A Forgotten Scrap of Excrement from the '80s That Really Should Stay Buried

More than a year ago a passionate reader, JB, contacted me as a last resort to help him unearth the artist and title of an '80s song from his past that has continued to haunt him two decades later. Tonight he returned, at long last, with the answer to this burning question, and I wish I could say I was anything but horrified and diminished by the knowledge. Don't worry, I'm not insulting him; he actually warned me from the start that it was "a terrible song." I just never knew how sincere and accurate such a statement could be.

OK, enough with the suspense. I know you can all hardly stand it. The wretched musical abomination of which I speak is a 1987 single from the Kantner-Balin-Casady Band (abbreviated niftily as KBC) called "America." It's pretty much futile to try and describe this disaster in words, so I'll send you immediately to the song's music video, with thanks once again to JB. Still, allow me to say the following: there's a very good reason Marty Balin sings lead on a number of Jefferson Airplane classics of the '60s, while founding member Paul Kantner does not. You'll find that reason in Kanter's awkward lead vocal here, not to mention Balin's futile backing support. Beyond that, the song is a painfully earnest, ill-advised attempt to survey the complex history of this nation in sweeping, epic terms. If that sounds cringeworthy enough, imagine the most appalling and plentiful use of saxophone you've ever heard in your life, and you're getting close to the level of awful we're talking about here. So, it turns out that "We Built This City" may not be the bottom-of-the-barrel, post-Jefferson moment we all thought it was. Thanks, JB; now we're all sufficiently haunted by this foul blast from your past.