THE BILLBOARD BOOK OF NUMBER ONE HITS

American Pie: This song of course has a lot of hidden symbolism. For example, there is the line "the jester stole his thorny crown." The Jesters were a group of free masons down in Texas.

Steve Martin once made a joke about trying to break the record for most consecutive listenings of "American Pie."

Heart Of Gold: This song is self-absorbed and crummy.

I once saw this awful play about these guys who go out into the woods on a camping trip and talk about things like feminism and their psychological problems. At one point, the one guy has a kind of emotional breakdown and they all start singing "Heart Of Gold."

Horse With No Name: This is one of the best songs ever written.

On an episode of the early nineties sitcom "The Empty Nest", the character of Charlie Deets starts singing this song at a carioke bar. Harry, the main character, turns to Maxeen, the woman/man (honestly, I'm not sure which) he works with and says, "Charlie's really beltin it out." Maxeen replies, "Yeah. If he keeps it up, I'm gonna belt him."

Candy Man: There was a parody of this song on The Simpsons called "The Garbage Man."

Lean On Me: Even though this song sucks, it made me think of a somewhat pleasant memory. In Grade 6, I was walking across the schoolyard, upset about something. I was talking to my friend and she put her arm around me and said, "Lean on me." Then she started singing the first few bars of the song.

Alone Again (Naturally): I have the album with this song. It sucks. It doesn't help that Sugar Ray made reference to it.

Black And White: Here is the thing about desegrigation of schools. Black people generally tend to learn slower. I'm not saying their stupid, I'm just saying they tend to learn slower. When black people were in the all black schools, they would appear on local TV quiz shows (remember local TV programming?) and would do very well. When the schools were integrated, the black students found they couldn't keep up with the pace of learning geared toward the white students, so they began to fall behind. The results are what you see with regards to black children in public schools today.

My Ding-a-Ling: When I was fourteen, my friends and I would talk about this song and laugh.

Chuck Barry's music is bolted to the side of the Voyager spacecraft. Unfortunately, the aliens will all have IPods and won't be able to play it, if they even have any concept of what a bucking record or even what are bucking spaceships look like.

I Can See Clearly: I first heard about this song on one of those direct response ads for CDs. The album was called "Thirty Gay Anthems."

Papa Was A Rolling Stone: Imagine a middle aged white woman singing this at a jam session.

I Am Woman: I have the album with this song. It sucks.