Entertainment For Lively Minds
Worst lyricist in rock?
I know we've done the worst lyrics thing plenty of times but have we ever considered who over time has been consistently dreadful? I saw this snippet from a Bon Jovi lyric yesterday and it blew me away with it's outrageous crapness.
"With an ironclad fist I wake up and
French kiss the morning"
The song it's from "Bed Of Roses" contains more comical trash about a bottle of vodka that's 'still lodged in my head' and has a video that defines cringeworthy. Has there ever been a more shameless numbskull in the annals of rock, and indeed, roll? JBJ defines bombastic buffoonery. And remember, this idiot and his band of birdbrains, is a multi-millionaire with fans in every corner of the globe...possibly one of the most successful people to have ever existed.
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Easy
(The Cranberries - Zombie)
How can you not love
that lead vocal by Jimmy Savile?
Woah - Zombie is Bob Dylan compared to this little number
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/cranberries/ijustshotjohnlennon.html
EDIT: Must read the whole thread before posting. Sorry
I couldn't agree more about
I couldn't agree more about the hiccupping harpie - anyway, what about 'Sex On Fire' by those awful wheezechugsters ?!
Still chuckle
when I recall Mark and Lard (or was it Maconie?) eviscerating Johnny Borrell* for this near Cole Porter-esque gem...
I met a girl,
she asked me my name,
I told her what it was...
*Genius, according to one J. Borrell
They're Shite, Aren't They.
I had the misfortune to see them in London in 1985, one-off gig, at the same time as Slippery When Wet. Leaving aside that even then they were a highly polished act, clearly very good at what they did, excellent sound and balance, etc, I fcking loathed them. All rent-a-mob choruses, meaningless squiddly-diddly guitar solos, an inaudible keyboardist (have they fired him yet?), and a drums that sounded like God scratching his arse.
Other than that, they were ok.
"God scratching his
"God scratching his arse"
TMFTL
Toto
Serengeti.
Need I say more?
I'll say more....
"Have a literal video".
Bon Jovi
They are like Status Quo.
It is not high art but just good fun.
I like them for what they are and do not expect to hear deep meaningful lyrics.
Would Jon Jovi admit it wasn't deep and
meaningful? I reckon he thinks it is whereas Ver Quo are about the boogie. I honestly believe Jovi thinks he's a poet. He wouldn't have attempted this otherwise
Whatever
I still listen to it occasionally and enjoy it.
isnt this a reverse case of removing critical goggles
I've taken mine off and that is utter shite
But
Laughing Len's fave cover of said song. This nugget of info is from my 19 year old Jovi worshiping daughter so my be spurious!
Sorry, but
if I can hear what they're singing I'd like it to make at least a passing resemblance to sense. I don't mind mundane lyrics but I can't abide meaningless rubbish. My enjoyment of classic Yes is impaired, f'rinstance, by Jon Anderson's tosh. Thank deity-if-exists the rest of them played so well.
"I'll be the round about
The words will make you out 'n' out
You change the day your way
Call it morning driving thru the sound and in and out the valley"
My brain hurts...
Yes, a few weeks ago, someone posted a little
YouTube film of Yes playing an instrumetnal version of "Parallels" in the studio, with Chris Squire playing up a storm on bass. It really was very fine indeed.
Duran Duran
Is There Something I Should Know?
Don't say you're easy on me
You're about as easy as a nuclear war.
The prosecution rests.
Well you'd better just unrest hadn't you?
Because as far as similes are concerned I'm serious as cancer when I say rythm is a dancer.
Touché
:)
not as bad
as both "union of the snake" or "new moon on monday"...duran shit all over the concept of the meaningful lyric with this trio of chart smashes..throw in "the reflex" and it's a a vile foursome..
I like The Reflex
Sorry man.
album
or single version?..the latter is even more ludicrous and caked in coke than the former...
you can like it you know...
Simon Le Bon
I can't decide whether his lyrics are genius or terrible:
Your telephone's been ringing
While you're dancing in the rain
Her name is Rio
and she dances in the sand
Just like that river
twisting through the Rio Grandw
He strikes me as someone who
doesn't take himself too seriously. The Rio chorus is fine by me. Mind you, still haven't figured out what The Union Of The Snake is all about. Sounds fairly unappealing.
Don't know
I've often thought that to
Shake up the picture the lizard mixture
might be fun
However, to write/sing
I smell like I sound (Hungry like the wolf) is just asking for it
Razorlight? Check
Bon Jovi? Check
Duran Duran? Check
Keep going and you'll have my complete record collection.
Have a Karma Error Timeout,
my fellow Amitri-ite!
On that point, I would say the Dels and Justin are now recognised for the songwriters and record-makers of distinction that some of us always knew they were.
Duran Duran too are now recognised as fine exemplars of synth-pop (and who made at least one toweringly great record in 'Ordinary World').
Bon Jovi - Livin' on a Prayer remains a blue-collar anthem. If you've never belted that out in a crowded bar you have no heart. Or are Paul Morley.
Razorlight? Nah. Sorry!
Sorry, I'm about to threadkill.
Because OBVIOUSLY, the answer is:
I don't wanna see a ghost
That's the sight I'd fear the most
I'd rather have a piece of toast
And watch the evening news.
Oh, life!
Poor old Des Ray. I can't have heard the poor old chap's masterpiece for at least a decade, and yet, there it is: top of the plops after all these years with no prospect of losing the #1 spot any time soon. He should've stuck to carrying hods.
(PS: it's not "rock", but we're not hung up on genres round here, are we?)
Nah sorry.
I know those lines are banal and idiotic (although there's a logic there. I too would prefer a piece of toast to seeing a ghost) but they sound tossed off..will this do? etc etc
Jon Jovi french kissing the morning air (ugh!) ...you just know he thinks its up there with Shelley and Keats. The man is a berk who spends too long in front of the mirror. Hopefully a Dorian Gray-style comuppance episode is on its way to him.
You seem very sure of how Mr Bongiovi feels about his lyrics.
What other options are there?
That he's just having a laugh? A postmodern joke? In some bizarre competition with The Cranberries?
He knows his market and writes songs that will appeal
to that market. He may write sub-Springsteen blue-collar tosh but he knows his customer base very well. Give the people what they want, and all that.
so when he's
not writing for his market..has he got a pile of genius songs waiting to be recorded?
I suspect not.
but, if you want romantic, sub-Springsteen tosh then JBJ is your man. He's a pro who knows what's needed from him. He's carved out that market niche and doesnt show any signs of wanting to f*ck with the formula (to quote Mike Love)
Bob Dylan.
Am I bad?
No...
..mad.
Yes I know.
It was posted for comedic effect.
That said, I defy anyone to say that this:
is more profound than this:
All about context...
Um,
the Dylan one does build to the finest line in contemporary music: 'when you've got nothing, you've got nothing to lose' and it requires the detail about the young lady's background etc to get there. Which, of course, isn't to say that Dancing Queen isn't great; and The Winner Takes It All and Knowing Me, Knowing You are two of the finest break-up songs around. Then again, if Like A Rolling Stone was set to a techno-techno beat, a la 2Unlimited, it would be awful: the musical arrangement is crucial, duh.
Sorry Dougie...
..I'm not having it.
Lyrics don't have to be "profound" (let's leave that to the poets and philosophers, eh?)
