# Good songs, Bad lines **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 14, 2000, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-songs-bad-lines/25614 "2000-07-14T22:36:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2000, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-songs-bad-lines/25614/41 "2000-07-16T11:18:46Z")
drainthelizard wrote: \> I’ve got it! “Set Adrift On Memory Bliss” by PM Dawn \> contains this classic line: \> \> “Christina Applegay, you gotta put me on/ \> Guess who’s piece of the cake was dropped on” \> \> I KNOW that’s exactly what he’s singing because I looked \> it up. Now my only question is: what the HELL is he \> talking about? According to this website: [http://www.pmdawn.net/pm-lyrics.htm](http://www.pmdawn.net/pm-lyrics.htm) the lines are: \> Christina Applegate, you gotta put me on. \> Guess who’s piece of the cake is Jack gone? (Christina Applegate is the actress who played Kelly in _Married with Children_, incidentally.) The rest of the song doesn’t make a lot of sense either. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2000, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-songs-bad-lines/25614/42 "2000-07-16T11:57:28Z")
The second verse of Steve Miller’s “The Joker” one of the greatest songs ever written - is _incredibly_ bad: “You’re the cutest thing that I ever did see I really love your peaches want to shake your tree. Lovey-dovey, lovey-dovey all the time, Oo-ooh baby, I could show you a good time” —(written from memory, so please excuse any mistakes) ---
**Author:** ![jayron\_32](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/41988e/32.png) [@jayron\_32](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayron_32)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2000, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-songs-bad-lines/25614/43 "2000-07-16T17:11:23Z")
> [@](#): > > Aw, c’mon…you don’t love the lines “Wanna put my tender heart in a blender, watch it spin > around to a beautiful oblivion”?? Plus the verse with the line “burn, burn like a wicker cabinet” I keep thinking I like that song until I realize how awful the lyrics are. I’m really torn about that song. It’s really bad when you hear Limp Bizkit use the SAME line (“tender heart in a blender”) in “Nookie.” ---
**Author:** ![tubagirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b77776/32.png) [@tubagirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tubagirl)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2000, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-songs-bad-lines/25614/44 "2000-07-16T17:40:59Z")
> [@](#): > > Jayron32–Eve-6’s song Inside Out has a just plain disturbingly bad chorus, but the song itself is catchy enough… **gasp, heave, Ughh!!!** I love Eve 6’s Inside Out. It is my fiance and my song. We get all romantical about it. Especially the bedpost tying… mmmm… It makes total sense!!! It was the first sonf we ever burst out and sang together inthe car. Now that is going to be a freaky wedding song!!!😉 ---
**Author:** ![tempestuous\_tory](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/34f0e0/32.png) [@tempestuous\_tory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tempestuous_tory)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2000, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-songs-bad-lines/25614/45 "2000-07-16T17:56:22Z")
This song is great, but there is one line that has ALWAYS bugged me… “… Can’t be held responsible SHE WAS TOUCHING HER FACE I won’t be held responsible She fell in love in the first place.” The Verve Pipe were obviously desperate for a word to rhyme with place. –Tory ---
**Author:** ![TN\_hippie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/858c86/32.png) [@TN\_hippie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TN_hippie)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2000, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-songs-bad-lines/25614/46 "2000-07-16T21:25:20Z")
Steve Miller? Please tell me you’re kidding when you imply that he has any talent whatsoever. ---
**Author:** ![TN\_hippie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/858c86/32.png) [@TN\_hippie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TN_hippie)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2000, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-songs-bad-lines/25614/47 "2000-07-16T22:08:55Z")
From **Take the Money and Run:** _Sheriff John Brown’s a detective down in Texas You know he always knows exactly what the facts is He ain’t gonna let those two escape justice He makes his money off other people’s taxes._ I challenge anyone to come up with a worse attempt at rhyme scheme. ---
**Author:** ![Persephone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecc23a/32.png) [@Persephone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Persephone)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2000, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-songs-bad-lines/25614/48 "2000-07-16T23:29:29Z")
> [@](#): > > I really love your peaches want to shake your tree. FWIW, this is one of the _oldest_ blues lines ever. I always liked that line, then I married a blues musician. He played roughly, oh, _a million_ songs with this line or some slight variation. It’s what’s known as a “floating” line, I think. The old blues players just picked up lines from each other, & used them over & over again. That’s why a lot of people think that all of the early blues tunes all sound the same. One of my votes for the weirdest rhyme scheme has got to be Gordon Lightfoot’s _The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald._ Now, I positively adore this song, but he makes some really impossible rhymes there. For instance: _“The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down to the big lake they call Gitchigumi Superior it’s said never gives up her dead when the gales of November come early.”_ Forgive the spelling of “Gitchigumi,” if it’s wrong. I never did learn how to spell it. Anyway, rhyming that word with “early” is darn near as weird as anything Steve Miller could come up with. Never gives up her ---
**Author:** ![elelle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f0a364/32.png) [@elelle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elelle)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2000, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-songs-bad-lines/25614/49 "2000-07-17T00:37:54Z")
Oh, Damn, Nooooooooo, Persephone, that Edmund Fitzgerald song is on my list of dreaded infectious things that I can’t get out of my head for days. It’s been months since I’ve caught it. :::flees screaming from the thread, hands over ears::: Nooooooooooo…lalalalalalala… ---
