Songs I Once Loved But Now, Well ….

Written by Jim S.

I’ve been listening to music for a long time. And like you, there are songs I love and songs I don’t love. But as these things go, there is another category which I call:

“Songs Which I Loved Once Upon a Time But Now Can No Longer Listen To.”

Why? Dunno. Just sick of them. For one reason or another they haven’t held up well for me and I can’t turn the radio off fast enough when they come on the radio.

Now it’s entirely possible you may find on the list below your favorite song of all time, the one you got married to or got laid to the first time. Before you get your knickers in a knot – (“But, but.. that’s my favorite song of all time!”) – let me emphasize this fact:

IT’S NOT ABOUT YOU SO DON’T TAKE IT PERSONALLY I don’t even know you. It’s not even about the song as such. It’s about me and my relationship to the song. We fell in love once, then we fell out of love. Then we became just friends. And then the cute little things the song did became irritating. And then, alas, to quote Dylan:

I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes
And just for that one moment, I could be you
Yes, I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes
You’d know what a drag it is to see you

Yeah I know we all like to keep it positive on the blogosphere, yadda, yadda, yadda. But every once in a while ya just gotta let it rip. Plus, these are, IMHO, all good songs. Just can’t do it anymore.

So with all that bullshit out of the way, here’s my Top Ten songs with whom maybe one day I can rekindle a relationship over a nice bottle of merlot and a pre-rolled joint from a pot store:

“Piano Man” – Billy Joel. I saw an interview with him once on 60 Minutes. He said there are times when he plays this song at a show and he’s thinking about what he might get from room service. Even he’s sick of it. That said, it’s a great song with insightful lyrics. Just can’t listen to it for a while Mr. Long Island.

“Light My Fire” – The Doors. I’m just bored to tears with it. I really am. Nothing much else to say. Although that said, I do sometimes get a kick out of hearing the Jose Feliciano version where he sings “light my fire” about 12,000 times.

“Statesboro Blues” – The Allman Brothers Band. Anybody who has read this blog for more than a week knows how I feel about this band. But these motherfuckers drove this song into the ground. I mean they played it every time I saw them, they put it on every album. Hey it’s not THAT great guys.

“Penny Lane” – Beatles.  BOR-ing.

“Maggie May” – Rod Stewart. Another guy I’ve been a big fan of over the years and who I still defend even though he now blows. This is just too sing-songy and actually gets on my last nerve

“My Sweet Lord”- George Harrison. At this point, given the choice, I’d rather listen to “He’s So Fine.”

“Fly Like An Eagle” – Steve Miller. Geez, give it a rest Classic Rock Radio. He’s got a lot of other great stuff.

“Lay Down Sally;” -Eric Clapton. He had a nice run of pure shite there for a while. “Wonderful Tonight” doesn’t fit here because I was never a big fan of it in the first place. But if I ever hear it again I may actually be tempted to stick my head in the oven.

“Rhiannon” – Fleetwood Mac. I like the Nicks/Buckingham era of Mac quite a bit. I just can’t tolerate this one anymore. I don’t even want to sleep with Stevie Nicks anymore. Well, maybe. But she is not singing this song to me.

“Magic Man”  = Heart. I still want to write about this band one day but I’ll pass on this tune.

There it is. I could easily come up with more but why go down that rathole? Feel free to share your un-favorites. You know you have them.

50 thoughts on “Songs I Once Loved But Now, Well ….”

  1. I’m with you on ‘Piano Man’, ‘Rhiannon’, and ‘Maggie May’. I’m wondering if some of them have the issue that they’re missing a middle 8 – they kind of potter around at a sluggish tempo, and don’t have anything like a bridge or memorable solo to break things up.

    Like

    1. I guess that’s as valid a theory as any. But my guess is even if they had had them, that might’ve prolonged my interest a little longer but not much. How long can you listen to a song? I didn’t even get to “Purple Haze.”

      Liked by 1 person

      1. I feel like some songs can handle repeat listens better than others. Energy helps. The two bands where overexposure has killed their best known songs for me are Queen and U2.

        Like

        1. Yeah, agreed. That said, while I could use a break from “Rhapsody,” I can still listen to “Sunday Bloody Sunday.” And yet I don’t say that the latter is better than the former.

