It’s about Burning Man.

September 1, 2015 5:51 PM

Drunk History’s Derek Waters discusses Train's “Hey Soul Sister” with the AV Club.
posted by Elementary Penguin (130 comments total)

Wat.

I love so much about the A.V. club, but I just can't follow, or get anything out of, this interview at all. Maybe that's on me. One thing though, at the very least, "Hey Soul Sister" is wretched.
posted by 256 at 5:56 PM on September 1, 2015

Here is the official music video, if that helps.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 6:01 PM on September 1, 2015 [2 favorites]

Here is the official music video, if that helps.

I always wondered why more music videos didn't open with Michael from Arrested Development and Howie Mandel.
posted by zippy at 6:05 PM on September 1, 2015 [3 favorites]

God. I mean, I guess I'm glad it's about Burning Man? It is the WORST song.

I previously thought it was about dude getting head and I will forEVER stand by the fact that ukulele jams about getting a beej SHOULD NOT EXIST.
posted by bibliogrrl at 6:06 PM on September 1, 2015 [8 favorites]

That video makes me what to strike my own hand repeatedly with a hammer.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 6:10 PM on September 1, 2015

And now, the stripped down acoustic version
posted by zippy at 6:10 PM on September 1, 2015

Train is just the worst.
posted by Chrysostom at 6:13 PM on September 1, 2015 [13 favorites]

I went to a songwriting group at which the moderator held up this song as an example of greatness. I never went back.
posted by grumpybear69 at 6:14 PM on September 1, 2015 [8 favorites]

Train or Entrain?
posted by vrakatar at 6:15 PM on September 1, 2015

The best thing that happened to me today was discovering that HateSong exists as a recurring column.
posted by _Mona_ at 6:16 PM on September 1, 2015 [2 favorites]

I hadn't seen the video. It's pretty bad too. My first thought was that everyone in it looks like they're from stock photography. The lead singer is what you'd find if you searched Shutterstock for "bland pop-rock band front man", the two romantic leads are basically bland model types off of stock photography too, the ukulele guy, well, yes, although probably more what you'd find if you searched for "bassist". It's the most generic bland shit possible.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 6:18 PM on September 1, 2015 [6 favorites]

I hate this song so much and I get it so stuck in my head and just reading the title of this post has now got it stuck in my head and I HATE YOU ALLLLLLLLL.

Your least favorite band suuuucks.
posted by gingerbeer at 6:26 PM on September 1, 2015 [16 favorites]

I watch baseball almost every night. One year this band was coming to play an after-game concert. Every night for an entire month they played this song during commercials. I wanted to commit murder-suicide with my TV speakers.
posted by dirigibleman at 6:31 PM on September 1, 2015

I previously thought it was about dude getting head

I thought it was about Mister Mister.
posted by octobersurprise at 6:32 PM on September 1, 2015 [7 favorites]

Goddamn it, Soul Sister deserves so much better. Let's hear from the Patti LaBelle.
posted by benito.strauss at 6:36 PM on September 1, 2015 [4 favorites]

I actually like the acapella version Glee did, but I suspect that has more to do with Darren Criss being a cutie-boots.
posted by the uncomplicated soups of my childhood at 6:39 PM on September 1, 2015 [3 favorites]

Wow, I hear this all the time in the background of coffeehouses (must be on the satellite Coffeehouse radio station rotation or some playlist?) but I've never listened to the lyrics and hoooooooo doggy, they are bad, wow. Wow.
posted by LobsterMitten at 6:51 PM on September 1, 2015

I don't understand how HateSong could be around for three entire years before getting to a Train song. Train is worse than everything.
posted by Metroid Baby at 6:53 PM on September 1, 2015 [17 favorites]

My first thought was that everyone in it looks like they're from stock photography.

I remember seeing the video for Little Miss Can't Be Wrong a gazillion years ago and thinking that it looked and sounded like something from a shitty sitcom about a band. Like, The NEW New Monkees or something. Or maybe if some girl on a shitty sitcom was dating some dude in a shitty band, and then after they broke up she turned on the TV and saw a music video of his shitty band's shitty hit, and she'd be like, "That jerk used to call ME Little Miss Can't be Wrong!"
posted by Ursula Hitler at 6:58 PM on September 1, 2015 [6 favorites]

HateSong is super hit-or-miss, but one of my favorites is the one where John Vanderslice talks about "Semi-Charmed Life" and how Stephen Jenkins is basically "a net-negative as a person." Awesome. Especially coming from one of the nicest people on the planet.
posted by Maaik at 7:02 PM on September 1, 2015 [8 favorites]

My first thought was, is this the song about the goddamn Hefty bag of love? But no, that is a different Train song. Because they are fucking awful.
posted by uncleozzy at 7:06 PM on September 1, 2015 [2 favorites]

Train is one of a very few bands named after the thing they deserve to be hit by.
posted by cortex at 7:06 PM on September 1, 2015 [45 favorites]

He's still stuck in 2009?

Wait till he gets to the California 37 era. Once he hears 50 ways to say goodbye he's going to shit his pants.

