# Lazy song writing **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** music\ **Created:** [December 13, 2021, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lazy-song-writing/955957 "2021-12-13T01:50:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![snowthx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowthx/32/10660_2.png) [@snowthx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowthx)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2021, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lazy-song-writing/955957/61 "2021-12-15T01:07:27Z")
_I, wanna rock and roll all night, and party every day._ _I, wanna rock and roll all night, and party every day._ _I, wanna rock and roll all night, and party every day._ _I, wanna rock and roll all night, and party every day._ _I, wanna rock and roll all night, and party every day._ _I, wanna rock and roll all night, and party every day…_ ---
**Author:** ![DeadTreasSecretaries](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deadtreassecretaries/32/4817_2.png) [@DeadTreasSecretaries](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DeadTreasSecretaries)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2021, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lazy-song-writing/955957/62 "2021-12-15T01:07:48Z")
“Ain’t No Sunshine” is one of the best songs of all time, but what do people think about the “I know I know” part? It’s so bizarre because it commits so hard to phoning it in that it ends up owning it and it kind of works I think. My biggest candidate is [loving you is easy 'cause you’re beautiful](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94nDCm4NqIA) ---
**Author:** ![Nars\_Glinley](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nars_glinley/32/8177_2.png) [@Nars\_Glinley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nars_Glinley)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2021, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lazy-song-writing/955957/63 "2021-12-15T03:06:42Z")
> [@Inigo\_Montoya](#): > > > [@Ponch8](#): > > > > The line in the song goes “in the desert, you CAN remember your name… > > Guess I owe a contribution to the misheard song lyrics thread. 🙂 For over half a century my brother and I have been leery of spending any amount of time in a desert because, well.- I guess I’ll have to join you although I would contend that “can’t” makes more sense. ---
**Author:** ![Nars\_Glinley](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nars_glinley/32/8177_2.png) [@Nars\_Glinley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nars_Glinley)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2021, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lazy-song-writing/955957/64 "2021-12-15T03:07:57Z")
> [@snowthx](#): > > _I, wanna rock and roll all night, and party every day._ > _I, wanna rock and roll all night, and party every day._ > _I, wanna rock and roll all night, and party every day._ > _I, wanna rock and roll all night, and party every day._ > _I, wanna rock and roll all night, and party every day._ > _I, wanna rock and roll all night, and party every day…_ They were applying the KISS principle to lyric writing. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2021, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lazy-song-writing/955957/65 "2021-12-15T14:38:00Z")
Rock and roll Rock and roll Hey!! ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2021, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lazy-song-writing/955957/66 "2021-12-15T14:54:16Z")
> [@Inigo\_Montoya](#): > > Except the Moody Blues’ song, _You and Me_ which, grammatically, should be _You and I_ based on how the lyric is structured. Except you’d have to have a tin ear for colloquial usage to render it as “you and I.” Imagine “Me and My Shadow” as “I and my Shadow” or “My Shadow and I.” Just sounds pretty stiff, doesn’t it? Good use of English includes knowing when to use different registers which may not be “grammatically” correct according to prescriptivism, in order to effect different tones/moods. Similarly something like “I Can’t Get Any Satisfaction” misses the streetwise grit of “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction.” On the other hand, like you, I do get mildly irked by when people hypercorrect “you and me” into “you and I” in fear, I suppose, of making a school kid error, like in the Doors song “Touch Me”: “Til the stars fall from the sky/for you and I.” Just a boring rhyme, cliche image, and the “I” there is like nails on chalkboard to me. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2021, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lazy-song-writing/955957/67 "2021-12-15T19:14:04Z")
> [@XOldiesJock](#): > > “Songs she sang to me, songs she brang to me.” > Yes, brang. > Really, Neil? You couldn’t think of something to rhyme with “sang” so you just made up a word? If you include various dialects of English, this is a perfectly cromulent use of ‘brang’. [http://www.dancingonmountaintops.com/mountaintalk.htm](http://www.dancingonmountaintops.com/mountaintalk.htm) ---
**Author:** ![Guest-starring\_Id](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guest-starring_id/32/21736_2.png) [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2021, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lazy-song-writing/955957/68 "2021-12-15T22:22:22Z")
> [@Clark\_Cello](#): > > …instead just sang “cello, cello, cello”. I always smile when I hear it. Not bad poster/post combo. > [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Neil Young has written some of the best lyrics, and his “Cortez the Killer” is, yeah, a killer song. I’m sure I’ve whined somehere before about “Downtown” and “Keep On Rockin In the Free World”. > [@GESancMan](#): > > As nonsensical as most Jon Anderson lyrics are, he got this one right. > [@Inigo\_Montoya](#): > > …but you’d think just once someone would work out when to use “you and me” vs. “you and I”. April Wine’s “Just Between You and Me” would like to have a word. > [@Smapti](#): > > Tattoo by the Who, a fairly obscure song about two teen brothers getting tattooed to the consternation of their parents, ends on this… Heh, dork Robert Christgau thought the song was “worth the price of admission” for the _The Who Sell Out_ lp. > [@Kent\_Clark](#): > > And only time will tell > If we stand the test of time > > Van Halen, _Why Can’t This Be Love_ To borrow from my [Worst Lyric Rhymes Thread:](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-lyric-rhymes/949876) > [@Worst lyric rhymes](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-lyric-rhymes/949876/3): > > “It’s got what it takes” - nothing like beer ad copy in a Van Hagar song. ---
**Author:** ![Guest-starring\_Id](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guest-starring_id/32/21736_2.png) [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2021, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lazy-song-writing/955957/69 "2021-12-15T22:43:25Z")
Missed edit window: In the otherwise (I think) quite likable number _Good Morning Starshine_, I always thought the scatting at the end was phoning it in. ---
**Author:** ![jaycat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jaycat/32/3015_2.png) [@jaycat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jaycat)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2021, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lazy-song-writing/955957/70 "2021-12-15T23:26:12Z")
> [@Guest-starring\_Id](#): > > Heh, dork Robert Christgau thought the song was “worth the price of admission” for the _The Who Sell Out_ lp. One of the best songs on the only good album they ever made. ---
**Author:** ![Guest-starring\_Id](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guest-starring_id/32/21736_2.png) [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2021, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lazy-song-writing/955957/71 "2021-12-16T04:59:33Z")
Darn, I stand corrected. (Nope, not about about “Tattoo”, which I still feel has a bouquet of light green calf’s diarrhea) but with “Good Morning Starshine” - it wasn’t the scatting that was so bad as it was at the _very_ end, with all the “sing, sing a song” puffery, sounding like a placeholder. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lazy-song-writing/955957.md?page=3)