Before I reveal the ultimate terrible 1977 song, here’s a look at what we’ve gone through so far…

#10: Dean Friedman gave us too many unnecessary details on “Ariel.”

#9: “Tonight’s The Night” Rod Stewart’s going to have creepy sex.  It isn’t “Gonna Be Alright.”

#8: I “Ain’t Gonna Bump No More” with no Joe Tex.

#7: “After The Lovin’” is an embarrassing attempt at a comeback for Englebert Humperdinck.

#6: Rita Coolidge’s cover failed to lift me “Higher And Higher.”

#5: “I’m In You,” you’re in me, and Peter Frampton sold out.

#4: “It Was Almost Like A Song” before Ronnie Milsap’s embarrassing conclusion to his hit.

#3: The Floaters “Float On”… and on… and out of the mainstream.

#2: The Captain and Tennille hit new lows on “Muskrat Love.”

#1

So… you’re probably wondering how I possibly couldn’t have put “Muskrat Love” as the worst song of the year.

Do you remember at the beginning of this list when I mentioned that there would be songs that didn’t make the Billboard year-end that would be eligible?

With numerous years in music history being of particular interest to me, I came up with the idea of making other songs that found an audience in certain years eligible for these countdowns.  Part of it is because unlike some, I do not consider the Billboard year-end to be the “end-all/be-all” of what is considered a hit, and also because there are plenty of songs that are more famous than the songs that make the Billboard year-end lists, and far more deserving of the term “hit song.”  I didn’t do this for 1963 since it’s not a particularly big year in Hot 100 history, and I’ll probably use just 100 songs for about half of these countdowns I’m planning.  But for eras that are important to me – like the late sixties and especially when we get to nineties rock and alternative – I will be expanding the pool of songs.  And with the seventies being my favorite decade for oldies music, there was little doubt I was going to expand the list of nominees when I did 1977.  While much of the other nominees that weren’t good were just mediocre or disappointing, one song from the expanded pool, from the edge of the Cashbox year-end list, was so bad it even slayed the muskrats.

There are probably people reading this blog who are outraged or outright livid that I put a song that didn’t even qualify for the Billboard year-end as my pick for the worst song of the year.  And indeed, of the year-end countdowns I’ve done, best or worst, this was the narrowest margin of victory (or in this case, ultimate insult) on such a list.  To these people, I will tell you this.  If you’re so upset, use these basic edits:  “Star Wars Theme/Cantina Band” is promoted to #10 on the list, “Love’s Grown Deep” by Kenny Nolan is added to the dishonorable mentions, all the other songs on the list are moved up a slot, and “Muskrat Love” is the worst song of 1977.  Take these changes to the list… and stop reading this article. But guys… I’ve got a bone to pick with this last song.

When I read the 1977 Cashbox year-end and saw this song, I knew “Muskrat Love” was going to have a real challenger.  I first learned of this song when I was first learning about oldies music as a teenager, then finally listened to it when I started doing music top ten lists.  Pretty telling is that before I started doing year-end projects, I did a list of the worst covers of good songs, which probably confronted me with the worst collection of songs I’ve faced in a single list to date.  I slotted this song at sixth and in retrospect, I was being too nice.  It should have been in the top three.  So one could say that I was gunning to make sure this song topped a list before my time was done, and was preparing for the ultimate knockout blow in a year-end project.

But again, this battle between the unlikely champion and “Muskrat Love” was razor thin.  I flip-flopped back and forth on whether or not this song should be number one instead of “Muskrat Love.”  I first debated on whether or not this should even be eligible, since again, it didn’t make the Billboard year-end list, and in my opinion, is not a true hit song, as it receives almost no attention whatsoever today.  The second reason was because of its placement.  This song became eligible due to its placement on the Cashbox year-end list.  Do you want to know where this song ranked on that chart?

100th.

That’s right.  This song didn’t just become eligible by the skin of its teeth.  It became eligible by the epidermis of the skin of its teeth.