I don't know why I listen to Train. I suspect it's the same reason I listen to Eurobeat. The lyrics are irrelevant and nonsensical a lot of the time but the music is catchy.
posted by Talez at 7:07 PM on September 1, 2015

> Here is the official music video, if that helps

I can't think of any realistic problem that that is the solution to.
posted by The corpse in the library at 7:12 PM on September 1, 2015 [27 favorites]

TELL MAY
posted by HeroZero at 7:17 PM on September 1, 2015 [3 favorites]

It sounds pretty familiar - was it used to sell Hondas/deodorant/antidepressants at some point?

As The Village Voice remarked in "The 20 worst songs of 2010" (which I'd link but it's full of terrible popups), in which Train surpassed even a Bret Michaels cover of Sublime, the chorus of "Hey Soul Sister" is basically Smashmouth's "All Star." I find it especially telling that "Hey Soul Sister" wasn't included in Mouth Sounds, given that a) mashing it up with All Star would have been a walk in the park, and b) even a Black-Eyed Peas song made it in.
posted by knuckle tattoos at 7:24 PM on September 1, 2015 [3 favorites]

I 100% believe this song is scathing self-parody, which makes me hate it less, I guess.
posted by prize bull octorok at 7:27 PM on September 1, 2015

Train is one of a very few bands named after the thing they deserve to be hit by.

Hmmm...

• Sugarcubes?
• Flaming Lips?
• Gorillaz? (Yes, definitely Gorillaz.)

posted by Songdog at 7:32 PM on September 1, 2015 [1 favorite]

There's a CSI: New York episode from a few years ago that I had managed to forget until now. AFAICR, the cops have to interview Train for some reason (don't worry, Train are just witnesses, they didn't do anything wrong). So they head to Train's recording studio, and the plot just stops for a few minutes, for a performance of "Hey Soul Sister." The camera cuts to the cops every so often, and they're just kind of standing there, annoyed they have to wait. Then back to "Hey Soul Sister." Then back to the cops sighing and making wan faces into the middle distance. Then the song ends and the plot resumes.

It is maybe the craziest thing I have ever seen on CSI, the most popular show on CBS, America's most popular network, home of The Big Bang Theory. No amount of snobbery can possibly be enough.

Anyway, youtube has part of the scene, enjoy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PNNUmSsXI0
posted by officer_fred at 7:40 PM on September 1, 2015 [15 favorites]

Metafilter: Honda, deodorant, antidepressants.
posted by spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints at 7:48 PM on September 1, 2015 [1 favorite]

I remember seeing the video for Little Miss Can't Be Wrong a gazillion years ago and thinking that it looked and sounded like something from a shitty sitcom about a band. Like, The NEW New Monkees or something.

Hey I liked the Spin Doctors. But to be fair I was 9 years old in '92.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 7:49 PM on September 1, 2015 [4 favorites]

Here is the official music video, if that helps.

So I watched that, & it was such a transparent effort to be cool dudes & make money & get laid with zero interest in actual music or whether words have meaning that it was like U2 managed by Donald Trump.
posted by univac at 7:51 PM on September 1, 2015 [5 favorites]

OK, it's bad. But honestly, it's no worse than anything ever played on the radio. It's all bad. Did you guys have a bad decade or something? Lighten up. It's a bad pop song, you'll get over it. Or you'll die a horrible train inspired death and we'll all leave periods in a post about you. I mean hey, at least it's not Sublime.
posted by evilDoug at 7:55 PM on September 1, 2015 [1 favorite]

Okay, maybe we're being a little over the top with our criticism. But hey, this is far from the worst thing on the internet. We're not hurting anyone here, we're just having a little fun hating on something.

(Alright, that's two meta-levels up. How high can we go? One time in the late oughts I was on the xkcd forums and we got nine levels up, but that was a long time ago).
posted by officer_fred at 8:04 PM on September 1, 2015 [2 favorites]

OK, it's bad. But honestly, it's no worse than anything ever played on the radio

Did you just "Your least favorite song doesn't suck"??
posted by chrchr at 8:08 PM on September 1, 2015 [7 favorites]

What is worse, "Hey Soul Sister" (oh rly it's really called that and "hey soul sister commercial" is suggested before you finish typing the name of the song) or Home by Phillsipispilihpis
posted by aydeejones at 8:10 PM on September 1, 2015 [1 favorite]

There's so much that irks me about "Hey Soul Sister," but by far the most irksome aspect to me is the vision of Soul Sister dancing to Mr. Mister on the radio. Have these dudes even heard Mr. Mister? Has Mr. Mister ever released a song to which one can reasonably dance? I remember "Broken Wings," I remember "Kyrie." I do not remember anyone saying that either of these songs had a good beat and you could dance to it. Did Train confuse Mr. Mister with, I don't know, Shriekback or Machines of Loving Grace or Die Warzau or something?
posted by bakerina at 8:13 PM on September 1, 2015 [21 favorites]

Actually no, I did not, I said it sucked as much as your favorite song. Sorry, didn't mean to be wish-washy there.
posted by evilDoug at 8:17 PM on September 1, 2015 [2 favorites]

Hey Soul Sister is definitely worse than Home.

Whether it's worse than Hey There Delilah, however, is a question that I'm not sure I can answer. But it's more famous, which makes it more fun to attack.
posted by Lemurrhea at 8:26 PM on September 1, 2015 [2 favorites]

The worst song in the world is still Steve Miller's "Abracadabra (I Wanna Reach Out and Grab Ya)," but this guy makes a good case.
posted by Iridic at 8:41 PM on September 1, 2015 [13 favorites]

This song came out in August of 2009, and it still gets played on pop radio stations -- at least around the States and at least in the southeast. And the thing worse than a new shitty annoying song is a six year old shitty annoying song, reminding us of the endurance of bad things.

