the first round

(12) charlene, “i’ve never been to me”
crushed
(5) sammy davis jr, “the candy man”
196-65
and will play on in the second round

Read the essays, listen to the songs, tweet at us, and vote. Winner is the aggregate of the poll below and the @marchxness twitter poll. Polls closed @ 9am Arizona time on March 4.

kurt b. reighley on “the candy man” 

I grew up without two fundamentals: Pop music and candy. 
Despite being born in the late ‘60s, my childhood in sunny Pasadena, CA went untouched by “now” sounds. I had few playmates and no older siblings. My TV ration was an hour of PBS per weekday. My parents subsisted on classical music, hymns on Sunday morning, and an occasional show tune.
Mother worked as a dental hygienist. It was more of a higher calling than a job. Her semi-annual visits to my elementary school to teach kids how to floss properly didn’t help my social standing. Come Halloween, the rare trick-or-treater who bothered our door had to choose between Trident sugarless gum or miniature boxes of raisins.
I was the square offspring of square parents. Music never felt revolutionary. Until I heard “The Candy Man.”
My epiphany occurred during a summer visit to my grandparents. As five-year-old me tucked into breakfast, sunshine poured through the kitchen windows. Suddenly, an even greater radiance burst forth from the transistor radio: bright, cheerful voices, lifted in song, praising the leader’s glory. All hail the Candy Man!
Cool and confident, Sammy Davis Jr. beckoned me into a gumdrop-studded, custard-filled world of abundance. Cracks appeared in the walls my parents had constructed to protect me from unhealthy influences. You can have all the candy you want. The man on the radio says it’s okay. Listen to how happy he sounds!
My illumination persists to this day. Despite four years of music college and a lifetime spent sharing my opinions for fun and profit, everything I know about “good” music vanishes when I hear “The Candy Man.” Regardless of its sheen of artifice and obvious banality, this record overwhelms my circuits with joy. 
“The Candy Man” is simple, unsophisticated, and repetitive: spoken word intro/chorus/chorus/bridge/chorus and a whole lot of “who can make the … ” mythbuilding. And that damn choir of happy disciples, the Mike Curb Congregation, a safe and sanitized brotherhood of man, underlining each promise as soon as Davis makes it. At five years old, I felt an instant kinship. These people are square.  
Much like “I’d Like to Teach The World To Sing,” the iconic Coca-Cola commercial-cum-chart hit from the same era, “The Candy Man” sounds like a super-sized advertising jingle. That’s because advertising is woven into the DNA of its source material, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Movie producer David Wolper secured financing for the 1971 feature from the Quaker Oats Company, which was positioning to enter the candy bar market at the time.
Willy Wonka’s Peanut Butter Oompa Loompa Cups never made it to market, but the film did. Unfavorable reviews, a diminishing audiences for Hollywood musicals, and a weak opening ensured that Willy Wonka… failed to capture the public’s hearts. (It wasn’t until after 1975, when NBC began airing it regularly during the holidays, that the film gained popularity.)
Songwriters Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley had held high hopes for Willy Wonka. Although the Los Angeles Times found the music “instantly forgettable,” it received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Score. But the original “Candy Man” perturbed Bricusse and Newley, who reportedly hated Aubrey Woods’ performance as the candy shop proprietor.
A recording artist in his own right, Newley implored director Mel Stuart to let only him overdub Woods’ “Candy Man” with his own vocals, thereby improving the song’s chances of breakout commercial success. Stuart declined, yet Newley persisted. As Willy Wonka ... hit theaters in summer 1971, he released his own “Candy Man” as a single.
The arrangement on Davis’ subsequent version hews close to Newley’s, but the latter’s understated vocal feels creepy and unbelievable. It died a quick death. Regardless, once Davis made “The Candy Man” a hit, he invited the composer to sing it as a duet on a Burt Bacharach TV special. Sammy is gracious yet clearly in charge in the YouTube clip.