They do however have to be evocative, exciting and sing well.
I prefer the Dylan to Abba, but that's just me. I know it's unfashionable to say so but I think Abba is well produced shite.
As ever,
it's all about opinions...
All I'll say is that the superficially banal:
has moved me immeasurably more than any Dylan lyric I've ever heard. I guess the clue is in the terminology: 'lyric' rather than 'poem', i.e. designed to be performed to musical accompaniment (see also Madness vs Costello).
But this is not to set up some silly 'Abba are better than Dylan' thing. They are (or were) better than Dylan at writing and performing ridiculously catchy yet emotionally involving pop songs, while Dylan was better at, well, all the other things that have been extensively documented over the years, which I'm not belittling.
I just feel that so called 'cheap pop music' can also be incredibly meaningful.
Stand accused
Mr John 'Deacy' Deacon
I've fallen in love, I've fallen in love for the first time
This time I know it's for real
It doesn't make any sense
or
Got a pain in the chest
Doctor's on strike what you need is a rest
Please make it stop
I was given the new Whitesnake album yesterday
David Coverdale is apparently a lovely man, but definitively the go-to guy for lonely streets, crying in the rain, being born in unfortnate circumstances and having had his lady done done him bad. It's what he does. This is, er, Slide It In.
http://youtu.be/qSB2B_MXZOc
You mean Slide It In isn't about Micky Moody's guitar technique?
if you want tosh for lyrics
"If there's a bustle in the hedegrows
Dont' be alarmed now
Its just a spring clean for the May Queen"
Christ almighty. No wonder Percy Plant hates singin it these days. And its the most played track ever on rock radio.
And don't get me wrong. I've always loved the band.
I Thought
that'd crop up eventually. The lyrics are indeed the most awful piffle.
No great surprise when Frank Zappa chose to lampoon STH on his last-ever tour in 1988. It was begging for it, really.
An artist can hold two conflicting ideas in their head...
... at the same time.
Since it's half past silly on Sunday morning, and I've been on the beer and the unoaked white with a mineral character, i'll lay claim to that piss artistry ..
I see entirely what you mean, and i also recognise that Stairway to Heaven and the likes of Shine on You Crazy Diamond, say - both in their own way - are portentous to the Nth degree BUT it seems like an abdication of my 14 yr old self to disown them ... after all, that was me, back in 1977, thinking that those tracks were the acme of western civilisation, the hairs on the back of my neck standing up, and getting the chills either when the drums came in on STH, or Gilmour's guitar went ding dang ding brrrrang for the first time on SOYCD ... turning round now and saying, 'Oh how silly' would be tantamount to disowning Aberdeen's Scottish Cup final win over Rangers in 1982 (4-1 aet folks) or lampooning my first kiss ... Tracks such as these are rightly vulnerable to criticism and profoundly important AT THE SAME TIME ...
No, no, no, the thread stops HERE
The Cranberries (again) and the really quite extraordinary lyrics for 'I Just Shot John Lennon'
It was a fearful night of December 8th
He was returning home from the studio late
He had perceptively known that it wouldn't be nice
Because in 1980, he paid the price
John Lennon died... (x 6)
With a Smith and Wesson 38
John Lennon's life was no longer a debate
He should have stayed at home
He should have never cared
The man who took his life declared:
He said, "I just shot John Lennon,
I just shot John Lennon"
What a sad and sorry and sickening sight
What a sad and sorry and sickening night...
Beat THAT.
And of course
This would be combined with HER voice, I assume (I refuse to go on Spotify to check).
I always maintained during the foxhunting debate of the late 90s that the pro lobby's assertion that there was no alternative to hunting foxes collapsed when it was pointed out that Dolores was still at large.
Contrary as ever,
I'd just like to point out that this is rather lovely...
Agreed,
Which makes the urine-ridden state of the rest of their catalogue even more inexcusable.
You're making it up
that's not real!
Good God that is TERRIBLE!
That's unbeatable, surely...
Yup
Any 'Worst lyrics?' thread is over as a contest once someone posts this.
I was once in the presence of a mate of mine.....
.....when he was, for some unfathomable reason, trying to get on cassette The Cranberries first CD.
It was a Sunday morning in Northampton and I had a hangover and was obviously waiting for the pub to open and the CD kept stopping at track eight or nine and he kept going back to track one and if I ever hear that Irish woman's AWFUL voice again (which I haven't) I can't be held fully responsible for what I might do.........
That....
...makes Des'Ree look like Robert Frost. Sterling work, sir. And sterling work Delores O'Cranberry for writing literally the worst lyric in the history of the universe.
The poetic rhymes
are improved n-fold if you imagine them in the style of the rappy bit from Clock's cover of "Oh What A Night":
Love. Live and Let Live.
Oh the snot has caked against my pants
It has turned into crystal
There's a bluebird sitting on the branch
I think I'll take my pistol
I've got it in my hand
Because he's on my land.
Gauntlet picked up
Vanessa Williams-Saving the best for last
Sometimes the sun goes 'round the moon
No it f**kin' well doesn't
With such a literal approach…
...you must disqualify every lyric with a figure of speech in it.
'It's raining men' – no it's not. 'I've got you under my skin' – no you haven't. 'Wooden heart' – no such thing. 'Ain't no mountain high enough' – not in those shoes, Miss Ross. 'Rockin' pneumonia and the boogie woogie flu' – not in my medical dictionary. And so on.
'Save the best for last' is a song, and a very good one in my opinion, about seemingly impossible things happening.
That's not
a figure of speech.
raining men-yes figuratively speaking etc are.
it is a statement, and the other things in the song do sometimes happen-Snow in June etc
Sorry I don't dislike the song but that one line has set my teeth on edge for the last 20 years (give or take)
It's just a metaphor...
...isn't it?
(And yes, as all cricket-lovers know, it did indeed famously snow in Buxton on 2 June 1975, interrupting play between Derbyshire and Lancashire.)
Probably
Believe me as a Queen fan I've no objection to dodgy lyrics; there's just something about that one that....(stamps feet in hissy fit)
But, Inky, you are obviously a fan of the noble game and can therefore do no wrong. Consequently, I will gracefully retire from this post.
No I think you are giving up too early
"Sometimes the sun goes 'round the moon" is a truly terrible lyric. Unless I'm missing some previously unrevealed meaning, where someone is exposing their rear end on a nice day. For that matter "Snow falls down in June" is also terrible.
I would like to suggest that this a much worse a lyric than the other cited examples. Its not a metaphor for anything. Its not something 'unlikely', just something humourless. It means nothing, apart from a bored lyricist rattling off the first two words that popped into his head.
He could have said "someday David Hepworth will write a review which demonstrates some kind of musical taste" - now THAT'S unlikely. Although it doesn't scan.
STING
Every single lyric. Every single time. It's actually a rare and beautiful achievement, to be that bad, all the time.
And never mind that Nabokov business (or whether the Russians love their children too), try this one for sheer lumpen pretension, from We Work the Black Seam:
One day in a nuclear age
They may understand our rage
They build machines that they can't control
And bury the waste...
in a great big hole.
Take your point,
er, up to a point.
Message in a Bottle, Walking on the Moon, Roxanne, So Lonely, Every Little Thing She Does is Magic, Can't Stand Losing You, Every Breath You Take, If I Ever Lose My Faith in You, All This Time...