The trebly ukulele that drives the song, the always-in-his-upper-register singing...that shit leaps out of car speakers and doctor's office waiting room radios and make this shitshow almost entirely impossible to ignore. The song is not merely bad, it is aggressively bad. Most, say, Jason Mraz tunes are mellow enough to turn into wallpaper. "Hey Soul Sister" is like neon orange paint.

Yes there are lots of bad songs, and "Hey Soul Sister" might not be the worst among them, but hearing it is like driving around with a hornet in the car. There are worse insects out there--bugs more poisonous, stingers more painful--but until I can shoo it out the window or drive my car off a bridge and into a river, it is the entirety of my hellish universe.
posted by Maaik at 8:44 PM on September 1, 2015 [21 favorites]

Every time I encounter the name Train, for whatever reason, I get it mentally mixed up with Travis. So every time, it's like "Oh, I haven't heard those guys in a while, wonder what they're up to?" and then Meet Virginia or something equally grating comes on and I realize my mistake.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 9:00 PM on September 1, 2015 [1 favorite]

Is this like the Beatles of "bands" who write perform songs like this written solely with the objective of being used in a hideous Apple commercial, but failing that, any other type of commercial and soft rock stations everywhere?
posted by juiceCake at 9:01 PM on September 1, 2015

Okay but can everyone tell me did you fall for a shooting star, one without a permanent scar?
posted by shakespeherian at 9:17 PM on September 1, 2015 [2 favorites]

Speaking of better songs with the phrase "soul sister" in the title, please allow me to present Sam & Dave, on August 31, 1969, kicking off that evening's episode of The Ed Sullivan Show with a six-and-a-half-minute medley of "Soul Sister, Brown Sugar" and "That Lucky Old Sun."

While the mix of the backing band is not good, Sam & Dave are singing their asses off. No, wait - what they're doing is not singing, it's SANGIN'!! Also, the idea that Ed Sullivan would start off his show with six-and-a-half-minutes of this is kind of mind-boggling in itself.
posted by Nat "King" Cole Porter Wagoner at 9:17 PM on September 1, 2015 [3 favorites]

did you fall for a shooting star, one without a permanent scar?

I was too busy checking out Mozart whilst doing Tae-Bo.
posted by Iridic at 9:26 PM on September 1, 2015 [5 favorites]

I found the video takedown of this by Todd in the Shadows to be more cathartic. You can *hear* him seethe.
posted by restless_nomad at 9:40 PM on September 1, 2015 [4 favorites]

This is a terrible, terrible song.


It is almost as bad as that one Colbie Caillat song where she talks about her toes and her nose and then I throw up.
posted by louche mustachio at 9:48 PM on September 1, 2015 [6 favorites]

> Train is one of a very few bands named after the thing they deserve to be hit by.

Throbbing Gristle for sure, not that they'd mind.
posted by contraption at 10:00 PM on September 1, 2015 [9 favorites]

Hey now, Train is the band that brought soy lattes to popular music and that I associate with my sister's bat mitzvah. So... I don't know where I was going with this
posted by thetortoise at 10:03 PM on September 1, 2015 [5 favorites]

I used to work in an ad-hoc board game store with a couple friends in a stall at a big rural/suburban farmer's market during the summer of 2010, and this miserable miserable thing--calling it a "song" is unfair to music; calling it a "sound" is unfair to random animals screaming in the woods at night--would play on the overhead radio goddamn incessantly. I would shriek with delight when the ad for the "Pickle Man" in the other building would break in and put a momentary stop to this creep band's whining performance. I used to want to beg the guy in the stall across the hall to turn up his boombox where he would play "45" by Shinedown--Shinedown for Christ's sake!--on repeat so anything, anything at all, would drown out this song.

"The sound of diarrhea" is much too kind. This is by far one of the objectively worst songs produced in my lifetime.

Working at that store was pretty fun otherwise, though.
posted by branduno at 10:05 PM on September 1, 2015 [3 favorites]

I'll say this for Train: they have a catchy sound. But if you actually pay attention to the lyrics, it's a giant "holy shit why the hell did you put this together in this strange, sorta disturbing way." The Hefty Bag of love is the worst, though this is also pretty dang strange.

I kinda like Meet Virginia, but damn, that woman is too weird to really exist and I've met a fair chunk of Burners and San Francisco weirdos. Wears high heels when she exercises?! OW!
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:10 PM on September 1, 2015 [1 favorite]

Train is one of a very few bands named after the thing they deserve to be hit by.

Also The Pillows.
posted by branduno at 10:18 PM on September 1, 2015 [2 favorites]

So apparently Train also have a song called Calling All Angels, which is not a cover of this. I can't decide if it would be better or worse if it was.
posted by Dr Dracator at 11:15 PM on September 1, 2015 [1 favorite]

Okay I wouldn't have heard of this song except that it was a breakout song for a Honolulu child performer. I'd never listened to the original before now, and after reading this thread I'm not thrilled it's associated with an 8yo in my head.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 11:26 PM on September 1, 2015

Train is one of a very few bands named after the thing they deserve to be hit by.