Millions of Americans craved sunshine, lollipops and rainbows in 1972. At home, unemployment and inflation hampered the economy, while the war in Vietnam continued, a disproportionate number of its casualties young African-American men. Even as he campaigned for re-election, President Richard Nixon struggled to recover from record low approval ratings the year prior.
The market was prime for frictionless optimism, but “Candy Man” had already misfired twice. Its phenomenal success ultimately hinged on the pitchman, one with a backstory that could make the vapid material glimmer with transcendence. As Davis often acknowledged by tapping his chest with a bejeweled digit when he sang it live, he was “Candy Man” incarnate.
Read any of Davis’ three autobiographies and you are confronted by page after page of racism, hurt, and discrimination. Sammy counters it, time and again, with talent and an all-consuming drive for success. Starting in Vaudeville at the age of three, he’d powered through innumerable challenges (including the 1954 car accident that claimed his left eye) to reach the zenith of show business and public consciousness. He’d realized his dreams, and you could, too.
Sammy didn’t want “The Candy Man,” but he did want hits. Money-makers. Though he’d been cutting records since 1950, he’d never had scored a genuine smash, especially with the kids. His 1968 manifesto “I Gotta Be Me” dominated Adult Contemporary, but he hadn’t had a Top 10 pop hit since 1955. To make matters worse, his quest for better record sales had just suffered a setback.
After a decade with Frank Sinatra’s Reprise label, Davis’ manager negotiated the singer a new deal with Motown. “I believe I can make Sammy Davis the world’s biggest recording star,” proclaimed Berry Gordy.
The union of “Mr. Show Business” and “The Sound of Young America” proved brief and forgettable. Contemporary material by Jimmy Webb, Laura Nyro, and Blood, Sweat & Tears had revitalized the singer’s recent London shows, but with Rat Pack veteran Jimmy Bowen in the producer’s chair, the songs fell flat on record. Listening to Davis’ sole Motown album, 1970’s Something For Everyone, you’d never identify it as a product of the hit factory behind the Jackson 5, Diana Ross, and Stevie Wonder.
After the album flopped, Motown shelved a second album’s worth of finished material. Davis’ manager started shopping for a new deal, but his client balked when he learned the identity of his next suitor: Mike Curb, a producer in his own right and the President of MGM Records. “Mike Curb? That cat’s square, white bread,” declared Davis, and rightly so.
During his ascent, Curb had purged MGM of hip acts like the Velvet Underground. He vocally opposed music he felt promoted or exploited drug use. But Curb could spin straw into gold. He’d already lured the Osmond brothers away from Andy Williams, paired them with a Motown reject (“One Bad Apple”), and launched his own Jackson 5 rivals.
MGM offered Davis a lucrative contract, including a chance to make big money off the unreleased Motown tracks. And Mike Curb couldn’t wait to get Davis into the studio. He already had the perfect track in the can: “The Candy Man.” A little something he’d whipped up for his Mike Curb Congregation, a wholesome, multi-racial ensemble with a regular slot on the Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour and their own Adult Contemporary hit, “Sweet Gingerbread Man.”

Davis knew he was stepping into a cowpie. “[The song’s] horrible,” he told his manager. “It’s a timmy-two-shoes, it’s white bread, it’s cute-ums, there’s no romance. Blechhh!” He took Curb’s deal, but recording “The Candy Man” was purely a means to an end, the vocal done in a single take. Davis only deigned to make a second, final pass when Curb asked him to throw in some adlibs.
You can hear the reservation in Davis’ singing. There are glimmers of magic—when he rushes ahead of the beat on “talk about your childhood wishes,” the way his voice trails off on the word “sigh”—but none of the determination that powers classics like “What Kind of Fool Am I?” and “I Gotta Be Me.” The exuberance that energized his live performances, his comic timing, his flair for impersonations and funny voices… “Mr. Show Business” left all his big gifts in the back of his limo that afternoon.
“The Candy Man” isn’t an entertainer striving to impress audiences with his dazzling array of talents. This is Sammy Davis Jr. playing the character of Sammy Davis Jr. and he knows it. He telegraphs his confession when he substitutes “groovy” for the original “strawberry” in the line about baking a lemon pie.
Upon hearing the playback, Davis turned to his manager. “This record is going straight into the toilet. Not just around the rim, but into the bowl, and it may just pull my whole career down with it.”
Cream rises. Shit floats. Either way you’re on top, baby. By the summer of 1972, “The Candy Man” was inescapable, #1 on the Pop and Adult Contemporary charts. “It was incredible, absurd, ridiculous—but a fact,” wrote Davis years later. “I can name ten songs I recorded that I’d have bet my house would be hits. But: toilet!” The record he’d resisted, an opportunity he’d scorned, became the biggest hit of his career.
Uncool as it would be to admit, Davis likely recognized the record’s potential. By 1971, his catalog included bushels of Bricusse and Newley material, plucked from their stage musicals Stop the World—I Want to Get Off and The Smell of the Greasepaint, the Roar of the Crowd. Digging deep into “What Kind of Fool Am I?” and “Gonna Build A Mountain,” Davis personified the little man with big dreams at the heart of these songs. You can’t help but root for him.
And while Davis was right to criticize “Candy Man” for its childish lyrics, he could elevate kid-friendly content. Check out his 1967 version of “Talk to the Animals,” from Dr. Doolittle (another expensive bomb with Bricusse and Newley). Backed by a killer Marty Paich arrangement, Davis squeaks, squawks, and swings hard. You can hear the kinetic energy racing through his body as he tosses off couplets like If people asked me, can you speak in rhinoceros/I'd say, "Of courserous, can't you? with a big grin.

