The Worst Songs in the History of Mankind Part 2

It seems I've been taken to task for having the audacity to include Escape-The Pina Colada Song as one of Humankind's worst efforts (notice the gender non specificity). An E-mailer informed me that she "Loved the Pina Colada Song" and went as far as to question my IQ and heredity by calling me a "stupid bastard". As I stated at the beginning of my broadside, to each his (or her) own poison. And despite the rather unfriendly tone of "Rita" the e-mailer, I remained unmoved. E-TPCS still stinks.

Which moves us forward in search of other stinkers perpetrated on the popular music listening public. Brooke over at Paleo Con Command Center submitted the perfectly terrible MacArthur Park, which I am certain is playing over the speakers of Hell as we speak (both versions-Richard Harris and Donna Summer in a loop); however, Dave Barry eviscerated this mindless Jimmy Webb tune years ago. So, I won't revive it just to slaughter it again...though it is tempting.

Instead, we search for new whipping boys from the easy pickin's of pop music . Today I sharpen the knife for one of my all time favorite awful songs: Come on Eileen by Dexy's Midnight Runners. This song is soooo bad that it is rumored to be one of the songs that the CIA blares over the speakers in which to torture their captives. If the captives are Muslim, it couldn't be much worse than the call for prayer...but I digress.

Come on Eileen assaulted it's first eardrums back in 1982 during the salad days of MTV . It can safely be asserted that the half starved images of Dexy's Midnight Runners did little to help over come the sheer dreadfulness of Come On Eileen. As for the stick people that made up DMR; according to that fount of flawless information, Wikepedia, the Dexy in Dexy's Midnight Runners refers to Dexedrine, a favorite amphetamine of the group's founding member Kevin Rowland. If you had the misfortune to actually see the video version of COE, you couldn't help but notice that the band members were a scrawny bunch. The crank'll do that to ya bloke!

And as warbled as the vocals are, the lyrics are even more esoteric. The British bards have nothing to be concerned about:

Come on Eileen, I swear (well he means)
At this moment you mean everything,
With you in that dress my thoughts I confess verge on dirty
Ah come on Eileen.

Make no mistake, COE is finger nails on the black board annoying. And while I have much affection for the Mother land, as does in house post-meister Larry Reid, Dexy and the lads are commodities that would have been better left in the Kingdom. I'm all for trans-Atlantic relationships, free trade and the like, but I'd have just as soon skipped the trauma of hearing this mush mouthed import. I've heard that if you play it backwards you hear a cockney voice rasping "this song sux".

Things I'd rather do other than hear Come on Eileen ever again: wake up next to Helen Thomas and face the harsh memories of what I may have done.

For the brave at heart here it is: