Or the line “There were plants and birds and rocks and things.” Was it that difficult to think of a fourth item for the list? And for a bonus, it follows, “I was looking at all the life.” To most people, ‘rocks’ do not qualify as a form of life.
Bob Seger, Roll Me Away, which is otherwise a pretty cool song:
WTF? How does he know it was a young hawk? Is he an expert at identifying juvenile plumage? Do hawks old enough to fly even have juvenile plumage? He needed an extra syllable so he droped in “young” as filler, just like those limericks that go “There was a young man from Kilkenny . . .”
Nighthawk would have been better.
Yankovic, and it’s hardly lazy… it’s exactly the point. You could argue Harrison’s lyrics were lazy, but Yankovic was making fun of him for it.
And of course the title itself is a joke, since it’s seven words long.
I also have to object to some of the other choices here, like the “Ma na ma na” Muppets song. “Na na na na, hey hey hey, goodbye,” “Around the world” and songs like that. In some songs, repetition is the point; the voice is being used as an instrument. You don’t complain about the guitarist playing the same chord progression over and over, or the bassist repeating a few bass lines; sometimes the repetition of vocals is a deliberate choice. And the “Adieu, to you and you and you” line from The Sound of Music fits the scene perfectly - it’s a choreographed part of a musical, after all, not a stand alone song.
Lazy lyrics are ones like “A Horse With No Name” where they’re traditional lyrics but the songwriter was obviously drunk, high, or just didn’t give a shit.
don’t ask – and everyone else – pls. don’t quote long chunks of lyrics, in the interest of protecting the artists’ copyrights. If you need a long quotation to make your point, pls. link to the lyrics elsewhere.
Thanks,
twicks
Tequila!
That’s from We’ve Got A Bigger Problem Now (an updated – and admittedly weaker – version of CÜA). The California Über Alles line was:
Now it’s 1984
“Knock, knock” at your front door
It’s the suede-and-denim secret police
They’ve come for your uncool niece
My contribution is from Mulan – quite a good Disney movie, but it had one song lyric that makes me all nun-punchy:
Ancestors, hear my plea
Help me not to make a fool of me
Gaaaaaa!!
Of course it might have been really thought out because it does fit so very well.
^of course referring to my post above, not Hal Briston’s
I can’t quote the bad parts of this song because the lyrics are very short.
But “We’re Off to see the Wizard” is pretty dreadfully lazy.
“Because because because because because
Because of the wonderful things he does.”
It’s Billy Mack and he makes his living off the people’s taxes!
The lyrics the Abracadabra are better than the video!
How about Alice Cooper’s School’s Out?
or The Refreshments - Down Together?
… and of course, Van Halen’s Why Can’t This Be Love.
Foreigner checking in with “Hot Blooded”
“You don’t have to read my mind
To know what I have in mind”
It wouldn’t surprise me if the band spent several hours trying to write that chorus, until they finally said, “Screw it – nobody’s ever gonna notice!” 
In the desert things all look the same
I’m not really sure if I’m glad that I came
Two minutes. 
Lazy lyrics? The king of them all: Lenny Kravitz
"I wish that I could fly
Into the sky
So very high
Just like a dragonfly
I’d fly above the trees
Over the seas in all degrees
To anywhere I please
Oh I want to get away
I want to fly away
Yeah yeah yeah
That’s the one that irks me to all hell. Lazy, lazy, lazy!!
Don Black’s lyrics to “Tell Me On A sunday,” about how she wants him to say good-bye descends from “Take me to a park that’s covered with trees” to “Take me to a zoo that’s got chimpanzees” and finally “Find a circus ring with a flying trapeze.”
I can confirm that “in which we’re livin’” is correct. I have a not so shiny copy of “Wings Complete” published in 1977. (Which I see someone has a copy of which he’s sellin’ on eBay at the moment.) That’s how the lyrics are printed in the book.
I’m gonna give her that one. If you’re a (song)writer, what do you want? Cool quiet, time to think, and a pen that actually writes when inspiration strikes.
On the other hand, consider the Suzanne Vega song “Gypsy”. With the lyric:
“Yes now I’ve met me another spinner
Of strange and gauzy threads
With a long and slender body
And a bump upon the head”
A bump upon the head? Seriously?
Koxinga:
“Meet me Halfway” by Kenny Loggins, perhaps?
Sorry, but juvenile hawks do have different plumage. Red-tailed hawks, for example, don’t develop the distinctive red tail for a couple of years. And bald eagles (essentially big-ass hawks) don’t develop the distinctive white head for almost four years. Young hawks also have different hunting patterns because they haven’t quite figured out the “sit on a branch until something moves and then eat it.” paradigm.
Band on the Run:
And the jailer man, and sailor Sam
Were searching everyone
For the band on the run
That’s the best Paul McCartney can come up with: jailer man, and sailor Sam?
It hurts my head.
If you are looking for LAZY, how about Johnny Lennon:
“And no religion TOO.”
And Bobby Dylan:
“While all the women came and went, barefoot servants, TOO”
If you have to rhyme by ending the sentence with “too”, you are very lazy.