# Lines you hate in a song you like **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 18, 2018, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lines-you-hate-in-a-song-you-like/812654 "2018-04-18T18:09:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanub/32/132_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUB)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2018, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lines-you-hate-in-a-song-you-like/812654/61 "2018-04-20T12:49:33Z")
> [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](#): > > Disagree 100%. I know \*exactly \*what he means. > > The line is perfect. > mmm As do I; the line works for me also. In my mind’s ear I imagine it being “_if_ you know what I mean” but online lyrics say differently. Either way, I think it’s pretty obvious that it’s not just thrown in there to rhyme (unless it’s being sung by Dustin Hoffman). This does however remind me of another clunky line. Avril Levine’s Sk8terboi: “He was a boy, she was a girl Can I make it anymore obvious?” Whaaaa? Make _what_ more obvious? It might work if it wasn’t the first line in the song and there was an “it” established. All the same, in context I understand it, just like the aforementioned Beatles line. ---
**Author:** ![x-ray\_vision](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/x-ray_vision/32/351_2.png) [@x-ray\_vision](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/x-ray_vision)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2018, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lines-you-hate-in-a-song-you-like/812654/62 "2018-04-20T12:50:42Z")
> [@FoieGrasIsEvil](#): > > I love that song, and if you put that line within the context of the lyrics that precede it: > > … > > Like a pinch on the neck of Mr. Spock Sure, “on” the neck of Mr. Spock works fine. But as DWMarch wrote, it’s “from” the neck of Mr. Spock (regardless of what lyrics found on the Internet claim). ---
**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:** [April 20, 2018, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lines-you-hate-in-a-song-you-like/812654/63 "2018-04-20T14:16:02Z")
> [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](#): > > Disagree 100%. I know \*exactly \*what he means. > > The line is perfect. One of the greatest rock couplets in history, I’d go so far to say. ---
**Author:** ![PlumBob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@PlumBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlumBob)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2018, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lines-you-hate-in-a-song-you-like/812654/64 "2018-04-20T14:20:10Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Yeah, the original BJ Thomas version, without the Ooga Chacka part, is so much better. What did surprise me recently, though, is that the Blue Swede cover that we’re all familiar with is not the first Ooga Chacka version. [Jonathan King](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNLo7OzNd_Q) was responsible for that particularl arrangement. Sooo much Ooga chaka! Jonathan King has a serial killer vibe, wow. ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2018, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lines-you-hate-in-a-song-you-like/812654/65 "2018-04-20T14:36:35Z")
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**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2018, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lines-you-hate-in-a-song-you-like/812654/66 "2018-04-20T14:43:03Z")
> [@Kimballkid](#): > > It’s a weird line but it doesn’t really work with the music to say ‘eating a chili dog’. How about “chewing on a chili dog?” Or “choking down a chili dog?” ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2018, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lines-you-hate-in-a-song-you-like/812654/67 "2018-04-20T14:50:45Z")
> [@PlumBob](#): > > Ooga chaka from Hooked on a feeling. Doesn’t fit the song at all Back in the pre-internet, before we understood urban legends, when all we has was crappy radios without good sound, the story was that the lyric really was “who got sucked off”. Subversive! Snuck it right past the censors. > [@astorian](#): > > Eric Clapton’s “Wonderful Tonight” is ruined by that last verse when she has to drive his drunk ass home and drag him to bed. The romance is lost. I always picture the last use of the line with Clapton staggering in, barely able to stand, and with slurred, alcohol scented breath. Like when drunks say “you’re my beeesssssttt frieeeend.” ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2018, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lines-you-hate-in-a-song-you-like/812654/68 "2018-04-20T14:56:04Z")
In Annie Lennox and Fran Walsh’s song “Into the West,” which won an Oscar for Best Original Song in _LOTR: Return of the King_, Lennox sings: _Hope fades Into the world of night Through shadows falling Out of memory and time…_ Which seems too pessimistic to me, given the message of the film. I would rewrite the first two lines thus: _Hope grows Against the world of night Through shadows falling Out of memory and time…_ ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2018, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lines-you-hate-in-a-song-you-like/812654/69 "2018-04-20T16:28:19Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > In Annie Lennox and Fran Walsh’s song “Into the West,” which won an Oscar for Best Original Song in _LOTR: Return of the King_, Lennox sings: > > _Hope fades > Into the world of night > Through shadows falling > Out of memory and time…_ > > Which seems too pessimistic to me, given the message of the film. The song was partly written for the film, but the lyrics were also partly inspired by the death from cancer of a young NZ filmmaker who was a friend of Peter Jackson’s. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2018, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lines-you-hate-in-a-song-you-like/812654/70 "2018-04-20T17:01:03Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Eric Clapton’s “Wonderful Tonight” is ruined by that last verse when she has to drive his drunk ass home and drag him to bed. The romance is lost. I think it makes the song because he is not talking about a hypothetical person who he has a perfect relationship with but his current wife who is great to him even though he is a drunk. It makes it real and self effacing. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2018, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lines-you-hate-in-a-song-you-like/812654/71 "2018-04-20T17:03:36Z")