          Liked by 1 person

        3. Yeah, I love “Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” but I had to take it off my iPod. When I listen to music now, a good percentage of it is time spent in car. So I either listen to Spotify or Sirius XM. When I’m in a car with FM it’s the same damn songs over and over and over, all the ones we’re sick of. FM here in the States, once great, is now largely cast-off radio. I have no idea who listens to it.

          Liked by 1 person

  2. There are some things I can’t listen to at all, one is Elton John post 1979, I find everything after that irrelevant and annoying. I have no good explanation for it.

    Like

  3. I don’t have any bigger issues with these tunes and actually like most of them, including “Light My Fire“ (dig the organ sound), “Maggie May” and “Rhiannon.” I never was particularly fond of “Magic Man” or “Fly Like An Eagle” in the first place.

    I knew about Billy Joel’s feelings regarding “Piano Man” – I can see him being tired about about the melody, which perhaps isn’t the greatest. I still do like the storytelling in the lyrics. It’s very movie-like.

    Most of the music/songs I used to like and now don’t exactly do or worse date back a long time ago. Let’s start with my first music idol Elvis. Apart from his early classic rock & roll stuff, which I still dig, I also was into his schmaltzy stuff like “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” or “Love Me Tender.” Now I think I can do without them!😀

    Another example is Smokey, a British band that was very popular in Germany during the ‘70s. I really liked them at the time. In fact it was their cover of “Needles And Pins” that introduced me to the song. I still dig the tune, just not Smokey and their version. Tom Petty had a great cover of it!

    One of the silliest songs Smokey released and probably one of the worst tunes ever is called “Living Next Door To Alice.” It’s really terrible! In fact, I believe it was sometime in the ‘80s, there was a version that made fun of the song by adding the line “Alice, who the fuck is Alice?” after the tune’s original line “Cause for 24 years I’ve been living next door to Alice” – quite hilarious! You probably have to hear it to find it funny.

    For some time in the late 70s/early ‘80s, I was also quite fond of Air Supply. Now, the thought of them makes me gasp for air!😆

    Last but not least, there’s Phil
    Collins. There was a time when I couldn’t get enough of him. Now I’m indifferent at best, even when it comes to his signature solo tune “In The Air Tonight.” This song has been completely overexposed.

    Like

    2. Yeah, that’s the thing. I like all of them. We just need a long vacation from each other. You probably weren’t either around or in this country at the time but there was no more overplayed song here in the States than “Maggie May.” I had it with that one years ago.

      I hear you on Elvis. “Can’t Help Falling in Love With You” is still a great tune though.

      As to Smokie, do I really need to hear “Alice?” 🙂 And I was just reading about The Eagles who I dig and am going to post about. Frey said that minus Henley’s lyrics and insight, they would be Air Supply. I doubt that’s anywhere near true but I now have heard that Air Supply’s name twice in one day. Imagine being synonymous with ‘sucky lightweight drivel..’ Like Kenny G.

      I like Phil Collins but some of his stuff really sucked, especially the further he got away from his Genesis/jazzy roots. I do like that album ‘Face Value’ that “In the Air’ came from. Yeah, an overplayed song, salvaged notably by Mike Tyson in “The Hangover.” (A movie series that went way past its shelf life.)

      Liked by 1 person

      1. It’s funny you should mention “Can’t Help Falling In Love” by Elvis – I still dig that one as well!

        As for Alice, who the fuck is Alice?🤣

        Who knows, after you’ve listened to Alice, Piano Man is probably not such a bad proposition!😆

        Like

  4. I am with you all the way apart from Penny Lane, of course I used to live on Penny Lane so there you have it. I am really done with Slowride and everything by Queen and it’s a shame I used to love them, maybe one day, also Jumping Jack Flash, Brown Sugar, Feelin Alright, All of Workingmans Dead, done with it, unless they are are live versions. I am going to stop now.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Penny Lane? No shit, that’s funny. The wife and I once did a grand tour of Liverpool for a day or two some years back. I don’t think the city had much really going on at the time officially about the lads. We took some mini-bus tour but the rest was us just visiting sites I knew about. And then the next day we went to Stratford-Upon-Avon to see another bard of another time.

      Liked by 2 people

      1. Ah well nowadays you day would be filled with Beatle tours through the gentrified streets. It’s not the city I grew up in, but the which city is. now I am 6000 miles away from home so there you go.

        Liked by 1 person

  5. Always a fun (?) exercise. Some years back a mate and I wrote a list called ’20 Songs You Don’t Need To Hear Again Before You Die’. Several of yours were contenders, Jim.

