Trash Tunes by Treasured Talents

I've been taking Polls since Jr. High.
I think it started as a way to communicate and in NE Ohio it seemed less depressing than talking about the weather.
People mock my polls but they don't mean a thing- just something to stir things up and keep the boredom at bay-I don't care what you think, say or believe and you can change your answers tomorrow. The query I'm making this week seems to have stirred a bigger response than usual in the people I'm bugging with it, so here goes:

I love an album called Healing by Todd Rundgren. It came out in 1981 and I was already a fan but this disc was different. It was very personal, intense and original. For me it really holds up and can transport me instantly back to a few mental mile markers where I still recognize the scenery.

However, in the arc of all this blissed-out meditative beauty, a song crops up like a poop on a plate-I swear to god it's the Disco Duck of Rundgren's ouvre ( yeah yeah-I KNOW, I KNOW you don't like "Bang the Drum all day" fellow Todd fans, but this is different) . The song I'm talking about is a synthesized whoopy cushion called Golden Goose.
I won't go on for long about how this tune messes with my mantra as I surrender to the peace that proceeds it but I will confess that I quickly solved the issue back in '81 by dubbing the whole thing onto cassette sans the offending ditty. Then I popped the tape into my 6 lb Walkman and rode my bike for miles in heaven.

Thinking about my once secret shame over not "getting" a composition that not only escaped me but irritated me like a fantastic lover who chews with their mouth open, made me consider other artists I adore that have an incredible catalogue marred by one awful entry. I wondered who else had experienced this unsettling feeling.


'Cause who the fuck doesn't HATE that stupid Silver Hammer song on the Beatle's Abbey Road??? I mean the thing is like a crusty boil on a super model-- or at least I THOUGHT it was that obvious, but I've already encountered people who love that song.
This intrigues and amuses me.

The name of this poll is Bang Bang Maxwell's Golden Goose who just called to Say, Say, Say.

Already my friend David has chimed in that Shake Down Street is "disco Dead" and as a dead-icated fan, he can't listen to it AT ALL.
I worry for a moment that everyone's beef may involve their beloved bands one disco experiment and this poll will get boring and obvious, then David's wife Rhonda blurts out that as a HUGE Stones fan she will never accept Angie and I am newly inspired.

I LOVE Angie and assert that it's another Jagger/Richards tune: Hang Fire which may be responsible for both cancer and famine in the world but now I see that the thrill here is gonna be in the arguing.

Delicious!

No one ever argues FOR "Ebony and Ivory", though a few have had the brass cojones to point out that God among Men he may be, Sir P can sure hurl a doozy on occasion ( we're back to Maxwell and Say Say Say now, kids-sorry )

Today at breakfast it's pointed out that Bowie is one who can't really be pinned down for a stinker. Everyone at the table chews on that and no one can alter this assertion. "you can think of songs of his you don't LOVE maybe, but none that you HATE" Severin offers.

It's only on the drive home that I am visited by the mid 80's image of Bowie and Jagger wiggling their asses and destroying the song Dancin' in the Streets.
Makes me wish I hadn't had all that Migas
-It also doesn't escape me that Jagger may be the actual offending crap catalyst here.

Some missteps can be dealt with in a mature manner. Stevie Wonder will get a pass for I Just Called to Say I Love You because so much of his other stuff is what makes us feel alive and also because maybe he couldn't see the looks of horror in the studio.
Consider it un-done.

Manic Monday gets Prince a half an hour in Time Out with one ruler rap on the knuckles for Raspberry Beret.

We will leave the Beach Boys' Kokomo bleeding on the roadside next to the once-pretty corpse of John Stamos.

A special section is reserved for the one "hit" of a more obscure artist like Chris Isaak's Wicked Game or Steve Forbert's Romeo's Tune which give their true, obsessive fans, who want you to know this tune or that tune do not do their hero justice, jukebox sized ulcers.


Some may take a moment here to reflect on Little Jeannie and Part Time Love by Elton John while others may weep silently over Pressure , Uptown Girl and--sorry Mr. Joel, We Didn't Start The Fire but if we had it would've been directly under your piano.

Pop Idol Immolation seems a bit severe I know, but somewhere in your gunky soul is a song you desire to defame. I'd like to know if anyone has a bone to pick with say--Johnny Cash?
Just curious.
I'll be here stewing on the horrid fake laugh Joni Mitchell drops at the end of Big Yellow Taxi, interrupting my ecological reverie and nearly making me want to defend Christine Todd Whitman
in my rage.