**Author:** ![Persephone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecc23a/32.png) [@Persephone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Persephone)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2000, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-songs-bad-lines/25614/50 "2000-07-17T01:25:39Z")
Whoops. Sorry, elelle! You shoulda heard me & Tim last night, though. [begin hijack] We went to Cedar Point (an amusement park in Ohio, for those of you that don’t know) yesterday. On the way home, we started talking about music, not unusual considering he’s a musician & stuff. We started talking about this very subject–bad lines & bad rhyme schemes. Tim brought up another Gordon Lightfoot tune, _Sundown._ I said “hey, that one’s not bad. You want a bad rhyme scheme, _Edmund Fitzgerald_ takes the cake.” We spent at least an _hour_ trying to remember all the words. Hey, Cedar Point is a good three-hour trip from Flint. It kept us awake for a while! [/end hijack] ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tof](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/cdc98d/32.png) [@The\_Tof](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tof)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2000, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-songs-bad-lines/25614/51 "2000-07-17T02:22:43Z")
I never understood this one… “She thinks that emptiness is a mat that lies in the doorway” from matchbox20… And this one from aerosmtih… I like this song alot, but this part is just silly… realize up until this part… its a pretty decent love ballady type song “Its you thats in my dreams I’m beggin’ for/ but I woke up when someone slammed the door so hard I fell outta bed/ singin’ momma’s little baby loves shortenin’ bread/ and the moral of the story I can testify/ I get stoned on you girl… thats the best reason why” OK, the “I get stoned on you girl” bit, I like that line… but the rest of that is all just so random and out of nowhere… it throws me off everytime I hear the song. Screeme ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2000, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-songs-bad-lines/25614/52 "2000-07-17T04:41:54Z")
**DRY** , Yet more from the horrible _HWNN_: “The heat was hot and the ground was dry but the air was full of sound” \ ---
**Author:** ![Quadzilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/a4c791/32.png) [@Quadzilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quadzilla)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2000, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-songs-bad-lines/25614/53 "2000-07-17T05:59:51Z")
[hijack] “Burn, burn Branson too, making it a big black hole.” Whoa…you mean Branson _isn’t_ already a big black hole? Joke from _National Geographic_: What’s the difference between Jurassic Park and Branson? One’s a theme park about dinosaurs, the other’s a theme park for dinosaurs. [/hijack] ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Feely](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e36b37/32.png) [@Mr.Feely](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Feely)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2000, 9:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-songs-bad-lines/25614/54 "2000-07-17T09:04:23Z")
I have to nominate _all_ the lines in the song “Return of the Postmoderns” by Better than Ezra. It’s a catchy song, but the lyrics are (intentionally) incomprehensible. This is just the last verse, for example: _Feeding line caught tuna to a neutered Bodhisattva Writhing peaches for the President Out on the White House lawn Beating Herbert Hoover With a leather tipped pinata Thorn and Katy drink the milk tinted Amerasian Green return, return, return_ ---
**Author:** ![taddycat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8baadc/32.png) [@taddycat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/taddycat)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2000, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-songs-bad-lines/25614/55 "2000-07-17T14:44:08Z")
I love the song “Happy Together” by the Turtles, even if it is absurdly sappy, but the stupidest line in the world is in that song. At the end of the song, they sing: So happy together How is the weather? So happy together How is the weather??? Were they that desperate for a rhyme? Thanks for letting me get that off my chest. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Zero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c4cdca/32.png) [@Saint\_Zero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Zero)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2000, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-songs-bad-lines/25614/56 "2000-07-17T15:16:13Z")
I’ll forgive old Gordon and “Edmund Fitzgerald”, rhyming all those Indian names can be torture. Besides, I like the song. I forget who did this one, but this is one line that was _begging_ to be misinterpreted… “Revved up like a deuce, a runner in the night.” It’s a very famous “misheard” lyric. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![BurnMeUp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@BurnMeUp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BurnMeUp)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2000, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-songs-bad-lines/25614/57 "2000-07-17T15:26:35Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Lord Vega \* > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > So just what the hell is a “double-e waterfall” ? And how does it go “over my back” ? I mean, that just doesn’t fucking make any SENSE. > > It makes perfect sense when in the umm… right state of mind! Maybe I’ve been to too many dead shows? > > V. > \*\* Mayb’e it’s referring to a woman with large (double E) breasts and when he hugs her they flow over his back because he’s really short? ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2000, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-songs-bad-lines/25614/58 "2000-07-17T15:28:46Z")
As much as I adore Springsteen and almost everything he’s done, even he can’t pull off: “Baby I’d drive all night again just to buy you some shoes, and to taste your tender charms” And “shoes” didn’t even have to rhyme with anything. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2000, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-songs-bad-lines/25614/59 "2000-07-17T15:30:41Z")
> [@](#): > > I forget who did this one, but this is one line that was _begging_ to be misinterpreted… > > “Revved up like a deuce, a runner in the night.” > > It’s a very famous “misheard” lyric. 🙂 \*\* This was Springsteen also, and the song “Blinded by the Light” can be interpreted as referring to masturbation. ---
**Author:** ![Sands](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/22d042/32.png) [@Sands](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sands)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2000, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-songs-bad-lines/25614/60 "2000-07-17T15:31:15Z")
Great, great, GREAT song…Pink Floyd, wish you were here…but here’s the line I hate…“We’re just two lost souls, swimmin’ in a fish bowl, year after year…” ugh… and the entire refrain of Phish’s song, Tweezer. eeeek. it’s painful. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-songs-bad-lines/25614.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-songs-bad-lines/25614.md?page=4)