The world’s worst song
There are phrases in songs that annoy me. Take the Black Eyed Peas’ idiotic but bizarrely addictive “Boom Boom Pow”. I understand that the lyrics aren’t supposed to make sense, but it grates on my nerves every time Fergie sings, “I’m so 3008, you’re so 2000 and late.”
The thing is, “Boom Boom Pow” was released in 2009. So shouldn’t she be singing something like “I’m so 3009, you’re so 2000 and blind?” Doesn’t the fact that she doesn’t make her, in fact, 2000 and late?
Then there’s Nickelback’s “If Today Was Your Last Day”. First, there’s the horrible voice of Chad Kroeger, who frequently sings like he’s about to hock up a massive loogie. Then there’s the theme – live like you today is your last day – which not only has been used 2,944 times before but also makes absolutely no sense.
But the lines positively infuriate me. Can someone explain what platitudes like “try to take the path less traveled by” and “every second counts cause there’s no second try” even mean? Sometimes, the path less traveled is that way for a reason – it leads nowhere, it passes through snake-infested swamps, it ends at Camp Crystal Lake. And with all due respect, not only is there almost always a “second try”, there’s a third and a fourth and a sixteenth.
The worst line, however, is in the chorus. “If today was your last day,” Chad screams, “Would you… donate every dime you have?”
If this song is telling us to live as if each day is our last, then is Chad seriously suggesting we give all our money away and become a destitute homeless person? Is this supposed to be inspirational?
Still, while the Black Eyed Peas’ music might be a little on the ridiculously stupid side and Nickelback’s songs are more than enough reason to change the radio station after hearing the first guttural utterance, the world’s worst song has to be Darryl Worley’s “Sounds Like Life to Me”.
If you’ve never heard the song, consider yourself lucky. It’s one of those country songs that pretends to be imparting old-fashioned wisdom and common sense when it’s actually a hateful crock of shit disguised as music.
Darryl goes to a bar to see a friend of his who has fallen off the wagon. “What’s going on?” he asks, and his friend tells him he didn’t get much work this week, bills are due, his wife’s car is falling apart, and the washer needs to be replaced. To make things worse, he had to put his mother in a nursing home.
So Darryl, ever the good friend, says, “Suck it up. To hear you talk, you’re caught up in some tragedy. It sounds like life to me.”
In another words, this man doesn’t work regularly, has a wife and three kids depending on him (with a fourth child on the way), he’s struggling to pay for all the minor and major crisis we all go through, and Darryl tells him to stop whining and man up.
With advice like that, Darryl’s “buddy” is bound to be feeling better within a few days, as soon as he can get some time alone to kill himself with his shotgun.
My favorite part comes when the man tells Darryl his wife is going to have another child when he can’t figure out how he’s going to support the ones he has. “Hey bartender,” Darryl sings, “Set us up a round.
We need to celebrate.”
Um, didn’t Darryl go to see his friend because his wife said he’d fallen off the wagon? Wouldn’t it be better to take a recovering alcoholic home to his family instead of feeding him more liquor?
And can someone tell me what kind of fuckface tells his friend, “You gotta hold on tight, just enjoy the ride,” when the man is clearly overwhelmed by unpaid bills and unmet obligations? Does Darryl Worley have any idea what real life is like? The answer isn’t gonna be found in a bar, obviously, but it’s also not going to be found by telling someone to suck it up.
So there you have it. I have listened to all of the songs on the current Billboard Hot 100 chart (or at least a few of them), and I can tell you that the world’s worst song is Darryl Worley’s third grade “smear the queer” mentality towards poverty. There’s no such thing as a recession or unemployment or foreclosure. If people would just man up and “enjoy the ride” while their families live on Rama noodles and unanswered prayers, this country would be just fine.
Thanks, Darryl. Or in the words of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, fuck you very much.
