As with Pol Pot and Robert Mugabe the world would be a better place if certain songs, despite their popularity, had been shot at birth. Just as one person's dictator is another's war hero, so the choice of song is highly subjective. Here are two of mine.
Lady in Red by Chris de Burgh. He used to write songs that could best be described by adjectives like interesting, haunting, touching, melodious etc. These were songs that would make it onto the Old Grey Whistle Test, but probably not Top of the Pops. Songs that Annie Nightingale liked openly and other people had a cassette of in their car, but rarely talked about. Then he wrote Lady in Red and presumably got rich(ish) and well known, but for me broke the spell he had laboured to create and sowed the seeds of an annoying feedback loop in my head which popped up this week and prompted me to add this saccharine dirge to my 'hit' list.
Another song born with a cute smile on its face that distracted everyone from the budding horns in its temples which begged a bullet to the brain is Candle in the Wind. Don't get me wrong I used to like it too, but now I thank the lord for digital albums which allow you to delete the songs you don't want to hear. Thanks to Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, I'm sure it's not just envy of Bernie Taupin who got to spend the late twentieth century swanning around in long leather coats, being filmed getting in and out of limos and generally living a life which was wildly large in proportion to his talent. And Crocodile Rock is ridiculous, but it has every right to life. CitW does NOT and don't even get me started on the Diana version.
