I Have Identified the Worst Song Ever Recorded

I love satellite radio.  I have been a subscriber for quite some time, and while I do spend most of my time on my preset faves:

Preset 1

• The Spectrum
• First Wave
• Alt Nation
• 70s on 7
• Beatles Channel
• Grateful Dead Channel

Preset 2

• Jam On
• Backspin (now LL Cool J's Rock the Bells Radio)
• The Joint
• Willie's Roadhouse
• E Street Radio
• Comedy Greats

...and surrounding channels like XMU and Elvis and Classic Rewind...

...I will also bounce around at times and see what's emanating across the SiriusXM universe.  In doing so, you step in it sometimes, encountering music you long ago laid to rest, or never would have entertained at all.  Exhibit A in the latter category appeared on the 90s on 9 station yesterday.  Here we go.

"One More Try" by Timmy T

Let's dig in just a touch, just for a moment so as not to get any on you, shall we?

Okay, we'll start with Timmy T himself.  His stage name is terrible. Tim Torres would have been fine.  Timmy T sounds like something you'd see on a lunchbox in 4th grade.  Terrible, Timmy T. Bad boy.

Way, way, way worse is his look.  Even by 1990's standards, an era which which made the day-glo of the 80's look chic by comparison, Timmy T's style is just crap.  To some degree people can't help how they appear, and rock singers have a long history of lousy decisions where fashion and gesturing is concerned. That said, if there was ever a look that warranted getting punched in the face, Timmy T had it pegged.  As well as his jeans.  Seriously... this dude makes the shitheads in Color Me Badd look like Motörhead.

Okay, visuals be damned, let's get to the music.  You'll soon wish you had not.

The musical style, if there is one, best fits into the category of "high schooler got a Casio keyboard for Christmas" with trace elements of a Latin influence. For including the last part of that sentence, Julio Iglesias and Carlos Santana are sending some goons to my house to issue me a blanket party. Menudo wouldn't deign to take a call from Timmy T.

Lyrically, if you punched the words up significantly you could elevate the song up to a status of "utterly vapid."  Read them here, if you want.

Cassette!

Here's the gist of it.  Timmy T disappointed a girl, either with his singing or something acid-washed, I'm sure.  He made her cry.  He told her lies. And she fucking bolted, apparently leaving behind her jacket with shoulder pads, which presumably he now wears to remember her.  Timmy T misses her and wants her to reconsider and come back to him.  You know, because of all they've been through, the good times of her being disappointed and being lied to. 

Timmy T spends most of the song rhyming "you" with "you," which Homer Simpson would appreciate but few others will. The most interesting line in the song, which is akin to the best bite of a shit sandwich, is "You'd forgive me if you could."  It would be cryptic and interesting if . . . well, no, it isn't, it doesn't make any sense whatsoever, but at least it's different from the rest of what's here, surely the most trite and banal lyrics ever scribbled onto a napkin at TGI Friday's.

The video... oh my.  I'll say this, Timmy T leaves nothing in the tank.  I mean, his moves aren't... well, they're rubbish, but who can truly groove in an orange mock turtleneck/double breasted beige sportcoat or shirt/tie/leather blazer? 

The camera work reeks of "high schooler just figured out VHS camcorder tricks," and the shot of him at the grand piano while synthesized keys are played by a robot in the audio... it amuses.

Best part of the video?  They misspelled his name!  They list him as "Timmie T," which is even more embarrassingly adolescent.  I guaran-fucking-tee some clown in the video processing room saw this bucket of hot garbage come through with the name Timmy T and fucked with it just for laughs.  Also, the label (Quality Records) is pure unintentional comedy.

Three things to marvel at, and all are true.

1. According to Wikipedia, this song "hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart on March 23, 1991." 
Staggering.  Just staggering. This song and that fact are pretty much what propelled Kurt and the boys to give Nevermind that little extra oomph and displace the radio dreck of the time.

(Wikipedia also says: "A Cantopop version of this song called Missing You in this Lifetime (一生掛念你) was made by Hacken Lee. A Cajun version was made by Jamie Bergeron and the Kickin Cajuns."  That is best part about this whole thing.)


2. On multiple websites, the following footnoted authorship appears:

Written by KEITH RICHARDS, MICK JAGGER. 

Seriously.  Check it out. What in the hell... There simply is no way.  Now, we have established here recently that Mick, Keith, and their musical representation will sue the ever-living pants off you for even coughing like Mick on your record.  Not that anyone would want Timmy T's terrible pants, anyway, but there's just no way that the drivel Timmy T warbles here can or should be traced back to the Glimmer Twins. Interweb error, right??  Come on.

3. As it turns out, I have this song in my collection.
You see, back in my mad CD-accruing days, I scooped up Living in the 90's, a collection of refuse from the decade that doesn't even merit coaster status.  But I've got it, and I ripped all the songs onto my (very large) hard drive.  Sad!

Nota bene: The CD label creator also added an erroneous period (not to be confused with the 1990's) after Timmy T's T.  Presumably to distance the artist from Mike D, Jay-Z, and other periodless talents.

So, good people,  there you have it.  The internet, and specifically satellite radio, has led me to another epiphany, that of the discovery of the worst song ever recorded. 

The More You Know.

Timmy T...where is he now?


To sum up, I point to the last words this young ESPN anchor phenom ever said on the air.