So how can I justify this song as the worst of the year?  Well, first off, putting a song that didn’t make Billboard as one of the worst songs of the year isn’t a new concept.  Other YouTube music critics and bloggers have been putting recent songs that didn’t make the Billboard year-end on both best and worst lists for awhile.  Some of the more popular non-Billboard nominees have been “Stimulated” by Tyga, “Trollz” by 6ix9ine and Nicki Minaj, and most notably, the abysmal charity single “Earth” by Lil Dicky.  Even Todd In The Shadows has done it, with both his top picks in 2017 going to songs that didn’t make the Billboard Year-end list (“Green Light” by Lorde for the top prize, and “Ready For It?” by Taylor Swift as the bottom feeder).  But more importantly, we need to discuss the Cashbox chart and the year it had.

The Cashbox magazine was a music magazine that ran from 1942 to 1996.  Like Billboard, it calculated the biggest songs of a given week or year, with the primary difference being that it combined all versions of a song into a single entry for its weekly rankings.  Additionally, unlike Billboard which focused more heavily on radio, Cashbox placed greater emphasis on music sales and jukebox spins, allowing it to provide greater representation for music fans in low-income households. I’ve ranted about how 1977 was a step down compared to previous years in the seventies, but when analyzing the Cashbox chart, the mixed year music had turns into a definitive “good.”  Sure, they may have been missing “Livin’ Thing” by Electric Light Orchestra, “Somebody To Love” by Queen, and the Star Wars theme by John Williams on their year-end list, but here’s just a sampling of what they had that Billboard didn’t have:

• “Brick House” – Commodores
• “Black Betty” – Ram Jam
• “Free” – Deniece Williams
• “Calling Dr. Love” – KISS
• “Maybe I’m Amazed (live)” – Wings (charted for the first time this year)
• “Foreplay/Long Time” – Boston

So yeah.  The extra Cashbox songs (except the song I’m bringing up shortly) ruled.  And not having these songs would have made 1977 way worse.  Not to make all you Billboard aficionados angry, but at least two Cashbox songs are going to make my best list.  At least one other will be listed in the honorable mentions, probably two.  That’s four songs that wouldn’t have ever gotten a chance to be recognized if I didn’t expand the list.  But then that brings the conclusion, fair is fair, and so that really bad song the Cashbox had must also be ridiculed.  

And before you jump down my throat on why other non-Billboard hits aren’t being listed on this worst list, like “Dis-Gorilla” by Rick Dees, “Baby Don’t You Know” by Wild Cherry, “Boogie Child” by The Bee Gees, or a cover of “In The Mood” by Glenn Miller played by CHICKENS (of course, it was done by Ray Stevens), it’s because 118 songs to choose from is enough.  And those songs didn’t have as much chart success as this one.  As bad as this next song is, this song made the Top 40.  This song was in the Top 10 in the Dance Club play charts, which means this song was being played in disco clubs.  Unlike those above songs, even though this song may not be a hit in my opinion, this song was successful in 1977.  

Now, with all that being said… let’s discuss I Love Lucy.

I know what you’re thinking, I know it’s probably “I can’t believe the doctor is bringing up a fifties TV show, when he’s about to reveal his worst song of 1977.”  But bear with me.  I Love Lucy ran from 1951 to 1957, and was the single biggest TV show of the decade.  The show was so ridiculously popular, stores regularly shut down so they could watch the show.  I’ve been watching some episodes to prepare for this entry, and honestly, the show holds up.  So many old comedies aren’t funny anymore because comedy ages so fast, but I Love Lucy is legitimately still funny.  

With this being a music column, let’s discuss the theme song, written by Eliot Daniel and performed by his orchestra, with lyrics added later by Harold Adamson.  I’m not really a fan of TV show themes – I don’t watch a lot of conventional TV shows, and I wouldn’t turn off The Beatles to listen to the Ned’s Declassified theme, but I guess it’s pretty good for what it is.  The I Love Lucy theme song does at least sound warm and inviting, as a reminder that you’re being prepared to laugh for the next 24 minutes.  And it’s bright and jaunty, good qualities to have.  I like it, at least better than I used to.

So I can’t think of a better way to pay tribute to Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, and the legendary show they created together… than to take their theme song, rip out all the old-time charm of the original, put in a butt-shaking disco beat, and throw in some outrageous effects… and… overly excited choir… eeeehhhhh… I can’t finish this.

Drum roll please.  The number one worst pop song of 1977 is….

Trevor!  You and your band have some splainin’ to do!

