Little things in song lyrics that piss you off

Cafe Society
#1

C’mon, those songs are out there. The ones we love…except for that one line. Or maybe you hate it for that line. Either way, the rest of the song could be palatable without it. My choices:

Dashboard Confession “Screaming Infidelities” - There’s a line that goes something like, “this bottle of beast taking me home.”
If it is referring to what I think it is (beast = Millwauke’s (sp?) Best beer) then it seems wrong. I’ve never seen beast in a bottle, only cans. If the line refers to some other “beast” then I don’t have a problem. Nor do I if bottles of beast exists…but I’ve never seen them before. Myabe I need to be in Millwauke.

Unkle Craker “Follow Me” - Granted, the whole song is…odd and weird, but the line “swim through your veins like a fish in the sea” is just plain disturbing! Any girl who gets turned on by a guy saying that has issues!

#2

There’s a line in the Stones’ “Sister Morphine” that goes “sweet cousin cocaine, put your cool,cool hand on my head”. I never liked that line although I love the song. I found out recently that Marianne Faithful contributed that lyric.

#3

With regards to Uncle Kracker’s song, that one line gave me the impression that it’s about heroin, or maybe some other drug. If I remember correctly, the rest of the lyrics kinda support that, too. But I may be off.

#4

George Harrison, when he sang the line “I got my mind set on you”. Oh wait, I think that is the only line in the song!

#5

Have not heard the song, but do you suppose you could be mis-hearing “this bottled-up beast?” Would make more sense and sound more graceful.

Note to Ed from Live: the word “placenta” is never, never to be used in a song lyric, no matter how pretentious you are.

#6

“This song is just eight words long,
This song is just eight words long …”

Re: Uncle Kracker (or whatever) … I’ve never heard the song, but this isn’t that hard to grasp. You see, most lyric writers prefer to use something we like to call poetry to get their points across. Poetry often uses metaphors, and not all metaphors deal with sunshine and lolipops.
I believe what our dear uncle is saying is that he loves this person so much, he would like it if she were addicted to him as though he were a drug.

Disturbing? Yes. But deep too, in that I just smoked a quarter ounce by myself kind of way.

#7

I somewhat like the song ‘Alive’ by Christian Rock band POD, but there is one part that pisses me off.

The part that bugs me is that last line, the whole ‘Christians are persecuted’ thing gets on my nerves. The only thing you can lose these days from talking about your faith is a bit of respect from a small minority of people. Like it or not, Christians are not persecuted anymore, more often than not Christians are the persecutors. They had to ruin a song I otherwise like by exhibiting one of the most annoying traits of religious people.

#8

Not so much a lyric but pronunciation - in the Brandy/Monica song “The Boy Is Mine”, one of them (Monica?) sings “From the truth you can’t ex-cape”. Oh, that’s a fingernails down the chalkboard moment for me.

I really like Train’s “Drops of Jupiter”, but it’s not a song you listen to for the lyrics. I tune most of them out, but this one always bothers me:
“Tell me, did you fall for a shooting star
One without a permanent scar”
One without a permanent scar is my vote for worst line ever.

#9

Couple… first in that horrible, horrible, highly annoying drivel What if God Was One of Us: The part about how “would you want to see Him if seeing meant you had to believe…” That’s not exact, but more or less how it goes. It strikes me as the most idiotic “deep faith question” one could ask. I mean… DUH!

The other one that irritates me is a line from Mad Man Moon A Genesis song I otherwise love: “I flew to places which the clouds never see…” AAAARRRRGH! It’s “that” for crying out loud! Is “The clouds never see” a dependent clause? NO! So why are you using “which”!!?? It doesn’t make you sound more sophisticated, it makes you sound like an idiot! And don’t give me crap about the artists vision; a simple change from “which” to “that” would have no effect other than to make the phrase grammatically correct, and to make me stop cringing whenever I hear that line.

