Surprised you didn’t mention this example:
Lyric in John Mellencamp’s ‘Small Town’.
I’m not religious but ‘taught to fear Jesus in a small town’ is like fingernails on a chalkboard.
The concept of ‘Scary Jesus’ escapes me. Maybe he was a mean drunk.
I think the most famous example is:
Generals gathered in their masses
Just like witches at black masses
I don’t mind, the song is just too awesome as a whole to let me bother.
My contribution: The Pretenders’ “Middle Of The Road” is an almost perfect rock song, and it’s one of my favorites, except for the four measures after the great guitar break. Obviously, the song’s lyrics weren’t quite finished at the time of the recording, and Chrissie Hynde only counts in the four beats instead as a placeholder. But that’s really the only weak part of an otherwise great song.
Ben Folds’ song “Cologne” is a great breakup song with an epic tune behind it.
For some reason he decided to shit these lyrics in the middle of it:
*Says here an astronaut *
Put on a pot of diapers
Drove fifteen hours
*To kill her boyfriend. *
In my hotel room, I wonder if
You read this story too
It’s so jarring. It pisses me off so bad.
Okay there is ONE exception. Every single other case is dumb and bad.
I can see why that would be weird without context. Actually I personally agree it’s totally weird. But in fundamentalist communities they use “fear Jesus” basically interchangeably… nay, a smidge morally superior… to “love Jesus”. Which also is held as a totally normal and routine thing to say.
I’m probably overexplaining. It’s weird. All of it is weird.
Evanescence - “Bring Me to Life”
This song always sends chills up my spine. But it’s got one glaring flaw.
From the Guardian:
"Evanescence frontwoman Amy Lee revealed that her record label had refused to release it unless she agreed to make it a duet.
‘It was presented to me as, “You’re a girl singing in a rock band, there’s nothing else like that out there, nobody’s going to listen to you,” she claimed. “You need a guy to come in and sing back-up for it to be successful.”’"
That’s the only reason why there’s a male guest vocalist on it, shredding his tonsils and, uh, rapping.
Huh. I always thought that was “Feel Jesus”. In fact, I’m not even going to look it up and just continue believing that it’s “Feel Jesus”.
Liz Phair’s “Perfect World” has these guitar squeaks that I went years and years without ever noticing. Then my wife pointed them out one day and now they render the song almost unlistenable to me because they’re all I fixate on.
I actually think repeated words as a rhyme are a fine poetic device. They are somewhat considered “weak” in English, but they are a valid prosodic concept. (In French, they are reasonably common.) Great English language poets have used it – perhaps one of the most famous examples is in Emily Dickinson’s “Because I Could Not Stop For Death”:
We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground –
The Roof was scarcely visible –
The Cornice – in the Ground –
What I like about the Black Sabbath identity rhyme is that it’s a true homonym – two words, spelled the same, sound the same, different etymologies. I think it’s a rather clever rhyme/play on the word “mass.”
This is not to say every identity rhyme is ideal, but there are good ones.
Try the Tomfoolery version:
An awful debility,
A lessened utility,
A loss of mobility
Is a strong possibility.
In all probability
I’ll lose my virility
And you your fertility
And desirability.
And this liability
Of total sterility
Will leed to hostility
And a sense of… futility.
So let’s act with agility
While we still have facility,
For we’ll soon reach senility
And lose the ability.
While enjoying our compatibility,
I am cognisant of its fragility,
And I question the advisability
Of relying on its durability.
You’re aware of my inflexibility
And my quintessential volatility
And the total inconceivability
Of my showing genuine humility.
Though your undeniable nubility
May excuse a certain puerility,
Your alleged indispensability
Underestimates my versatility,
And your boyish irresponsibility
And what now is charming juvenility
Will in time lose its adorability
And appear much more like imbecility.
I love it. But to each his own.
I heard or read somewhere that the first part of Layla was chasing her; the “piano coda” was like the afterglow after consummating the relationship.
Like the cigarette after? 
The electronic sea gulls in the middle of Echoes by Pink Floyd. Yuck.
Psychedelic underwater vocal effects like in Crimson and Clover, I’d Love To Change the World, and sort of in What Is and What Should Never Be. (heh - sometimes accompanied with guitar tremolo effect). Bet I’d’ve liked the songs more without that shenanigan.
I’m pretty sure Tommy Shondell’s vocals are being run through a leslie… so, a rotating speaker, like on many Hammond B3 organs.
This has always bothered me because it was the first thing a lot of us heard from ‘Sabbath’. So we figured “Hard-rockin’ goth-y band, but not the sharpest wooden stake in the coffin…”
Then we heard Paranoid, and all was forgiven… but damn, that is THE laziest songwriting ever.
I will mention “Tusk”. I know, Tusk is not a great song by any means, but I’m a sucker for highly rhythmic songs with a driving beat. Tusk has that, until we reach the weird arhythmic “drum solo” that ruins the whole song.
I remember when everything was ruined by a drum solo. Lee Michaels walked into a recording studio and came out 24 hours with a killer almost-live “rock organ” album… with a ten-minute drum solo in the middle.
Cream did a great double album (Wheels of Fire) where one side was nothing but drum solo.
And so many bands let the drummer go crazy in a middle of a concert… sometimes while the rest of the band disappeared for a pee break.
I love the leslie speaker sound in Tony Kaye’s Hammond in The Yes Album or Jon Lord’s gnarly early 70’s sounds, but if it’s being used the way it was with Mr. Shondell, then I’m kinda meh on its application there. IANAMusical engineer, but I would’ve guessed the effects on Shondell’s and Lee’s vocals would have been achieved through the mixing board, but what the hey do I know. (Or, with their heads actually held under water, but micing would prove tricky in avoiding electrocution. 
)
I’m cool with drum solos in the middle of jazz numbers. (along with solos, of course, from the other sidemen)
(heh, especially a Buddy Rich one)
Songs on Spotify will sometimes include skits or commentary at the end when all I want is the song. There’s a Tech N9ne song that does this where he is describing the next song and why it is important to him, unable to anticipate that my Spotify playlist is set to random. I wish there was a way to tell Spotify that I never need to hear certain parts of certain songs.
I can’t think of any specific songs this applies to but there are lots of Regina Spektor songs that I would like more if she didn’t get all weird somewhere in the middle.