I’ll take surreal or nonsense lyrics, if they’re interesting, over banal cliché lyrics any day.
Surreal is a sub-category that I missed. Sort of absurdity, but with the sense of dreams juxtaposed against jarring reality.
Does anybody have examples of the opposite–good lyrics in a bad song? I don’t think I can think of any. If the music sucks, I can’t be assed to make an effort to listen to the lyrics.
I can suggest a couple:
Rush’s Cygnus X-1, maybe. Lyrics are pretty good, I would opine, but I can’t listen to early Rush.
John Entwistle’s Whistle Rhymes album. Clever lyrics, but the poor guy just couldn’t sing!
The latest All Time Low album. No memorable music, but the two times I gave it a listen, I was unimpressed enough with it to be distracted into doing other things while it was playing, only to be pulled back with clever turns of phrases that came out of nowhere. But still not enough to get beyond the bland music.
I think The Dead Milkmen are pretty poor musicians, with bad production and stuff. They are punk rock so it doesn’t matter/adds to it. Their lyrics are brilliant tho!
People who dismiss hip-hop out of hand are, in many cases, missing out on some fantastic, vivid, incisive lyrics.
I’d go with the majority of Alannis Morisette’s ouevre. Decent music and good singing, but I’d rather not have someone sing their diary into my ear, let alone if their personal thoughts and life choices are fairly questionable.
I’m going to say a lot of Train’s songs fit. I’m sure some will argue that they only have bad lyrics in bad songs but they often seem to have these really catchy tunes but the lyrics are total crap. Case in point, “Hey, Soul Sister”, catchy fun tune - dumb ass lyrics. Although, it ended up so overplayed that people probably just plain hate it now.
Tears for Fears is one of my favorite bands, and I love “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” but if you listen to the lyrics, they seem to be a bunch of non sequiturs.
Africa by Toto has to be a contender. What the hell does “I bless the rains down in Africa,” even mean, anyway? And, “Sure as mount Kilimanjaro rises like a leopress above the Serengeti?” Jesus. And yet, it’s still one of my all time favorite songs. I adore it.
I always nominate the same love-hate song for this category - Doobie Brothers, “China Grove.” One of the most kick-ass open-road come-n-get-me tunes of the era, with stupid, ill-fitting lyrics about… nothing worthy of a rock song.
The first is a lovely lyric, beautifully fitted to the music, that doesn’t need to mean much. The second is the canonical example of ill-fitting, clunk-ass lyrics.
“Sure as mount Kilimanjaro rises like a leopress above the Serengeti?”
I thought it was “rises like Olympus”? That may not be any better.
I never thought about what Finger Eleven meant! :smack: I thought, oh, Maroon Five, Finger Eleven, whatever.
Steve Miller Band, Take the Money and run:
Excerpt:
Billy Mack is a detective down in Texas
You know he knows just exactly what the facts is
He ain’t gonna let those two escape justice
He makes his livin’ off of the people’s taxes
Nirvana, Smells like Teen Spirit
A mulatto
An albino
A mosquito
My libido
Yeah, hey, yay
He captured Holden Caulfield teen angst, but with gibberish.
The above reminds me: I love the Smashing Pumpkins, but a lot of Billy Corgan’s lyrics sound to me like angsty stuff I’d expect scribbled in the margins of a teenager’s high school notebook. I guess that angsty simplicity strikes a chord with a lot of folks, but often it would just make me cringe. (That said, I do enjoy some of his lyrics, too.)
That’s a good one. I remember it as being one of the first, if not the first, I ever jammed to with my cousin and friend as teenagers. Fun rockin’ little tune, but the lyrics are a bit, um, forgettable.
No “Horse With No Name” yet?
I love the song, but it could use a little help lyrically.
Till now, I didn’t know that the song had official lyrics; I just assumed it was meaningless sounds.
From the wiki page:
Ha!
As much as I love America, you can toss in “Tinman,” “Sandman,” “Ventura Highway;” any one else?
I really like the accompaniment for “MacArthur Park.” The lyrics? :eek: 
:smack: :dubious: