Year: 1972
Chart Position: #3
Last year's Worst Songs position: unranked
While growing up my mother wouldn't let us kids eat white bread -- you know, that kind of soft, bleached bread-like substance that you could moisten, roll up into a ball and use as some sort of mondo spit wad? My mom knew it had no nutritional value and in the end left the eater empty and longing for something real and hearty.
Bread the band was like that. Formed in 1968 -- one can only presume as a musical come-down for trippin' hippies -- Bread first hit #1 with 1970's "Make it With You," the sappiest, wimpiest come-on in the history of rock. (The soft rock era had been ushered in officially the week before, as the Carpenters' "Close to You" had topped the charts.) Singer David Gates whined in his whispery tenor about rainbows, dreams and, if he played his creepy cards right, making it. With you. Really, girl.
Audiences bought this crap like so many pre-sliced loafs of Wonder. "Baby I'm-a Want You" was Bread's fourth Top Ten hit, and like all that preceded it, continued to de-ball the male rock singer persona with unnerving amounts of treacle. Now, I'm for sensitivity and understanding and all that crapola, but c'mon. Lyrics, please:
Used to be my life was just emotions
Passing by
Then you came along
You made me laugh
You made me cry
You taught me why...
Why what? Why I should sing in an abnormally high voice? Why my songs should be banished to elevators and hold music? Why my prom date has fallen asleep while slow dancing to this song? Why I'm not getting any tail until 1979?
Fun Fact: Bread named themselves after a bread truck they saw outside their window. Other possible names were Fire Hydrant, Dog Walker and Pizza Delivery Guy.
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