The Stooges?
posted by dirigibleman at 11:27 PM on September 1, 2015 [5 favorites]

I use Train as my alarm tone because few other things will make me get out of bed to turn my damn phone off.
posted by brecc at 11:34 PM on September 1, 2015 [4 favorites]

knuckle tattoos: Bret Michaels cover of Sublime

That… God damn. I made it to "morning" of "Early in the morning…" before closed the tab. I want to punch Brett Michaels right in his stupid face. I'll take a crappy Train song over that any day.

Thanks for turning me on to Mouth Sounds though. That's brilliant. I mean the medley of production company musical tags? Fuhgeddaboudit.


P.S. It's 2015, Comedy Central. Enough with autoplaying embedded videos. You stupids.
posted by ob1quixote at 11:43 PM on September 1, 2015 [1 favorite]

Mr. Mister were already the subject of a HateSong interview. I wonder if this is the first time that a HatedSong namechecks a previous HateSong subject.
posted by Kattullus at 1:02 AM on September 2, 2015 [1 favorite]

OK, I'm rarely onboard with Metafilter's music hate-ons, but I cannot fucking stand this song and reading this much hate for it in a single thread feels like a delicious cleansing steam bath and I just want to luxuriate in it until I am purified.

(I actually didn't think it was possible but that video validates my loathing even more!)
posted by en forme de poire at 2:07 AM on September 2, 2015 [4 favorites]

I managed to watch about half of it. I mean, I don't get much pleasure from hating things, so I just made it stop. Not the worst thing in the world, but like convenience store food - you're hungry and it seems like something you can get on with, at least in theory, but then you unwrap the brightly coloured packaging and start to eat it, and realise that despite all the flavourings you'd probably rather have a carrot or an apple or nothing at all. But it's not actually poisonous, in small quantities.

Not so much music as music-flavoured product. It has been teased into the shape of a pop-record, despite the fact that it's crafted from cynicism, desperation and vanity. A simulacrum of emotion; of musicality; of fun. Only Umberto Eco could get anything out of it, and I don't think he'd watch more than half, either.

I assumed that the song was about the lead singer watching an African-American woman through binoculars, alone in her apartment, doing the kinds of things that she wouldn't necessarily do if she realised she was being observed. Like dancing along to Mr Mister.

"I don't want to miss a thing you do tonight", indeed.

That it's actually a forty-year old man getting off on watching semi-clad twenty-year-old women dancing around a bonfire isn't, if you think about it, much better.
posted by Grangousier at 2:21 AM on September 2, 2015 [2 favorites]

Getting off on fantasizing about watching semi-clad twenty-year-old women. It just gets better, doesn't it?
posted by Grangousier at 2:27 AM on September 2, 2015 [1 favorite]

It gets even better, I believe the critical consensus is that the lipstick on brains line does not refer to the one in your head.
posted by Dr Dracator at 2:46 AM on September 2, 2015 [1 favorite]

I worked at the college newspaper, and there was a music reporter who was into an early, early, early version of Train, and she was like 'these guys are going to be big.' And I was like 'those guys are shitty.' I did not realize at the time that we were kind of saying the same thing. In retrospect, she had a pretty good ear.
posted by box at 4:47 AM on September 2, 2015 [5 favorites]

The best thing about the video is the bald guy trying to look cool while playing the ukulele. Nope, not working buddy.
posted by Dip Flash at 4:55 AM on September 2, 2015 [1 favorite]

I posted a link on my Facebook feed a few years back to some list of the "worst songs of the Aughts" or whatever, and Train's 'Hey Soul Sister' was number one. One of my friends commented that the list didn't make much sense, especially the choice of Train for number one, seeing as she "really liked that song". I have not brought up that comment since then, if only to save myself a tedious and potentially ugly argument.
posted by spoobnooble II: electric bugaboo at 5:00 AM on September 2, 2015

> Train is one of a very few bands named after the thing they deserve to be hit by.

Rolling Stones hth.
posted by ardgedee at 5:05 AM on September 2, 2015 [4 favorites]

Train is one of my supervisor's favorite bands. Her musical rotation is the following:

1. Train (anything, anything Train has ever performed, Train TRAIN TRAINNNNNN!!!!!)
2. Whichever Counting Crows compilation includes "Big Yellow Taxi," "American Girls," and "Mr. Jones."
3. Under the Table and Dreaming
4. The Best of U2, 1980-2000.

Five and a half years.
posted by Naamah at 5:13 AM on September 2, 2015 [16 favorites]

The thing is that Train is a very good Led Zep cover band. I mean until Zepperella kind of stabilizes their line up I got to get my Led Zep covers somewhere. Also, Burning Man, yeeaaahhh..... I do not think people perving on the scantily clad is an unknown.
posted by jadepearl at 5:22 AM on September 2, 2015

> Whether it's worse than Hey There Delilah, however, is a question that I'm not sure I can answer

me, yesterday evening: That song is boring and creepy but not that horrible, is it?

me, three o'clock this morning, unable to sleep because of the goddamn song in my head: CURSE YOU LEMURRHEA CURSE YOU
posted by The corpse in the library at 5:46 AM on September 2, 2015 [2 favorites]

For a while a radio station in my town was advertising itself with billboards and bus wraps of song lyrics. "HEY SOUL SISTER" was as overrepresented on the sides of busses as it is on the airwaves, and it was just infuriating to be so frequently reminded that this song exists on our poor benighted Earth.