“Disco Lucy” – Wilton Place Street Band

#24 peak (2 weeks, April 9-16, 1977), 17 weeks on chart
Did not qualify for Billboard year-end list
Eligible due to placement on Cashbox year-end list (#100)

There are bad songs every year.  It’s a fact of life.  Every year, there are songs that somehow become popular despite their obvious flaws on a musical and/or lyrical level.  But I can’t think of many songs that should be as unappealing to as many people as “Disco Lucy,” an affront to both fans of the show and disco in general.  I’ll try to explain why I find this even more reprehensible than “Muskrat Love,” but just… just… how did we get to this point?  Well, I know how.  The worst musical trend of the seventies.

The worst trend of the seventies was not, as is commonly believed, watered down soft rock.  Nor was it the origin of simplistic, less complex “butt rock” from bands like Grand Funk Railroad and Bachman-Turner Overdrive.  It wasn’t even the mass exodus of the last two years of the seventies, when everyone from The Beach Boys to Elton John to Rod Stewart attempted to make a disco song.  The worst trend of seventies music, in my humble opinion, was the trend of taking already-popular songs and Frankensteining them into ugly, faceless disco music.

The trend was already in full swing when we got to April 1977, when the worst song of the year hit its peak position on the charts.  In 1976, in one of his last recordings before his death, Percy Faith recorded a disco remake of his iconic “Theme From A Summer Place” with his orchestra. Also in 1976, the Wing And A Prayer Drum Corps hit with their disco version of “Baby Face.”  And the trend not only didn’t stop with “Disco Lucy,” it accelerated.  I already mentioned Meco going #1 with his version of the Star Wars theme, but he would also ramsack the themes of Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, Superman, and The Wizard Of Oz for more disco beats.  In 1979, the peak year of disco, Ethel Merman dropped her disco album, newcomer Amii Stewart was straddled with disco covers of Eddie Floyd’s “Knock On Wood” and The Doors’ “Light My Fire,” and Elton John did one worse than his fellow disco-thirsty contemporaries and released a phoned-in disco cover of “Johnny B. Goode.”  I’m not mincing words here: all these songs SUCK.  The reason is simple: They’re all more obnoxious than the original, and they’re all insulting to the fans of the original song.  To my knowledge, there is only one good disco cover of an earlier non-disco song: “A Fifth Of Beethoven” by Walter Murphy.  Unlike the previous songs I listed, “A Fifth Of Beethoven” actually preserves the excitement of the original song, and takes risks with the song with its dramatic bridge to prevent it from sounding like just another disco cover.  Every other song was nothing more than a previous song being obliterated with excessive instrumentation, and no prominent new ideas other than that stupid hi-hat beat and a generic disco bassline.

Based on that scathing criticism, it is likely coming across to you all that I hate disco.  Well, that would be incorrect.  I like disco, quite a bit in fact, which I will go over on the best list.  However, disco was the ultimate boom-or-bust genre.  When it was good, as it was in “I Will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor or “Good Times” by Chic, it gave us some of the greatest pop songs ever made.  But when disco was bad, it was REALLY bad.

Well… we better go over the band.  The Wilton Place Street Band was a short-lived band from Los Angeles led by Trevor Lawrence. 

No, not that Trevor Lawrence.  Really, editor? Have you just been getting high at Studio 54 the entire time I was writing? You really couldn’t put two and two together and realize that the Trevor Lawrence you just posted is over 22 years younger than the songs on this list? Why don’t you just post the-

Thank you. The Trevor Lawrence who was a session musician, producer, and songwriter.  The name of the band comes from the street just outside Hollywood where Lawrence lived at the time.  Lawrence began his career as a saxophone player and sideman throughout the seventies.  His credits as a sideman include: “Trouble Man” by Marvin Gaye, and a slew of Stevie Wonder’s greatest songs: “Superstition,” “I Wish,” and “Sir Duke.”  Additionally, after he became a producer, he co-wrote The Pointer Sisters’ “I’m So Excited.”  So that’s strike one against this song: this wasn’t written by a hack who said to everyone, “Ooh!  Wouldn’t it be cool if, like, the I Love Lucy theme was… disco?”  The man behind this song has talent.  

Let’s be honest: you all know this song is going to be bad.  Just think about the premise: it’s a disco cover of the I Love Lucy theme.  But I don’t think anyone could fathom the musical nightmare his band was about to unleash upon the world, drunk off the nautical amount of Vitameatavegamin they presumably consumed during the recording session.

