Here is another form of the question: "Whooahh... my buds and I are too drunk to read the books, let alone hold a pen to fill out a slip. We need a song that will really get this place rockin! I mean, not that any of us could sing even if we were sober. So give us a good song, ok?"
The underlying question is this: What is the worst karaoke song? When someone turns in a slip, what song is guaranteed to make the KJ cringe? I can say without hesitation that "Don't Stop Believing" (Journey) is the karaoke song that I fear the most. I get a cold sweat and put on a forced smile. "Bohemian Rhapsody" (Queen) is another. And so is "Piano Man" (Billy Joel).
"Don't Stop Believing" is my first choice because nobody can sing it. Well... ok, Journey did a great job on it. The song is tight and it gets people going. I love the song. But, in all my gigs I have only heard one person who could do it justice. That person was not me, by the way.
So... that's one man's opinion. I was wondering whether anyone else felt the same. Since I didn't care to take the time to poll a whole bunch of people, I started Googling the words "worst karaoke song". I found 19 sites that had lists of bad karaoke songs. Some had just a few. Some had a top ten or a top twenty list. One site had the top ten lists from a lot of different KJs. Hot damn! All together, there were 184 songs that were called out as being the worst.
Then I started what they call a meta-analysis. Scientists in medical journals do this all the time. There might be 20 papers published, each with a handful of trials of a drug. No one paper is statistically significant in and of itself, but if they are pooled, then the results can be significant. Below I have the list of the worst, with the number of votes along side each one. "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" wins by a long margin!
| Song | Artist | Count |
| Paradise By The Dashboard Light | Meatloaf | 15 |
| Angels | Robbie Williams | 10 |
| American Pie | Don MacLean | 9 |
| Summer Nights | Grease | 9 |
| I Will Survive | Gloria Gaynor | 8 |
| I Will Always Love You | Whitney Houston | 7 |
| My Heart Will Go On | Celine Dion | 7 |
| My Way | Frank Sinatra | 7 |
| Friends In Low Places | Garth Brooks | 6 |
| Mustang Sally | The Commitments | 5 |
| Picture | Kid Rock | 5 |
| Words | Boyzone | 5 |
I sang Paradise once. Before I signed up, I asked a woman at the bar if she would like to hear the song. She said "no" so I ignored her. Since I couldn't find a woman dumb enough to sing the other part, I sang both parts myself. Guess what? The song is 47 hours and thirteen minutes long. And both parts are so high that a guy needs to be from the Vienna Boys Choir to sing them.
I am not from the Vienna Boys Choir, by the way. I have never been to Vienna. I did have a Vienna sausage once, though. I think. Which gets me thinking... where do they get those Vienna sausages from. Is there any connection between a city known for boys who can sing really high and a city known for cute little weiners?
But, as I said, I never did sing in the Vienna Boys Choir. And I didn't get lucky that night, either.
Hopefully this post will keep you from making a similar mistake. Good luck.
John the Revelator
www.RevelatorKaraoke.com
