I originally intended this post to be a tribute to Hanson, the pre-pubescent musical phenomenon of the late 90’s. That is still my aim, but I plan to use it as a bridge to something bigger. Now for the anecdote.

Hanson’s first commercially released CD (”Middle of Nowhere“) came out in May 1997. My brother, Jesse, and I went in together to purchase the album that summer. I was a spindly middle-school graduate with a girly voice and it did my heart good to hear two out of the three Hanson brothers cruising at an octave above manly range for a full 50 minutes (the oldest brother, Isaac, was seventeen at the time and had already donned pit hair. He was the vocalic tuba in the threesome).

Jesse and I were fiercely territorial with our purchases, which created a problem when each of us owned half the CD. If I remember correctly, we worked out a deal where we would each have rights over the disc for a month at a time, and then it would switch hands. To make up for my off months, I recorded the CD onto a cassette tape and drew a really sweet copy of the Hanson logo on a piece of paper to use as a cover. The quality of the tape recording was fair-to-middling, but I now had perpetual access to high-pitched wonder.

One of my favorite songs was the wildly-popular “MMMBop,” a squirrely ode to relational vicissitude (watch the music video). I quickly committed the lyrics to memory. For better or for worse, they are still in my head, and I was reviewing them briefly before drifting off to sleep last night. One stanza in particular struck me as a specimen of particularly poor poetry:

So hold on to the ones who really care,
In the end they’ll be the only ones there,
When you get old and start losing your hair,
Can you tell me, who will still care?

Now don’t get me wrong. I love Hanson. I just think the care/there/hair/care connection could have used a little tweaking.

This brings me to my question. What are the worst song lyrics you’ve ever heard? Anything’s fair game. Just keep it clean.