So I guess what I'm saying is I don't agree with your first two sentences ;-)
You're quite right
I should really have stipulated 'solo' work... (That said, Englishman in New York isn't so bad). But while we're about it, why is the sky "jealous" over those Fields of Gold? I've seen golden skies, so it can't be that. Tell us Gordon!!
Seriously though,
if you write down any rock lyrics (even Dylan or Lennon & McCartney) they can look trite, naive and sixth-form-ish. But sing them over the right soundtrack and they can assume great depth or just sound right. I would cite Walking on the Moon as one such example.
All I really want to know is
what exactly IS a 'Karma Error'? Googling offers few clues.
I believe it's
Fraser's (guardian of this here blog) little in-joke or 'easter egg'. It basically means that you cannot give an up-arrow more than once or while someone else is in the process of doing so...
Ah,
thank you :)
Up to a point indeed
Hmmmm
Giant steps are what you take
Walking on the moon
I hope my leg don't break
Walking on the moon
MacArthur Park
Sorry Jimmy Webb, but this takes the cake (sorry....)
Recent Podcast star..
..and ace raconteur Van Dyke Parks.
(Also responsible for this pile of pretentious bobbins.)
"Columnated ruins domino"..makes Jon Anderson sound like Yeats.
To be fair, sung by BW it almost makes sense.
A diamond necklace played the pawn
Hand in hand some drummed along, oh
To a handsome mannered baton
A blind class aristocracy
Back through the opera glass you see
The pit and the pendulum drawn
Columnated ruins domino
Canvass the town and brush the backdrop
Are you sleeping?
Hung velvet overtaken me
Dim chandelier awaken me
To a song dissolved in the dawn
The music hall a costly bow
The music all is lost for now
To a muted trumpeter swan
Columnated ruins domino
Canvass the town and brush the backdrop
Are you sleeping, Brother John?
Dove nested towers the hour was
Strike the street quicksilver moon
Carriage across the fog
Two-Step to lamp lights cellar tune
The laughs come hard in Auld Lang Syne
The glass was raised, the fired-roast
The fullness of the wine, the dim last toasting
While at port adieu or die
A choke of grief heart hardened I
Beyond belief a broken man too tough to cry
Surf's Up
Aboard a tidal wave
Come about hard and join
The young and often spring you gave
I heard the word
Wonderful thing
A children's song
Child, child, child, child, child
A child is the father of the man
Child, child, child, child, child
A child is the father of the man
A children's song
Have you listened as they played
Their song is love
And the children know the way
That's why the child is the father to the man
Child, child, child, child, child
Child, child, child, child, child
Na na na na na na na na
Child, child, child, child, child
That's why the child is the father to the man
Child, child, child, child, child
In short,
Mike Love had a point?
Noooo I think these
are fine lyrics, certainly don't deserve to be on the same page as the Crapberries efforts.
They're a bit grandiose and I think VDP has freely admitted the lyrics don't really mean anything, they're just meant to fit the atmosphere of the music. I get something in my eye when Brian (or Carl depending on which version it is) sings the last verse before the coda.
I like those lyrics.
In my, no doubt somewhat pretentious, opinion they work as lyrics because all the sounds fit the music, I'd also disagree that they're entirely meaningless.
All the 'sounds' fit the music. The famous Toto lyric ('sure as kilimanjaro rises like olympus above the serengeti') doesn't work for several reasons but it stands out as bad because the singer has to alter his phrasing to cram the syllables in and (worse) mis-stress some of the words (SER-engetEEE) which makes them sound ridiculous (The only instance in 'Surfs up' I can see of a mis-stressing that stands out is "two-STEP to lamp lights...etc")
'Surfs Up' is packed with internal rhymes, alliteration and images which, whilst they don't make much literal sense move the song along and emphasize certain notes. Which is part of a lyrics job.
As far as Meaning goes, it's obviously pretty vague and any interpretation (from me) will probably sound pompous and silly...So here goes:
There are themes (a ruined concert venue/theatre, the passing of time, things ending, aristocracy, a vaguely victorian period setting). It might be an old (possibly dying) man reflecting on how the world of his youth has vanished.
But meaning isn't the be all and end all anyway. 'AWOP-BOP-A-LOO-BOP-AWOP-BAM-BOOM' and all that.
And "A choke of grief/ heart hardened/ I, Beyond belief, a broken man - too tough to cry" is a beautiful couplet, surely?
A very well argued post.
have a (surf's) up.
I didn't say they were "meaningless"..
..(who cares about that?)
Just that they were pretentious bobbins.
I suspect the same people accusing Jon Anderson of writing guff wet their pants over tosh like this.
Ming! Ding! Ning!
Mis-stressing is one of my bugbears - from the Ants' "Princechar, Ming!", via Elvis Costello's "Shipbill, Ding!" right up to Rihanna's current "What I've beenyear, Ning! for".
But it's something I never used to notice before the early Eighties. The lyrics of many older pop and rock songs may have had stupid lyrics (see above) but at least the bloody things mostly scanned.
Top Tip
Avoid the music of the Manic Street Preachers.
I heartily concur
Have an uppity uppity up up up!
Modern rap seems to be the worst offender here
Old Skool acts like yer Grandmaster Flash and yer Eric B & Rakim rapped in a manner that both acknowledged the rhythm of the backing track and scanned.
These days, it seems that many rappers just talk over the music without concerning themselves with rhythm or scansion.
Only the one...
..
Bernard Sumner
from New Order...
"...Oh Love is found in the East and the West,
When Love is at home it's the best,
Love is the cure for every evil,
Love is the air that supports the Eagle".
(Thieves Like Us)
"You've got to look at life the way it oughta be
Looking at the stars from underneath the tree
There's a world inside and a world out there
With that on tv you just don't care
They've got violence, wars and killing too
All shrunk down in a two-foot tube
But out there the world is a beautiful place
With mountains, lakes and the human race"
(Krafty)
Thieves Like Us
Yes, that's a shocker. I think he must have made them up on the spot while pissed. Certainly sounds like it:
And it cuts your life
Like a broken knife
Yep that's pretty much his
working method. In the early days they did used to demo half finished songs during gigs and Barney would pretty much improvise the lyrics on the spot. There is a live DVD out where he does that on a very early version of 'Temptation'...and starts singing 'Oh you've got green eyes, oh you've got blue eyes, oh you've got grey eyes...' (another classic)
Poor old Barney, there are
Poor old Barney, there are so many stinkers in the New Order cannon, but my all time favourite (which I may have posted in the past so apologies if I'm repeating myself) has to be from Sooner Than You Think from the Low Life album:
Your country is a wonderful place
It pales my England into disgrace
To buy a drink there is so much more reasonable
I think I'll go there when it gets seasonable
Sorry to come to this so late
I love New Order but Barney's lyrics are shite, aren't they?
Here's my favourite (quoted several times before, so apologies for the repetition):
The afternoon was very clear
The sun was beating down on me
I got thirsty for a beer
That I had to go to sea
The sea was very rough
It made me feel sick
But I like that kind of stuff
It beats arithmetic
from Slow Jam on Get Ready.
Oh how quickly we have forgotten
The dreadful words begotten
By James Douglas Morrison.
Apparently, there's a killer on the road.
And I'm reliably informed his brain is squirming like a toad.
*hops in time machine built expressly for this purpose, kicks Jim Morrison in nuts, comes back, has cup of tea.*
Can I borrow that thing?
He needs another kick for 'the world on you depends'.
'Lament For My Cock'...
was a cracker, though.
It cuts like a knife...
...but it feels so right.
Bryan Adams circa early 80s. Methinks his rhyming dictionary has had an easy life these last few decades.
Easy tiger, that's one of the least awful things
he's done. Which is saying something. Now if we were playing spot-the-bad-salad, we'd be here all bleedin' day.
Seeing as this is a big love-in for Jon Bon Jovi
Can I please post his first ever professional recording? No. Tough!
Jon Bon Jovi - R2-D2, We Wish You A Merry Christmas - from the truly wonderful Star Wars Christmas Album. A must-have recording for lovers of exotica.
Let the history books state
it was all downhill from there.
Possible contenders for the crown?
"People are people so why should it be, that you and i should get along so aw-ful-ly?"
Depeche Mode.
Plenty more where that came from
From the notes that I've made so far,
Love seems something like wanting a scar
You'll be wasting your time
saying "No! It's a crime!"
Get out the crane
Construction time again
What is it this time?
He (Martin Gore) does get it right far more times than he gets it wrong, though.
A friend of mine...
... was a big Depeche Mode fan in the 80s-90s and tried to get me on board. I'd listen to them, quite get into a bit of the music, and then come crashing to earth at the next trite rhyming couplet.
Mickey Hart
Most forced rhyme in rock:
"The more that you give, the more it will take
To the thin line beyond which you really can't fake."
From the otherwise superb 'Fire On The Mountain.'
Paul McCartney
I've posted this before and I'll probably get some stick for it but some of Macca's lyrics are absolutely dire. My personal 'favourite', Not Such a Bad Boy, starts like this.
"I laughed at the teachers/Who taught in my school/They kept one armed bandits/In the swimming pool"
And even Yesterday started off life as Scrambled Eggs, as Sir Paul acknowledges below.
Yes, but sometimes
'bad' lyrics work just fine, as John realised when he urged Paul to keep the 'working lyrics' of "the movement you need is on your shoulder" in the final release of Hey Jude. Last time I checked, it hasn't noticeably dented the song's eternal popularity...
Indeed...
but I would argue that "the movement you need is on your shoulder" is a superb lyric, and John Lennon realized as much.
I'd agree
but I'd say his songs developed an extra layer of cheese after John ceased to have any creative input.
As in most of the ways listed here.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=cheesy
Double Fantasy is filled
Double Fantasy is filled with cheesy, sentimental songs -- none of which Paul had anything to do with.
As for McCartney, there's definitely one subset of his songs under which "cheesy" is a more than fair label and another subset in which it isn't fair at all.
The one that makes my teeth grate
is Live And Let Die.
'...in this ever changing world in which we live in...' a triple tautology!!
Isn't it...
'...in this ever changing world in which we're living...'
haven't checked
but isn't it
'if this ever changing world in which we're living... makes you want to give in and cry...'
that'd make even better sense.
Even Macca doesn't know
I read an interview he did a year or two ago with the Washington Post. The reporter asked him point blank about this particular line and then quoted McCartney who kept saying the line in different ways and going "no that's wrong" and "no that doesn't sound right either." And ultimately he didn't know. The reporter wrote: "Well, thanks for clearing that up, Paul."
Gave me a good laugh.
Thanks for clearing that up
Now my teeth won't hurt so much.
The man with the Quad Electrostatics
(if not the Golden Gun) above has heard it right I think [edit: sorry I think badartdog's is the more accurate one] ... sparked by the Doggett book podcast I was listening to the old BBC Beatles Story on nice headphones today and this track came up. I had heard it wrong all these years, and he does indeed sing:
.
Think of all the angst we could have been spared if he'd listened to his elocution teacher ... taking after that tearaway Mr Jagger I shouldn't wonder ...
I said Hello! You Fool! I Love You!
I'm surprised no one has mentioned Roxette yet. I realise English was their second language and everything but I always thought their lyrics sounded like someone trying to put as many rock and roll sounding phrases as possible in the verse, whether they made any sense or not.
Easy target
but funny nonetheless.
The lyrics were written for the demo
As a means of remembering the rhythm and phrasing the singing was supposed to have. They were then kept because "they sounded cool". So you´re absolutely right. No sense, but lots of hard consonants.
How about Ringo Starr?
If Joe Shmoe turned up at sessions with those songs, I wonder how many would have made it onto vinyl? None would be my guess.
Depends.
Schmoe's earlier, rarer stuff was pretty good I hear.
Ognir Rrats
"I'm sorry that I doubted you, I was so unfair
You were in a car crash. And you lost your hair"
That's pretty brilliant actually, come to think of it.
It's still better than Bungalow Bill though
Eh? Be honest.
Bungalow Bill
was written as a caustic commentary on the actions of the son of an American staying with the Maharishi at the same time as the Beatles.
Whether it had the desired effect is unknown but since the White Album is such an eclectic mix of songs it's a trifle unfair to single out BB for criticism.
I agree that's unfair to single it out ...
But I think that it's a bit generous to call The White Album an eclectic mix of songs. I'd call it a meandering mess of self-indulgent shite.
*opens can of worms*
The archetypical curate's egg
fantastic in parts, God awful in others, which ends up lessening the whole.
But then, I like Piggies, so I wonder how sound my own judgement is.
Would have made a better.....
.....triple.
That way it would have had a huge chunk of the best Beatles' solo LP on it (Wonderwall Music).
Result!
I like Piggies
and I used to love Maxwell's Silver Hammer (I was nine or ten). Still have very soft spots for both.
Dave Mason..
okay, his brand of drug-addled nonsense wasn't unusual at the time but, bloody hell, it hasn't stood up too well, to wit:
My bed is made of candy floss
The house is made of cheese
It's lit by lots of glowworms
If I'm wrong correct me please
My home is half a walnut shell
The journey will be long
So I filled the whole with peppermints
And creamy pink blancmange
The village is a pop-up book
The people wooden dolls
The roads are made of treacle things
Its time that I moved on.
etc.
With Hole in my Shoe yet to come.
The Byrds
Funny how the circle is a wheel
Well... It's not really that surprising, is it?
Is that not
an allusion to the metaphorical "wheel of fortune" ?
A circle doesn' have to be a wheel - look at most plates, or the screw top on your favourite bottle of pop. there are circles, circles everywhere - proportionaly very few of them are wheels.
Anyone who owned an Austin Allegro can confirm that
not all wheels are circles either.
"I´m a soldier of war"
As opposed to, say, a soldier of flower arranging.
I rather like the sound of that!
From now on, I'm a lieutenant of cake baking.
And I'm...
the Captain of Luuuurve
/sorry, had to be done
I´m just not making much sense in general
surprised its taken so long before
Today is gonna be the day
That they're gonna throw it back to you
By now you should've somehow
Realized what you gotta do...etc
rears its ugly head.
Bad, yes, but they work, somehow.
This, on the other hand...
Shame, as they showed promise with Mr. Brightside et al.
