Sunday, June 26, 2011

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 21

Day 21 - A Song You Hate By an Artist You Love

"Goofus" - The Carpenters, A Kind of Hush (1976)

I haven't yet discussed my love of the Carpenters on this blog which is why it's unfortunate that your introduction is going to be with the absolute worst song in their discography.

The brother sister duo are known for their easy listening melodies, multi-track harmonies, and Karen's gorgeous, velvety voice. Richard usually has a pretty damn good ear for arrangements and songs in general, which led to such classics as "Close to You", "We've Only Just Begun", and "Superstar".
But for some reason in 1976, he chose to cover "Goofus" , a 1930's song about a saxophone playing hick. And not only did they cover it, they released it as a single.

This is just a terrible song in general and I'm pretty sure I'd hate any version sung by anyone. But since Karen met a tragic end thirty years ago, there is a limited amount of recordings of her voice and this, this is one of them. Such a shame.

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