Before we finally get into the song, let me try to explain why this was my number one pick and not “Muskrat Love.”  As I previously stated, it was close, and I easily could have given the crown to the other song.  “Muskrat Love” is an awful premise for a song, with embarrassing cringeworthy lyrics, a creepy performance, and disgusting sound effects.  But the one thing I can say for the Captain and Tennille is that with “Muskrat Love”… it was already broke.  Willis Alan Ramsey never should have written the song, and America failed to make the song good.  So the Captain and Tennille performing “Muskrat Love” was akin to rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.  The I Love Lucy theme, on the other hand, was not broke.  While it wasn’t groundbreaking, it was effective in setting the tone for the show.  There was no reason to smear a disco beat all over it.  But the final blow was related to my personal feelings for the song.  Whenever I have a close battle for a worst list like the one I had with “Muskrat Love” and “Disco Lucy,” in most cases I’m going to go with the one that makes me more upset.  There will be exceptions in cases where I can’t provide a convincing argument regarding why the one that makes me mad is worse than the one with no redeeming qualities, but in most occasions, it will go to the more demoralizing song.  And that is where “Disco Lucy” comes out as the ultimate stinker.  “Muskrat Love,” for all its sins, merely leaves me befuddled, or shocked, at how much is wrong with the song.  “Disco Lucy” makes me ANGRY.

I don’t even know where to begin with this one.  I guess, for music’s sake, let’s go with the overall composition, as this is an instrumental.  “Disco Lucy” is five minutes long, which isn’t that long as far as disco songs go, with the song whittled down to 3:30 for release as a 45.  But then there’s the fundamental problem:  This is a five minute version of a song that was, at its absolute longest, one minute long – 15 seconds in the introduction and 45 seconds in the end credits.  And they somehow fumbled their extra material even worse than that terrible Cat In The Hat movie that extended a children’s book to a 90 minute film.

But the real problem with the music starts from the actual instrumentation itself.  One thing I noticed when relistening to the I Love Lucy theme, in the tens of times I had to listen to it while writing this list, is that it’s surprisingly clean and spare for an orchestral theme.  The melody is carried by the horns, a pretty smart idea considering that they’re the loudest instruments in an orchestra, and the other instruments are acting as supplements to the melody, either following along or going an octave lower.  Well… it’s a disco song, did you really think they weren’t going to pile on the excessive instrumentation?

All the heart and charm of the original is ripped out, castrated, and replaced by some of the ugliest disco instrumentation I’ve ever heard.  The main melody is now carried by a whiny, high-pitched string section, which is just a testament to two bad ideas.  One, making the lead instrument the one that was always used in disco just makes everything more generic.  Two, given Lawrence’s background was in woodwinds and horns, why on Earth are you going with an instrument that isn’t your specialty?  Especially when the strings sound so thin and fragile, as if they’re about to be blown away by a high wind?  We’ll get into the aforementioned horns later, but there’s more.  The flutes come in with an irritating flutter during the introduction, which gets repeated several times in the song.  The percussion section is yet another blatantly obvious steady hi-hat beat that quickly drowns in the orchestra.  And remember those annoying wha-ka wah-wah guitars that only seem to work when they’re being used in a seventies cop show theme?  They’re ba-ack!  And they don’t play any real notes except for a few chords here and there on the introduction and bridge!  WHY ON EARTH DO YOU HAVE THEM IN THE SONG IF YOU’RE NOT GOING TO USE THEM?!  I didn’t even get into the single biggest problem with the song.  If you remember the I Love Lucy theme, you’ll know that it’s surprisingly fast.  It’s in cut time, and it goes along at a brisk pace.  Well, Trevor and company said “screw that,” and slowed down the tempo from about 150 bpm to about 114 bpm.  The end result is a beat that is so sluggish, and so lethargic in comparison, that it sounds like it’s running with cinder blocks attached to its legs.  The slow tempo and generic drum pattern mean that, in a song that is being transformed into a disco song for the clubs, you can’t dance to it.  They literally made a disco song and forgot to check whether or not it was fast or upbeat enough for people to do the thing they were expected to do when this song came on.  Say what you want about Meco, I could at least imagine someone dancing to the disco version of the Star Wars theme!  WHO ON EARTH WOULD DANCE TO THIS CRAP?!