BONUS ANECDOTE: my father recently remarried and during one of our early, slightly awkward conversation, his wife-to-be said "I like that band Train, do you like them?" and the previous paragraph just spilled out of me before I could stop it. In the aftermath I felt a particular kind of shame that's so bound up with being a sullen teenager that I may have spontaneously redeveloped acne.
posted by yomimono at 6:14 AM on September 2, 2015 [8 favorites]

Here is the official music video, if that helps.


I had never seen the video, and forgot that the Patrick Monahan gives me the technicolor douche chills. Ten seconds before I noped the fuck out.
posted by louche mustachio at 6:16 AM on September 2, 2015 [7 favorites]

Okay but can everyone tell me did you fall for a shooting star, one without a permanent scar?

Shakespeherian, I don't think we've ever had any serious differences of opinion on here, and I bear you no ill will at all.

However, if you quote "Drops of Jupiter" at me again, I am sorry to say that I willl be forced by the laws of man and music to challenge you to ritual combat with hobo knives.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 6:24 AM on September 2, 2015 [3 favorites]

The part of the song I hate the most is that "I'm so gangster, I'm so thug" section. It just exemplifies for me how lazy the writing is. It's just shitty rhyme salad. Same with the Mr Mister line, you know they are only mentioned because they are unlucky enough to rhyme.
There's another terrible song I hear a lot at the gym. I forget the chorus but it's got a line about being "in it to win it", which I think is rhymed with "in it", and all I can think every time I hear it is how lazy the writing is. And come to find out that's a Train song too.
posted by Horselover Fat at 6:25 AM on September 2, 2015 [4 favorites]

I'll say this for Train: they have a catchy sound.

Whenever I encounter a song or a piece or art or something that I loathe I like to try to think of best I can say for it. With Train—and with this song in particular—the best I can say for it is that the melody is nice. It would be pleasantly inoffensive if it were stripped down to just an unaccompanied acoustic ukulele. A muzak version would actually improve this song.

it looked and sounded like something from a shitty sitcom about a band. Like, The NEW New Monkees or something.

Hey, The Monkees were great. I'll bet Train wishes their train was as great as the "Last Train to Clarkesville."
posted by octobersurprise at 6:30 AM on September 2, 2015 [6 favorites]

"Superman" by Five For Fighting is in this same school of awfulness.
posted by Chrysostom at 6:33 AM on September 2, 2015 [4 favorites]

Jason Mraz

By cosmic coincidence, this was exactly who YouTube queued up to follow "Hey Soul Sister."
posted by Panjandrum at 6:38 AM on September 2, 2015 [3 favorites]

It is good that Waters started with the "untrimmed chest" lyric, because it is a fucking baffling string of words. Seeking clarity, I turned to the Genuis annotation of that line:

He is so in love with this girl he doesn’t care about anything else. Not even himself. He hasn’t even trimmed his chest

OK.
posted by Panjandrum at 6:44 AM on September 2, 2015 [7 favorites]

I used to get serenaded with this. On the uke. Used to have to sit there wracked with embarassment waiting for it to be over. God this thread is better than therapy.
posted by runincircles at 6:49 AM on September 2, 2015 [16 favorites]

Whether it's worse than Hey There Delilah, however, is a question that I'm not sure I can answer


The way to love that song forever despite itself is to imagine the Plain White T's wrote it and are singing it to popular nighttime syndicated radio host Delilah. (This may not work for everyone.)

Somehow I'd heard "Hey Soul Sister" thousands of times without ever knowing what the lead singer of Train looked like while singing it. But the video shows sometimes you know what things look like without seeing them.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 6:49 AM on September 2, 2015 [5 favorites]

Whether it's worse than Hey There Delilah, however, is a question that I'm not sure I can answer.

It's better than "Hey There Delilah," IMO, so "Soul Sister" has that going for it, too.

(Of course it's hard to find a song that isn't better than "Hey There Delilah." Even "Modern Day Delilah" is better than "Hey There Delilah." (That said, faced with the choice of having to listen to "Hey There Delilah" or The Wall for the rest of eternity I don't know what I'd do except regret the life choices that brought me to that moment.))
posted by octobersurprise at 6:52 AM on September 2, 2015 [2 favorites]

My particular kryptonite is Neil Young's A Horse With No Name. But that's because I was forced to listen to it on repeat for an entire summer at the grocery store where I worked because the owner got some compilation album as a freebie and decided to use it as the muzak in store. Gah.
posted by LN at 6:53 AM on September 2, 2015

I always thought it was funny that the Five for Fighting guy was the kind of libertarian who complained about "liberal whinerzzz", when his voice sounds like a foghorn.

Also, I have been complaining for years about how gross that Colbie Caillat song is. I nope right out at the phrase "I get the tingles in a silly place". We're all adults here, sweetie. You can use the phrase "vaginal orgasm". It's okay.
posted by pxe2000 at 6:56 AM on September 2, 2015 [2 favorites]

The way to love that song forever despite itself is to imagine the Plain White T's Dead Milkmen wrote it and are singing it to popular nighttime syndicated radio host Delilah.