Pant, pant, pant… I’m done. Usually a little grammatical slip is fine in poetry/music. It’s freer than normal written English. But for crying out loud, it’s such a little thing, that could so easily be fixed. And “that” just sounds better! Yeesh.

#10

Attention lyricists of the world:

“Self” does not rhyme with “else.” Got that? "Self " does NOT rhyme with “else.” Don’t EVER use that rhyme again.

P.S. “Self” DOES rhyme with "shelf, but I forbid you ever to use THAT one again, too.

#11

More notes for lyricists: Fire/Desire.

IT’S BEEN DONE! AND DONE! AND DONE! Come up with something more original, please!

#12

Ah, ** Kyomara** that makes much more sense. Maybe I’ll actually go look up the lyrics right now…nope, all the places I go to have “bottle of beast.” Rats, almost had a rational explaination!

ANd I wholehearadly agree with you on Live. I had to have listened to “Lightning Crashes” about fifty times before I finally convinced myself he was saying placenta.

#13

I’m glad nobody’s mentioned my chief irk yet…

No matter who sings it, whenever a singer utters the line “Inside of me” in a song, it always, ALWAYS comes out sounding like “In Sodomy”. This has ruined many an otherwise sweet love song for me.

#14

The grammatical failings of “I am Woman” offends me far more than its politics.

#15

In response to the Christian thing…actually, they are still persecuted, but in places I doubt POD would ever go (China springs to mind).

Anyway, the real point of this thread…
Rhyming “Goodbye” with “Cry”
I really prefer to hear “pieces” used when NOT followed up with “of my heart.” (Yay Tool!)
Rappers/Heavy metallers/people in general who obliterate of perfectly good song by gratuitously saying “fuck” or something else offensive.
Any song wherein the people in the song rip on another musician/music group/style
Any song wherein the lyrics directly reference the band (Much as I like Metallica, the line in Whiplash was NOT James Hetfield’s shining moment as a lyricist)

#16

Oh, oh, to build on ThePyroWeasel’s post, that one song from that band… ehh… Three Doors Down. If I Could Be Like That. Where the singer repeatedly sings ‘If I could be like that’ as the chorus. It sounds exactly like he’s repeating the mantra ‘fuck me like that.’ It doesn’t ruin the song for me though, it just makes me laugh hysterically every time I hear it.

Too bad it’s not on the radio any more, you could see what I mean. Every time I told someone about that when the song was coming on, they’d go ‘nahhh, it doesn’t sound like that.’ Then when he sang the chorus they’d say ’ :eek: you’re right!’

#17

The one line that really bugs me is from “Free Fallin’” by Tom Petty:

It’s a long day, living in Reseda
There’s a freeway running through the yard…

Umm, excuse me, THERE IS NO FREEWAY IN RESEDA!!! And if Tom Petty is from So.Cal, he should know this!!

#18

There is one song that I can think of where this ambiguity adds to the lyric. In Tool’s song “Prison Sex,” Maynard sings “Release inside of me…” Or, well, it might be “sodomy.” But since the rest of the song’s about sodomy, it doesn’t really ruin the song.

#19

Yeah, the thing with the persecuted-Christian lyrics is not that Christians are not persecuted; they are, but the folks writing the songs or listening to them are not being asked to give up their lives or anything. To me, it seems to cheapen the experiences of those who ARE killed for their faith.

The line “the horns are there to stay” in “She’s Some Kind of Wonderful” kind of disturbs me; the rest of the song sounds pretty upbeat and bouncy, but I don’t like that part. Is the song supposed to be like Faust or something?

And what does “if you see her on the street don’t try to juice her” mean in “The Little Old Lady from Pasadena” (old song I think)?? Race her? It’s about a lil’ ol’ lady who’s a terror on wheels. Makes my mom laugh. :slight_smile:

#20

Yes. YES!!!

An Ambrosia song comes immediately to mind (shut up, I was raised in the 70s):

Need your love here beside me
Even close enough to guide me
From the fears that are in sodomy,
You’re the biggest part of mee-ee-ee…"