    Like someone else who commented, Ray M’s organ solo saves ‘Light my fire’. Still get a bit of a kick out of ‘Magic Man’ on the rare occasions I hear it.

    For my contribution I’ll pick up on a spontaneous thing that happened over at 1537 some time back, where the f-word is added to a title with (hopefully) amusing results.
    (I know some Nth Am’s are a bit sensitive about swearing, Jim, so feel free to edit!)

    So, I so don’t want to hear…
    American fucking Pie
    Let it fucking Be
    Fire and fucking rain
    Fucking Bohemian Rhapsody
    Anything by Billy Fucking Joel

    That’ll do for starters. 🙂

    Liked by 2 people

    1. If some Nth Am’s are sensitive about swearing, fuck ’em. They’ll either deal with it or go elsewhere. The only language I won’t accept here is racist and sexist. And I don’t want anybody to insult my followers. That’s MY job. 🙂

      Good list. At the top of that for me, sadly, is “Let It Be.” Excellent song. Just can’t listen to it any more.

      Liked by 1 person

  6. Your post had me laughing out loud. (Always a good thing when one first arrives at work in the morning.) Nice to see you pointed out the “He’s So Fine” ripoff. As to your list, I never could stand “Rhiannon,” “Lay Down Sally” and “Magic Fucking Man” (seriously?). “Fly Like an Eagle” and “Piano Man” still get C grades, in my class. “Maggie May” and “My Sweet Lord” (despite the plagiarism) get B grades. “Statesboro” warrants a B-plus or A-minus. But “Penny Lane” and “Light My Fire” are A songs that will always be A songs (in my class). In fact, the former is one of my favorite Beatles songs, and the latter is Numero Uno, and it’s not just Manzarek’s organ and pedal bass, it’s also Krieger’s flamenco solo and Morrison’s resonant, expressive vocals. I’ve heard it hundreds of times since 1967, and I still love it, despite the stupid words.

    My “used-to-love-but-hate-now” song is “Stairway to Purgatory.”

    Like

    1. Heh! For the record, I love both “Penny Lane” and “Fire.” I just need a vacation from them. Paradoxically, I’m talking about them so much I now feel like hearing them. 🙂 But you’ve nailed a particular point which is that “Light My Fire” never grows old for you and you can listen to it to this day. You can describe it intellectually but really it grabs you viscerally I would think. But there’s still a mystery, yes? Something in the way it moves. Why am I bored to tears with Hendrix’ “Purple Haze,” but can still listen to “Fire?” Dpn’t know.

      BTW, just to remind that the point of the post is not that these are A, B, or C (for me) songs per se. They’re all songs I liked or still like but am bored with. So their grades haven’t changed. They’re (for me) beautiful ladies but their beauty isn’t grabbing me the way it used to. I totally get that some of these are songs you didn’t like in the first place.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. You used the word “mystery.” Not to get too deep, but that’s a good point, in that a lot of the songs we love do have a certain mystery. “Stairway” used to have that for me, then (after growing facial hair) I studied poetry and lit in college, then I figured out the song’s guitar parts, then I discovered the band’s ripoff of Spirit. Also, I just plain got sick of it!

        Like

        1. And so now that we’ve gotten the sideshow – not that it wasn’t interesting – of Pete grades ME’s songs out of the way, how about we turn to the ‘Pete lists the songs he loves that he can no longer listen to (besides Hairway to Steven) part?

          Like

        2. OK, well, there aren’t many, since most songs I used to love I still love. Two songs similar to “Stairway” would be “Freebird” and “Don’t Fear the Reaper,” although they were more likes than loves. Several Hendrix songs (“Purple Haze,” “Foxy Lady,” “Fire”). Yes (“Close to the Edge” album, “Starship Trooper,” “Yours is No Disgrace,” etc.). I’m pretty sick of Who songs, excepting the early pre-Tommy singles.

          Mainly Classic Rock songs that are still being rotated regularly on commercial radio. There are also dozens of Top 40 songs I loved as a youngster (e.g. “Rock the Boat”) that I hate now, but I don’t count those since it was before my rock “epiphany”!

          And Jim, just to warn you: despite their being my beloved father’s favorite pop group, I’ve always HATED the Eagles. So I look forward to your Eagles article.