Ok. Now I can love it.
posted by octobersurprise at 7:01 AM on September 2, 2015 [1 favorite]

My particular kryptonite is Neil Young's A Horse With No Name.

"A Horse With No Name" is by America, not Neil Young.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:15 AM on September 2, 2015 [5 favorites]

Youtube/Google etc needs a hate-watching flag* that you can enable when watching garbage like this. Cause' I went through this thread yesterday, and even made a few searches of my own, and now the YouTube sidebar is suggesting some really unspeakably loathsome things. Google knows (thinks it knows!) this about me, and so I'm pretty sure in a few years, after the shit goes down, it's going to pipe fucking Little Miss Can't Be Wrong into my enclosure in the people zoo 24 hours a day. Damn. Damn damn damn.

*You don't really believe Google isn't tracking what you do when incognito, do you?
posted by dirtdirt at 7:19 AM on September 2, 2015 [4 favorites]

Catchy pop tune is hateable. go figure.
posted by theora55 at 7:54 AM on September 2, 2015

What doesn't make any sense to me is how so many people can hate this song for perfectly legitimate reasons - its terrible crap-pop glazed veneer, mostly - and miss what seems to me to be the very worst thing about it: it seems to be a pretty weirdly racist fetishization. Every black woman I know listening to this song ditched out the moment a weird old white dude called them "soul sister," so they weren't around later when he effused that "you're so gangster, I'm so thug." Ugh. But, okay - maybe it can be said that these guys just weren't thinking too hard, maybe they really were singing to a white woman and telling her she's a "soul sister" who's so "gangster" she makes him feel like a "thug." Isn't that... almost worse?

Maybe I'm just reading too much into this song. All I know is that the more I think about it, the grosser it is.
posted by koeselitz at 8:27 AM on September 2, 2015 [10 favorites]

Train is one of a very few bands named after the thing they deserve to be hit by.

A Flock of Seagulls?
posted by oulipian at 8:29 AM on September 2, 2015 [8 favorites]

"Superman" by Five For Fighting is in this same school of awfulness

You know, I didn't think this one was that bad until it became THE OFFICIAL SONG OF 9/11. And it just wouldn't fucking stop. Ugh. I hate that song so much now, not because 9/11 was terrible and so the song reminds me of that terribleness but more that tributes to 9/11 all seem fake and very much for show and that's what I associate with this song.
posted by LizBoBiz at 8:37 AM on September 2, 2015 [2 favorites]

I liked "Hey, Soul Sister" for about ten minutes after it came out, so I downloaded it.

And every time I listened to it, I hated it a little bit more. It wasn't the lyrics or the singer's voice, it was the particular combination of the two. I think the word I'm looking for is "icky".

If this song were a person, it would be the kind of person who is occasionally taken aside and gently advised to stop trying so hard, and maybe lose the fedora (even if it's supposed to be ironic).
posted by Flipping_Hades_Terwilliger at 8:45 AM on September 2, 2015 [3 favorites]

My personal least favorite song, at least of the past twenty years, is the insanely terrible "Bitch Came Back," by a band with the awful moniker Theory Of A Deadman. It's not even their own melody or idea; they've just ripped off the old 1890s minstrel song "The Cat Came Back," with the amusing twist that they've replaced the silly and mildly morbid lyrics about a cat and instead attempted to cram every single misogynist trope imaginable into three minutes and forty-one seconds. The economy of horrible lyrics is impressive; it's like a catalog of all the hideously stupid things men say about women.
posted by koeselitz at 8:58 AM on September 2, 2015

Train is one of my supervisor's favorite bands.

Train is one of every supervisor's favorite bands.
posted by Atom Eyes at 9:08 AM on September 2, 2015 [5 favorites]

He lost me at great quesh, great quesh.

I mean, I read the whole article, but Derek lost me right there. The song is so bad it shouldn't be talked about. I share koeselitz's take on the song.
posted by GrapeApiary at 9:10 AM on September 2, 2015

Train is one of a very few bands named after the thing they deserve to be hit by.

MC Hammer?
posted by Grangousier at 9:15 AM on September 2, 2015 [2 favorites]

REO Speedwagon
posted by Horselover Fat at 9:18 AM on September 2, 2015 [4 favorites]

"A Horse With No Name" is by America, not Neil Young.

ALSO: they're not even from America. That band is nothing but lies.
posted by Hoopo at 9:35 AM on September 2, 2015 [2 favorites]

I bet the horse has a name too.
posted by Dr Dracator at 9:37 AM on September 2, 2015 [12 favorites]

Ehhh, could be worse. My wife & daughter played the whole Annie soundtrack 3 TIMES IN A ROW on our trip home last weekend. Haven't been able to get it out of my head since. Those are some weapons-grade earworms there.
posted by sapere aude at 9:38 AM on September 2, 2015 [1 favorite]

And it wasn't a desert. It was more like a semi-arid steppe.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:42 AM on September 2, 2015 [3 favorites]

I paid $5 just so I could come here and say how much Train and every note they have ever recorded will be the soundtrack for the first 500 years of hell.
posted by Barbariolio at 9:56 AM on September 2, 2015 [15 favorites]

My particular kryptonite is Neil Young's A Horse With No Name.

"A Horse With No Name" is by America, not Neil Young.

