The Beatles-Revolution #9
Moving this from IMHO to Cafe Society.
Is this really one of your favorites? I mean, I recognize its importance in popular music history, and appreciate its experimental nature, but - blecch. The beauty of iTunes is that this can be so easily purged from the White Album.
I’ll concur with RealityChuck on Mairzy Doats, which I only learned a few weeks ago and have since been unable to get out of my head.
I love the man, but Stevie Wonder has been throwing nonsense lyrics at us for years.
As:
“Until the dolphin flies and parrots live at sea” and “Until the earth just for the sun denies itself”. Great song, silly lyrics.
Ribbon in the Sky:
“Oh so long for this night I prayed
That a star would guide you my way
To share with me this special day
Where a ribbon’s in the sky for our love”
I rather enjoy Phish’s “Dinner and a Movie” when it comes to nonsense songs. Although the message is quite clear.
Let’s go out to dinner and see a movie
Let’s go out to dinner and see a movie
Let’s go out to dinner
and see a movie
Let’s go out to dinner and see a movie
[slight hijack] I’m just getting into Wilco, colour wolf, are many of their songs ‘meaningless’?
Love And Nuts And Noodles (Bring 'Em Back Alive)
lyric: Yip Harburg - music: Lew Gensler
from the revue “Ballyhoo of 1932”
[sub](This song is built around the phrase “Bring 'em back alive,” trademark of Frank Buck, who used to show exotic animals in Barnum & Bailey’s Circus. Sing to half-assed “Rumba Foxtrot” rhythm.)[/sub]
Love…and nuts and noodles,
Lotsa monkey doodles,
Bring 'em back alive.
Those moons…and jungle mamas,
Cellophane pajamas,
Bring 'em back alive,
[ REMAINDER OF LYRICS DELETED ]
Kerosene Hat by Cracker.
A few verses:
How can I fly with these old doggy wings
While the magpie sings some shiny song?
Old corn face row of teeth, she says sweetly to me
In the elevator
Here come old Kerosene Hat
With his ear flaps waxed, a courting’ his girl
Come clattering in here on your old cloven skates
With that devilish spoon
So don’t you bother me death with your leathery ways
and your old chaise lounge (old chaise lounge)
Wickerman’s fence of leathery tires
And the cook’s gone bad, started several fires
CHORUS:
Everything seems like a dream
And life’s a scream
When you’re submarine
Janitor by Suburban Lawns
Sample lyrics
Who’s your mother
Who’s your father
I guess everything’s relative
I’m a janitor
Oh my genitals
But written by Woody Guthrie of course.
Heywood Banks’s “Hickey Hockey Holey” is kind of fun.
How about the Chicken Song from Spitting Image?
Skin yourself alive, learn to speak araphahoe
Climb inside a dog, and behead an Eskimo
Eat a Renault 4, wear salami in your ears
Cassarole your gran, dis-embowel yourself with spears
How about Meaningless by The Magnetic Fields?
I’m rather fond of Bruce McCulloch’s rendering of “These Are the Daves I Know.”
“Judy in Disguise (with glasses)” - John Fred and His Playboy Band
“The Guitar (the lion sleeps tonight)” - They Might Be Giants
…and their completely nonsensical lyrics. A short sampling:
And we’re glad glad glad that you’re alive
and we’re glad glad glad that you’ll arrive
and we’re glad glad glad glad, glad glad glad…
and we’re glad glad glad that you’re a glide.
Not enough? Okay, try this one:
Mask a pretty hopper’s foot with squeeze cheese
Dangle some grape apple pies
Tranquil and serene until he runs out of supplies…
And for sheer minimalism, their song “David Bowie,” whose lyrics, in their entirety, can be posted under Fair Use, if only because they’re trademarks owned by other people:
David Bowie (x4)
UB40 (x4)
(repeat)
In their entire recording history, I don’t think Phish ever let a lack of sensible lyrics prevent them from recording an otherwise catchy tune.
Roundabout by Yes. Of course, all of their lyrics are meaningless, but this is especially meaningless to me! 
Snoopy vs The Red Baron
10…20…30…40…50 or more.
You don’t get mor meaningless than a dog with a big black nose shooting down Von Richtoffen.
Duran Duran’s (I’m Looking for) Cracks in the Pavement:
Somebody shaking my tree
Maybe that somebody is me
I’m standing in the light but I’m making a break for
The shadows on the cinema wall.
They should be mine but I’m not that tall
Now I’m saying this in private
If I had a car
I’d drive it insane
That’s always made me smile. Also, The Beatles’ All Together Now would have to qualify, IMO:
A, B, C, D
Can I bring my friend to tea?
E, F, G H I J I love you.
Sail the ship, Jump the tree
Skip the rope, Look at me
The drugs were goooood in the 60s. And the 80s.
One of my favorites is Return of the Post Moderns by Better Than Ezra:
Sample lyrics:
shelby and sheila
onomatopoeia
catch hang nail on banlon
shiver martin sheen
preschool mothers
in technicolor
are fire bombing dresden
stanton, harry dean
But Roundabout is one of the few of Yes’s that I understand!
Haven’t you ever been out driving, came around a curve on the edge of a lake and the mountains jump up in front of you?
Think of it in terms of driving through the most beautiful landscape imaginable for the first time…
Of course, it probably helps if you can add an acid flash-back
Guided By Voices have many short, sharp, and catchy pop songs that have virtually no meaning, but the king of this is Cigarette Tricks.
“Shoot up on the fast lane
She falls like a concrete robot
She’s a boy
Billy-I
Billy-L
Billy-L
Billy-Y”
That’s almost the entire song. It’s about 18 seconds long.