“Speedy Gonzales” by Pat Boone (1962, #6)

One person’s view:  “Thankfully, this type of casual racism now looks horribly dated.” – Graham Fyfe @ Aphoristic Album Reviews

The public’s view:  3.02 / 5.00

Pat Boone is tired of taking everyone’s shit.  At least, that’s the message I got from the 2021 Fox News interview in which he responded to claims that the cartoon mouse Speedy Gonzales was a racist Latino stereotype.  Boone’s old hit record that sampled the character’s voice was now also under attack, and the entertainer wasn’t about to put up with it.  He pointed out that the resourceful rodent from Warner Bros. is beloved by people in many Spanish-speaking countries.  Cementing his defense, he said that Benjamin Netanyahu enjoys Boone’s song and affectionately refers to Pat as “Speedy” every time they see each other.

I have a few follow-up questions that Fox News neglected to ask.  Why was the Prime Minister of Israel having meetings with Pat Boone?  Was he trying to counter a possible alliance between Hezbollah and Bobby Vinton?  And why couldn’t the singer find a more appropriate person, perhaps someone who lives within 6,000 miles of the region, who could vouch for his good standing in Latin America?  Nonetheless, Boone was not wrong.  The criticism of his record is an example of politically correct silliness.  It’s easy to grab headlines by calling a song racist, but oftentimes the better word to use is “stupid”.

Boone’s “Speedy Gonzales” is about a hard-drinking Mexican man who coincidentally shares a moniker with a popular cartoon character.  It’s a solid concept accompanied by an acceptable melody, and it succeeds as a straight-ahead early ‘60s rock song.  It’s even a little edgy if you interpret Speedy’s nickname as an emasculating jibe at his lack of stamina in the bedroom.  I doubt that unclean thoughts like this were in Pat Boone’s head while he was making the record, but it’s nice that the lyrics can work on a couple of different levels.

Unfortunately, Speedy’s wife wanted to contribute her vocals to the mix.  This woman evidently loves to sing, even though she could lose a talent contest to a smoke alarm.  You want to know why Speedy won’t come home, lady?  It’s because he has ears.

The song ventures into full novelty territory when two sound bites of Mel Blanc’s Speedy Gonzales cartoon voice are added.  Now it is an interruptabeat, just like “Baby Sittin’ Boogie”.  Someone could probably build a pretty good comedy track of this type using Blanc’s voices, but in “Speedy Gonzales” there is no common theme holding everything together.  Boone is singing about a philandering sot and a screeching harpy of a wife, while Blanc is portraying the world’s fastest and cleverest mouse.  Cramming these characters into the same song, just because all of them are Mexican, is blatantly contrived.

That doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s offensive.  The mouse is a stereotype, but his interjections about tortillas, chili peppers, and tequila are a positive stereotype because these products are a source of pride for Mexico.  Imagine if Pat Boone’s producer had worked on “The Night Chicago Died”, and had inserted snippets of a guy ad-libbing about deep-dish pizza and Polish sausage.  You wouldn’t say, “Wow, that song is racist toward Chicagoans!”  You’d say, “What the hell does this have to do with Al Capone’s gang and the shoot-out?”

I’m someone who appreciates a good novelty record.  I could expound for pages on the bounteous wonders of Weird Al’s catalog, and I might just do so someday if you’re not careful.  Pat Boone, however, is not Weird Al.  This song might have been the stand-out single of Boone’s career if he had not tried to make it funny.

My rating:  3 / 10

“P.T. 109” by Jimmy Dean (1962, #8)

One person’s view:  “[T]he types of people who find naval combat fascinating are just not the sorts who know how to pen a quality pop tune.” – Nic Renshaw @ Pop Goes the Year

The public’s view:  2.43 / 5.00

As some have observed, Jimmy Dean was a lot like Tommy Lee.  First he was famous for his music, but now he’s better known for his sausage.  Let’s see if we can figure out why Dean’s songs have faded away while his eponymous breakfast meats continue to keep cardiologists busy.

