Cut that pack
And roll those loaded dice,
Bring on the dancing girls
And put the champagne on ice...
I'm goin' in ... to Sin City.

There ain't half been some clever bastards - probably had help from their Mums

She was not the girl from next door, but the girl from around the corner
- Strawberry Blonde

Subtle, but oh so sweet.

Tax-deductable charity organizations
- Ballad Of A Thin Man, Bob Dylan

At least five syllables too many, even for someone with his standards.

Watching the skirts you start to flirt, now you're in gear
- Good Morning, Good Morning, The Beatles

Don´t know why, maybe because it´s so basic and you can´t fight biology.

There´s a meat market down the street, the boys and the girls watch each other eat
- Dance Anthem Of The 80´s, Regina Spektor

Because Regina makes the world brighter. And that biology thing again.

Let's Do It (Let's Fall In Love) - Cole Porter - particularly the Ella version.

If so,

In The Court of Wrestling, Lets by Lets Wrestle

always makes me grin.

The masterful Mr Haines' heartfelt expression of affection in the tune "The Mitford Sisters" always gets a smile from me:

Throw away the dirty books forever/
Darling you're all that I need

has the monopoly for me - and it's his delivery as much as the lines themselves

I want to sleep with common people like you

Well what else, could I do?

I said er, I'll see what I can do.

Just take your pick. Here's one example:

Time flies by when you're the driver of a train,
Speeding out of Trumpton with a cargo of cocaine.
Under bridges, over bridges, to our destination.
Careful with that spliff, Eugene, it causes condensation.

Oh ... and your name is familiar ... Prune ...

from Romance Dance by Little Feat

actually a lot Lowell George's lyrics make me smile:

Spot-check Billy got down on his hands and knees
and he said, hey mama hey let me check your oil, alright
and she said, no, no honey, not tonight
come back Monday, yeh, come back Tuesday, and then I might

The first line to his less than sympathetic view of marriage to a garrulous woman, 'On Again, On Again', starts with the line;

'I love a good bum on a woman, it makes my day'

Straight to the point I suppose. Never fails to make me grin.

HJH's Polythene Pam:

"She's the kind of a girl
Who makes the News Of The World"

John Cooper Clarke ("Beasley Street Hitmaker" anyone?) - 36 Hours (about a day and a half in police cells):

"Everybody looks like Ernest Borgnine"

And I Fell Out Of Bed Twice

have the ability to crack me up, though the lyrics aren't in themselves always that funny when written down. It's the delivery in songs like "Greenwich Village Folksong Salesman" (when Nancy sings it as "Greenwitch" Lee interrupts with "Greenwitch?"), "Got It Together" or "I've been down so long(it looks like up to me)"

if there's a bustle in your hedgerow
don't be alarmed now
It's just a spring clean for the May queen

Yes there are two paths you can go by but in the long run
There's still time to change the road you're on

Comedy gold

Lest ye be smitten by the fist of an angry Norse god.
That's the bit that goes "here's to my sweet Satan" when you play it backwards.
I've tried it and it *does*

Paul Westerberg/The Replacements have dozens, but how's this for a start

Here comes Dick he's wearing a dress
He comes Jane, y'know she's sporting a chain
Same hair, revolution
same buil, evolution
Tomorrows who's gonna fuss

And they love each other so
Androgenous
Closer than you know, love each other so
Androgenous

Always smiling at these two...

"Well, you didn't get up this morning cos you didn't go to bed. You were watching the whites of your eyes turn red....", 'This is the Day', The The

and

"Hey I was walking my bag through a 20 storey non-stop snowstorm, Pirelli calendar girls, wrestling in body lotion....", 'My Bag', Lloyd Cole.

"...and fell right into the arms of Venus de Milo" (Television)- I had that LP for about three years before I got that joke.

...but she sends me there"

and:

"Mister Zoot Horn Rollo, hit that long lunar note............

......and let it float"

Funny in a kind of Maudlin, ironic way

I dreamt about you last night
And I fell out of bed twice
You can pin and mount me like a butterfly
But take me to the haven of your bed
Was something that you never said
Two lumps, please
You're the bee's knees
But so am I..........

"When he made is home in
that great fish abdomen"

And:

"things that you're liable
to read in the bible
ain't necessarily so"

Or

And each time I do
Just the thought of you
Makes me stop before I begin
Becuase I've got you
Under my skin

Or My Funny Valentine

Is your figure less than greek
Is your mouth a little weak
When you open it to speak
Are you smart?

