WBTC annoys me as a song, but I'm not sure why its considered 'selling out'

'Cuz they didn't write it. They paid a hit doctor to write it. Pure capitalist pig out. Which is not my standard for musical ethics, but certainly was theirs during the Airplane era.

Y'all don't know from bad. You don't have any collections of song poems & MSR madness: "Send your poem in and we'll set it to music!" That's where you find the genius of bad songwriting.

Hec, what's MSR?

And I do know from bad. I *just* heard Dean Friedman's Ariel, over the weekend. [link]

Hec, what's MSR?

I edited a link in. It's the company most associated with setting your poems to music. They had a genius composer/keyboardist named Rodd Keith who did these cool, snappy arrangements to the most demented/sentimental/political lyrics evah!

It's the company most associated with setting your poems to music.

Do they still exist? The temptation to send in song lyrics by a friend's super-grrr!stomp industrial band and see what they do is pretty strong.

Launchcast is playing "Rio" for me. They must be lurking here.

My personal height of badness has to be "Run, Joey, Run," by an artist whose name I forget. It's one of those '70s pop songs I always call "angel music," with the ethereal ahh-aaaahhhhs swelling in the background. It's about a girl who gets pregnant, and warns hapless Joey to run, because Daddy ain't going for that.

The chorus is:

Daddy, please don't, it wasn't his fault
He means so much to me
Daddy, please don't, we're going to get married
Just you wait and see

It doesn't end well.

And we won't discuss my shameful addiction to a current silly goth/pop metal band from Finland.

Personally, I'm not even sure "We Built This City" is Jefferson Airplane/Starship's worst song. "Sara" at least gives it a run for the money.

It doesn't end well.

Goodness, no. From the little you posted, that song is heading straight for a stalled car on the railroad tracks and/or the Tallahatchee Bridge.

Jilli, I don't know if there are any more song-poem companies out there. Maybe in Nashville.

John Trubee (who we featured in the book and spoke at the reading in Berkeley) famously sent in "Blind Man's Penis" and got a spiffy country backing for it.

But consider the genius of these titles alone:

13. Dick Kent: Octopus Woman Please Let Me Go
16. Wm. H. Arpaia & The Jerrymanders: Listen, Mister Hat
18. The Downtowners: I Love Lovely Chinese Gal
05. Shelley Stuart & The Five Stars: Vampire Husband
02. Jim Lea: The Doing Of Our Thing
22. uncredited: My Hamburger Baby
28. Gene Marshall: Smoke It - The Pot
05. Bill Joy: Bored Can't Cope Want Out
11. The Real Pros: It's You, Cherokee Lou

...and of course, "Jimmy Carter Says Yes"