And while I have Garth Brooks earworms on the brain…Burning Bridges can’t quite figure out what metaphor would work best, so threw 'em all in, with a twist of cliche:
“We’ll cross that bridge whenever it arrives.
Now through the flames I see her standing on the other side…”
Um…what?
Not quite repetition of a single phrase, but “Losing My Religion” by R.E.M. definitely starts to go in circles lyrically, and then Michael Stipe starts scatting whatever rhyming words come into his head. It’s awful.
In the category of horrendous lyrics by an established band, Traffic’s “Sittin’ Here Thinkin’ Of My Love” is a contender:
Sittin’ here thinkin’ of my love
Sittin’ here thinkin’ of my love
Wonderin’ if she’s thinkin’
Or maybe if she’s drinkin’
Sittin’ here just thinkin’ of my love
Come to think of it, the music sucks mightily too.
Wasn’t that a bonus track on the CD release of “John Barleycorn”? I remember hearing that song and thinking just because you have an unreleased track doesn’t mean you have to use it. It’s obvious why it didn’t make it onto the original album release.
Ahahaha, and here I was giving him the benefit of doubt all those years. I’m so prone to mondegreens I just couldn’t image he’s really singing “things” here. I truly hope they were pretty things, at least.
I have two and a half: Not the Beatles’ best song, but I bobbed happily along as a child and I still think it’s a catchy tune. When I started to understand the lyrics however, Run for your Life gave me pause:
“I’d rather see you dead little girl than to be with another man…well you know that I’m a wicked guy and I was born with a jealous mind, and I can’t spend my whole life trying just to make you toe the line…”
Yeah Mr. Jealous Guy, that isn’t your job in the first place. I read Lennon regretted these lyrics later, but still…ugh.
Second, as much as it pains me, since I love him to bits and he can be an incredible wordsmith, Broken Furniture by John Foxx is a nice energetic example of his brilliant newer stuff, but has a clunker right at the beginning:
“I live in a room with broken furniture, I live in an apartment with no walls,
I speak in a language I don’t understand, I threw away my books now I read the walls,
I know I can read the walls, I learned how to read the walls, I know how to read the walls…”
Walls or no walls, that is the question. And that’s either some very boring liturature you started to enjoy or you have become a nihilist, but what took you so long to learn there, exactly?
Not so much bad lyrics, but why it’s a bad idea to sing in a foreign language you cannot pronounce properly becomes quite clear at the intro of Peter Gabriel’s Games without Frontiers. You absolutely had to include the title in French, yes? You are aware Ms. Bush sings it “She so funky-oh”, yes? Which makes your audience wonder what that line has do to with the rest of the song? Okay, nevermind…
:smack: Which is wrong in any language I can think of…must…have…sleep…
But in the same vein:
The Killers Human
“I’m down on my knees, searching for the answer, are we human or are we dancer?”
Is we lonely? And why do you search so low?
Great thread. Not only did it make me laugh out loud, but brought back some great memories…
I love this song for many reasons, and the best little nugget (IMO)
“I can’t stand this indecision
Married with a lack of vision.”
Was on my wall in my office. It summed up my frustration with many things about my job and the company I was working for at the time.
This made me laugh out loud! Good god, this is bad. I never listened to it close enough, I guess…
Me too. I NEVER heard “bless”.
I first saw this on FG also, and had no idea what it referenced. When I saw the Shatner version, I thought it was excellent. They do a great job incorporating pop culture references in FG, and not just recent ones.
The first thing I thought of when I opened this thread was Train, with both
“Hey Soul Sister” and “Drops of Jupiter”
Both songs are catchy, and I like them, but the lyrics stink.
And they also drove these songs into the ground with overplay, but hey… That happens.
I never listened to closely to the lyrics, but my wife once told me how she doesn’t like Bon Jovi’s “I’ll Be There For You” partially because she can’t get over the lyrics,
I heard your suitcase say goodbye
Forgot one that I recently talked about with a friend.