And since that song does not and never did sound remotely like Neil Young in any way that counts to someone who knows what Neil Young sounds like, you officially lose the internet for the day.
 
posted by Herodios at 9:58 AM on September 2, 2015 [1 favorite]

ALSO: they're not even from America. That band is nothing but lies.

I bet the horse has a name too.

And it wasn't a desert. It was more like a semi-arid steppe.

The heat was probably hot, though. You gotta give em that.
 
posted by Herodios at 9:58 AM on September 2, 2015 [2 favorites]

'Cuz there ain't no one for to give you no pain is admittedly an all-time bad lyric.
posted by Iridic at 10:06 AM on September 2, 2015 [1 favorite]

But it's the "la la las" that make that song. If "Soul Sister" had la la las that were even half as good I might give it a break.
posted by octobersurprise at 10:30 AM on September 2, 2015 [2 favorites]

'Cuz there ain't no one for to give you no pain is admittedly an all-time bad lyric.

You know, there was a time when Plan Nine From Outer Space was regarded as the worst movie ever made. But later, MST3k demon strated that this conclusion was based solely on a lack of concentrated research. Similarly:

"El Paso / hassle /castle" in the first verse is kinda classic, but this . . .

Billy Mack is a detective down in Texas
You know he knows just exactly what the facts is
He ain't gonna let those two escape justice
He makes his living off the people's taxes

Ever heard of Babe Ruth (the band):

Shots rang out from the rocks above,
And brought Jake to his feet
His pants fell down and acting like a clown,
Them bullets had him dancing to a rock and roll beat . . .

Frankie sings a failed limerick about a statue of limitations:

Venus de Milo was noted for her charms
But strictly between us,
You're cuter than Venus,
And what's more you've got arms.

Wut?

I-I-I-I-I'm too sexy for my shirt
Too sexy for my shirt
So sexy it hurts
And I-I-I-I-I'm too sexy for Milan
Too sexy for Milan
New York, and Japan . . .

Paul McCartney's 9/11 song:

Freee-dumb!
Freee-dumb!
Freee-dumb!

"In this ever-changing wo-o-o-old in which we live in . . . "
posted by Herodios at 11:01 AM on September 2, 2015 [1 favorite]

I seem to remember that "Texas / facts is" was Dave Barry's nomination for worst rhyme ever.
posted by Chrysostom at 11:20 AM on September 2, 2015

I used to think that about Live and Let Die, too, but it's "If this everchanging world in which we're livin'/makes you give in and cry". I was disappointed too, but we have to face facts.
posted by Grangousier at 11:24 AM on September 2, 2015 [3 favorites]

Train is one of a very few bands named after the thing they deserve to be hit by.

Oh, and 18 Wheeler.
posted by Grangousier at 11:28 AM on September 2, 2015

I used to think that about Live and Let Die, too

Twas a joke. I got ears.

Stole joke from Book of Rock Lists.
 
posted by Herodios at 11:44 AM on September 2, 2015

No, I really used to think that. I have ears to, but I appear to be too lazy to use them properly.
posted by Grangousier at 11:53 AM on September 2, 2015

I used to think that about Live and Let Die, too

Since you mentioned it, there's a whole class of songs that aren't quite mondegreens, but which cause misinterpretation in people who don't listen past a chord change or stanza line or whatever. I can't tell you how many kids have told me they thought "Get Off My Cloud" endorsed smoking because of the line:

He can't be a man 'cuz he doesn't smoke . . .

Ignoring the rest of the sentence:

. . . the same cigarettes as me.

Which says something altogether different.

Returning to McCartney, you* couldn't misread that line honestly if you thought at all about the next and final line:

Makes you give in and cry -- say live and let die.

The misread makes this line stand alone in a way that makes no sense.
---------------------------
*Not you personally, but any one.
posted by Herodios at 12:03 PM on September 2, 2015

There's a lovely bit in a 2009 interview with McCartney where he gets asked about the lyrics to "Live and Let Die" and it's clear he's never been asked about this before.

Well, perhaps he can clear up at least one tiny mystery of several decades standing: What exactly is McCartney's maddening lyric in "Live and Let Die"? Is it, "In this ever-changing world in which we live in"? Or "in which we're living"?

McCartney considers and seems genuinely puzzled. "Yeah, good question," he says. "It's kind of ambivalent, isn't it? . . . Um . . . I think it's 'in which we're living.'"

He starts to sing to himself: "In this ever changing world. . . . ' It's funny. There's too many 'ins.' I'm not sure. I'd have to have actually look. I don't think about the lyric when I sing it. I think it's 'in which we're living.' 'In which we're living.' Or it could be 'in which we live in.' And that's kind of, sort of, wronger but cuter. That's kind of interesting. 'In which we live in.' In which we live in! I think it's 'In which we're living.' "

This line has been driving certain kinds of people mad for at least as long as I've been alive, but only in 2009 did anyone put this question to McCartney.
posted by Kattullus at 12:15 PM on September 2, 2015 [8 favorites]

So when I said that the most irksome thing about "Hey Soul Sister" was the Mr. Mister namecheck, I was wrong. Having watched the Todd in the Shadows review that restless_nomad linked, I am boggled at the revelation that this song was Train's attempt to do, in Pat Monahan's own words, "an INXS-y song."

