Really Bad Songs Happen to Good People

In the preface to his “Book of Bad Songs” (Andrews McMeel), humorist Dave Barry tells why songs that suck stick in the mind. Low priority brain memory in humans, he argues, goes to such things as your secret ATM code, the last place you put your car keys and the names of people you have known for years. High priority memory goes to television commercial jingles. Highest goes to, you guessed it, “songs you really, really hate.”

Yep. Just when you least need them (like during a job interview), songs like “Muskrat Love,” “Feelings” and “Close to You” pop into your head. But more than that, the worst parts pop into your head. The chorus from “Feelings,” for example, goes on repeated loop mode, like some techno song from hell.

Despite disclaimers to Barry Manilow and John Denver fans (“Barry is the greatest! . . . John is also the greatest!”), which the author says he included to prevent a tsunami of hate mail, Barry is quite brave in this handbook. He points to Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven,” Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird” and Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall” as hard rockin’ classics that are nonetheless hated, especially by cover bands that have to perform requests.

The book features the results of Barry’s own mail-in Bad Song Survey. The winner is “MacArthur Park” from 1968, by Jimmy Webb and Richard Harris. “What the hell is this song about?” Barry asks.

The scary fact is, almost all these songs are about American pop.