The Killers
I quite like The Killers, but find some of their lyrics to be absolute doggerel. Take this, for example:
It's not confidential
I've got potential
Rushing and rushing around
Soul-dier
How about their banal:
I've got soul
But I'm not a soldier
Or as Bil Bailey has it:
I've got ham
But I'm not a hamster
Yellow man in Timbuktu
Where's that then? Down the Chinese Embassy?
Step forward, Johnny Borrell
You are the pulley and I am the winch
I am salvation and you're herald of sin
I'll take you beyond your limits of trust
Ransom yourself, hostage of love.
I mean, for f*cks sake.
Isn't that a Bonjovi cover?
Dreadful.
This isn't very good either...
Starship with their sensational(ly shite) sound We Built This City...
Errr.... thanks.
Yes, indeed, Patrick, and as a big fan of the Golden Age
of Elton John (1969-77), it pains me to remind everyone that those dreadful Starship lyrics were penned by Lincolnshire's own Bernie Taupin. Thank goodness he managed slightly better stuff on "Tumbleweed Connection"...
Surely it's Heart's ...
All I want to do is make love to you. All of it. Look up the lyrics. They're complete tosh.
Mind you, they do serve one purpose. As the night draws on in my local nightclubs, I employ said lyrics to woo the local lovelies.
' You are the flower, I am the seed', I whisper. 'Come home with me and we can...plant a tree'.
It never fails. I mean, I dont get much action, but I have got the finest arboretum in the East Midlands.
You're right on all counts
And another up for making me chuckle. And yet, inexplicably, I love that song. In fact I think there's a thread in there, hang on a few minutes...
The worst piece of lyrical re-writing...
...must be on Simply Red's version of 'Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye'.
Mick Hucknall changes the line 'I can hear a lark somewhere begin to sing about it…" to 'I can hear a lark somewhere waiting to sing about it'.
This is an offence against both sense (how can you hear a lark waiting?) and rhythm (he has to sing the word as 'waiTING').
The re-write which really grips my shit
is when women (and there have been quite a few to date) sing "I'm as happy as a queen" in "The Very Thought Of You." Two problems here:
1. It's perfectly possible for a woman to be as happy as a king, so no substitution is necessary; and
2. The word "queen" does not rhyme with the word "everything." If it did, Ray Noble just might have used it before he legged it down to the publishers with the manuscript.
The Streets
I got this stella I bombed from the last cafe
the nights not even begun, yes yes oh yay
I'm sorry I know a lot of people like the streets but 'yes yes oh yay?!! for christ sake. Just the very thought of it makes me want to punch a radio.
Noel Gallagher
And after all, you're my Wonderwall.
Cheers Noel - compliment taken. Countless other offences to be considered m'lud.
All of Be Here Now?
He was bad before that
"There ain't no sense in feeling lonely
They got no faith in you
But I've got a feeling you still owe me
So wipe the shit from your shoes
Nobody ever mentions the weather can make or break your day
Nobody ever seems to remember life is a game we play"
Spangled Bollocks
Thank you for coming home
I'm sorry that the chairs are all worn
I left them here I could have sworn
These are my salad days
Slowly being eaten away
Just another play for today
Oh but I'm proud of you, but I'm proud of you
There's nothing left to make me feel small
Luck has left me standing so tall
Gold
Always believe in your soul
You've got the power to know
You're indestructible
Always believe in, because you are
Gold
Glad that you're bound to return
There's something I could have learned
You're indestructible, always believe in
After the rush has gone
I hope you find a little more time
Remember we were partners in crime
It's only two years ago
The man with the suit and the pace
You know that he was there on the case
Now he's in love with you, he's in love with you
Love is like a high prison wall
But you could leave me standing so tall
Gold
Always believe in your soul
You've got the power to know
You're indestructible
Always believe in, because you are
Gold
Glad that you're bound to return
There's something I could have learned
You're indestructible, always believe in
For love is like a high prison wall
And you could leave me standing so tall
Gold
Always believe in your soul
You've got the power to know
You're indestructible
Always believe in, because you are
Gold
Glad that you're bound to return
There's something I could've learned
You're indestructible
Always believe in
Just..
appalling!
Confess I haven't read all the thread
But noticed a refernce to Depeche Mode. Now I like a lot of their tunes, but surely guys, no contest. A band whose lyrical incompetence is one certainty in an uncertain world. And English was presumably their native tongue.
Since when
was English the first language of people from Essex?
or Basildon in particular ?
I'm a brummie and I've been there - no contest.
More Cranberries
From Animal Instinct
The Cranberries...
really are shit, aren't they.
My mate Tony had a regular onstage intro
prior to performing 'Zombie' in pubs - "You can please all of the people some of the time, or some of the people all of the time. Or you can be in The Cranberries".
More Jovi
"I just want to live while I'm alive"
I like that line
I can imagine Ringo saying it - or the "have a good time all the time" guy from the 'Tap.
Haha.
The praise for JBJ just gets fainter and fainter..
Chillingly...
A well-fed NZ politician, Gerry Brownlee, last week defended his corporate box freebie invite to see Bon Jovi by simply shrugging and saying "It's My Life". Thank God it wasn't a Right Said Fred gig.
He probabaly
thinks it makes him down with the kids.
Heart
Cannot remember the name of the song but it was a big hit. I can remember the following though, 'he brought the women out of me, many times, easily'. It also goes on to say say how they 'planted a tree'. One of the worst songs/lyrics ever.
Oh Godstar
Psychic TV - Godstar.
So awful I find I have to listen to it every now and then.
"This is a story
A very special story
It's about Brian Jones
He was one of the Rolling Stones..."
etc, delivered with the conviction and intensity of a gasman explaining precisely why spare parts for your boiler are no longer available.
Early satirist rips pish out of some Scousers
Can't let this thread go without mentioning..
the horribly grating I've Never Been To Me, you know, the one with
I've been undressed by kings
And I've seen some things
That a woman ain't supposed to see?
That lyricist needs a good kicking.
It was probably on Radio 4
There was one episode of a game show which asked the panel to list a number of things that a woman ain't supposed to see. My favourite being "...a forewarning of the time, place and manner of her own death".
I think
that was Banter, as hosted by squirrel-loving Andrew Collings.
U2
Rather than specific examples, I took the thread to be about generally bad lyricists. Well Bono is generally so bloody cringe-y, he has to be worth a mention.
Coldplay
Coldplay do tend to bleat on, po-faced and pointlessly too.
I've mentioned this before, but...
...I heard a really good programme a few years ago on Radio 4 about why certain bands are so successful. The chap on there rather convincingly said that Chris Martin's lyrics are a major contributing factor to Coldplay's success, because they manage to be completely unspecific and meaningless while SOUNDING to the casual ear as if they're quite anthemic and inclusive and deep.
In other words, they're bollocks, but bollocks which works particularly well in the context of a drive-time show or a stadium singalong.
Yes
Good point. Also 'the bleat' is a good tactic - see also Mumford & Sons, whose album I like but just think he goes on and on and on with the woe-is-me tone, as Chris Martin does. Ironic really given their impressive track record with women and their comfortable lives that preceded their fame.
Even though he makes a good turn of phrase, Elbow are in danger of succumbing to this bleat too.
fishes can't fly and neither can I
my van der graaf record got stuck on this line highlighting the idiocy of the song
Killer
So you live in the bottom of the sea,
and you kill all that come near you ....
but you are very lonely, because all the other fish
fear you .....