But then with these Cole Porter and Gershwin songs I find it is really hard to know when to stop.

by the Bonzos...

"...and looking very relaxed, Adolf Hitler on vibes. Nice!'

Just bore me now...

"The sunshine bores the daylights out of me"

"Hey there's a horseshoe on my door; big deal."

"I fell in love with a dead boy"

"In olden days a glimpse of stocking was looked on as something shocking but now, heaven knows, anything goes"

"I eat antipasto twice just because she is so nice, Angelina"

"I was a teenage werewolf, braces on my fangs"

"I can't stand my baby, I'm gonnae go raj"

Quando para mucho mi amore de felice corazón
Mundo paparazzi mi amore chicka ferdy parasol
Presto OBRIGADO tanta mucho Kay can eat it carousel

has tongue thoroughly embedded in cheek for this gem.

Her daddy was lazy and no count
Claimed he had a bad back
All her brothers were fit for was stealin' watermelons out of my truck

by The Smiths

'And if you ever need self-validation
just meet me in the alley by the railway station'

Anyway, he goes are you into s and m?
I go, oh right...
Could you like just picture me in like a leather teddy
Yeah right, hurt me, hurt me...
Im sure! no way!

Last idea to cross her mind
Had something to do with where to find
A pair of jeans to fit her butt
And where to get her toenails cut

A bit of Sparks on the tube:

"If I had a million thumbs I'd twiddle, twiddle ...but I just have two..."

So many to choose from, most with a wry smile of recognition:

"I saw two shooting stars last night
I wished on them, but they were only satellites.
It's wrong to wish on space hardware...
I wish, I wish, I wish you'd care..." A New England

"In the end it took me a dictionary
To find out the meaning of unrequited"

And

"I never made the first team,
I just made the first team laugh" The Saturday Boy

"I stayed in bed, alone, uncertain
Then I met you, you drew the curtain
The sun came up, the trees began to sing
The light shone in on everything
I love you!" Brickbat

Go Betweens: "I don't ask for the earth - and God knows I never get it"

Microdisney: "I hate the world, I hate my life, and this song"

Icicle Works: "Listen, do you think she's right for me? No - stop laughing, c'mon now, honestly!"

XTC: "She got to be obscene to be ob-heard"!

Not so much Dylan here.

I love the doctor's advice here:

The hysterical bride in the penny arcade
Screaming she moans, "I've just been made"
Then sends out for the doctor who pulls down the shade
Says, "My advice is to not let the boys in".

Randy Newman's got plenty too but,living in NZ, I like

We'll save Australia
don't want to hurt no kangaroo
We'll build an all American amusement park there
they got surfin' too

-Political Science

"Well she held a bass guitar and
she was playing in a band and
she stood just like Bill Wyman
now I am her biggest fan ..."

And another Dylan...

"What can I say about Claudette?
Ain't seen her since January,
She could be respectably married or running a whorehouse in Buenos Aires."

"That big fat moon is gonna shine like a spoon"?

Give him that Nobel prize.

Setting aside that this is probably a stalker's anthem, I love Morrissey's tender delivery as if it is a sincere love song.

"I've made up your mind"
"take the easy way, and give in"

and finally the repeated...

"It's war!"

'The pump don't work 'Cause the vandals took the handles'

Always makes me smile

You and me baby
We aint nothin` but mammals
So lets do it like they do it
On the Discovery channel

Best sung whilst wearing big shorts and supping a "bud"...salute The Bloodhound Gang

The Man Who Couldn't Afford To Orgy:

"Pity the poor man, pity the sad man
Pity the green man, who couldn't afford to orgy

Pity the policeman, pity the snowman
Pity the woman, who couldn't afford to orgy

Good for the postman, good for the con man
Good for the milkman, they can afford to orgy

Good for the butcher, good for the astronaut
Good for the curate, they can afford to orgy"

You also need to remember to pronounce it "orgee" not "orjee" to get the full comic effect

'The Lebanon' by The Human League popped up on shuffle last night:
'Before he leaves the camp he stops
He scans the world outside
And where there used to be some shops
Is where the snipers sometimes hide'
'Some shops' gets me every time for some reason. Could be the 'oh-so serious' tone of the song mixed with that prosaic phrase; not sure.

...still, I must speak frankly, Mr. Shankly.
Ohhh, give us yer money."

