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Guilty for crimes against humanity

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Going into this, I knew that picking the Worst Song Of All Time was a lose-lose situation. Not only would I have to recall the wasted minutes in my life enduring all-out crapfests like Feelings and Billy, Don't Be A Hero, but I'd have to expend even more precious time listening to them over again just to reassure myself that they sucked as galactically as I thought. (And they do. Oh yes, they really do!) This is why "best-of" lists are so popular: People don't want to be reminded of the pain inflicted on this world by felonious songwriters. I, however, cannot let such sins go unpunished.

But before I crown the Worst Song Of All Time, let's examine the criteria of what makes a song truly suck. It should go without saying that I'm not talking about your average, run-of-the-mill stinkbombs (Benny And The Jets, Witchy Woman and 25,000 other lame-o's); rather, I'm referring to songs so egregiously offensive that they can make a listener long for the sound of baby seals being clubbed. Songs this horrible usually contain hair-brained or pretentious lyrics, melodies that are capable of producing an instantaneous migraine, and singing that induces projectile vomiting and/or aggressive bowel evacuation. So, while Benny And The Jets is certainly irritating, and the world would most assuredly be a better place if Elton John and Bernie Taupin said, "Hey, let's go rewrite Crocodile Rock instead," I don't think they're responsible for mass trips to the gastroenterologist.

I should also point out that awful cover songs don't count, which means that full-time toolbox Michael Bolton's crimes against humanity will, in this instance anyway, be overlooked. Yes, his version of (Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay is awful enough to make Otis Redding roll right out of his grave and administer a five-finger cock punch to Mr. Bolton, but the fact remains that Redding's original song is an R&B classic of the highest order. No full-time toolbox, not even a card-carrying member like Michael Bolton, can change that.

Before making my selection, I took the time to confer with a panel of experts. And I must say, when it comes to shining a blinding light on lameness, The MusicRadar staff sure know their stuff. Starship's thoroughly wretched We Built This City seemed to be a popular choice, as did Bon Jovi's raging loaf-pincher Wanted Dead Or Alive. With This Girl Is Mine and Ebony And Ivory, it was agreed that Paul McCartney, Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder formed their own little corporation, heretofore known as Suck, Inc. And the less everybody had to say about Ice Ice Baby, the better.

Still, picking a song that signifies the worst of the worst, one that encapsulates the lowest depth of creative potential, is an intensely personal choice, and my money has to go to Billy Joel for the godawful Captain Jack. I realize that I could have simply picked the entire Joel oeuvre, but that felt like the easy way out. Songwriting this phenomenally bad has to have a tipping point, and with this piece of tepid offal from 1973, Joel has, quite simply outdone himself - and everybody else.

Let's put the song on the Suck Scale to see how it stacks up: Hair-brained, pretentious lyrics? Check. Migraine-producing melody? Check. And let's not even get into the stomach-and-bowel-related aspects of Mr. Joel's singing style. Suffice to say that Captain Jack should only be listened to in the safe confines of one's bathroom. That's game, set and match, folks.

Make no mistake, Captain Jack is audio Kryptonite. I, along with untold others, have been feeling its negative impact for years. So acute is my aversion to the song, so strong is my allergic reaction, that whenever it comes on the radio (and if it's twice a year, that's still two times too many), my finger hits the button to change it with the speed of a winning contestant on Jeopardy! (One time, while driving, my wife was amazed at my reflex response to the song's opening chord. "How do you even know that was Captain Jack?" she asked in amzement. "I can tell when anybody in the world is playing it," I told her. "And it's my job to stop them.")

In an interview, Billy Joel once said that he wrote Captain Jack as an admonishment to "stoned-out losers," his way of giving them a kick in the pants. Whatever his intentions, Captain Jack has the reverse effect - it makes me want to numb myself completely. But no amount of wild shit I could smoke will ever undo its damage. At this point, all I can do is manage the disease. So let this column be a lesson to one and all. Right now, somebody somewhere is considering playing Captain Jack. If we all wish it away hard enough, maybe, just maybe, it can be so. It's always nice to dream.

What do you think? Got something even worse than Captain Jack? Well, don't hold back - tell us.

By Joe Bosso