We Think The Worst Song Of The '70s Is This Stomach-Turning Tune, And Reddit Agrees

The 1970s produced some of the greatest music ever, but also regrettable dreck. Take, for example, the silly "Disco Duck" by Rick Dees and the creepy and screechy "Afternoon Delight" by the Starland Vocal Band, one of many '70s one-hit wonders who then vanished. While those songs are variously cringeworthy, lyrically objectionable, or melodically vapid, there's one '70s hit that commits all those musical sins and more: "(You're) Having My Baby." A No. 1 hit in 1974, it's an obnoxious misstep in the life of Paul Anka, a former teen idol best known for his 1957 hit "Diana," a love song to his babysitter.

We think "(You're) Having My Baby" is the worst song of its day, and plenty of Redditors share our opinion. "What's the cringiest song of the '70s? I nominate 'Having My Baby' by Paul Anka," wrote p38-lightning. Two people in a Reddit thread seeking to identify the "worst song in history" nominated the Anka song. "I forgot about this one. I say forgot but what I really mean is that I forcefully exhumed it from my consciousness and pretended it never existed for the sake of my own sanity," Galdrun stated in a thread asking, "What is the worst song you have ever listened to?"

Smug, whiny, and kind of sexist — it's a hard song to defend. Here's how "(You're) Having My Baby" became what we, along with critics and Redditors, consider to be the worst '70s song.

"(You're) Having My Baby," a duet recorded with Odia Coates, is about a man happy that his wife is pregnant. He interprets fertilization of an egg as her expression of love for him, as evidenced by how he refers to the unborn child as his and only his possession, to which he offers up a patronizing "thanks." 

The song was released during the second wave of the women's rights movement. Therefore, not only was it musically out of step — the brassy horns and melodramatic vocals feel corny, dated, and straight out of a 1950s crooner's Las Vegas nightclub act — it was thematically on the wrong side of history. For his possessive and dismissive lyrics geared toward a woman, Ms. Magazine named Anka its Male Chauvinist Pig of the Year, and the National Organization of Women awarded the musician a "Keep Her in Her Place" mock-prize.

That collective distaste only grew and continues to rankle listeners. "Paul Anka should not have been allowed to make '(You're) Having My Baby'," wrote Redditor slippin_park on a post about terrible songs, with Sharp_Impress5351 calling it "schmaltzy and repulsive at the same time," and omisellepasser adding, "It's nauseating in a way I didn't realize songs could be." Another Reddit post titled "'(You're) Having My Baby' is literally the worst song I have ever heard," includes the damning comment by Sagacious_Sophist, who wrote, "This song takes repetition to a level rivaled only by songs written for 15 year-olds." Redditor mrsam240 was more succinct: "Creepiest song ever at the very least."

Not even Paul Anka's biggest fans want to hear "(You're Having) My Baby" anymore — it's nowhere near his most popular songs on Spotify — while the general public won't be subjected to it either. In a recent weekly radio playlist survey, it was played once on a single radio station in the entire U.S. Nonetheless, "(You're) Having My Baby" is so bad that it's remained fresh in our minds. 

In a 2006 CNN poll, "(You're) Having My Baby" was voted the worst song of all time, and over other '70s schlock like the Captain and Tennille's rodent romance "Muskrat Love." "I don't know a woman alive who doesn't cringe when it comes on the radio," commented voter Gord P. Then, in a 2011 Rolling Stone poll, readers named Anka's anthem the third-worst song of the '70s.

Oddly enough, Anka predicted all that blowback, and he proceeded anyhow. "We tested the song before its release and knew there would be flak," Anka told the Los Angeles Times (via Fred Bronson's "The Billboard Book of Number One Hits"). "I wasn't putting women in a subservient position, for God's sake. Motherhood is a fact of life." Nevertheless, when Anka later performed the song live, he changed the lyrics from "having my baby" to the more inclusive "having our baby."