Counting Crows - Holiday in Spain.
Love the song, but HATE the lyrics. I would have loved to have seen this song’s creative process. Written by Peter Slager, Adam Duritz, and Joni Mitchell… They must have been toasted.
It starts…
Got no place to go,
But there’s a girl waiting for me down in Mexico…
yet, song is “Holiday in Spain”.
How about…
Hop on my choo-choo,
I’ll be your engine-driver in a bunny suit.
If you dress me up in pink and white,
We may be just a little fuzzy 'bout it later tonight
:dubious:
OOH! OOH! MISTA KOTTAH!!!
The all-time winner is the Chic song Rebels Are We.Great groove, infectious, cool arrangement, wonderfully danceable. But…here is verse 2.
“Don’t cage us in, we might just surprise you,
In order to convince you we will.
Oh no you can’t take away our freedom,
And get this straight–for that we won’t be still.
The time is now, and if we have to fight,
Come on, let’s unite! We gotta do it soon!
We’re gonna win, on that you can depend
‘Cuz if ya don’t, me and my baby are goin’ to the moon!”
I rest my case.
Was listening to the radio the other night and thought of this thread…
Bonnie Raitt sings “Are You Ready for a Thing Called Love?” which is pretty free form as far as lyrical expression goes (“Baby we can choose you know we ain’t no amoeba”), but the logic breaks down entirely when she gets to:
“I ain’t no porcupine,
Take off your kid gloves”
Now kid gloves are used for handling fragile or expensive, delicate objects. So I’m having trouble making the logical connection between her not being a porcupine and taking off the kid gloves. Because if he really thought she was a porcupine, he would not be wearing kid gloves, he’d be wearing a set of armored gauntlets.
So if you were trying to understand these lyrics logically, it would be something like “You don’t have to treat me as you would a rare delicate object like, uh, a porcupine!”. Or maybe, “I have no natural defenses, so you might as well treat me like a rental car, because what can I do about it, you bastard?”
But probably the best explanation is that Bonnie had no clue what “kid” gloves are.
Yes…I’ve put too much thought into this.
A lot of song writers put the importance of lyrics sounding good above them being technically correct. And it usually works because a lot of us don’t really scrutinize the lyrics all that much.
How about Sugar’s best known song, “Hoover Dam”? There’s a line about “the taste of the Gulf in my mouth”.
The Hoover Dam is in Nevada, nowhere near the Gulf of Mexico or even the Gulf of California.
This song is good…
I can’t stop this feeling
Deep inside of me
Girl, you just don’t realize
What you do to me
I’m hooked on a feeling
I’m high on believing
That you’re in love with me
David Bowie is nearly infallible as an artist for me, no matter where his attention wanders. However, I am left a little wanting from the great revelatory message to humanity from the vast alien cosmos:
“Let the children lose it
Let the children use it
Let all the children boogie”
Payphone, Maroon 5. Such a catchy song but with a lot of weirdness. First of all, this song was released in 2012 and cell phones are ubiquitous, so WTH? Maybe they need a plan with better coverage? Anyway, the main lyrics are trite but bearable and don’t ruing the song for me. Chorus both versions :rolleyes::
It has a few verses, a few choruses, then it takes a most bizarre turn with Wiz Khalifa rapping:
Then the sweet little chorus again
:dubious:
Saturday, in the park.
I think it was the fourth of July.
I remember my mom pointing out, if it was the fourth of July, you would know.
I like the song “Night Moves”, except for this incredibly awful part:
She was a black-haired beauty with big dark eyes
And points all her own sitting way up high.
Way up firm and high.
“Get it? Points. Firm, high points. Wink, wink. You know what I mean? She definitely had a nice set of points. In case I’m being too subtle, ‘points’ means boobies.”
Then try listening to the original version by B.J. Thomas.
Not to mention, with all the other stuff the song describes as going on in the park that day, it was clearly an important holiday of some kind.