> [@DWMarch](#): > > I thought Pinball Wizard by The Who was a great song until it was pointed out to me that this was not a tale of a deaf, dumb black kid overcoming racism by impressing the crowd with his pinball skills but rather a deaf dumb blind kid WHO HAS NO FUCKING BUSINESS PLAYING PINBALL! He can’t even see what he’s doing! He’s just mashing buttons! Plays by sense of smell… smell of bullshit. > > I love the Beastie Boys and I would like Intergalactic if not for the pinch from the neck of Mr. Spock. I can’t unhear that and it bugs the shit out of me every time. > > Can’t say I like the song but there’s one that mentions “Have you seen my ghost?” Wouldn’t be much of ghost if I could see it now, would it? > > There’s also a song that I hate about a guy who sings about being “down by the river… I’m a sinner… sinner for love.” So he’s either a stalker or a child molester then? Tommy is a not actual deaf, dumb, and blind. He is an abuse survivor who has hysterical blindness, deafness, and muteness because of his trauma. All of his senses work but he is cut off from them except when he plays pinball. ---
**Author:** ![ZonexandScout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zonexandscout/32/544_2.png) [@ZonexandScout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZonexandScout)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2018, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lines-you-hate-in-a-song-you-like/812654/72 "2018-04-20T17:35:26Z")
> [@WOOKINPANUB](#): > > I thought the line is “. . . in which _we’re livin_” 😕 Not according to most lyric sites and the way I hear it. And Mr. McCartney was more likely to add “r” sounds than take them out when singing (“…but I never sawr them at all…”). ---
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanub/32/132_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUB)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2018, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lines-you-hate-in-a-song-you-like/812654/73 "2018-04-20T17:47:31Z")
> [@ZonexandScout](#): > > Not according to most lyric sites and the way I hear it. And Mr. McCartney was more likely to add “r” sounds than take them out when singing (“…but I never sawr them at all…”). I just meant that’s what _I_ thought; it’s true, most lyric sites do say it’s “…we live in”. Also, when the “r” comes at the _end_ of the words, our Limey friends tend to _not_ pronounce them 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Levolor\_the\_Blind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/bc8723/32.png) [@Levolor\_the\_Blind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Levolor_the_Blind)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2018, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lines-you-hate-in-a-song-you-like/812654/74 "2018-04-20T20:16:38Z")
Shake Sugaree “Have a little secret I ain’t gonna tell I’m goin’ to heaven and I ain’t goin’ no…” The ellipses have me screaming out, “Hell! Just say it!” Otherwise I love the song. ---
**Author:** ![Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mean_mr.mustard/32/3865_2.png) [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2018, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lines-you-hate-in-a-song-you-like/812654/75 "2018-04-21T00:02:16Z")
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**Author:** ![DavidwithanR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3bc359/32.png) [@DavidwithanR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidwithanR)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2018, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lines-you-hate-in-a-song-you-like/812654/76 "2018-04-21T02:27:05Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > Back in the pre-internet, before we understood urban legends, when all we has was crappy radios without good sound, the story was that the lyric really was “who got sucked off”. Subversive! Snuck it right past the censors. I don’t think it sounds like that at all, and it just doesn’t seem like that good of a line that you’d want to work hard to incorporate it. But I don’t think it has to stand for any words at all, because it does do a not-all-that-bad job of sounding like a bed that’s … ummm, oscillating at a relatively fast rate. 🙂 Whether that’s how it was originally intended or not is none of my business. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Dobbs](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Dobbs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dobbs)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2018, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lines-you-hate-in-a-song-you-like/812654/77 "2018-04-21T03:17:19Z")
Not a line, but a whole verse… Grateful Dead, [Looks Like Rain](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UPW5nZ7G3xs). It starts off - _Awoke today, felt your side of the bed; The covers were still warm where you been layin’. You were gone, oh gone, my heart was filled with dread; You might not be sleeping here again._ Later you get the second verse - _Did you ever waken to the sound of street cats making love? You guess from the cries you were listening to a fight. Well you know, oh know, hates the last thing they’re thinking of. You know they’re only tryin’ to make it thru the night._ ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2018, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lines-you-hate-in-a-song-you-like/812654/78 "2018-04-21T03:34:30Z")
> [@RikWriter](#): > > The song was partly written for the film, but the lyrics were also partly inspired by the death from cancer of a young NZ filmmaker who was a friend of Peter Jackson’s. Hmm. Consistent with Tolkien’s writings, all the more reason to hold onto hope, and not to describe its fading, I’d say. ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2018, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lines-you-hate-in-a-song-you-like/812654/79 "2018-04-24T05:02:53Z")
from Crosby Stills Nash and Young’s “Teach your children well”: _“Teach your children well, Their father’s hell did slowly go by, And feed them on your dreams The one they **picks,** the one you’ll know by”_ Why the fuck is there an “s” on the word picks? That’s the kind of grammar mistake which only a foreign speaker makes, say, when learning English in middle school. ---
**Author:** ![california\_jobcase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9d8465/32.png) [@california\_jobcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/california_jobcase)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2018, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lines-you-hate-in-a-song-you-like/812654/80 "2018-04-24T05:44:20Z")
“The one they pick’s the one you’ll know by…” Pick’s is serving as a contraction of “pick is”. Anyway, I hate the line in _ **Behind Blue Eyes** _: “nobody bites back as hard on their anger” since it should be “his anger.” I got an F on a college theme for two “everyone…their” type mistakes and a superfluous comma. Roger deserves to be graded just as harshly!! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lines-you-hate-in-a-song-you-like/812654.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lines-you-hate-in-a-song-you-like/812654.md?page=5)