“The Candy Man” eschews such concerns. There’s no drama, no conflict, no aspirations to great things just beyond reach. “The Candy Man” presents Davis’ preeminence as fait accompli, with the Mike Curb Congregation cheering his victory lap.
Sammy immediately jettisoned the backing vocals for live and TV appearances; connecting with the masses no longer required assistance from a bunch of goody-two-shoes. In fact, when Davis, Curb, the Congregation, and Bricusse and Newley reunited for a follow-up (“The People Tree”), they bombed.
Yet he also dropped the detachment that undercuts his original vocals. Until his death in 1991, Davis used “The Candy Man” to demonstrate the very gifts he’d withheld in the recording studio. Instead of giving audiences the Mr. Show Business character, he used his signature song as a vehicle for the genuine showmanship that kept him in business for more than 60 years. You could hear Davis’ gratitude to the masses for giving him that big hit he’d always craved.
Like the mighty cockroach, “Candy Man” endures. In the ‘80s, Davis sang a new version to shill for Sunshine Biscuits. Oddball covers by Cibo Matto (1996) and Primus (2014) have their moments, but, without a focal point like Davis, expose the song’s inherent musical weaknesses while gutting its sing-along melody. Davis’ version pops up twice, slightly warped, in the animated feature Madagascar. Last year, EDM producer Zedd and singer Aloe Blacc slapped it around to promote the 50th anniversary of M&M’s.
But the only “Candy Man” to rival the audacity and mass-mind-control of the original is a parody, the highlight of The Simpsons, Season 9, Episode 22 (“Trash of the Titans,” 1998). Complete with cameos from Oscar the Grouch and Bono’s buttcrack, “The Garbage Man” traffics in the same impossible promises as Davis’ original, substituting cheerful diaper disposal for edible dishes, with equally enormous personality (Homer Simpson) at the helm.

I didn’t purchase my own copy of “Candy Man” until the late ‘90s, when I decided my set for an all-vinyl DJ competition at a neighborhood dive demanded non-stop earworms and irritants (basically every song in this tournament). As its preternatural sweetness swept through the darkness and smoke, patrons groaned, pounded their drinks, or started singing along. Many did all three.
My parents tried to shield me, but “The Candy Man” is irresistible. Like a fistful of Hershey’s Kisses, pop music doesn’t have to be good for you to make you feel good. When a “bad” song sparks a rush, fills you up, and leaves you wanting more, enjoy it freely. Let someone else fret about merit and integrity for three minutes. Just remember to brush and floss when you’re done eating the dishes.

Kurt B. Reighley is a Tucson-based writer, entertainer, and fundraiser. As DJ El Toro, he has played with artists including Nina Hagen, Village People, and Eddie Vedder, and can be heard on KXCI Community Radio. He has one filling (sorry Mom!) and a husband with "candy" tattooed across his belly. Befriend him via @kurtbreighley on Twitter and Instagram.

No Matter Where You Go, There You Are: Zoë Bossiere on “I’ve Never Been to Me”