Dean’s most memorable release was “Big Bad John”, a story song about a hulking man who saved the lives of his coworkers during a mine collapse.  After that record hit #1 and won him various accolades, Dean couldn’t quite move on from it.  He kept trying to recapture the magic by making sequels to “Big Bad John”, which would have been easier if he hadn’t killed off the title character at the end of the song.  One such sequel had John miraculously emerge from the wreckage of the mine, despite being permanently entombed there under a marble monument in the original story.  He was underground and dead again in the next song, and the narrative moved on to his son “Little Bitty Big John”.  Dean should have signed up as a writer for General Hospital, because John’s saga was turning into a bad soap opera.

With “P.T. 109”, Dean took a slight detour – and I do mean slight.  This one was a Johnny Horton-style military march that told the tale of a different hero named John.  Of course, the P.T. 109 story had already been drummed into all of America’s heads by the Kennedy campaign a couple of years earlier.  When Dean discloses that the guy in the song is the President, it isn’t exactly a stunning plot twist.

I suspect that the hagiography didn’t sit well with a lot of people in 1962, because Kennedy was still an active political figure who was expected to run in another election.  You can imagine the outcry if radio stations today played a song praising Pete Buttigieg.  Dean had no way of knowing this at the time, but if he had held this record back until the end of ‘63 he probably would have had another #1 single.

One thing I like about “P.T. 109” is its sing-along chorus.  Yes, I know we shouldn’t revel in the destruction of a U.S. naval vessel, but that chorus is a rollicking good time.  The catchy melody contrasts with “Big Bad John”, which is almost a spoken word affair.  On the other hand, it’s way too easy to write lyrics like these when a great story of heroism, patriotism, and survival is sitting out there in the public domain.  “P.T. 109” adds little, if anything, to what was widely known.

To prove how trivial it is to write a story song from true events, I’ve penned some lyrics about the only president from my lifetime who had a similar moment of combat valor:  George H.W. Bush.  As a bonus, I managed to write my song without using any slurs and without mocking the enemy’s “heathen gods”.  You can find my work below.  It is to be performed in the style of “Big Bad John”.  Now all I need is a sing-along chorus, and I’ve got a hit.

My rating:  5 / 10  (This is for “P.T. 109”.  My song is a 10 / 10.)

The Ballad of George Herbert Walker Bush

You know all about John Kennedy
But you haven’t heard about the Barbara III
The plane flown by a lanky man named George

The Japanese were at their island base
When bombs started falling all over the place
It was a special delivery from Uncle Sam and George

The enemy fired with deadly aim
And our skilled pilot wasn’t to blame
But it would be a fateful day for preppy George

The Barbara III took a lethal hit
The turret gunner said “Oh shit,
I’m jumping with my chute now, goodbye George!”

“Those guys down there aren’t very nice.
They’ll put us on a plate with soy and rice.
Try not to bail ‘til we’re over sea,” said George

Four hours adrift with sharks around
Most of the men were caught or drowned
The only one to make it home was George

The war is over, Mr. Truman said
George just scoffed and said, “Not ‘til I’m dead.
Vengeance has a name, and that name is George.”

This man was a patriot, brave and true
He knew his mission was still not through
There would be one last attack from George

It took him years to make his plans
He kissed some butts and he shook some hands
But diplomacy was all an act for George

He embraced economics of a voodoo kind
And spent eight years just stuck in line
If the Senate ties or Ronnie dies, call George

One last man stood in his way
A Democrat from Massachusetts Bay
“I bet he likes to burn the flag,” said George

Well, he threw some mud and won 40 states
But 47 years was long to wait
He could really bide his time, that clever George

He was losing his job to Bill or to Ross
When he came eye to eye with the Tokyo boss
It was now or never for Operation George

“You shot me down and ate my friends.
It’s too late now to make amends.
You’re about to feel my wrath,” said President George

That was when he got his chance
He spewed his barf on the Prime Minister’s pants
“I won’t pay for the dry cleaning,” sneered George

He showed Japan who won the fight
He totally ruined their dinner that night
But there was still one final speech from George

“You may think my revenge is done,
But you haven’t met my frat boy son.
The whole world will live in fear of a man named George.”

