Good songs with terrible lyrics

[Annie-Xmas]

Memory from CATS has to be the most recorded song with ghastly lyrics.

[Annie-Xmas]

Ooops. Wrong thread.

[gigi]

@WOOKINPANUB

Ha! You’ve just added another layer of cheesy. . . goodness(?)

The certain 1980 reek that you are detecting would be the same one which gives Starship’s We Built This City its malodorous quality. Not a bad song for simply bebopping around in the car but don’t listen to the words or you might get in a wreck.

The mashup of “We Built This City” and “We’re Not Gonna Take It” in **Rock of Ages **was pretty much the apex of everything I’ve every loved about bombastic music and movie musicals.

[Sparky812]

Alice Cooper is one of my favorites but he made a career of great songs with really awful lyrics about murder, necrophilia, kidnapping, torture, rape, even going to the dentist.
…although his songs topics were pretty obvious.

My favorites are the ones where to the song is catchy but the lyrical content is something else entirely.

Soul Asylum- Just Like Anyone - about a girl going to the outhouse
Third Eye Blind - Semi Charmed Life - being high on crystal meth and fucking
Foster the People - Pumped up Kicks - about a kid bringing a gun to school and shooting all the other kids.

[Art_Rock]

@handsomeharry

I thought that the line was “rises like Olympus”. Which, of course, makes it even more stupid. “Let’s see…let’s get something poetic and allegorical to compare a mountain to…I know! A mountain! We’ll compare a mountain to a mountain! Damn, I’m good!”

to quote myself from page 1:

@Art_Rock

It is. And it does make sense, if you take Olympus not as the geographical mountain in Greece, but as the seat of the Greek Gods.

[Sparky812]

@Small_Hen

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.

@gigi

“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.

@Art_Rock

It is. And it does make sense, if you take Olympus not as the geographical mountain in Greece, but as the seat of the Greek Gods.

@nearwildheaven

I thought it was “I miss the rains down in Africa”.

@handsomeharry

I thought that the line was “rises like Olympus”. Which, of course, makes it even more stupid. “Let’s see…let’s get something poetic and allegorical to compare a mountain to…I know! A mountain! We’ll compare a mountain to a mountain! Damn, I’m good!”

@Art_Rock

to quote myself from page 1:

Olympus aside, you guys are missing the fact that Kilimanjaro does not rise above the Serengeti.

In fact, even on a clear day at a higher altitude, it’s most likely not even visible.

[Knowed_Out]

When Yes sold out in the early 80’s and became a pop band, they had one song called “Love Will Find a Find a Way,” with this brilliant chorus:

Here is my heart
Waiting for you
Here is my soul
I eat at chez nous

I EAT AT CHEZ NOUS? They couldn’t find anything else that rhymed with “you?” How about “My feelings are true?” That’s just as sappy as the other words, and it’s not a non-sequitur like “I eat at our kitchen.”

[Nobody]

@Knowed_Out

When Yes sold out in the early 80’s and became a pop band, they had one song called “Love Will Find a Find a Way,” with this brilliant chorus:

Here is my heart
Waiting for you
Here is my soul
I eat at chez nous

I EAT AT CHEZ NOUS? They couldn’t find anything else that rhymed with “you?” How about “My feelings are true?” That’s just as sappy as the other words, and it’s not a non-sequitur like “I eat at our kitchen.”

I posted the exact same complaint in some other bad lyrics thread. Hard up for a rhyme? Use some foreign words.

[Sparky812]

@Knowed_Out

When Yes sold out in the early 80’s and became a pop band, they had one song called “Love Will Find a Find a Way,” with this brilliant chorus:

Here is my heart
Waiting for you
Here is my soul
I eat at chez nous

I EAT AT CHEZ NOUS? They couldn’t find anything else that rhymed with “you?” How about “My feelings are true?” That’s just as sappy as the other words, and it’s not a non-sequitur like “I eat at our kitchen.”

Yep, just silly really.
I’ve always said that the reason I hated writing songs is that I would not resort to ridiculous lyrics because I could not sing them live with any confidence.

