That entire song is inane beyond belief. They knighted him for taking Taupin’s idiotic lyrics (here and elsewhere) and making them into very catchy (and sometimes quite moving) songs.
[sub]“Wo-ho, you’re my cheddar cheese girl/ You’re soft and firm, and you go well with wine…” :D[/sub]
Before we begin, I’ve got to stress that I love New Order. Great music, really, some of the best music ever written. The things they did for dance music, for alternative music are amazing.
But, really, did they have to use lyrics like:
You may think that I’m out of hand
That I’m naive, I’ll understand
On this occasion, it’s not true
Look at me, I’m not you
(from Regret)
or, even worse:
I don’t wanna be like other people are
Don’t wanna own a key, don’t wanna wash my car
Don’t wanna have to work like other people do
I want it to be free, I want it to be true
(Turn My Way)
Both good song, just silly lyrics.
I hate it when someone rhymes lie with alibi.
Invariably, they seem to think the words mean the same thing.
I told no lies, no alibis
Word to the wise, alibis can be truth.
The Pretender by Jackson Browne. Not a bad song, but there’s just not that many good rhymes for the word “pretender”.
“Sender” - that’s OK; “legal tender” - hmmm; “begin and end there” - bit of a stretch; 'ice cream vendor"?!? Oh, for God’s sake, give it up already, Jack.
I almost forgot, somebody’s * bangin’ a fender* in there, too.
That’s correct, the lyric is a direct reference to the Whitney Houston song which faced a lot of derision in Urban music circles, mainly because there aren’t a heckuva lot of African-American women named Susan running around.
Btw, unless En Vogue did their own version of the song on their own, it was actually a Salt-N-Pepa song on which En Vogue was featured. En Vogue sang the chorus, Salt-N-Pepa rapped the verses. The “he knows my name is not Susan” line was provided (in the only version I’m aware of) by Salt-N-Pepa member/DJ Spinderella, whose real name is actually Dee Dee, which I hope her man would know. 
Is that really what he’s saying? I’ve seen it written like this, or variations of it, everywhere. People quote it like these are the real words.
Why is it, then, that what I hear is “In the Garden of Eden” ?
*I got my mind set on you
I got my mind set on you
I got my mind set on you
I got my mind set on you *(50x, or so)
But it’s gonna take money,
A whole lot of spending money.
It’s gonna take plenty of money
Need I say more?
Billy Joel’s line Honesty is hardly ever heard.
The correct title is “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.” It did in fact start out as “In the Garden of Eden,” but songwriter Doug Ingle was drunk when he sang the song to the rest of the band and he slurred the words. Evidently they all liked it that way–it does give the song a kind of “what the heck does that mean?” hook–so “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” it remained.
Odd… I always thought that the lyrics were supposed to sound like Spanish translated into English – note the extra-sibbilant S sounds at the ends of the words.
I think the most forced rhyme is by LL Cool J (I always thought it was bizarre that he bragged that he wrote his own rhymes when they were so horrible).
What the hell??? Did she expect him to apply the lotion with the peach?
Beatles song. I think its, “Girl,” off Rubber Soul, but don’t quote me on that, 'cause I forget exactly.
If you listen to the back-up vocals at one point, the rest of the guys are singing, “TIT TIT TIT TIT TIT TIT TIT!” I think its the back-up vocals for the part where he sings, “When she says she’s looking good she acts as if its understood she’s cool.”
Lennon talked about it in an interview later on, he was laughing wildly about it.
I suspect you meant to say “pompatus”. Uncle Cecil’s review of In Steve Miller’s “The Joker,” what is “the pompatus of love”?, which appeared in Triumph of the Straight Dope, notes that varinats include “pompitous” and “pulpitudes”.
Show me the way to go home
“Wherever I may roam / On land or sea or foam”
I assume it’s supposed to mean the foam on the seashore (i.e. everywhere = land, sea, and the interface between the two) but to me it’s as meaningless as “land or sea or emulsion”.
And there’s “If I were a carpenter”
“If I worked my hands in wood / Would you still love me”
If I for some bizarre reason carved a wooden copy of my hands?
And don’t get me started on the dire rhyme in “Summer (The First Time)”:
“sipped on a julep … looked at her two lips” (which I always hear as tulip/tulips).
Rick Springfield, Jesse’s Girl:
“Ya know I feel so dirty when they start talking cute
I wanna tell her that I love her but the point is probably moot”
WTF?..
Maybe you’ve seen the Simpsons episode in which Bart makes it “In the Garden of Eden” by I. Ron Butterfly to confuse the reverend.
–Wait a minute. This sounds like rock and or roll.
from www.dictionary.com:
moot (n)
Dippy as the song itself is, that lyric makes perfect sense.
Rick Springfield actually rhymes “cute” with “moot.” I think that’s what bothers people about the song.
Let the Good Times Roll has the line: Let them brush your rock and roll hair.
This lyric makes me picture a bunch of groupies gathered backstage after the show with their sophisticated brushing apparatus poised, ready to be plunged deep into the bandmember’s frizzy rocker hair…again…and again…the groupies moaning with every brushstroke, the moans intermingled with amplified brushing noises…brushing harder…and harder…until the groupies reach orgasm and collapse in a sweaty mass of hair and hair brushes, utterly spent. It’s just weird. I mean, who does that?
Yesterday I was trapped in a car for 12 hours with my six-year-old cousin and her mother on return trip from NC to Ohio. My cousin wanted to listen to her Lizzie McGuire soundtrack. We listened to the whole thing, and the one song contains the lyric, “why not…take a crazy chance…why not…do a crazy dance.” Yeah, I know, it’s pop music for children, it’s going to be awful, but that line struck me as really, really, up-standingly awful. It was, “oh, these rhyme, let’s use 'em” songwriting. Had the songwriter only gone one further, to “Why not…take a crazy chance…why not…stab someone with a lance,” this song might have leapt into the top 100 of my Favorite Songs Ever countdown. Alas.