And you crave companionship and someone to call your own;
because for the whole of your life you've been living alone.
On a black day in black month
at the black bottom of the sea,
Your mother gave birth to you and died
immediately ....
'Cos you can't have two killers living in the same pad
and when your mother knew that her time had come
she was really rather glad.
Death in the sea, death in the sea,
somebody please come and help me, come and help me
Fishes can't fly, fishes can't fly,
Fishes can't and neither can I, neither can I ....
Now I'm really rather like you,
for I've killed all the love I ever had
by not doing all I ought to and by leaving my mind coming
bad.
And I too am a killer, for emotion runs as deep as flesh
and I too am so lonely, and I wish that I could forget
We need love,
We need love,
We need love
coz you can't have two killers livin in the same pad""
Rubbish then rubbish now
Blondie - Atomic
One of my favourite records nonetheless :-
Uh huh make me tonight.
Tonight make it right.
Uh huh make me tonight.
Tonight.
Tonight.
Oh uh huh make it magnificent.
Tonight.
Right.
Oh, your hair is beautiful.
Oh, tonight.
Atomic.
Tonight make it magnificent.
Tonight.
Make me tonight.
Your hair is beautiful.
Oh, tonight.
Atomic.
Atomic.
Oh.
Yeah...
...except there's a very good example of a load of old nonsense on the page translating into something brilliant on record. I know EXACTLY what she's singing about, even though it's not specific or even particularly memorable language.
What a song.
Rapture on the other hand....
...complete tosh. Don't care how cute she was/is.
Will no one...
...give recognition to the lyrical genius of the Thompson Twins ?
"I saw you there
Just standing there
And I thought I was only dreamin' - yeah."
'Doctor Doctor'
Where to begin
"If I was a sculptor, But then again, no". Eh? What the...bugger off, Elton.
"Lucky that my breasts are small and humble, so you don't confuse
them with mountains" - cheers, Shakira, just in time, as I had me crampons oot.
Our Lord God Bono descended from the mountain and quoth ""There's an insect in your ear, if you scratch, it won't disappear"
"I look at the floor, and I see it needs sweeping. Still my guitar gently weeps." Glad to see that geetar is prioritising its pain.
Anything ever written by Michael Stipe. Ever.
That's brilliant
Have a heartfelt UP. I like REM actually but I do think they went downhill after he started singing the words in such a way that you could hear them
Whatever...
To be fair to everyone's favourite Colombian yodeller, I thought the words were:
"...so you don't confuse them with my mind"
Status Quo, surely
"What you're proposing, now get it right
If I'm composing, but then I might
Be runny nosing
I might be runny runny runny runny nosing
But you're supposing"
runny nosing??? WTF???
Runny nosing
Coke, alledgedly.
Oh dear
"He hears the ticking of the clocks
And walks along with a parrot that talks"
Do you see what he did there? He used the American pronunciation of "talks" ("tocks") and rhymed it with "clocks".
It wasn't all Like A Rolling Stone, you know.
Blood on the Rhyming Dictionary
Great album though it undoubtedly is, practically every song on Blood on the Tracks contains at least one lyrical clunker.
I muttered somethin' underneath of my breath
She studied the lines on my face
I must admit I felt a little uneasy
When she bent down to tie the laces
Of my shoe
Tangled up in blue
So dire is that lyric that you really could replace it with anything at all that rhymes and scans at random and it would, in objective fact, be just as "good". Look:
I must admit I felt a little uneasy
When she tipped my chips and plaice
Down the loo
Tangled up in blue
Or...
I must admit I felt a little uneasy
When a ox from outer space
Obscured my view
Tangled up in blue
Next, "You're a Big Girl Now":
Love is so simple, to quote a phrase
You've known it all the time; I'm learning it these days
If "Love is so simple" is a phrase to be quoted, do you have a citation, Bob? Or did you keep it to yourself because "to quote Jacques Prevert, who was a Fancy French Poet, and an old doo-wop record by The Dells too" would have been a bit of a bugger to fit in? Or did you actually mean "coin"? (As for "I'm learning it these days", there's nothing wrong with that at all, provided you're a lower-intermediate EFL student from Zaragoza.)
"Idiot Wind":
It was gravity which pulled us down
Destiny which broke us apart
You tamed the lion in my cage
But it just wasn't enough to change my heart
... by Bob "Hear Me Roar" Dylan, aged 15.
"You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go":
Relationships have all been bad
Mine have been like Verlaine's and Rimbaud
See what he did there? He needs a rhyme for the upcoming "go", so the standard English "like Verlaine and Rimbaud's" wouldn't work. The solution? Sod English grammar - it's called artistic licence. (As for what is actually being said, we could draw the rather alarming conclusion from this that Dylan was in the habit of plying seventeen-year-olds with absinthe before shooting them - but perhaps he just wanted to hammer home, in case we missed the earlier reference, that he knows Fancy French Poets because he too is a Tortured Artist.)
"Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts":
Big Jim was no one's fool, he owned the town's only diamond mine
Most towns, you see, have several.
He went to get the hangin' judge, but the hangin' judge was drunk
As the leading actor hurried by in the costume of a monk
"Tumty tumty tumty tumty tumty tumty... gunk? Clunk? Spunk? Slam-dunk? Jazz-funk? Beefy hunk? Hmm... Shit, better make it a monk then."
Nicely done Archie
Some good observations there.
Hmm - honestly?
Nah, none of those are remotely bad lyrics. Try this …
Any understanding of Dylan, it shows no trace,
wouldn't know a good lyric, if one hit them in the face.
...better?
This thread has now degenerated to the point that people are posting quite good, sometimes excellent lyrics. Well done.
Thank you
But you may have noticed that I went to some effort to explain why I thought they were clunkers. It'd be nice to see some sort of argument put forward to support the case for the defence, if there is one. Claiming that I'm wrong on the sole grounds that you happen to think they're "quite good, sometimes excellent lyrics" isn't very "well done" at all, is it?
To keep this in context, let's be clear about one thing: I think it's a magnificent album - as I said - full of brilliant songs containing verse after verse of wonderful lyrics. But the odd couple of lines in pretty much every song that are not wonderful aren't just a bit meh or merely mediocre; they're true, natural-born, high-heaven stinkers. That's my case. If you don't agree, could you be more specific about whatever deodorising qualities you believe the specific lyrics that I quoted to be blessed with - other than their having been written by The Voice Of A Generation?
That's more or less..
...how I feel too.
It's a testimony to exactly how good Dylan is that we know his songs well enough to be able to spot the (very) few below par lines they contain.
And anyway, at least we're not going through his garbage! I watched the film Tangled Up with Dylan: The Ballad of AJ Weberman on Saturday and believe me, that guy makes the rest of us look normal.
http://evanrobertmarshall.wordpress.com/2011/05/27/tangled-up-with-dylan...
Ok, fair enough then Archie
Specifically then, my biggest problem, this lyric -
I muttered somethin' underneath of my breath
She studied the lines on my face
I must admit I felt a little uneasy
When she bent down to tie the laces of my shoe
Tangled up in blue
Has a beautiful, abstract quality. Which communicates the casual nature of an encounter after many years. And it also tells a very clever story about their personalities, and is one of the most memorable verses in the entire album. "The laces of my shoe", and "tangled up in blue", is probably one of the most suggestive, and most poetic sections in the whole song. Which has many interpretations.