You now know that this song is really obnoxious.  But what makes this song, and so many of the other disco versions of already-popular songs even worse, is the shocking lack of creativity on display.  And “Disco Lucy” is no exception.  Despite being five times longer than the original song, there is so little added to the I Love Lucy theme that makes it sound like a singular body of work.  Lawrence and company just took the original song, slowed it down, added a generic disco drum pattern… and that’s it.  There is an introductory segment that just repeats the same C7, C11 and Eb7 chords, and the bridge just uses one chord to unify the song’s segments.  For how much money was at their disposal considering an orchestra was on hand, they should have tried making this song so much more than what it became.  They literally just played the theme song the way a student who’s struggling to learn a song would, added a disco beat, and decided their work was done.  Not only that, but… they didn’t even get the frickin’ melody right!

For a TV show theme, the I Love Lucy theme is startlingly hard to play.  While it doesn’t sound particularly hard, Eliot Daniel apparently loved to play mind tricks on people.  The I Love Lucy theme is a very complex composition using many quick chord changes, involving many different chord variations that aren’t often used in pop music.  There are a lot of 7th chords, but also several 9th and even 11th chords thrown in the mix.  And of course, the Wilton Place Street Band didn’t even bother.  “Disco Lucy,” primarily uses 7th chords, but they’re not nearly as complex as the chords the I Love Lucy theme uses.  I know we didn’t have Chordify in 1977, but couldn’t you at least try to understand which variation of the chord was used, as a group of professional musicians?  To be fair, this may be a bit nitpicky of me to expect musicians of any ability to know how to switch from an A7 to a Bdim/E to a Dm9 chord. But wait… it gets worse.  The melody isn’t even played correctly.  Aside from several arrangements with the first four measures of the main melody, “Disco Lucy” fails to match the third segment, which descends from E to E on the next lowest octave before ascending back to A.  No, “Disco Lucy” plays a much simpler melody line alternating slowly between E and F# before going down to A.  And the arrangement at the end of the verse melody, of course, eliminates the ascending/descending progression of the original for a slow, basic three-note ascending pattern.  From what I’m understanding, the writing and recording process for the disco version very much resembled… this.

And what isn’t overly simplified by the disco abomination is just flat-out buried.  You thought “Tonight’s The Night” was poorly produced?  Admittedly, it was based on my ear and what I heard.  You thought “Float On” was badly produced?  Well… you’re right, but that’s nothing compared to “Disco Lucy.”

Let’s start with the most obvious problem:  THAT CHORUS.  While this is still an instrumental, a loud, undisciplined choir comes in to yell out two lines at different points of the song:

LET’S DANCE!

DANCE!  DANCE!  DISCO LUCY!

The instrumentation was already obnoxious enough, but this choir is so loud and so overly chipper that it crushes the mood the song was going for.  And on the second line, repeated in each verse recitation, it completely buries and cremates the final descending passage before we go back to the main riff.  The original theme kept everything well-defined, but “Disco Lucy” had no problem burying everything.  And before you get on me for attacking a choir when I can’t sing… they’re not singing.  They’re shouting.  There is a difference.

Oh, and those obnoxious sound effects I mentioned at the beginning?  Well, they’re in the bridge.  During the bridge, we get a few wah-wah guitar chords, another very simple three note bassline, and a completely off-putting sound effect from the mix.  What on earth is it?  Part of me thinks it’s a record being scratched, but record scratches, either dramatic or rhythmic, don’t sound like it.  It almost sounds like a random guy yelling, “Whoo-hoo!  Whoo-hoo!” in the back of the mix.  What was the point?

The final blow comes from those freaking horns and how they ruin everything.  During the second half of each main riff recitation, the horns pick up in intensity and drown out the strings.  Throughout the song they’re playing a countermelody to the I Love Lucy theme’s melody, but when they get louder they just end up dominating the song when they’re not supposed to.  And then when the strings pick up to the climax where the song ascends to its final note, the low brass comes in and plays a descending pattern that easily covers up the strings, in the part where they need to come in the loudest.  The Wilton Place Street Band not only performed a version of the I Love Lucy theme that is way more obnoxious, considerably simpler, and less unique, but they flat out blew up the main melody at points and put in their own arranged one!  THEY FLAT OUT BURIED IT!  

