The Truly Bad Song Lyrics Thread got me to thinking: there are some singers and bands that make good, even great music, despite a chronic inability to write lyrics that make sense, scan properly, or fail to evoke derisive laughter.
I would think the champion here would be early Elton John; Bernie Taupin’s execrable lyrics labour mightly but do not quite manage to destroy some great pop songs.
Another candidate for me would be Rush (sorry Coldfire et al.); however much I loved that band when I was 14, and still have a soft spot for them, even as a callow teenager I found Neil Peart’s lyrics somewhat, shall we say, wooden and overly didactic.
What are your nominees for songs that you have to pretend not to understand English to enjoy?
Pretty much anything by Ride falls into this category. The world would be a better place without lyrics like “Your words they flatter me / You fill my head with tea”, however good the guitars are.
That song by Crazytown…Butterfly. Its getting all sorts of mad air time on the radio, and I love the music, but the lyrics suck royal flying monkey buttocks. Get rid of dude with bad voice singing bad lyrics, and I would love that song.
But! But! But! I liked the lyrics to The Stagnant Pool! Now I have this image of the recording of it where Maurice Deebank intentionally draws out the bridge until he is sure Laurence won’t start to sing again, explaining why the track is like eight minutes long but the words end within the first minute or so.
And no matter how bad that was, nothing can touch
“you’re trying to fool somebody
but you end up fooling yourself
you’re reading from a season in hell
but you don’t know what it’s about”