Before we get into what could possibly be worse than a legendary band botching an Elvis classic, here are more bad 1992 songs…

“Human Touch” – Bruce Springsteen

Pop
#16 peak (April 11-18, 1992), 16 weeks on chart

Mainstream Rock
#1 peak (March 21, 1992 – April 4, 1992)
#55 year end, 10 weeks on chart

UK
#11 peak (March 21-28, 1992)
#78 year end, 5 weeks on chart

You know 1992 is a bad year for the old guard when even The Boss couldn’t get it right on his lead single.  “Human Touch” is yet another mystifyingly boring track that effectively ended the glory days for New Jersey’s most famous musician and kicked off a dark period for Bruce Springsteen.

So what makes “Human Touch” fail?  Well, first off, the excitement of “Born To Run” and “Born In The USA” is gone, to be replaced by a dated, generic synth imitating strings throughout the track.  Combined with a gentle, ringing synth in the verse, the song is just boring from start to finish, even when Springsteen attempts to pump up the jam in the second half.  But where it really disappoints is the chorus.  Springsteen has said that the song is about “searchin’ for the bottom line,” when it comes across as yet another love song where the man pleads for the girl to join forces with him.  Which is fine, but in the chorus, the thesis is delivered with a flat, awkward melody line from Springsteen when he sings, “give me a little of that human touch.”  It is just a big anticlimax.  And then the song drags on for six and a half minutes.  This song is two minutes longer than “Born To Run.”  Seriously.

“Human Touch,” by my limited knowledge of Springsteen’s later discography, marks the beginning of a downturn in his fortunes.  Based on my knowledge, this album did not perform well, and three years later Springsteen went one worse with his singles for his Greatest Hits album, which included the NyQuil-inducing “Secret Garden” among other new tracks.  Even artists as great as The Boss just couldn’t win them all.

“There Will Never Be Another Tonight” – Bryan Adams

Pop
#31 peak (February 15, 1992), 15 weeks on chart

Mainstream Rock
#6 peak (January 25-February 1, 1992)
#40 year end, 13 weeks on chart

UK
#32 peak (November 23, 1991), 3 weeks on chart (2 in 1992)

Where do you go when you’ve just released a song that’s one of the biggest of all time… and also considered one of the worst songs of all time?  Well, if you’re Bryan Adams, you just go back and do the same thing you’ve been doing for a decade: random power ballads about love, and pop rock songs about sex.  I know that it would have been easy to punch on Adams, who kinda deserves it because “Everything I Do (I Do It For You)” is godawful, and because of the fiasco where he demanded all AllMusic reviews be taken down because he couldn’t handle getting a… 3 out of 5 for Waking Up The Neighbors.  But for this list, it just wasn’t worth it to rip apart a Bryan Adams song for several pages when worse songs were on the charts.  That being said, “There Will Never Be Another Tonight” isn’t good either.

I debated on which Waking Up The Neighbors single to include on this list, this song or “Thought I’d Died And Gone to Heaven.”  But overall, I can at least understand that song better, because it isn’t as cheesy as “There Will Never Be Another Tonight,” which stands as yet another song where Adams plans on repeating the summer of ‘69 with someone.  Some lyrics are questionable, such as when Adams opens up without introduction:

Put on your best dress darling

Uhh…. I thought you two were going to have sex.  And it isn’t described that you are going to be doing any other activities.  So what’s the point about having her wear something fancy?

We got the bases loaded
Home run, power play

I can just imagine Bryan Adams in bed.  “Hey baby, ready for my penalty kill?”

