Everyone I know has a favorite song, or favorite songs. Songs that hit them in a special way that is fairly indescribable, songs that hit them in such a way as to cause abrupt changes in their moods or dispositions.
Songs they just absolutely love and can listen to over and over and over again.
The weird thing is, If I asked fifty of my friends and associates the name of the particular song that is their favorite song and why, I'd get fifty different answers and fifty different explanations.
I've proven that to myself over the course of the past several decades, because one of my favorite conversational ice breakers is "What do you consider the worst song you've ever heard?"
I ask that question simply because I nearly always get an instant reply, much different from when I ask "What do you consider the best song ever written?"
Ask a person what song they consider the worst song ever and they'll shoot off an answer as if it had been sitting on a launch pad waiting for the "go" signal, and there is rarely ever the need to ask for an explanation why, as that is always part of the answer to what they consider to be the worst song.
Songs they just absolutely hate and hope they never have to ever listen to again.
I have heard a wide range of people declare with ferocity everything from brief statements that such-and-such by whomever is the worst song ever because "It sucks, and the band couldn't play their instruments to save their lives" to "Well, when you consider the complete disregard for harmonics, an apparent aversion to melody or rhythm, aural textures that visually would resemble oatmeal, and a compositional structure that defies all known musical contexts, such-and-such by whoever must be viewed as infantile and without a shred of merit, much less listenability."
However, when I then ask the follow-up question, what do you consider the best song you've ever heard, I get a lot of hemming and hawing, and, usually, a broad range of quantifiers for best songs in specific genres, from specific points in history, and from a very large and diverse spectrum of performers.
For example, I'll hear "Do you mean best Pop song, best Hip Hop song, best Classic Rock song, best old school Soul song, best Country song, best old school Classic Pop Soul Country Hip Hop song? The list goes on and on...and the explanations for the various songs considered the best are just as diverse...everything from lovely poetic lyrics to great power chords to incredible bass lines to beautiful voices to fantastic rhythms to soothing gossamer-smooth guitar strumming...it's amazing how much people will elaborate on what a song they love does for them.
About the only commonality to the answers regarding worst or best songs is that almost everyone universally agrees that they knew the first time they heard the particular song they consider worst or best is that it was indeed, the worst or best song they had ever heard.
It seems very few people (in my experience) gradually grow to hate or love a particular song..it's hate or love at first listen.
Also, most people that give me answers to the question regarding the worst song will add comments such as "and I hope I never have to hear it again, or, "that's the sort of music that South American Dictators use to break down political prisoners," while most people that give me answers to the question regarding the best song will add comments such as "this is the song that changed my life," or "This is the song that opened my ears to what music really is and could do."
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