I had hoped to internalize the music. To listen to Charlene’s one-hit wonder on repeat until the lyrics settled deep down into the recesses of my brain, where bad songs and useless information go to be preserved for all eternity. To listen until, maybe, I even liked it a little bit in spite of myself.
In the months between selecting “I’ve Never Been to Me” for this tournament last July and when these words were written, I’ve cued the song up on Spotify and YouTube more times than I can count. I listened to multiple different versions by several artists to break up the monotony of Charlene’s breathy refrain; I played it in situations where I would not be able to leave, such as while taking a shower or behind the wheel of a car; I forced myself to muscle through the song for the sake of art, a la Geoff Dyer in Out of Sheer Rage. But invariably, by the third or fourth repeat, I’d rip off my headphones in a sweaty desperation, reaching a point where I couldn’t get through the song one more time. Not even for another second. By November, this ritual of failing to listen to, let alone write about, “I’ve Never Been to Me” was beginning to get under my skin. I worried ceaselessly about the uncertain future of this essay. So eventually I put my headphones away and did what many of us resort to when we’re stuck and need advice: I called my mom.
It turns out this was not the worst place to start; my mom is roughly the same age as Charlene and was alive to witness the rise of “I’ve Never Been to Me” on the charts from a paltry #97 in 1977 all the way to a respectable #3 in 1982. 1977 also happens to be the year my much-older sister was born. Mom was nineteen, living in the deep Georgia south with the disaffected high school boyfriend her parents had all but forced her to marry, shotgun style, after her pregnancy. Savannah was a long way from Charlene’s star-studded existence in Los Angeles, but according to the latter’s memoir (also called “I’ve Never Been to Me”), Charlene and Mom had a lot in common, both as “discontented mothers” and “regimented wives.” I don’t know about making love to preacher men or sipping champagne on a yacht, but Mom did lead quite the storied life throughout her twenties, first running away with my then two-year-old sister to Seattle, Washington where she made and sold dresses at the Pike Place Market, and, later, joining an Eastern European traveling circus with my dad where the two of them performed onstage with sea lions. My birth is not even the tenth most interesting item on her long list of adventurous experiences.
The first time I call her, Mom is in the middle of packing an order for her online paper crafting store, a business venture she’s taken on in her sixties. This enterprising is typical of her. While most of her friends are thinking about how they’d like to spend their retirement, Mom is out hustling for her future, one stamp set at a time. She seems distracted when I ask her whether she remembers Charlene and what she thought about “I’ve Never Been to Me” back when she was a young mother, herself. Just as Mom is about to answer, she’s overtaken by a dry coughing spell.
“People—people thought—it was stupid,” she gasps into the receiver.
“Like stupid how?” I ask. I wait while she takes a sip of water.
“The song was just so corny,” she says. “The music, the words, everything about it.”
I open my mouth to ask another question, but Mom says, “Can I call you back in thirty minutes?”
She does not call me back. 

As might be clear by now, I can’t stand “I’ve Never Been to Me,” and if you’re reading this, chances are good that you probably don’t like it either. The March Badness tourney is far from the first arena the song has been publicly called out in, nor is it the first “worst song” contest it’s unwittingly entered. Charlene’s “I’ve Never Been to Me” earned the #3 spot in a 2006 CNN “Worst Song of All Time” poll, and #4 in Jimmy Guterman’s The Worst Rock n’ Roll Records of All Time. Humor columnist Dave Barry gave the song an honorable mention in his own bad song survey (later chronicled in Dave Barry’s Book of Bad Songs) back in the 90s due to the sheer number of readers who took the time to write in and complain about it. Barry actually noted that while “I’ve Never Been to Me” might not have received the most votes, it was one of the few songs that inspired the most “intense hatred” among responders. Further evidencing this are the sheer number of personal blogs in which people have taken it upon themselves to convince the rest of the internet that Charlene’s song is one of the worst of all time.
But while many listeners can agree that “I’ve Never Been to Me” is, in fact, very bad, I was unable to find anyone who could articulate exactly how or why the song’s legacy has endured for so many decades. Why do we still remember—for better or for worse—what is, on its face, a crappy song by a woman with a short, arguably unremarkable musical career?
To answer this question, it might be important to consider the circumstances of what made Charlene famous in the first place. According to her memoir, Charlene grew up dreaming of becoming an actress or a singer. Her big chance came in 1976, when Motown signed Charlene as their first ever white artist. But the world wasn’t yet ready for “I’ve Never Been to Me.” The lyrics were too risqué, the idea of such a liberated woman (even one who ultimately learns her place) too counter to the more conservative “traditional” sensibilities of the time. Despite its great promise as a single, the song was an utter Billboard flop, barely scratching the top 100. Everyone seemed to agree Charlene had the voice, talent, and drive to sing, but it was apparent she lacked some ineffable quality one needs to successfully break away from the dreamers and become a star. Motown—and the American public—quickly lost interest in what Charlene had to offer.
Discouraged, she left Los Angeles in the early 1980s to follow her new husband, an ordinary man named Jeff, to his home country of England and found work in a local candy shop. Charlene’s dream of fame and stardom must have seemed then hopelessly beyond her reach. In another version of her life, the story might have ended here.