(ANGER METER INTENSIFIES)

AAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This song is so insulting and so anger-inducing to its audience that I can’t even put my anger into words!  And not only does this song more than earn the right for worst pop song of the year over “Muskrat Love” with the actual execution of the cover itself, I haven’t even gone over the worst thing about this song yet!

I haven’t watched very many TV shows religiously over my life, I pretty much put music over other forms of media.  But I do know this.  The biggest crime you can commit with a TV show – or any form of media really – is to actively insult your audience.  The biggest crime is to make a product that is intended to be for fans of a TV show, movie, or whatever, and to make the interpretation so unfaithful to the source material that it no longer resembles what made that show or film special.  This TV phenomenon had special meaning in 1977 too.  Those of you familiar with TV of the day will know that 1977 was the year of one of the most infamous TV episodes in history: The Happy Days episode “Hollywood, Part 3,” where Fonzie jumped over a shark, sending the show into permanent decline and coining the phrase no one wants to hear associated with their work.  I watched the clip of the scene in preparation for this list, and I have to agree with everyone else that it sucks.  The “jump the shark” scene blows because A) what is a show that is set in Milwaukee doing in California, B) the jump isn’t even that amazing to begin with, Fonzie just jumps over a circle in the ocean where the shark is, and C) WHAT THE HECK DOES A SHOW ABOUT GROWING UP IN THE FIFTIES HAVE TO DO WITH JUMPING A SHARK?!  

“Disco Lucy” is a rare case of this phenomenon, where Trevor Lawrence and the Wilton Place Street Band actively insulted both fans of the original I Love Lucy show and disco in general.  Other than the show’s continued popularity, there was no reason to cover the song, and there was absolutely no reason to take an old-style TV show theme and turn it into disco.  Fans of I Love Lucy were primarily middle aged by the time “Disco Lucy” came out, and weren’t the target audience for disco.  What would make them appreciate a version of their beloved show’s theme song with an overly excited chorus, wah-wah guitars, and whatever that sound in the bridge is?  What does any of this do with I Love Lucy?  And this song was insulting to fans of disco too, because of that sluggish beat and awful production that’s impossible to bust a move to.

And the saddest part of the whole story is, somehow, this song was successful.  It may have not reached the Billboard year-end Hot 100, but it did make the Top 40, meaning that this song was being played on radio stations.  It was in the top ten on the Dance Club Play charts, which means discos were playing this song en masse and expecting people to dance to it.  It was even on Soul Train!  And think about this.  In 1977, “Disco Lucy” made the Top 40, yet none of the songs from the Sex Pistols’ lone studio album even charted.  This song had more commercial success than anything the Sex Pistols ever released.  Oh yeah, I almost forgot – this song was also more successful than “‘Heroes’” by David Bowie, also released as a single in 1977 that failed to chart.  Yes, really.  There is only one positive I can say about this: the fact that “Disco Lucy” has gone from a genuine success to almost nothing today is a prime example how the charts aren’t the best indicator of what is truly a hit.  Sorry to steal the joke, but seventy years after its initial release, I Love Lucy remains tasty.  Still tastes just like candy.  By comparison, “Disco Lucy” popped out of the Top 40 and is now unpoopular.  

“Disco Lucy” is not just the worst song of 1977 that made the Top 40, it’s truly one of the worst cover songs and one of the worst disco songs ever made.  Not kidding, I would rather listen to The Ethel Merman Disco Album.  As bad as that album is, at least it’s funny with how insanely repetitive the album’s music is, as well as how poorly Merman’s vocals mesh with the sonic excess of the record.  Additionally, Merman’s vocals are pretty good for a woman who was pushing 70 at the time.  Wait, that’s not a big enough warning flare for you?  Fine…

I WOULD RATHER LISTEN TO “DISCO DUCK” THAN TO “DISCO LUCY.”

