Speaking of slapped together songs, I believe I may have discovered the worst end credit song in history.

Let me amend that statement, because obviously I’m speaking in hyperbole here: There are many, many terrible end credit songs. The 1980s contained nothing but hideous tunes that played over the end credits of movies, usually coke-fueled hair metal that sounded like outtakes from Dirk Diggler’s studio session. The song I’ve discovered is, truth be told, not even close to being as bad as any of these. It does, however, have all the Nose Candy songs beat in the category of Sheer Lack of Effort.

It comes from the 1999 filmic adaptation of Madeline, which The Baby has been obsessed with lately. The movie itself is thoroughly meh; certainly not awful, but nothing to write home about either. It takes place in a vague De Gaulle-ian Paris, and yet nearly all the participants have English accents. (Except the cook; she has a French accent for some reason.) It does not have the simple charm of the source material, although I admit that’s a difficult thing to achieve.

No matter. I’m not here to comment on the film. I am here to comment on the song that plays over the film’s end credits. It is called “Two Straight Lines” and is written and performed by Carly Simon. Musically, not horrible. Lyrically, ew boy.

It sounds like she watched the movie and took notes on the action. But then, rather than flesh those notes out into actual lyrics, just sang the scribbled shorthand. I think there’s one complete sentence in this entire song. She couldn’t have put any less effort into this if she were asleep when recording it. I’m not sure she wasn’t.

This is what I do now. I write critiques of songs in movies made for little girls. Proud moments, folks.