It’s in the place all minds go when they’re on lots and lots of drugs…The Pixies were among the best for making complete nonsense sound very cool.
I’d say, besides “Everybody Hurts”, REM has written hardly anything comprehensible. Half the songs on the first six albums or so are so mumbled you can’t even make out what Stipe is singing. On the rest it’s basically a word salad.
It sounds more like that in Manfred Mann’s cover than it does in the Boss’ original version. IMHO
Continues on that way for pretty much the entire album side?? It continues on that way for the rest of their recording career!
[sub]but I do like listening to them[/sub]
I blame Jon Anderson.
Dance of Ranyart, from Olias of Sunhillow, by Jon Anderson
I edited your post, hawksgirl, because it went a bit beyond Fair Use. Please remember to only post a small portion of a song, and not the whole thing. If you want others to see the entire set of lyrics, please link to those lyrics instead of posting them here.
Just about all of the Promise Ring’s discography was two or three unrelated lines sung over and over, making it sound bad ass. Like, B is for Bethlhem
“And the red in your face is touchable to the blues and the Muscles in a memory. Where I have lost my voice and I smell like paste again where we’ll be resting, when we rest.”
Firery Furnaces also have what-the-hell lyrics, but they some how get you to actually think you know what is going on. Like, "Inca Rag/Name Game " gives you a good little story line, it’s just that the details are collectively bollocks.
" In the cracker barrel dumpster I found a bag
Red white striped I opened it–gag
Mummy day pizarro dressed in a Inca rag
Call on in to work quick
Tell 'em that I’m seasick
Uncle Ricky’s schooner’s docked Pompano Beach
Weigh anchor and me and him each
Need some extra sunblock, do it for 'em he can’t reach
San Juan by next Sunday
Mummy mummy mummy"
More at random…
Modest Mouse - Classy Plastic Lumber:
“So this is about ugly lovers
And this is about pretty songs
Cause I’m a bastard bastard bastard
In my lipstick I’m so much fun
Connect your wood feet to a motor
And the chrome dance trophy is won
A little classy plastic lumber
I’m embarassed but I ain’t that stunned”
The Robot Ate Me - Apricot Tea
“Oh, will you be the one that smiles for me?
I’ll bake you muffins and apricot tea”
One of my favorites, Camper Van Beethoven - Take the Skinheads Bowling (from memory, because Song Meanings has it screwed up I think, but am too lazy to check):
“Every day, I get up and pray to John
And he decreases the number of lives by exactly one
Everybody’s comin’ home for lunch these days
Last night there were skinheads on my lawn
Take the skinheads bowling
Take them bowling”
Finally, I’ll mention my favorite love song ever: Beat Happening’s “Jamboree”. What the hell is that about, and why do I love it so? I love it like a chocolate cake, at the very least.
A Change Would Do You Good by Sheryl Crow.
Name checks Falstaff beer, Amana Radaranges, and Mercedes Ruehl, all for no reason.
“Jack off Jimmy, everybody wants more.”
The lyrics to Deuce by KISS always had me scratching my head. To wit:
“Get up
And get your grandma outta here
Pick up
Old Jim is workin’ hard this year
And baby
Just do the things he says to do”
WTF? “Get your grandma outta here”?
For me, the kings of nonsensical lyrics are the Presidents of the United States of America.
From “Zero Friction”:
Froom “Drool At You”:
My brother joked about how you could insert any lyrics, provided they contained about the write number of syllables, into the song “White Room” by Cream and it would still sound the same. He would jokingly sing “Deep dish pizza, salad dressing, fire hydrant…” as lyrics.
It sounds good to me! Virtually the same as “yellow tigers, crouched in jungles, in your dark eyes.”
I’m used to crazy lyrics, though. I’m a Donovan fan. He wrote a few sane ones (“Catch the Wind” is beautiful), but for the most part, if you want to listen to Donovan, you have to be fine with lyrics like “Elevator in the brain hotel-a, broken down but just as well-a.”
Joey
Wow, I just tried that with a random word generator, and it works.
“Rainy critic, mindless mecha, variation.”
Wow! 30 posts and nobody’s mentioned Procol Harum’s “Whiter Shade of Pale!” I used to try to figure out what it meant. Maybe it just means I don’t do enough hallucinogenic drugs…
Thin Lizzy, and what’s wrong with it? It *is * possible the town has more than one jail.
I submit that virtually anything by *Talking Heads * falls into the “nonsensical lyrics” category.
I’d vote for anything by Supertramp.
Especially from their biggest disc - Breakfast in America, which featured the inaptly named - “The Logical Song”
Niel Diamond went most of his career without writing a lyric that made any sense.
David Byrne of Talking Heads is similar, just patching together pithy phrases over an incredible rhythm section. I love it, but I don’t claim to understand it.
Good Morning Starshine, from the Hair soundtrack, and covered by the Cowsills or someone like them, is completely meaningless.
Several songs on Paul Simon’s Graceland are very enjoyable gibberish.
Well, then I think that the break would likely be taking place at one of the jails. “Somewhere in this town…”?
Kerosene Hat by Cracker
Here’s an excerpt:
"So don’t you bother me death with your leathery ways
and your old chaise lounge (old chaise lounge)
Wickerman’s fence of leathery tyres
And the cook’s gone bad, started several fires
Everything seems like a dream
When your submarine
Head like a stream she says softly to me
from the rattling chair
Bring me a steak and my old pair of crows,
my medicine lamp"
All this talk about seemingly nonsensical lyrics and no one’s mentioned Bob Dylan yet?
I don’t think this song is necessarily nonsensical (likewise many of those also mentioned in this thread). On the surface, you can understand what it’s about (i.e., the goings-on in “the court of the crimson king”). But, because there are more levels to the song, the lyrics can be interpretted many ways.
Dave Grhol’s efforts on the first Foo Fighters disc was an excecise in writing nonsense lyrics. After the death of Kurt Cobain, he was pretty depressed. Anything creative of his at the time was tainted by this. As a form of therapy for himself, he consciously attempted to write a collection of songs that contained no meaning. When the first single “This is a Call” was released, I don’t know who looked into further meaning of lines such as…
"Fingernails are pretty, Fingernails are good
Seems that all they ever wanted was a marking
Them balloons are pretty big, And say they should
Ever fall to ground
Call the magic marker
This is a call to all my
Past resignations"
That album rocked though. I guess it’s worth noting that The Foo Fighter’s went on to attempt to write more meaningful lyrics after that, and to some extent they succeeded.
Listening the Bloodhound Gang’s Ralph Wiggum, I 'd always assumed the song was about little Ralphie. Looking up the lyrics, I discovered that:
the song is composed of random ralphie quotes strung together, nothing more. Awesome.