It's the way that last line is tossed away. I love it.

deliberate comedy in music unfunny, but the first Tenacious D record still makes me laugh. Excerpts which always make me giggle:

"You know what time it is?
TENACIOUS D TIME, Y'MOTHERFUCKER! GO!
FUCK YEAH!"
- Kielbasa

"You must give your cape and sceptre
To me! (And a smaller one for K.G.)"
- Dio

"I'm gonna ball you
Discreetly..."
- Fuck Her Gently

"A hard day's rockin'.
Better slip off m'shoes.
Nnnnnnggggggggg givealiddlestretch... and a bend.
Dip m'toe t'th'jacuzzi, behbeh.
Take out this book.
'Buttress of Windsor'.
Oh ho ho! Who's this?"
- Double Team

"I can saw a woman in two,
But you won't want to look in the box when I'm through."

"I saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic's.
His hair was perfect."

and, from the same song

"Better stay away from him.
He'll rip your lungs out, Jim.
Huh. I'd like to meet his tailor."

"I thought that if you had an acoustic guitar ,
that it meant that you were ,
a protest singer.
I can laugh about it now but at the time it was terrible "

" Well, Simon le Bon stayed round my house before, And he was sick on the plants and he was sick on the floor, And he wouldn,t go home until he,d sung his song, With a backing harmony from Paul Young "...always wondered if that was true!

"Valhalla! I am coming!" Immigrant Song Led Zeppelin

The whole lyric is just hysterical.

The more I think about it, the more there are:

From "The Queen is Dead"

So I broke into the Palace
With a sponge and a rusty spanner
she said "eh, I know you - and you cannot sing"
I said "that's nothing, you should hear me play piano"

From "Half A Person"

Sixteen, clumsy and shy
I went to London and I
booked myself in at the YWCA
I said "I like it here, can I stay?"
...and do you have a vacancy for a back scrubber?

The whole thing is just ridiculous

"it's gonna be warm"

I am the milkman of human kindness, I will leave an extra pint.

"I don't know if you are loving somebody
I only know it isn't mine"

"I said 'I'm so happy I could die'
She said 'Drop dead' and left with another guy"

Check out the version by Hem. Genius.

Lowe's hilariously bad-taste epic of the real-life death of silent movie actress Provost who committed suicide and who wasn't discovered until weeks later, by which point her body was found covered in 100s of bitemarks from her pet daschund always cracks me up, especially the immortal lines:

She was a winner
Who became the doggie's dinner

She never meant that much to me
But now I see
Poor Marie!

If you leave me, can I come too?

Let's go dancin' in a dioxin dump
Let's test our love, let's press our luck
Let's get sick and have our stomachs pumped
Let's go dancin' in a dioxin dump

This world is full of people who
Spend their lives in shoppin' malls

Let's go drinkin' on Highway 9
We'll get smashed and have a wild time

This world is full of people who
Think a lot about bowlin' balls

No one will ever fall in love with a
Nitro burnin' funny car
No one will ever have lunch with a
Nitro burnin' funny car

Let's go dinin' on rocks and glass
Get the hiccups if we eat too fast
See how long our love can last
Let's go dinin' on rocks and glass

This world is full of people who
Sit too long when the light is green

Let's find some statues and then deface 'em
I wanna beat up on Casey Casem

This world is full of people who
Eat a lot of franks and beans

No one will ever buy a present for a
Nitro burnin' funny car
No one will ever go campin' with a
Nitro burnin' funny car

Let's entertain some ugly thoughts
We'll cross our fingers so we won't get caught
We'll forget what we've been taught
Let's entertain some ugly thoughts

This world is full of people who
Crack their knuckles and talk too loud

Let's play some records and worship Satan
I tell you baby that it sure beats paintin'

This world is full of people who
Look a lot like Gavin McCloud

No one will really gives a damn about
Nitro burnin' funny cars
No one will ever write a song called
Nitro burnin' funny cars

Let's go dancin' in a dioxin dump
Let's test our love, let's press our luck
Let's go dancin' in a dioxin dump

The whole song makes me smile but I particularly like the opening lines.

Einstein was not a handsome fellow
Nobody ever called him Al
He had a long moustache to pull on, it was yellow
I don't believe he ever had a girl

"All our outer organs, they just love consortin'" came up on the MP3s today....

I stumbled out of bed
I got ready for the struggle
I smoked a cigarette
And I tightened up my gut
I said this can't be me
Must be my double
And I can't forget, I can't forget
I can't forget but I don't remember what