I won't quote it because it's best watched and heard (starting at around 7:50), but suffice to say that Todd's voice is filled with stunned incredulity. As is my brain. No, wait. As is the front lobe of my left-side brains. Pat Monahan, you are history's worst monster.
posted by bakerina at 12:23 PM on September 2, 2015 [1 favorite]

The Revolting Cocks
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 12:24 PM on September 2, 2015 [2 favorites]

I seem to remember that "Texas / facts is" was Dave Barry's nomination for worst rhyme ever

I guess one of my points is that bad lyrics go way beyond bad rhyme.

Here's some relevant excerpts from Robert Christgau on Bob Dylan:

"My Back Pages" is a bad poem. But it is a good song . . .

Dylan's obsession with rhyme . . . compels him to match 'now' with 'somehow' three times in six stanzas. Twice this is totally gratuitous. But the third time -- "Good and bad, I define these term, quite clear no doubt somehow" . . . works perfectly; a typical hit among misses.

Dylan gets away with it simply cause[sic] there is so much there. The refrain of "My Back Pages" -- "I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now" -- may be the finest line he has ever written. It's opening "Crimson flames tied to my ears" -- may be the worst.

posted by Herodios at 12:27 PM on September 2, 2015

Train is one of a very few bands named after the thing they deserve to be hit by.

Mudhoney.

(I almost said "Fatback," but I like Fatback.)
posted by octobersurprise at 12:35 PM on September 2, 2015

Train is one of a very few bands named after the thing they deserve to be hit by.


Green Jellÿ
posted by spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints at 12:58 PM on September 2, 2015

Train is one of a very few bands named after the thing they deserve to be hit by.

Meat Loaf
posted by GrapeApiary at 1:21 PM on September 2, 2015 [1 favorite]

I can't tell you how many kids have told me they thought "Get Off My Cloud" endorsed smoking because of the line:

He can't be a man 'cuz he doesn't smoke . . .

Ignoring the rest of the sentence:

. . . the same cigarettes as me.


I find this comment not entirely satisfactory.
posted by Dr Dracator at 1:31 PM on September 2, 2015 [5 favorites]

"Get Off My Cloud" . . .
not entirely satisfactory.

Ah, yes. "Satisfaction", obviously.
 
posted by Herodios at 2:13 PM on September 2, 2015

I'm not at Burning Man this year, a bit sad about that fact, and consequently was somewhat relieved to find this quote in the article: "Pat Monahan had never been to Burning Man when he wrote the song".

It's not about Burning Man, it's about Pat Monahan's image thereof.
posted by nat at 2:14 PM on September 2, 2015 [2 favorites]

Mudhoney.

That seems sort of out of left field.
posted by Hoopo at 3:10 PM on September 2, 2015

Well of course. We keep the beehives out in the left field, and it rained very heavily there this morning.
posted by Iridic at 3:22 PM on September 2, 2015 [1 favorite]

I read this and I knew I knew the song, but I couldn't quite remember how it goes. In fact all I could call to mind was "Lady Marmalade." It was bothering me that I couldn't remember so I looked up the full lyrics... and you'd better believe it's been stuck in my head going on two hours now.

Classic mistake.
posted by atoxyl at 3:59 PM on September 2, 2015 [1 favorite]

And since that song does not and never did sound remotely like Neil Young in any way that counts to someone who knows what Neil Young sounds like, you officially lose the internet for the day.

The song's resemblance to some of Neil Young's work aroused some controversy. "I know that virtually everyone, on first hearing, assumed it was Neil", Bunnell says. "I never fully shied away from the fact that I was inspired by him. I think it's in the structure of the song as much as in the tone of his voice. It did hurt a little, because we got some pretty bad backlash. I've always attributed it more to people protecting their own heroes more than attacking me." By coincidence, it was "A Horse with No Name" that replaced Young's "Heart of Gold" at the number 1 spot on the U.S. pop chart.

posted by Atom Eyes at 4:50 PM on September 2, 2015 [4 favorites]

atoxyl, the only sure way to obliterate an earwig like "Lady Marmalade" (or any song, really) is to counter-strike with War's immortal "Lowrider".
posted by Chitownfats at 8:34 PM on September 2, 2015 [2 favorites]

"Train is one of my supervisor's favorite bands. Her musical rotation is the following:
1. Train (anything, anything Train has ever performed, Train TRAIN TRAINNNNNN!!!!!)
2. Whichever Counting Crows compilation includes "Big Yellow Taxi," "American Girls," and "Mr. Jones."
3. Under the Table and Dreaming
4. The Best of U2, 1980-2000.
Five and a half years."

I am totally willing to trade you for my coworker's shitty country music station (normally I like some country, but not the godforsaken station she likes) that plays the same shitty songs 4 times a day. Because once my boss is no longer in our office to tell her to use headphones any more, SHE WILL PLAY IT AND I CAN'T TELL HER TO STOP because then she'll hate me and make my life hell. And that starts next week, too.
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:11 PM on September 2, 2015 [1 favorite]

counter-strike with War's immortal "Lowrider"

For me it's Joe Walsh's "Life's Been Good to Me" - Unbreakable (I once had it stuck in my head for 5 months)
posted by mrgrimm at 11:37 PM on September 2, 2015 [1 favorite]

Mr. Mister - Kyrie Eleison
posted by mrgrimm at 11:38 PM on September 2, 2015