The worst song ever (runner up): Kokomo

3/16/08

Now and then, a song wriggles its way through the music industry process despite defying all tenons of good taste and artistic quality and gets its 15 minutes of fame with the general public. What these sporadic occurrences demonstrate is that while the means of getting discovered is constantly evolving (Mtv, MySpace, YouTube, et al), Robert Johnson’s ages-old road to success is still a well-trodden path, and the devil is still willing to load the scale with a hit on one side and a soul on the other. Kokomo is one of those songs, a repulsive paean to pina coladas, suntan oil, and creepy old men in speedo bathing suits.

"Kokomo" is credited to the Beach Boys, but it seems criminally unjust to attribute those four minutes of artless drivel to the same band that provided the world with the ethereal splendor of "Wouldn’t it be nice?" and "God Only Knows". (Never has the chasm of quality between a single artist/band’s work been so wide as it is between "Good Vibrations" and "Kokomo", outdistancing even the spacious gaps between Stevie Wonder’s "Superstition" and "I Just Called to say I love you" and Steve Windwood’s "Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys" and "Roll with it.") In fact, the assemblage of Beach Geriatrics who contributed to "Kokomo" have only one thin connection to the personal that produced the band’s master works, that of lead dork Mike Love, who co-wrote "Kokomo" with John Phillips (author of "California Dreamin’"), Scott McKenzie (who penned "San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Flowers In Your Hair)") and Terry Melcher (who had no previous credits worthy of mention unless you’re a big fan of Charles Manson’s music, which he produced.)

English professors often urge, "write what you know", the theory being that knowing the details gives an authenticity to the writing (Mark Twain was a riverboat captain before writing about Life on the Mississippi; John Grisham was a lawyer before writing his best-selling legal dramas.) However, that advice is not applicable if "what you know" is lounging around a hotel pool bar living off the royalty checks of previous hits. (The title comes from the name of hotel poolside bar in the Florida keys, where they apparently mix drinks strong enough to make songwriters think "Bermuda, Bahamas, come on pretty mama" is a clever lyric.) This uninspired collision of steel drums and laziness is so lyrically vacuous that I refuse to print any more of it here, but suffice to say, even Peter Cetera would have given this drivel a rewrite before releasing it.

The song was written for the soundtrack to the Tom Cruise vehicle "Cocktail", and seems an appropriate accompaniment to that forgettable film. Yet despite being a languid-to-the-point-of-lithium snore that sounds like it was written by four rum-soaked old men in sandals who wanted to out-cornball Jimmy Buffet, the song went to 1 on the Billboard charts in America, and was nominated for both a Golden Globe (clearly indicating the value of music in the acting community) and a Grammy (clearly indicating the value of music in the musical community as well.)

When I hear people say, "I can’t believe America was dumb enough to elect George Bush...twice", I use the inexplicable success of "Kokomo" as evidence that the dumbing down started long before GW’s ascent to being the poster child for the dangers of getting C’s in school. That this staple of office party karaoke trainwrecks made it to The Beach Boys Greatest Hits (alongside all of the brilliant musical milestones previously mentioned) must be a thorn in Brian Wilson’s side that can never be removed.

It certainly is in mine.