999,836: Johnny Mandel — Suicide Is Painless

I'm going to stick my neck out and say that every single human being, living or dead, knows this song. With arguably the most memorable opening guitar riff in recorded music history and a maddeningly hummable melody, experts estimate that it's been played on every tv station in the universe an average of six times per day over the last forty years. And its ubiquity is not simply due to the wiles of the cockeyed tv syndication market—spiritual leaders and obstetricians suggest that the blood rushing through vessels surrounding the womb plays this song ceaselessly for the entire mammalian gestation period.

So, granted: everybody and his ugly cousin knows this song. And probably 117 people, total, know the title, and about 15 are overly familiar with the lyrics, since only the version played in the Robert Altman movie contained them. As mentioned, the song is called "Suicide Is Painless", but it might as well add "...Compared to the Pointless Horrors of War, That Is!" The basic subtext of the song is that life is a series of empty exercises in misery, you're going to die anyway, so you might as well exert some control over the situation. To wit, the chorus:

Suicide is painless
It brings on many changes
And I can take or leave it if I please

A lot of popular songs say a lot of dumb things, but "It brings on many changes" might lead the field in sophomoric understatement. Most of the verses don't do much better, crammed full of fake poetic phrasing ("A brave man once requested me/to answer questions that are key"), embarrassing, high school creative writing-type metaphors ("The sword of time will pierce our skins"), and adolescent angst masquerading as grown-up depth.

Thankfully there's a very good reason it sounds like the theme from M*A*S*H was written by a teenager: the lyricist was Altman's 14 year-old son, Mike. Altman once noted that Mike earned over a million bucks for writing stuff like "The game of life is hard to play" and slapping it on top of Johnny Mandel's well-crafted tune. Put another way, Altman was bragging that he was such a big shot that he could set his kid up for life by re-purposing a C- from 9th grade comp for his Hollywood movie. Which...I guess no argument here.