Prince has to be among the champions of this type of thing. I’m a huge fan, and his music’s mostly great, but if he’s ever written a good lyric I must have missed it.
Wow, couldn’t disagree more. I think Sweet Child of Mine’s lyrics are pretty good, at least for Guns n Roses.
OK, so you’ve made your point…where do we go, now? Where do we go? Where do we go? Where do we go? Where do we go?
“Gangnam Style.” In the original Korean, an English speaker might get the idea he’s singing something political and satirical. But the translated lyrics are all “Baby, let’s make it, yeah!”
Icona Pop - “I Love It”.
“I got this feeling on a summer day when you were gone…” - hey, this song’s kind of catchy.
“I crashed my car into the bridge. I watched, I let it burn…” - wait, what?!
LOL - you’ve reminded me of a comment I read years and years ago, pointing out that the George Harrison Beatles song, “Blue Jay Way” ironically repeats the phrase “don’t be long” something like 43 times.
Sheryl Crow was on Colbert the other night and she was talking about her latest album, which is country. She said that in her opinion you can’t hide bad lyrics in country music like you can in rock.
I’m sure that’s an exaggeration (I know little about country and I’m sure those who know more can certainly show examples of horrid lyrics in country songs) but it definitely is true that there’s a lot of crap lyrics in rock music. Makes me appreciate Rush all the more. 
Going back to Blurred Lines in the OP - the song that it immediately reminded me of was Bowie’s TVC-15. Not so much the music, but the odd cadence it’s sung in.
“Run For Your Life” by The Beatles comes to mind. A nice little upbeat song about murder.
I’d rather see you dead, little girl, than to be with another man
You’d better keep your head, little girl, or you won’t know where I am
You’d better run for your life if you can, little girl
Hide your head in the sand, little girl
I catch you with another man, that’s the end
Little girl
In a related note, my sister hates “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” so much that it wakes her up out of a sound sleep.
That part wasn’t the best, but I think it worked in the song. But the verses were pretty good. I love the line “She got eyes of the bluest skies as if they thought of rain.”
“Every Hungry Woman” by the Allman Brothers is one of their classic driving bluesy power ballads, but the lyrics are some guy taunting a woman who’s been driven to prostitution by poverty and having lots of kids. Sick stuff, really, all the more so for its totally conscience-free hypocrisy.
I thought that the song was totally awesome, but, I think that the repetition made it akin to putting the Mona Lisa on display at a McDonald’s.
Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run, there’s still time to change the road you’re on.
To pick another current example, the lyrics to the song “Cups” are kind of nonsensical but I still like listening to it.
Thank you. I thought I was the only person in the world who had noticed this.
In the odd lyrics department, Capital Cities’ current bouncy hit “Safe and Sound” includes the couplet “Even if we’re six feet underground / I know that we’ll be safe and sound” which makes me think this should be a Grateful Dead tune.
Me, I’m no fan of the music in that song, either. A good portion of it is the same two or three notes over and over again. (I dig the “la-la-la” part, though.)
I’m reminded of something a stand-up comedian once said about “A Horse With No Name”.
“You’re in the middle of the desert. You’ve got nothing else to do. NAME THE DAMN HORSE!”
Another song that comes to mind, because I heard it while walking at the mall today: .38 Special’s “Second Chance.”
It’s not a love song either.
You messed up, and she’s gone. Get over it. :dubious:
Bob Dylan’s 1979 album Slow Train Coming was renowned for being musically awesome, if you could only shut out the lyrics.