The other examples may possibly be slightly weaker sections, but they are so far from being "bad lyrics" that its kind of ridiculous to refer to them in that context. If your your intention was to say something original and controversial about Dylan, it just doesn't hold water in this case. Sorry, but thats my opinion.
Reverse engineering
OK, I'll give you the quality of the imagery, but its effect is brutally diminished for me by how he so obviously arrived at it.
"Hmm. Need a rhyme for 'blue'. Ooh, I haven't used 'shoe' yet, have I?" So far so good, but he goes and spoils it all by mangling the language beyond breaking point again to make the damned thing scan. I doubt she did "tie the laces of [his] shoe", unless, unlike any shoe I've ever seen, it had more than than one lace, or she tied the laces of both shoes, in which case "shoe" should be plural. "The laces of my shoe" isn't even idiomatic English - what we say is "she bent down to tie my shoelace(s)".
Then there's how he deals with the rhyme he still has pending from "face", splitting "laces" across the tune in a way that makes me (and others, I know for sure) wince. What we hear is this:
I muttered somethin' underneath of my breath
She studied the lines on my face
I must admit I felt a little uneasy
When she bent down to tie the lace
Is of my shoe
Tangled up in blue
Dylan's weakness as a lyricist has always been his over-eagerness to play silly buggers with the language, not in a creative way but in the will-this-do way so reminiscent of the sub-hey-nonny-nonny material that he a-started out with. I'm sure you know the sort of thing I mean: "I was taught and brought up there the laws to abide", or "Though they murdered six million / In the ovens they fried" - in both cases to shoehorn in the necessary rhymes with "With God on our side". (It's always struck me as a bit rich that Yodaesque gibberish like that, whenever Dylan perpetrates it, at best gets a free pass and at worst is elevated to the status of genius, whereas "upon your love I will depend", being by Reg Presley, is consigned post haste to the bin of bollocks.) Cole Porter never had to resort to that. Nor did Lorenz Hart, Johnny Mercer, Sammy Cahn or any of the other Tin Pan Alley hacks. Nor, even, did Lennon and McCartney after about 1964. So why did Dylan never grow out of it?
Or consider this:
Now if I appear to be carefree
It's only to camouflage my sadness
And, honey, to shield my pride I try
To cover this hurt with a show of gladness
But don't let my show convince you
That I've been happy since you
Decided to go, oh, I need you so
I'm hurt and I want you to know
But for others I put on a show
Apart from the forgivable (for 1966) moon-in-Junery of "sadness/gladness" and the arguably-could-try-harder repetition of "show", that's pretty damned good. The "convince you/since you..." internal rhyme runs rings around Dylan's "the lace / Is of my shoe". And, most important of all, the syntax is all 100% idiomatic. Forget the rhymes and just say it out loud. See how it "talks"? Yet Smokey Robinson is not often considered to be a brilliant lyricist, while Bob Dylan, almost obligatorily, is.
My take on Dylan remains the same. When he's good he's very, very good, but when he's bad, he's the king of clunk.
Ok, I still think you are not getting it
"Playing silly buggers with the language" eh. The language is not, as you are implying, a solid set of intractable, unchanging rules. Extremely uncreative to see it that way. Unless you are German, or Finnish, where those languages were nailed down by a few linguistic stamp collectors of the time.
"Dylan's weakness as a lyricist… " !- You then go on to try and pull apart one of his greatest strengths as a lyricist. The splitting rhythmically of the word "laces", for example, is tremendously clever and original. What's more, it works, really works. Both as an image and as a rhythmic device. Untied rhythmically, in the same way that the laces are, perhaps.
What you have done by artificially splitting the line, both times you have done it, is the equivalent of a misquote. Like quoting william Blake by going …
And did those
feet
in ancient time walk
upon Englands Mountains
green
… Its a misrepresentation to quote it in that way, and completely destroys the sentiment.
""I was taught and brought up there, the laws to abide". NOTICE THE COMMA, its very important. This is not the way we talk now. But thats the whole point, and what its supposed to suggest. Its still a beautiful flow of words.
What you seem to be be objecting to, is an almost political thing. And really the basis of much of what was inherent in the form of music that became known as Folk. The suggestion implied in this use of language, as far as I see it, is that there are issues and truths we are still linked to in some way. Things we can learn from that stretch back further than a hundred years or so. Guess its something that some people can understand, and others can't perhaps.
Perhaps not
I must be too dim. Oh, well. Back to football for me.
Suggesting that six million were actually "fried"
… is perhaps a little too culinary. And more KFC than The Ivy. I'll give you that.
perhaps not -
too dim, I must be.
Oh well, back too the futball for me
(harmonica break)
Ooh this is fun
'Cause the mustard I could not cut
My retreat I did beat back to the foot
Ball.
archie you is well fick
this is Dylan doing all dose clever bits with wurdez n stuff and internal rhymin is ass off
Whaaa ...
…thats a work of unparalleled genius. Now both go to the back of the class, and come back when you've looked up the word "unparalleled". But please, none of that weird stuff out the back.
Lorenz Hart
not wishing to get involved in the argument I would like to take brief issue with the statement "Cole Porter never had to resort to that. Nor did Lorenz Hart," having recently finished Stephen Sondheim's 'Finishing the Hat' (which, incidentally, I think you might find interesting Archie) - He has a (lengthy and well-argued) pop at Lorenz Hart for this exact reason. There are several examples.
Plus he points out that 'Your looks are...unphotographable' makes no sense unless the poor lady's a vampire.
Good Lord, you're right
First lines of "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered":
After one whole quart of brandy
Like a daisy I awake
Lorenz? Slacker!
Dylan certainly clunks: "Now
Dylan certainly clunks: "Now the beach is deserted except for some kelp" is hard to beat. But he himself was citing Smokey Robinson as his favourite American poet as far back as 1965, which is worth praising. And your defence of Cole Porter as a beacon of linguistic rectitude won't survive actually listening to his stuff for more than a minute or so.
Use your mentality
Face up to reality
Day and night, under the hide of me....
Then there are the terrible, terrible arse-based double entendres:
Have you heard that Mimsy Starr,
She got pinched in the ASS-tor bar
Or this, from Kiss Me Kate:
If she thinks your behaviour is heinous
Kick her right in the Coriol-anus.
That whole song is putrid, and so far beneath his best that it's unfair to judge him on it. So we don't, generally. Let's do Dylan the same honour. It's fair that you point out his many lapses, and I for one will sing "when an ox from outer space obscured my view" from now on, but I think you're on boggier ground when you hold up anyone else as flawless. The only way never to write badly is never to risk being great.
I'd forgotten the kelp
(for the puzzled, he needed a rhyme for the upcoming "help"), and I happily concede all the rest, because you're absolutely right.
I always thought some of the unease
came from the earlier line..."she was working in a topless place".
I should add
that Bob clearly wasn't sure about the talking parrot line either.
On alternate versions of Simple Twist Of Fate he changes it to:
"He hears the ticking of the clocks
Walks alone through the city blocks"
even the best lyricists...
have done some terrible stuff. Leonard Cohen once sang, "I want to tell you my story/Before I turn into gold." I doubt that'll happen, Len.