“Baby Sittin’ Boogie” by Buzz Clifford (1961, #6)

One person’s view:  “This is one of those songs you might want to hear once a year, but not twice.” – pcno2832 @ YouTube

The public’s view:  2.11 / 5.00

This entry is about a type of novelty song called an interruptabeat.  (I’m the only one who calls it that, but no one else has bothered to give this style a name.)  An interruptabeat is a conventional music track that is sprinkled with jarring sound effects which completely stop the surrounding rhythm each time they are played.  It’s the inverse of the “break-in” records that were popularized by Bill Buchanan and Dickie Goodman, in which snippets of music are inserted into a spoken monologue for comedic effect.  Goodman tried to keep this latter type of humor alive until the 1980s by making a new break-in record based on every hit movie that came along, but he finally quit after his E.T. spoof sold hardly any copies.  We can all be glad that he stopped before Terms of Endearment was released.

The finest exemplar of the interruptabeat genre is “It’s a Gas”, a 1963 record that was distributed in specially marked copies of Mad Magazine.  Countless spelling lessons and church services were disrupted by children who tried to reproduce the sonorous eructations they heard on this track.  Meanwhile, parents were apt to find their hi-fi needles damaged after their kids repeatedly played the paper-thin flexible phonograph disc.  Despite not charting on the Hot 100, “It’s a Gas” certainly burped its way into America’s hearts.

Buzz Clifford’s “Baby Sittin’ Boogie” is an interruptabeat about a baby who the narrator’s girlfriend is babysitting.  The kid really enjoys rock ‘n’ roll, and he imitates the singers on the records that the babysitter plays.  After every few lines that Clifford sings, the little rascal interjects with a bit of this mimicry.  He is not particularly accurate, but what do you expect?  He’s an infant!  It’s hard to obtain decent vocal training at his age, because Juilliard doesn’t usually accept people who throw strained carrots across the room at their audition.  (Barry Manilow managed to get in anyhow.)

As you might imagine, this song gets a little annoying after a minute or so.  The babbling is mostly incoherent, and at one point it sounds like they put the microphone on the wrong end of the baby.  I have to respect the authenticity, though.  Anyone making a track like this today would rely on AI-generated infant noises, but “Baby Sittin’ Boogie” was created with the help of the producer’s two young children.  I wonder whether they ever listed this experience on a résumé when they grew up, or would it have set expectations too high?  You might not want to brag about doing vocals on a hit record at 14 months unless you’ve also translated Shakespeare’s works into Esperanto by age 11.  Employers like to see some progression.

Although this tune was written by a songwriter from the U.S., it did not stay within our borders.  It was later remade by acts in France, Germany, and Great Britain for their local markets.  Americans often complain of being treated rudely when they cross the Atlantic, and usually assume this is because of discontent with U.S. foreign policy.  I think I’ve found the real reason:  Europeans still remember that we gave them “Baby Sittin’ Boogie”.

My rating:  3 / 10

“Tell Laura I Love Her” by Ray Peterson (1960, #7)

One person’s view:  “Horrible, whiney, sad, miserable.  …  I mean to each his own, but I’m pretty sure Satan plays this song on an endless loop in Hell.” – bobrocks @ Rate Your Music

The public’s view:  2.62 / 5.00

This is the inaugural entry in The Bad Top Tens.  If you’ve seen my Bad #1 Hits project, you already know what is about to transpire.  I describe a song from the past that was once very popular but has since been skewered by the critics and dismissed by modern listeners.  I evaluate whether the song’s poor reputation is deserved.  Usually it is.  This blog’s first victim is Ray Peterson’s “Tell Laura I Love Her”, a gleeful little melody about a guy named Tommy dying in a wreck during an automobile race.