/nitpick- It’s not the chorus but the transitional bridge or pre-chorus

[grude]

@nearwildheaven

I thought it was “I miss the rains down in Africa”.

Yes, and didn’t someone post a backstory here a time that said the song is written from the point of view of a bullshit artist trying to score with a girl who has never even been to Africa?

[CaptMurdock]

@control-z

Rivingtons - Papa Oom Mow Mow is a perfectly good doo-wop song. But the lyrics:

Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasnt’ this an “answer song” to “Surfin’ Bird” which had the papa-oom-mow-mow repeated in the last third, after the longest pause for breath in music history?

[Thudlow_Boink]

@CaptMurdock

Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasnt’ this an “answer song” to “Surfin’ Bird” which had the papa-oom-mow-mow repeated in the last third, after the longest pause for breath in music history?

Kind of the other way around.
[QUOTE=Wikipedia]
“Surfin’ Bird” is a song performed by the American surf rock band The Trashmen, and it is also the name of the album that featured this hit single. It was released in 1963 and reached No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100.[1] It is a combination of two R&B hits by The Rivingtons: “Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow” and “The Bird’s the Word”
[/QUOTE]

[Dung_Beetle]

@Knowed_Out

When Yes sold out in the early 80’s and became a pop band, they had one song called “Love Will Find a Find a Way,” with this brilliant chorus:

Here is my heart
Waiting for you
Here is my soul
I eat at chez nous

I EAT AT CHEZ NOUS? They couldn’t find anything else that rhymed with “you?” How about “My feelings are true?” That’s just as sappy as the other words, and it’s not a non-sequitur like “I eat at our kitchen.”

You win the thread.

[Sparky812]

The one that always bothered me was Rick Springfield’s Jessie’s Girl.

play along with the charade
That doesn’t seem to be a reason to change
You know I feel so dirty when they start talking cute
I wanna tell her that I love her but the point is probably moot

Moot? Really, that was the best rhyme he could come up with?

[Teach-me-not]

The subject matter of the song is more disturbing to me. “Jessie’s got himself a girl and I want to make her mine.” Ya, that’s what friends do. Even worse, throughout the song, the singer never mentions the girl’s name or even one attribute of hers that he likes. He covets her simply because she’s (sing along with me)

Jessie’s girl.

:rolleyes:

[WOOKINPANUB]

@Sparky812

The one that always bothered me was Rick Springfield’s Jessie’s Girl.

Moot? Really, that was the best rhyme he could come up with?

This one always cracks me up. Shit, he’s not even using it correctly. Kind of reminds me, awkwardness wise , of Eve 6’s Inside Out:

I would swallow my pride
I would choke on the rind
But the lack thereof would leave me empty inside :smack:

Oooh, you feisty . . .attorney, you.

[Nobody]

Not released as a single, but Deep Purple’s “A Twist in the Tale” has the line

I’ve been where the sun never shines

Whenever I hear it I think, “You’ve been up somebody ass?”

[BaldDudePeekskill]

[****QUOTE=Teach-me-not;18368357]The subject matter of the song is more disturbing to me. “Jessie’s got himself a girl and I want to make her mine.” Ya, that’s what friends do. Even worse, throughout the song, the singer never mentions the girl’s name or even one attribute of hers that he likes. He covets her simply because she’s (sing along with me)

Jessie’s girl.

:rolleyes:
[/QUOTE]

Being a queer boy, I always “translated” that song into how the dude wished he could Be Jesse’s Girl…

[BlankSlate]

Empire State of Mind is catchy and sounds terrific, but the lyrics are dumb as hell.

Concrete jungle where dreams are made of ???

[buddha_david]

@Nobody

Not released as a single, but Deep Purple’s “A Twist in the Tale” has the line

I’ve been where the sun never shines

Whenever I hear it I think, “You’ve been up somebody ass?”

Certainly you didn’t think the song “Knockin’ At Your Back Door” was about Ian’s next-door neighbor asking to borrow a cup of sugar?