That bit where Dylan sings about "your dancing child with his Chinese suit/He spoke to me, I took his flute/No, I wasn’t very cute to him, was I?/But I did it, though, because he lied/Because he took you for a ride/And because time was on his side." Utter drivel, but you can almost hear some academic in a faraway college pronouncing it to be as good as Keats.
As for Bernard Sumner, "Here's comes love, it's like honey, you can't buy it with money..." Surely he's been to a supermarket?
Ultimately though, I like the output of the three chaps mentioned above, and I'm not sure lyrics ever really stand up to simply being read out. Some people will say Morrissey's lyrics do, but he was clever enough to steal a lot of his best ones from other people.
Exactly!
I had an English textbook which included an analysis of the lyrics of "Eleanor Rigby" wedged between assorted poems. Now ER is some quality writing but those words were never meant to be considered as poetry separate from the music...
Hey guys, what rhymes with "masses"?
Generals gathered in their masses
Just like witches at black masses
- er, thanks Ozzy, we'll call you.
I was looking for a job,
and then I found a job
- you too Morrissey
I'll give you the Sabs one
But Morrissey's line is perfect.
Along the same lines as:
I will be at the bar
With my head on the bar
I think it works.
Yep
Moz isn't even attempting a rhyming couplet with either example. He's repeating the word for emphasis.
It's been
established that he's looking for a job. Why reiterate?
And if he's not attempting a rhyming couplet then this would work equally well.
I was looking for a job
And then I found a five pound note
See, a happy ending! ;-)
Morrissey
Can't say I agree with dismissing that line. As a summation of the vast gulf between existing and living it nails the ennui at the heart of the song.
Exactley
I was looking for a job - optimism
I found a job - disappointment, all of his internal emotional woes were not salved by finding a regular salary (although he had been working on the false premise that this would be the case).
When playing this game it's safer to stick to real clunkers :
"Should I stay or should I go ?
If I stay there will be trouble
If I go it will be double
So you got to let me know.."
But, Mr Strummer, you've already worked it out haven't you? Stay and there's trouble, go and there is twice as much trouble. Logically you should stay as it will limit the amount of trouble, and thereby shorten the time before the healing process can begin and you can hope to return to a state of "no trouble".
Next !
Laughing Lou has form in this area as well...
Just like poison in a vial
She was often very vile
And another example of someone …
I was looking for a sense of humour
and then I found a sense of humour
thats not a bad lyric, its brilliant.
Another one from Lou
"...but she never lost her head,
even when she was giving head"
- very poor work indeeed - see me.
I like U2 but they have
I like U2 but they have written a few awful lyrics in their time.
Two that stand out for me are:
"a mole, digging in a hole,
digging up my soul now,
going down, excavation"
and
"freedom has a scent like the top of a new born baby's head"
another one that's always grated with me is Dreams of Children by The Jam.
"I was alone, no-one was there"
It gets worse...
'something's gonna crack on your dreams tonight,
you will crack on your dreams tonight....'
Still a great track though!
this thread has been a fab read
And, after some sober reflection, I declare the winner to be The Cranberries. Best post: Zeitgeist. Best debate : Archie and Marky.
'Who appointed you judge and jury?'
Um, me.
Shania Twain
I´m not planning to listen to her lyrics, but the song titles reveals plenty of awfulness. I think she´s trying to be a bit wacky! Even like 2-tally wacky!
Man! I Feel Like A Woman!
Whatever You Do! Don´t!
Rock This Country!
If You Wanna Touch Her, Ask!
I´m Gonna Getcha Good!
She´s Not Just A Pretty Face*
Nah!
Ka-Ching!
Thank You Baby! (For Makin´ Someday Come So Soon)
Waiter! Bring Me Water!
What A Way To Wanna Be!
I´m Not In The Mood (To Say No!)
*Not featuring an exclamation mark
All these are from only two albums. She sold something like 800 000 000 000 000 albums in ten years and then disappeared. OMG!
She don't impress me much, either
Greatest false laugh since B*witched in that song, though.
Ah, B*Witched
I fight like me dad as well
*sigh*
I really fancied Lindsay.
B*witched
Speaking of lyrics, have a listen to their big debut hit C'est la Vie. It was kind of pitched at pre-teens but the lyrics are a double entendre smutfest that'd make Tyler the Creator blush.
I was always more
of a Rollercoaster man myself
Spot on.
Rollercoaster was my favourite as well.
I really think I am Brad Pitt
Slightly embarrasing. But I´ve been told I look a bit like Matt Damon. Not sure if that´s a good thing.
B*witched? I´m not sure we should go there.
No Ola
You look like Gaz Coombes out of Supergrass. This has been empirically tested and scientifically proven.
I am the one who looks like Matt Damon.
Of course
How could I forget? But I´ve shaved most of them off now and returned to a slightly less rugged look.
I thought you were George Clooney?
I'll settle for George Clooney.
So when you coming over again?
Lest we forget
at her peak Twain was married to heavy rock producer Robert John "Mutt" Lange, who produced her mega-selling country pop albums.
That probably explains many things. Most of which need not detain us here.
The Toppermost
Worst lyric goes to normally good Aussie band - The Kill Devil Hills:
Everything I have turns to shit
But you are the exception to it
LOL moment in the less than ironically titled Drinkin Too Much
This must be a contender
Got to write a classic. Got to write it in an attic Babe, I'm an addict now. An addict for your love.
Adrian Gurvitz. Where is he now?
Another dreadful effort, the one about Pina Coladas, Escape by Rupert Holmes
Can't find it on YouTube
but Coogan and Brydon riffed brilliantly on this (Adrian Gurvitz's 'Classic') in the excellent The Trip. Seek it out if not seen.
How stupid can I be.
Saw the post, thought "hang on, Counting Crows aren't that bad are they?". Thank god for Google and Wikipedia. Just proved today's articles that scientists have proved Google is changing our brain functions. Or in my case letting me admit to stupidity before someone else points it out for me (Adrian Gurvitz/Adam Duritz).
Nothing that has gone before
is as bad or as sad as :
My ding-a-ling
my ding-a-ling
I want you to play
with my ding-a-ling
We have a wiener!
After all the crapping on Dylan/Reed/Whomever, a moment of clarity.
A Wiener
in the Wurst lyric classification ?
The Rolling Stones
Mixed Emotions:
This coming and going
Is driving me nuts
This to-ing and fro-ing
Is hurting my guts
So get off the fence
It's creasing your butt
Life is a party
Lets get out and strut
What. The. Fuck. Is. That?
The whole song is pretty awful, but those two quatrains are almost indescribably bad.
Good call...
The old documentary 25x5 closes with a lovely clip of Mick 'n' Keef writing this song in the studio as part of their big reconciliation.
Can't find it on YouTube, oddly enough, shame.
A prog love song
It's why there's a book called 'The music's all that matters'
To feel your touch across my mind /
Fills me only full of desire for my being
Dreamer by Renaissance. And the sad thing is it's so beautifully sung.
I'm serious as cancer....
When I tell you, Rhythm is a dancer!
Makes my nutsack shrivel each time I hear it!!!!!!
Hanging's too good, etc.......