          Like

        4. I guess to see if you can sway me. I like country-rock, and if you were to dip below the chart-topper, and profile, say, Poco, Flying Burrito Bros., New Riders, or Gram Parsons, I’d be more inclined to submit a comment. But Eagles? Unless you can sway me, I might have to politely plead the Fifth! 🙂

          Like

        5. Fair enough. I guess it’s not for me to sway you so much as the music itself. For the record, I couldn’t stand the Eagles for the first few years. Then they grew on me. Now I just dig them. The way you feel about “Light My Fire?” That’s how I feel about “Hotel California.”

          But it would be swell if you did a country-rock post or two featuring those dudes you mentioned. Now THAT I’d read and listen to. I kinda know them all and I’m not nearly as stupidly closed-mindedly anti-country as I used to be. I’ll never be a big country or country-rock fan. But I’ve made some strides

          Like

        6. Yes, the Eagles were moving away from their earlier country-rock leanings with “Hotel California.” Are you familiar with Townes Van Zandt? He’s more “outlaw country” (or “outlaw folk”), but he’s someone I might profile one day. Just a damn good songwriter. CB’s a big fan, so maybe we can co-author something.

          Liked by 1 person

        8. I forgot I had started a previous list. Here are some that made it but I forgot.

          “Brown Eyed Girl”
          “All You Need is Love”
          “Who’ll Stop the Rain”

          Liked by 1 person

    2. So of course I didn’t finish the last comment. So let’s say – just for sake of argument – that I consider these all at least B+ songs. They are STILL (at least) B+ songs. Just tired of them. I could probably eventually listen to most of these again but unless I go see Billy Joel, I’m done with “Piano Man.”

      Like

  7. I better weigh in before you run out of space. As to your list most of those I didn’t dig first time around. Over play was an instant “hit that (insert that word you and Bruce have been throwing around) button” on the dial.
    ‘Light My Fire’ is a CB fave. Keep hitting the repeat button. It won’t bother me. You can throw ‘Gloria’, ‘My Generation’, ‘You Really Got Me’, ‘Fade Away’ …in the same bracket. I’ve heard then a lot and if I’m not sick of them now I never will be. CB is a pig, if he likes something get away from the trough.

    Like

      1. It’s all up to the ear. Certain songs just hurt from the get go. Your upcoming post that Pete alluded to has one of those songs that was instant uh uh for my ears. I tried to reason with them (ears) but no go. “Joe Walsh is in the band” I tried everything.

        Like

  8. Brilliant. Really can’t disagree with most of those you listed here. Well, the tracks I’m familiar with, of course (though I never loved the majority of them – Rod, Beatles, Miller, Clapton, Fleetwood Mac). I love The Doors, but I can’t listen to Light My Fire. Even Ray’s keyboards can’t light it up anymore.

    Songs that I used to love but never want to hear again include:

    Pearl Jam – Alive
    R.E.M. – Losing My Religion
    Fat Boy Slim – Praise You
    The Lemonheads – Mrs. Robinson
    Alice in Chains – Rooster
    Lenny Kravitz – Are You Gonna Go My Way

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Funny but I just head Lemonheads the other day. Pearl Jam is a band I like but have to be in the mood for. As to the Kravitz tune, definitely overplayed. Although that said, great riff to play on guitar.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Y’know, I’ve never bothered to pick up the guitar and play that riff. Even when I was right into it. Strange. But aye, it would be nice if I didn’t hear it for a while.

        Lemonheads have lots of great stuff, but Mrs. Robinson looms large. I have to be in the mood for certain Pearl Jam albums, but there are a few that I can listen to any time. Probably will always be the case.

        Liked by 1 person

  9. “Heroes” by Bowie
    Friday I’m in love by the Cure
    Wuthering Heights by Kate Bush
    And several already mentioned.

    Oh, and 500 miles by the fucking Proclaimers.

    Like

    1. “Heroes” I can still listen to. Other than “500 Miles” I barely know the others. Oh, and I am quite sick of a fair amount of CCR tunes.

      Like

        1. Not in my neck of the woods. The only Kate Bush tune that got significant airplay was “Running Up that Hill.” Oh, and that one with Peter Gabriel.

          Liked by 1 person

        3. Yeah, oddly I had this conversation with another blogger just the other day. She is nowhere near as well-known or well-loved here as in the UK or other parts of the world. She’s not UNknown or totally obscure. But really she hasn’t had much here in the way of hits or airplay relatively speaking.

          Like

Comments are closed.