“Tell Laura” is one of the foremost examples of a death disc, an entertainment genre that dominated the late ‘50s and early ‘60s and that has occasionally been revisited since.  A haunting death disc needs to be both gory and sad, and this one does not disappoint.  It scores points with its descriptions of the blaze that consumed Tommy’s car and of Laura pining in the chapel for her lost love.  We are left to assume that she took a vow of celibacy and became a nun.  Some Catholic school kid is probably getting whacked with a cane by a bitter 90-year-old woman right now, just because Tommy was foolish enough to think he was going to win that $1,000 prize.

All of this makes for a fine epic, but there is one weak line that undermines the narrative:  “No one knows what happened that day.”  This is a missed opportunity to give an interesting explanation for the accident.  Perhaps another man coveted Laura’s attention, so he sabotaged Tommy’s vehicle?  Or maybe a scary moth got into Tommy’s car and made him plow into the concession stand?  I’m not saying that every story song has to go into depth about every detail.  It’s just lazy writing, however, to say that nobody knows what happened at the key moment in the plot.  Imagine if other death discs tried to get away with this.  “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” might have been titled “Grandma’s Autopsy Was Inconclusive”.

At its core, “Tell Laura” is a parable about the random injustices of the universe.  The lyrics suggest that Tommy was a novice racer who had the misfortune to be killed on the one and only occasion that he participated in the sport.  Totally unfair.  It’s like getting tennis elbow the first time you play, or being forcibly signed by the Pittsburgh Pirates after a scout saw you pitch two innings at your company softball game.  Listeners can cheer a well-earned fatality like the one in Mark Dinning’s “Teen Angel”, which resulted from the title character’s stupidity and recklessness, but Tommy’s only apparent sin was naïveté.  It’s impossible to derive any pleasure from his demise.

While no singer is talented enough to make me want to hear this depressing tale more than once or twice, I give Ray Peterson credit for trying.  His vocal style reminds me of Roy Orbison, and even a second-rate imitation of Roy Orbison sounds better than, say, the genuine Phil Collins.  I appreciated Peterson’s emotional performance more after hearing Ricky Valance’s less memorable remake of “Tell Laura”.  Valance recorded this for a different label after Peterson’s British distributor, Decca Records, deemed the maudlin lyrics offensive and refused to release the original version in the U.K.  Decca then clumsily backtracked on this edict – after destroying the entire first pressing of Peterson’s single – only to find that the competing record by Valance had already satiated the country’s demand for the song.  It was a huge misstep, but the label soon had an opportunity to recover when an unknown band called the Beatles showed up for an audition.  Unfortunately, Decca declined to sign them, as that would have diverted resources from such promising young acts as Kenny Hollywood and the Tony Osborne Orchestra.

Ricky Valance’s version hit #1 in the U.K., an occurrence that one British music blogger calls “a national embarrassment up there with Brexit”.  Ray Peterson’s original reached only #7 in the U.S, and that seems about right.

My rating:  4 / 10

About “The Bad Top Ten Hits”

Welcome to this project in which I will reveal the most poorly regarded songs ever to reach the top ten of the Billboard Hot 100 pop singles chart.  This is the music that was once very popular, but that is now generally hated by critics and listeners.  I’ve already covered 75 of the supposed “worst” #1 hits on another blog, so here I will discuss only those songs that peaked in the #2 through #10 positions.

Why focus on the worst songs rather than the best?  Because it gives us a chance to hear records that have been forgotten, and it’s a great opportunity to read humorously bad reviews.  For a lucky few songs, it’s a chance at redemption.

I must emphasize that I don’t select my personal least favorite songs for inclusion here, though I often agree with the consensus opinion that these records are pretty bad.  I will assign each song a rating from 1 to 10, and it’s possible that there won’t be any 10s.  The 1s and 2s are more fun to discuss anyway.

If you like this project and want to read more of my writing, I suggest starting with my other free blog The Bad #1 Hits.  The next stop would be my personal web site where I occasionally blog about other topics and promote the books I have available on Amazon.  Aside from that last sentence, there are no for-profit ads, affiliate links, or popups here.  Nothing will stand between you and the worst top ten hits in history.

Although the Hot 100 was first published in the summer of 1958, nobody really cares what happened before 1960.  We’ll start there with the first entry in our Bad Top Ten Hits Hall of Fame.