World’s Worst Songs: “Once You Understand” by Think

Detail from the 1971 UK release of "Once You Understand"

Everybody who loves music also hates music — certain specific examples of it, anyhow. This feature is about those songs: the World’s Worst Songs.

Those amongst the readership who have actual memories of the 1960s and 1970s will remember how important “relevance” used to be. Artists of all sorts felt that their work must be relevant to real life as we were living it then. This could lead to brilliantly-realized art that endures through time as a document of its era — or it could lead to “Once You Understand” by a group called Think.

Think was put together by a songwriter and producer named Lou Stallman. “Once You Understand,” released in 1971,  is intended to comment on the relationship between parents and teenagers, and you’ve got to hear it to believe it.

If you’re a parent, it warns that if you don’t let your kids live their lives as they choose, they’ll turn to dope and kill themselves and then you’ll be sorry. If you’re a kid, it warns you that you should probably listen to your parents, or you’ll turn to dope and kill yourself and then you’ll be sorry — or you would be, if you weren’t dead.

Some radio stations wouldn’t play it. Enough did so that it rose to #23 in January 1972. It even made the Hot 100 again in 1974. Yet in the annals of the World’s Worst Songs, we have rarely come across a record quite so objectionable.

Listen to and debate more of the World’s Worst Songs.