There are many who don’t feel the love this time of year, who view Valentine’s Day — and romance in general — as foolish sentimental rubbish, often concisely framed in bad pop songs.
That said, we’ve pooled opinions on some of the worst love songs of all time, just in time for the big day. And way to go Cancon — three of them are Canadian.
• Everything I Do (I Do It For You), Bryan Adams: With its sauntering tempo and maudlin lyrics, this 1991 song by the Canadian rocker–turned-shutterbug calls up images of adolescent boys and girls standing on opposite sides of the gymnasium, until forced by the teacher to pair up and awkwardly hold each other while waddling in a spacious circle.
• My Heart Will Go On, Celine Dion: Pretty much anything done by Quebec’s greatest mistake will induce bile faster than ingesting a bowl of week-old poutine, but there’s a special place in hell for this one. The histrionic, maple-flavoured sap of Dion’s most notorious work will have you rejoicing at Leonardo DiCaprio’s death in Titanic. “Jack, I’m flying,” Kate Winslet says. Jack, I’m throwing up in my mouth.
• Every Rose Has Its Thorn, Poison: Just like every hair band has a crap love song. Frontman Bret Michaels wrote this power ballad after an affair with a Los Angeles stripper went bad. Dejected after hearing a man’s voice in the background during a phone call to her, Michaels concocted this noxious faux-country tale of woe in a laundromat. Today, his romantic misfires are documented on Rock Of Love, a TV series on which you can at least change the channel.
• Hello, Lionel Richie: A romantic R&B classic from multi-platinum album Can’t Slow Down, guaranteed to make you giggle more than swoon. The singer’s vulnerability borders on the comical, earning lampoons on Family Guy and The 40 Year Old Virgin, playing while Steve Carell reluctantly prepares to have at himself. You’ll never believe a song so bad could be so enjoyable.
• Still The One, Shania Twain: This Canadian country catastrophe is more likely to encourage a coma than a romance. It plays while you fall half-asleep in the waiting room at the dentist’s office, it’s the tune that’s sung by the tone-deaf waitress on karaoke Tuesday nights and the song your uncle and aunt slow-dance to on their 25th wedding anniversary (which I suppose is romantic in its way).