“I think it also helps to understand that everyone was trying to find themselves back then,” Mom says when I call her a second time. “There were all these movements, and the 70s were a time when women were becoming more independent and doing things our parents’ generation would find shocking. So women like Charlene were really bucking the system.”
I had asked Mom why she thought Charlene only became so popular five years after its initial failure. Though she admits to disliking the song and remembers laughing about it with her progressive Seattle friends when it was on the radio back in 1982, Mom is able to see “I’ve Never Been to Me” from a generous point of view I hadn’t considered, which frustrates me a little. I had wanted her perspective about what qualities she thought contributed to why the song was so bad, not its potential merits as a misguided baby step towards the third wave feminism we know today.
“But do you think Charlene was bucking the system, after all?” I ask. “Because even though she does go and lead this independent life, she ends up regretting it in the end, right? So it seems like the song is actually advocating for pretty traditional values.”
There is no question that the speaker of Charlene’s “I’ve Never Been to Me” has led a privileged and enviable life. She’s well-traveled, ostensibly wealthy, and has a lifetime of hedonistic experiences to fondly recall. But alas: she also has a problem. Between all that travel and lovemaking and champagne sipping she forgot to settle down and start a family. Now, at an advanced age (Charlene was 26 when the song was recorded), she has zero hope of finding a man who would be tolerant of her salacious past, leaving her unable to achieve something even adjacent to happiness. Like the ghosts of so many Christmas pasts, Charlene resigns herself to wandering uninvited into other women’s lives, warning them against pursuing the same freedoms, independence, and pleasures she once enjoyed. Instead, she implores women dreaming of a little excitement to appreciate the gift of their pedestrian, unfulfilling lives as housewives under the watchful eye of the patriarchy. You’ve got it made, honey, “I’ve Never Been To Me” seems to say, so plaster a smile on those cheeks! Your husband will be home soon and he’s expecting his dinner to be hot and on the table; kick off those shoes, sling that baby on your hip, and get cooking!
Mom pauses. “Yeah,” she says, “But I think the song might be more about living with regret. Like, she’s led this untraditional life and didn’t end up where she thought she would. It has that introspective quality to it. But I agree her perspective does feel dated, now.”
The song is dated, yes. But so is a lot of other music from the same era—plenty of stuff that doesn’t regularly crack the top five in “worst song” competitions, let alone merit consideration as a contender in these arenas. Why “I’ve Never Been to Me?” Why Charlene?
“Would it surprise you to hear that Charlene didn’t write the song?” I ask. “It was actually written by two men—Ron Miller and Kenny Hirsch.”
Mom laughs. “Well isn’t that typical,” she says.

To be clear, I don’t begrudge Charlene her successes, nor do I blame her for failing to recognize the more problematic aspects of “I’ve Never Been to Me.” I know she comes from a time (the 1970s) and a place (Hollywood) where a producer screaming at a woman if she doesn’t sing a better take is a motivational “kick up the butt” (Charlene’s actual words) rather than a terrifying, traumatic, or abusive experience. She may not have written the words, but Charlene does personally identify with the song’s message so strongly that she titled both her memoir and the domain for her official website after it. Though one can find many versions of the song by a variety of other singers, the legacy of “I’ve Never Been to Me” and Charlene are inextricably linked such that it is impossible to examine one without also interrogating the other.
By a divine (or perhaps cruel) stroke of luck, the push for feminism and gender equality had died down just enough in the early 80s for the public to give “I’ve Never Been to Me” another shot. A Florida radio DJ is credited with popularizing the song at the behest of his girlfriend, who was one of Charlene’s few fans the first time around. Almost overnight, Charlene had become famous. She took the first plane back to the states to promote the song and for several months her life resembled the stardom she had fantasized about as a child, replete with frenzied fans begging for autographs, fancy dinners paid for by the record label, and meet-and-greets with all the most idolized musicians of the day. But her fame was ultimately short lived; Motown had ensnared Charlene in an exploitative contract, and she would go on to take home less than $13,000 from the rerelease of her song. As that money began to run out, Charlene knew she would need another hit if she was going to establish herself in the industry as more than just a one-hit wonder.
Charlene hinged her second-chance career on a new song, also written by Ron Miller, entitled “Used to Be.” She was thrilled to have the opportunity to record the piece as a duet with none other than Stevie Wonder. True to his name, Wonder was a national sensation and every song he touched seemed to turn to gold. If anything could solidify her status as a serious musical artist, Charlene thought, it would be the success of this next song. But fate clearly had other plans. “Used to Be” peaked at a tepid #46 position on US charts and was banned outright on UK airwaves (yes, really) because of such unfortunate lyrics as:

Have another Chivas Regal
You’re twelve years old and sex is legal
Your parents don’t know where or who you are

This mistake would mark the beginning of the end for Charlene’s zombie-like career. In her memoir, she recounts this disappointment with particular bitterness. In the music business, you rarely get a second chance, and here she had squandered hers with a song that, on paper at least, should have been an easy hit. But even Stevie Wonder wasn’t enough to save “Used to Be” from itself. Charlene reports feeling shocked anyone would think the lyrics sexualized children, writing, “people misinterpreted it and thought we were condoning sex for 12-year-olds for God’s sake,” though, it should be noted, she does not offer a convincing alternate interpretation.
Charlene would never again record a song that broke the top 100. But despite the ever-mounting odds against her, Charlene has never once stopped chasing her next comeback. The final chapters of her memoir detail a series of increasingly desperate schemes to become relevant once again, including releasing a 2008 dance mix of “I’ve Never Been to Me” and touring the gay nightclub circuit for extra cash, at times sleeping in her car because she couldn’t afford the price of a hotel for the night. She admits this relentless pursuit of fame has caused strain on her relationship with her husband and daughters, but she still hasn’t given up on her dream of reclaiming her career with another hit. Her memoir concludes with this heartbreaking self-assessment:
“I look back on everything I’ve been through in my life with a sweet sadness…You sit there and childishly think that things are going to last and last, but they’re not. People are going to die, things are going to disappear, and songs will be forgotten. But there has to come a time when I will wake up, look at myself in the mirror and say, ‘Hey lady, you lady, I’ve been to paradise and now I’ve finally been to me.’ So I’d better start living my life before it’s too late.”
The irony in this, of course, is that it’s already too late. The book is over. Charlene, the heroine of this story, hasn’t found what she’s spent the better part of her life searching for. She’s lived the glamorous lifestyle of a star as well as the realities of a motherhood her song’s narrator so wishes could be hers, yet still, despite all of this, Charlene is left feeling unfulfilled. Who is to blame for this tragic outcome? Was it “I’ve Never Been to Me” that doomed Charlene to this Groundhog Day-esque cycle, forever trying and failing to find herself amid lofty goals of celebrity and fame? Or is it that Charlene’s short-lived fame could only ever have hinged on the improbable success of such an insufferable song? While we may never know the answer, one thing is clear. Though her 2017 memoir does not acknowledge this, Charlene’s song continues to thrive well beyond its expected lifespan in the spirit of competitions like this one. Unwittingly, Charlene has established a legacy for herself after all, but the cruel paradox of this recognition is a kind of attention she didn’t ask for and likely doesn’t appreciate.

“One more question, Mom,” I say.
“Uh-huh,” she says.
“Have you ever been to Me?”
“Oh god,” she laughs. “Who has time for that? I can find myself when I’m dead.”

The endurance of “I’ve Never Been to Me”—and, by extension, of Charlene—represents a kind of celebration of failure that should be familiar to all of us. In this way, Charlene’s “Me” becomes a metaphor for the impossible standard each of us privately holds for ourselves. A standard so high we have little chance of ever meeting, let alone exceeding, our own expectations—whether as writers, as parents, or as good people. As Confucius once said: no matter where you go, there you are. This is perhaps the most relatable thing about Charlene as an artist, and also what makes the song a cultural icon that habitually creeps into so many “worst song” tournaments. This is what makes “I’ve Never Been to Me” the bad song we love to hate. Because underlying its dated “feminist” sentiments, its not-so-subtle anti-abortion rhetoric, and more problematic stereotypes about motherhood than I can reasonably deconstruct in just one essay, is a song that doesn’t just look back and reflect on what it means to live with regrets. Rather, the song, much like Charlene herself, commands our attention with a sincerity so insistent, so grotesque, and so uncanny that we are all but forced to reckon with it. This is how “I’ve Never Been to Me” has stood the test of time. After more than forty years and against all odds it’s still here, damnit, and here it will stay, immortalized in our hearts and minds until each one of us—Charlene included—succumbs to the overwhelming relief of a death sweeter than any paradise.

Zoë Bossiere is a doctoral candidate at Ohio University, where she studies creative writing and rhetoric & composition. She is the managing editor of Brevity: A Journal of Concise Literary Nonfiction and the co-editor of its forthcoming anthology, entitled The Best of Brevity (Rose Metal Press, 2020). Find her online at zoebossiere.com or on Twitter @zoebossiere