In this week's edition of Terrible Tune Tuesday, Jay and I selected terrible tunes that were actually performed by musical geniuses...these just weren't their best efforts, but they were certainly memorable.

Jay selected a song by one of the greatest entertainers of all-time.

Michael Jackson truly is, was, and always will be the King Of Pop. A true global icon, Jackson had 13 singles reach #1 on the U.S. Billboard charts, with plenty more mega hits that didn't reach #1.

Photo by Liaison/Getty Images
Photo by Liaison/Getty Images
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One of his #1 hits was Ben. Jackson was 14 years old when he recorded Ben, and to be fair, the song doesn't sound bad. So what makes it a terrible tune? IT'S ABOUT A RAT! I repeat, Michael is signing to a rat.

Ben was written by Donny Osmond, but couldn't record Ben due to his tour schedule. Jackson swooped in, and not only took the song to #1, but won a Golden Globe for Best Song, and snagged an Academy Award nomination as well.

What a sweet love song....TO A RAT! Ben came from the movie of the same title which was a sequal to the 1971 film Willard, which was about a killer rat.

The video below is from the 1973 Academy Awards, where Jackson performed the number live.

My selection comes from Bobby McFerrin, a musical genius who is best remembered for his #1 hit, Don't Worry, Be Happy, a song with a juvenile rhyme scheme that sounds like it was catered to nursery age children.

McFerrin earned a Grammy for Song of the Year and Record of the Year with this terrible tune. He's earned 8 other Grammy's in his career, though most folks couldn't tell you what for.

The song, sung completely in a cappella, features McFerrin singing in a Jamaican accent. He's from Brooklyn.

For a song that tells me let things go and just be happy, I find myself experiencing the opposite when I listen to this song.

In fact, McFerrin hasn't performed the song in over 20 years. George H. Bush used it was the theme song of his '92 presidential campaign. No one from Bush's camp asked McFerrin permission, and McFerrin, a stout democrat, announced he wouldn't perform the song any longer. I wouldn't just told him not to worry about it, and simply be happy.

My theory is that McFerrin was so annoyed by his own hit, he used the Bush campaign story as an out to leave the song in his past.

In the grade scheme of all of our Terrible Tune Tuesdays, this one may be the most debated. Many people love Don't Worry, Be Happy, while Ben wouldn't be a terrible tune if it was about a childhood friend named Ben that was a person, rather than a rat.

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