Yeah, you heard.  “Disco Duck” may be incredibly bad, but at least Rick Dees wrote his own song instead of ruining another person’s song.  At least Dees was trying to be funny.  At least the song isn’t anger-inducing (well, unless you hear the 12” version, which just repeats the chorus for the extra three minutes).  And for how bad “Disco Duck” is, it’s just baffling and bizarre in how bad it is.  I’d take that over a song that makes me livid any day.  As for Dees’ even worse follow-up “Dis-Gorilla” (also from 1977), it’s a toss-up between “Disco Lucy” and “Dis-Gorilla.”  AND WHEN YOU’RE IN A STALEMATE WITH A TERRIBLE SONG’S EVEN WORSE RIP-OFF, YOU KNOW HOW MUCH YOU SCREWED UP!  Those two can fight it out for worst overall song of 1977 until the end of time. No, wait! DON’T PLAY THOSE SONGS BACK TO B-

DANCE! DANCE! DISCO LUCY!

(Ape noises)

DANCE! DANCE! DISCO LUCY!

(Ape noises)

Look.  Disco didn’t deserve its fate as a genre that was murdered by a promotion at a White Sox doubleheader.  But if there was ever a reason why disco deserved to be blown up and immolated as public spectacle, it was terrible disco covers of perfectly good songs.  And “Disco Lucy” is the absolute worst example.  The song’s duration is equivalent to watching a group of hooligans take out the entire master tapes of Lucille and Desi’s show from Desilu Studios, pouring Uranium-238 on them, striking a match, watching the tapes burn, and urinating on them to put out the flames.  “Disco Lucy” is the worst pop song of 1977.

SOURCES

“Cash Box Magazine.” World Radio History 2022. Web. 10 July 2022 https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Music/Cash-Box-Magazine.htm.

“Legendary Saxophonist, Trevor Lawrence Celebrates 45 Years.” Los Angeles Sentinel 27 April 2012. Web. 10 July 2022 https://lasentinel.net/legendary-saxophonist-trevor-lawrence-celebrates-45-years.html.

Lundy, Zeth. Stevie Wonder’s Songs In The Key Of Life. London: Bloomsbury, 2007. Pg. 67. Google Books. Web. 10 July 2022 https://books.google.es/books?hl=es&id=bdmoAwAAQBAJ&dq=Trevor+lawrence+sax&q=trevor#v=snippet&q=trevor&f=false.

“I Love Lucy Theme” tempo from SongBPM: https://songbpm.com/@tv-theme-song-library/i-love-lucy-theme-from-i-love-lucy. I couldn’t find the BPM for “Disco Lucy” online, so I estimated it using an online metronome.

For the info about “Disco Lucy” using simpler chords than the original, I was tipped off by this YouTuber who commented on one of the “Disco Lucy” 12″ versions available on YouTube:

“I Love Lucy” chords from Musescore: https://musescore.com/static/musescore/scoredata/g/d1ef2a6ba51f0e3f0cd9d30eb58d658080aec306/score_0.png?no-cache=1583237243.

“Disco Lucy” chords from the official sheet music, as sold on eBay:
https://www.ebay.ca/itm/154774873523?hash=item24094d25b3:g:2G0AAOSw-CFgStmH

Paris, Jerry. “Hollywood, Part 3.” Happy Days 20 September 1977. TV Show. 10 July 2022.

IMAGE SOURCES

Single cover from SoundCloud

“Whodunit” single cover from Top 40

“Tryin’ To Love Two” single cover from Amazon

The Cashbox magazine cover is from the issue dated July 2, 1977. Image from Internet Archive.

I Love Lucy scenes:
Lucy and Desi promotional photo from FilmAffinity
GIF of Lucy drunk on Vitameatavegamin from the episode “Lucy Does A TV Commercial,” initially aired on 1952. GIF from Tenor.
GIF of Lucy and Ethel at the chocolate factory from the episode “Job Switching,” initially aired. GIF from Vogue.

Image of the quarterback Trevor Lawrence from Bleacher Report

Image of the musician Trevor Lawrence from Theo Wanne

Image of 1970’s Lucille Ball from the movie Mame. Photo taken from Dreams Are What Le Cinema Is For…
AN: I got the idea to represent “Disco Lucy” with scenes from Mame from the blogger Supergay Detroit, who created a music video for the song with scenes from the movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeW4dbuyscQ.

Image of Fonzie jumping the shark from the Happy Days episode “Hollywood, Part 3,” initially aired 1977. Image from IMDb.

“Dis-Gorilla” single cover from Red Moon Records

Image of Disco Demolition Night from WBUR