KEY POINTS:
A bad song leaves no room for the right time or place. Forget counting horses, a heated debate is just the thing for whiling away a long drive.
There we were, cruising through some lovely countryside - actually, that's a guess, it was sheeting down outside. Sometimes
you just have to take it on trust that the damp blurs of green peeking through the downpour would normally be right purdy, what with it being Nu Zild an' all.
So there we sat, silently pondering how ridiculously loud the wipers were and wondering if the rain would stop when the backseat piped up: "Jim Mora says Yummy Yummy is the worst song of all time."
Innocuous comment, but she may as well have dropped a hungry possum in the car.
"Rubbish." "Bollocks." "Who?" And so it went on.
Naming the world's worst song is a hoary old game, but it can make for hours of entertainment.
How can you know what you love, if you don't know what you hate? Hate's a bit strong, but some songs deserve it.
I have to admit I've spent way too much time on this question, but it's meant I've distilled my answer down to a rock bottom three.
But they can wait a bit. First things first, what constitutes a bad song? Crappy musicianship? Toilet wall lyrics? Bad associations?
Sure, Yummy Yummy is the prototypical bubblegum pop song, but it never aspired to anything more. It's essentially a gormless hook dressed up in gobbledegook, the Crazy Frog of the 60s. Not quite the stuff of fingernails and blackboards, so sorry Jim, you're wrong mate.
Instead, Yummy Yummy gets filed along with a whole raft of stuff that's bad yet good, given the right time and place. It could be called a guilty pleasure.
A bad song leaves no room for the right time or place.
Such pondering has lead to another conclusion, we don't make crap music like we used to.
Much of today's chart fodder has been distilled through so many committees they may have been assembled with biscuit cutters or Lego.
Just check out anything ever released by a Pop Idol winner. Yet someone is earning a pot of cash reconstituting that stuff. But that doesn't matter, pop is meant to be disposable.
As for what passes for commercial rock, entire networks base their playlists on identikit guitar plod played at a reasonably fast clip which ain't so much bad as bland. Nickelback anyone?
Even hip-hop is now so bereft of ideas it's become all about the guest stars. I'm just waiting for Timbaland feat. Ted McGinley - you just knew a show was heading for the shark leap when his blow-waved quiff popped up.
Popera goes without saying. Like movies that go straight to DVD, all that simpering nonsense should sidestep music shops and go straight to elevators. But again, it's inoffensive and I suspect that's the point of the stuff.
No, a truly bad song is something slopped up by a band that apparently should know better, a band that's been around, charted, filled large arenas, yet manages to crap out a tune so nasty, it borders on offensive.
Take Elvis, a man-God who bestrode this earth, but some of his movie soundtrack stuff was indescribably bad.
Actually, about 80 per cent, at least, of his stuff was garbage, but he's Elvis, so he has a get-out-of-jail free card.
Or the Beatles. Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da and Maxwell's Silver Hammer would be contenders for many lists. But they don't make the cut here.
Nope, in no particular order, I'll never, ever forgive Starship for dumping We Built This City, Dire bloody Straits for Twisting By the Pool, or Dexy's Midnight Runners for Come On Eileen.
If I never hear those songs again, I'll have never heard those songs again. And my life will be that much better for it.
Over to you ... Send us your three worst songs and why you hate them.
