Great songs are everywhere, but, unfortunately, so are the bad ones. When a relative unknown like Paul Lekakis makes a dud (whether it was a hit or not), it might be nothing out of the ordinary, but when an artist or a band that is considered a legend or a legendary one does, that might come as a surprise.
Yet, even the best out there are prone to slip ups. There could be almost thousand reasons for the great ones to fail at some point, at least at that moment. They had a bad moment, a lapse in judgement, they needed a filler for their upcoming album, or they simply wanted to make a pun, but it didn’t really work out (at least quality-wise).
Simply put, such songs do not match the rest or (most) of their output - lack of proper inspiration, poor execution, lousy lyrics or departure from what they do best, it could be one or all of those, and the nine below by the greats just don’t cut the mustard.
These musical artists might have been good, but these songs are terrible
David Bowie - “The Laughing Gnome” (1967)
This one rightfully made no impression upon its release, but became a hit in 1973, when Bowie had become ever-changing David. Quite a silly bubblegum thing with sped-up helium-drenched vocals, with Bowie constantly trying to distance himself from the song, realising how bad it was.
Elvis Presley - “Confidence” (1967)
Presley's movies were never intended to be artistic creations but pure fun. Some of them were, but not Clambake, where Elvis sung this one was certainly not one of them. The soundtrack was almost as bad as the movie, with this re-hash of a Frank Sinatra song that includes a chorus of child actors from the move is a true bottom fodder.
Beatles - “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” (1968)
How many brilliant songs each and every member of the Beatles write? Too many to count, probably, but at the same time, each of them had their lapse in judgment, and this McCartney singalong has solid competition from only a handful of others, but beats them to the punch. It was released as a single in many countries (where it became a hit) but not in the U.S. or the U.K.
Chuck Berry - “My Dong-a-Ling” (1972)
Berry, one of the most inspiring artist in rock music had only one #1 hit, and this supposed joke was unfortunately it, and it even wasn’t one he wrote. A bad joke, which Berry probably recorded as a joke in the first place sounds even worse than it did in the seventies.
Neil Young - “We R in Control” (1982)
Neil Young probably every modern music genre there is, and Trans, his sort of electro excursion, was one of them. Ok, so Neil’s heart is at the right place with this vocoder and synth-heavy thing talking about technology gone wrong. But probably even to his chagrin, this was exactly it - technology gone wrong.
Paul Simon - “Cars are Cars” (1983)
When his partnership with Art Garfunkel went sour, Simon scraped Garfunkel’s voice from some already recorded songs and started afresh with a batch that became his Hearts and Bones album. Mostly about his marriage gone wrong with Carrie Fisher, it also included this inanity that keeps repeating, "cars are cars all over the world.” Well, he was obviously in a rut with this one.
Frank Zappa - “Jazz Discharge Party Hats” (1983)
Nobody knows how much music Fran Zappa recorded, not even the people now running his archive, and among those , both released and unreleased there is quite a few that should never reached our ears. Zappa was a man with a great sense of humor, but like with anybody else, that good sense would drift away sometimes. It certainly did here.
Bob Dylan - “Wiggle Wiggle” (1990)
Dylan was no stranger to bluesy rhythms, which this Under The Sky opener is full of. But the lyrics are a complete nonsense not worthy of a Nobel Prize for writing winner. Sure, every great artist has a right to try something nonsensical some times but to this day, this one is probably too nonsensical even for a great artist probably thinking this one would be fun.
Brian Wilson - “Smart Girls” (1991)
The man who brought us some of the most gorgeous harmonies in modern music goes rap on this solo outing and an album (Sweet Insanity) that never got an official release. While the pirate copies still circling around show that the album itself was not bad, but certainly not one of his best solo efforts, this one is a complete lapse in judgment.