Gilbert O'Sullivan, "A Woman's Place"

Gilbert O'Sullivan's career started out promisingly enough: in the outfit of a street urchin at first, the Irish balladeer scored a few old-fashioned piano-driven hits in the U.K. before bringing the #1 hit "Alone Again (Naturally)" over to the States in '72. The gorgeously constructed "Clair" hit #2 immediately thereafter (and set the template for Billy Joel's similar "Leave a Tender Moment Alone"). So what happened?

What happened was, as with so many others who've had brief bouts with fame, O'Sullivan, though he still soldiers on as a musician today, couldn't come up with top-shelf material for an extended length of time. As the rock saying goes, you have your whole life to make your first album, and then a year to make your second one. (Not so much the case anymore, but you get the idea.) So his material got increasingly worse, bottoming out with one I simply had to share with you all: "A Woman's Place."

As is, "is in the home." Yikes. Wonder if he was still wearing one of those goddamned varsity glee-club sweaters when he belted this ode to chauvinism. Stupid sentiment, and not only that, he doesn't even bother making a case for why he believes a woman's place is in the home. He simply asserts the belief. Which makes for really bad songwriting.

And making for even worse songwriting was the line "I wouldn't want to hurt you / Not even for a while." Come again, G?