Bad Music Alert

If I were Dave Barry, I would come out of retirement and reopen the Bad Song Contest just especially to hand out a prize to John Mayer, for "Daughters." (I don't recommend dwelling on the fact that the link I just provided you goes to some place called Love Dungeon. It's actually a copy of Barry's original Bad Song Contest column, which is funnier than this post.)

But back to more serious matters. I. Cannot. Stand. This. Song.

I don't even listen to the radio and I hear it all the time. Worst of all, it plays at the gym without fail, no matter what time of day I go trying to escape it. This is not workout music, folks. It's whiney in the extreme, mushy, drippy, pathetic, sexist, offensive to fathers, and so poorly sung as to border on atonal. Oh, please, let me show you some of the lyrics.

Fathers be good to your daughters
Daughters will love like you do
Girls become lovers
Who turn into mothers
So mothers be good to your daughters, too

Thank you, John Mayer! Now that I've heard your song, I think I get it. I'm not supposed to be bad to my daughter, I'm supposed to be good! I'll get right on that. Good thing they played this piece of shit song so many times at my gym.

Dave Barry launched the Bad Song Contest mostly in response to Niel Diamond's "I Am, I Said," specifically the lyric " 'I am,' I said/To no one there/And no one heard at all/Not even the chair." He pointed out, "that this does not make a ton of sense, unless Neil has unusually intelligent furniture. ('Mr. Diamond, your BarcaLounger is on line two.')"

Now tell me if this line from "Daughters" doesn't belong in that exalted company: "Ooh, you see that skin/It's the same she's been standing in/Since the day she saw him walking away."

Mull that image over for a while.