A couple of weeks ago I posted my runnner-up for Worst Best Song Ever. The competition is stiff but 1964’s ‘ ‘Bread and Butter’ by the Newbeats had the right ingredients: inane lyrics so bad they are funny; a catchy ear worm tune that you wish you could purge from the jukebox in your head.
And, if you remember this post, Bread and Butter had a secret weapon. A happy looking grown man with a falsetto that sounded like the noise coming out of Linda Blair’s mouth when her head did a 360. And there was video evidence that the three young men could not dance.
But that was only good enough for second all time.
The winner contains similar ingredients: inane lyrics; catchy earworm tune so powerful a prescription is required just to listen to it. People I have tested it on have wandered around for hours with glassy eyes singing softly Na Na Na Na.
(‘And then we can Na Na Na’, indeed, double entendre much?
The frightful video features a Dutch Mountain Man with a powerful voice trading vocals with a sprite of a woman with a delicate voice who alternately seems afraid of and playful with her King Kong partner. He covers his face and plays peek-a-boo with his violin.
Ultimately for no reason, he picks her up like a sack of potatoes.
Words cannot capture the virus that is this song . Check out the video below to see Mouth and MacNeal (yes that’s their name) ‘perform’ “How Do You Do.’
An experiment at a children’s pre-school showed powerful results of the song’s mind controlling properties as nearly every child after only one listen began chanting ‘How do you do Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na.’