hmm... I'm surprised nobody's mentioned it yet...
If there's a bustle in your hedgerow
Don't be alarmed now
It's just a spring-clean for the May Queen
Posted by: Brendan | February 23, 2004 02:11 PM
Sharing the crowded dais at this particular awards ceremony...
Aqualung - Tull
Come Sail Away - Styx
Lucky Man - ELP
Sixty-Eight Guns - The Alarm
Posted by: Scott Brodeur | February 23, 2004 02:32 PM
Hey, hey! Sixty-Eight Guns is still a good song!
Posted by: michele | February 23, 2004 02:36 PM
Gotta go with "Babe", by Styx. (In fact, the entire Styx discography is chock-full of qualifiers..."Boat on the River", "Come Sail Away"...The only Styx song I still remotely like is "Mr. Roboto", which I recall I didn't much care for at the time...)
Posted by: Jeff R. | February 23, 2004 02:46 PM
Anything by Winger. Yikes.
Posted by: Analog Mouse | February 23, 2004 02:54 PM
Longer, by Dan Fogelberg. I bought the 45 and will break it in the most creative manner somebody comes up with.
Posted by: Easycure | February 23, 2004 02:57 PM
"Two Tickets to Paradise" by Eddie Money
Posted by: mark | February 23, 2004 02:57 PM
"Blasphemous Rumors" by Depeche Mode. Nobody understood my pain like Depeche Mode. Except for maybe Morrissey.
Posted by: Shelby | February 23, 2004 03:00 PM
As the ranking Debbie Gibson fan here, I just have to say that...uh, yeah, Crank's right, let's not go there.
Posted by: CGHill | February 23, 2004 03:10 PM
Brendan, you're right! How could I have overlooked "Stairway to Heaven?" I enjoyed it when I first heard it on radio, before the 30,000 times I heard it again. I prefer the Butthole Surfers' "Hairway to Steven."
Posted by: Anne | February 23, 2004 03:14 PM
Paradise by the Dashboard Light. Man, every time I hear that song (invariably in some roadhouse-type bar) I feel my skin contract. Blech.
Posted by: Mike | February 23, 2004 04:34 PM
Actually, I find it more the other way around. When I was in high school there were songs that I just loathed---usually those the other kids thought were soooo bad-ass.
Nowadays sometimes they come on the radio and I think, "Dece, man. Cool tune." It's not that I like the songs any better, it's just that they bring back those golden high school memories...
Thing is, I don't have any golden high school memories. High school sucked. They must bring back someone else's golden high school memories.
And that person has mine! HA-ha!
Posted by: Angie Schultz | February 23, 2004 04:38 PM
Holy crap! Everything by the Alarm sucks. Besides fighting for the last can of Aqua-Net, what battle were they fighting? The first time I saw one of their videos it was on some I.R.S. compilation. They looked pathetic next to the Cramps' "Garbageman" video.
My nominee: "Joy to the World" 3 Dog Night
Posted by: MC666 | February 23, 2004 05:58 PM
Two words: Eddie Rabbit.
Posted by: Crank | February 23, 2004 06:00 PM
The first song I can recall being a favorite:
"Rhinestone Cowboy"
I still know all the words.
Posted by: Thlayli | February 23, 2004 06:42 PM
Hey Jeff... you realize the songs of Styx you don't like are the Dennis DeYoung one's (and the one you barely tolerate is also by DeYoung)
Good God, it's like it was two bands in one...
I still enjoy and listen to the Styx songs of Tommy Shaw and James Young
Crystal Ball
Too much time on my hands
Fooling yourself
and OUCH, I had almost forgotten 3 dog night...
um...er..confessing... I was one of 3 twirling majorettes in the high school band in 1971 doing a pep rally routine to "Joy to the World"...a song with the exciting first lyric
Jeremiah was a bullfrog....
Excuse me now. I think I'll go pour myself a gin and tonic.... a strong one...
Posted by: darleen | February 23, 2004 08:13 PM
My Generation - The Who [I'm 41]
Only the Good Die Young -- Billy Joel
Feelings. - Maurice Albert
Sometimes When We Touch - Dan Hill
I Am Woman - Helen Reddy
Ebony and Ivory. - McCartney & Wonder
Having My Baby - Paul Anka
I'm In You - Peter Frampton
Torn Between Two Lovers - Mary Macgregor
Alone Again (Naturally) - Gilbert O'Sullivan
Posted by: Aaron's Rantblog | February 23, 2004 08:44 PM
Oh... the rule is "once loved". Maybe only "My Generation".
Posted by: Aaron's Rantblog | February 23, 2004 08:46 PM
I used to think "I Can't Dance," by Genesis, was THE king shit of fuck mountain. First cassette tape I ever bought, way back in the fourth grade.
I've gone from loving that song to absolutely hating it right back to loving it again.
(invisible touch also r0xx0rs)
Posted by: K.C. Lukens | February 23, 2004 09:06 PM
Sandman...no matter who sings that blasted song I just feel like screaming when I hear it.
Sandman...bring me a dream...make him the cutest boy that I've ever seen...
Urgh, kill me now.
Posted by: Cobby | February 24, 2004 07:44 AM
I'm a little late to this party, but I have the perfect example, "Turn Up the Radio" by Autograph. When I first heard it, I was an enthralled teenager. "Whoa! Those guys rock!" What a load o' crap!
Posted by: Eddie | February 24, 2004 09:22 AM