Teenage tragedy songs were popular in the 1950s and 1960s. With one song, in particular, the greatest tragedy about it is the three and one-half minutes of your life you wasted while listening to it that you will never get back. 

In 1965 Jimmy Cross recorded “I Want My Baby Back.” It tells the sad story of a teenage boy who witnessed the death of his girlfriend when the car he was driving collided with a motorcycle, driven by “a mush-head on a motorcycle.”

Sadly, he was unable to avoid this accident by applying the brakes because “I didn’t have none to start with.”

Unable to cope with this tragedy, the despondent young man digs up his girlfriend’s coffin, opens it, and climbs in with her putrefying corpse.

Unsurprisingly to everyone except Jimmy Cross, this song failed to achieve great commercial success. It would have slipped away into obscurity had it not been for it being named as the absolute worst song ever in a 1977 vote.

In the book The World’s Worst Records: Volume One, music critic Darryl W. Bullock notes that the song has “[r]outinely considered the worst record of all time” ever since.

The lyrics include these priceless poetic gems:

I don’t hardly know where to begin
I remember we were cruising home from the Beatles concert
I’d had such a wonderful evening sitting there
Watching my Baby screaming and tearing her hair out and carrying on
She was so full of life

Then… Well we were about three miles from home
When all of a sudden it started to rain
— And I do mean rain —
I couldn’t hardly see nothing…

Well we kept driving for about another mile
When all of a sudden
I see this stalled car right smack in front of me
Well I wasn’t about to slam on the brakes
Cause I didn’t have none to start to with

So I swerved to the left and what do I see?
Some mush-head on a motorcycle heading right at us
And I knew at last me and my baby were about to meet
The Leader of the Pack

Well when I come to I looked around
And there was the Leader
And there was the Pack
And over there was my baby
…And over there was my baby
…And way over there was my baby
I want my baby back

Got to have my baby back
I miss her oh so much
Can’t live without her touch

It’s been many months now since that fateful night
And you know something, I’ve tried
— Believe me I have tried —
But I just can’t make it without my Baby

So I’ve decided I’m going to have back
One way or another
Oh Baby, I dig you so much
Hot dang. Pay dirt

I got my Baby back
Now I got my Baby back
I love her oh so much
Can’t live without her touch

I got my Baby back