And just like “Human Touch,” “There Will Never Be Another Tonight” also has no shortage of questionable melody lines in the music department.  The “make a little magic, raise some hell” line comes across both as generic and jittery, as if Adams is having a seizure while singing, while the final title recitation of each chorus fizzles out just as badly as the “human touch” line in Springsteen’s song.  So yeah, that’s “There Will Never Be Another Tonight.”  Not as bad as “Everything I Do,” but another song that isn’t worth your time.  Speaking of easy targets…

“Where You Goin’ Now” – Damn Yankees

Pop
#20 peak (December 19, 1992)

Mainstream Rock
#6 peak (November 14, 1992)
#52 year end, 18 weeks on chart (10 in 1992)

Oh look, everyone’s favorite supergroup with a psychotic Michigander guitarist scored two chart successes this year.  Much like Bryan Adams, Damn Yankees had to answer the question of where they were going to go after the nuclear-sized catastrophe of “High Enough.”  Well, in 1992, they released their second and final album Don’t Tread, which featured the lead single “Don’t Tread On Me.”  AND… IT… IS… not that bad.  It isn’t great, but it does have an effective guitar riff and has a neutral rock-themed message rather than a political one in the lyrics.  But sadly, Damn Yankees answered the calls for a repeat of “High Enough” with “Where You Goin’ Now,” which functions much like “One Man Woman/One Woman Man” does for Paul Anka and Odia Coates after “(You’re) Having My Baby”: not as bad as the previous song, but still not good regardless.

And yet again, we’re confronted with a cookie-cutter power ballad with few defining features.  To be fair, the song is competently played, and it is well-produced with everything coming in well-defined.  But every element of this song is boring and predictable.  Of course you know this power ballad’s going to have a string section.  Of course you know this song’s going to have a key change.  It’s the standard over-the-top romantic ballad, with few noteworthy features to speak of.

Lyrically, the song isn’t that horrible.  Well, except for this one line that has me questioning the protagonist’s motives:

Now I’m not talking ’bout what’s good for me
And I’m not saying, how you ought to be
But if there is a message shining on through to you
Take a little piece of mind
And let your love light shine

You aren’t talking about what’s good for you?  Clearly you are, because you’re trying to set your love interest on a one-way ticket back to you.  Gosh, women have feelings too, ya know!  Get out of here with this stuff.  And with “Where You Goin’ Now” being Damn Yankees’s final song in the Top 40, it’s safe to say America was getting tired of them too.

“Make Love Like A Man” – Def Leppard

Pop
#36 peak (July 18-25, 1992), 10 weeks on chart

Mainstream Rock
#3 peak (June 20, 1992)
#43 year end, 12 weeks on chart

UK
#12 peak (July 4, 1992)
#67 year end, 5 weeks on chart

After going through “Good Stuff” on the top ten, we’re not done with bad rock songs about sex yet.  The band that brought us “Pour Some Sugar On Me” also gave us… this.  

Starting off with the music, “Make Love Like A Man” is clearly designed to be the next “Put Some Sugar On Me,” with a drum-heavy sound in the verses with guitar riffs linking each line together, all strung together with Mutt Lange’s massive production values.  However, you can only go with that pattern for so long.  With its delightfully raunchy sing-a-long, “Put Some Sugar On Me” was lightning in a bottle.  Instead of the effective opening guitar riff from the earlier song, Collen just plays simple guitar riffs where he rarely ever leaves the third fret, frequently alternating between the C and G power chords in both the intro and verses.  Even when he plays the triplet notes, it starts with an open note on the A string.  I can play it.  And I kinda suck playing triplets on guitar.  Even the guitar solo barely adds anything, and in a genre where we had classically trained and advanced guitar players in even the worst bands, that’s terrible.  

But then again, you know why this song is here.  Yet again, we have a sex song that isn’t sexy at all.  While “Good Stuff” was an embarrassment to The B-52’s, this song just has nothing.  After reviewing the lyrics, my biggest problem with the song is as follows: the song is about “making love like a man,” but we never find out what that entails.  What does “making love like a man” mean?  Being the dominant one in bed?  Being sweet and respectful to her?  The closest we get to a definition is a lyric where Joe Elliott tells you to “take her little heart ‘til it beat like a hammer.”  But I mean, different people find different things sexy.  So how do you achieve this?  Uh… uh…. I didn’t find out how.  Another sex song you and your partner ought to skip when you go to the bedroom.

“Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad” – Def Leppard

Pop
#12 peak (October 31, 1992)
#80 year end, 20 weeks on chart

Mainstream Rock
#7 peak (September 5, 1992)
#44 year end, 15 weeks on chart (14 in 1992)

UK
#16 peak (September 26, 1992)
#85 year end, 5 weeks on chart

And we’re not done with Def Leppard yet.  And honestly speaking… this is better than “Make Love Like A Man.”  Yep.  This boring, plodding, cookie cutter power ballad is better than the last song we went over.  Think about that.

So why is “Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad” not as bad as the last song?  Well, unlike the previous song, “Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad” has a decent hook with Phil Collen’s lead guitar part in the introduction.  And unlike “Make Love Like A Man,” it does sound like some thought and consideration went into the lyrics, instead of making it a dumb song about sex.  But the subject matter ain’t much better, either.  As the title implicates, frontman Joe Elliott is desperate for his love interest, and is pleading for another chance with her even after she breaks promises on him and walks out on him.  To which I ask, why would you desperately need her if she doesn’t care about you?  Why do you need to complain about the loss of her, if she’s not there for you?  And then there’s the problem that this is yet another power ballad with no interesting dynamics involved other than Collen’s guitar riff.  Particularly concerning about this one is the tempo.  As powerful as Rick Allen’s drums may be, when tempo is this slow and sluggish, you won’t be able to listen to this song without falling asleep.  So, uh, yeah.  1992 was not a good year for Def Leppard.

“Now More Than Ever” – John Mellencamp

Mainstream Rock
#3 peak (June 13, 1992)
#26 year end, 20 weeks on chart

Unlike the other songs on this countdown, “Now More Than Ever” requires a little bit of thought when explaining why it belongs here.  The song is competently played, and the lyrics, while generic, aren’t inherently bad.  But when taking into account one of Mellencamp’s biggest hit songs, “Now More Than Ever” takes a dive into mediocrity.

I’m not the biggest John Mellencamp fan in the world, I know his big hits like “Jack And Diane” and “Hurts So Good,” and that’s about it.  As a result, I got a crash course on his later material thanks to three of his songs making the Top 75 of the year-end Billboard Mainstream Rock Chart.  His other hits were okay, but this one stuck out the most for one simple reason.  I can’t hear this song without hearing the melody to “Pink House.”  You may know it as “Ain’t That America,” where John Mellencamp describes an American scene and emphasizes it as the “home of the free.”  And sure enough, “Now More Than Ever” follows a simple C-G chord progression, which immediately recalls “Pink House” with its one chord G playing throughout the song.  But more crucial is the melody line.  Mellencamp sings the song’s title with the same descending three notes, B, A, and G, in the same order, even keeping the same intonation going back up to A before settling back to G.  Simply put, “Now More Than Ever” is “Pink House 1992.”  Other than that comparison, the most notable thing about “Now More Than Ever” is the wiry opening guitar riff that just sounds unstable.  It’s a summation of the song: it just does not work.

I can tell Mellencamp at least put in his average effort considering the instrumentation and the lyrics, which are well-intentioned, but “Now More Than Ever” was proof that he was running in circles.  And running out of ideas.  Tough to see since Mellencamp did have some good songs.

UP NEXT: The worst rock song 1992 had to offer.

SOURCES

“Human Touch by Bruce Springsteen.” Songfacts 2022. Web. 20 August 2022 https://www.songfacts.com/facts/bruce-springsteen/human-touch.

Nathanson, Todd. “The Top Ten Worst Hit Songs of 1991 (Pt. 2).” Todd In The Shadows 25 July 2015. YouTube. Web. 20 August 2022 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_MEi4JSQx8.

Promis, Jose F. “Waking Up The Neighbors – Bryan Adams.” AllMusic 11 May 2011. Web. 20 August 2022.
Review has since been removed from AllMusic, but still exists here: https://web.archive.org/web/20110511035440/http://www.allmusic.com/album/waking-up-the-neighbours-r131/review

IMAGE SOURCES

“Human Touch” single cover from Rolling Stone

“There Will Never Be Another Tonight,” “Where You Goin’ Now,” and “Make Love Like A Man” single covers from Discogs

“Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad” single cover from Wikipedia

“Now More Than Ever” single cover from Amazon