Well there’s always the all time classic “Everybody have fun tonight / everybody Wang Chung tonight” …
That’s right, Comfortably Numb, it’s from Girl.
The one that currently makes me cringe is Counting Crows cover of Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi”. They changed the line “Late last night I heard the screen door slam, and a big yellow taxi took away my old man” to
Listen, late last night, I heard the screen door slam
And a big yellow taxi took my girl away
Why he didn’t just say took away my girl…which would have at least kept the rhythm of the song going instead, that clunker of a phrase (which is much worse sung then written).
Uhm…‘took away my girl’ is not anything like the proper rhythm of that line.
Plus it sounds awful even when it’s spoken, rather than being shoehorned into a line it’s just not meant for.
Everyone has already mentioned the worst songs, so I can only add this lame example that’s been bugging me for a few days now.
It’s a new song by Train, I think. The song as a whole is dippy and inane but these two lines in the chorus just really irritate me for some reason.
I won’t give up,
If you won’t give up.
It sounds A LOT worse if you actually hear it. It’s as if the songwriter just got lazy while writing the chorus and just jotted down the first thing that popped into his head. It just sounds so clunky.
My biggest song pet peeve is for Bob Seger’s Rock And Roll Never Forgets, for the very first line:
So you’re a little bit older and a lot less bolder
Than you used to be
Gah!! Definitely cringeworthy.
The Corrs have some outright Yoda-isms:
[q]Was it a lie right from the start
Answer, answer me do…
[/q]
…
Oh, and from Alanis Morrisette’s “Thank U” (which is vometic from the outgo for employing the Sk8ter Boi/Nothing Compares 2 U lamer speech from hell):
"how 'bout getting off of these antibiotics
how 'bout stopping eating when I’m full up
how 'bout them transparent dangling carrots
how 'bout that ever elusive kudo[/q]
What?
Oh, god. You just opened a whole barrel of lyrical craps.
I was going to select a few choice quotes, but I think I’ll save everyone’s time by linking to the lyrics for “Drops of Jupiter.”
Oh, hell, I have to quote the bridge:
And
“Meet Virginia”:
I think the dangling carrot line is about this form of gardening where the ammount of moisture in the air enables plants to grow while not being in soil…or something like that. In any event, something is done so that the plants can grow suspended in the air. I saw this at a zoo several years ago IIRC, and the plants roots were sort of weirdly transparent. If that’s something I dreamed and my brain barfed back up, just ignore this. It’s possible, and it’s happened before).
If I’m right about the whole air gardening thing, Alanis would be alikening a discovery most people would find unbelievable to things she’s recently achieved in her life that are equally amazing for her to think about. Her getting off of antibiotics is every bit as amazing as the (possibly non-existant) transparent dangling carrot thing. Regardless, a weird lyric, but I sort of like it.
Ah, thanks. That makes more sense now. In my uneducated state, that line made about as much sense as ‘How about those uneducated extraneous polar bears’.
Nothing wrong with that line; deliberate tautology has been a popular lyrical technique for many centuries. Likewise for inexact rhymes.
Here’s a line from Billy Joel:
She can’t be convicted; she’s earned her degree.
Always puzzled me.
Can I nominate all of Bob Carlisle’s “Butterfly Kisses”? Not only is it a horrible piece of glurge, it’s also creepy in a “bad touch” kind of way:
Butterfly kisses after bedtime prayer
Stickin’ little white flowers all up in her hair
“You know how much I love you daddy, but if you don’t mind,
I’m only going to kiss you on cheek this time.”
:eek:
Also, parts of “One” as sung by Filter. The whispered beginning is okay, but it’s when they swing into Angry Alternative Mode™ to sing
IT’S JUST NO GOOD ANYMORE SINCE SHE WENT AWAY!
NOW I SPEND MY TIME JUST MAKING UP RHYMES OF YESTERDAY!
that my cringe muscles involuntarily activate.
To add to what Orange Skinner said: It’s possible the line you highlighted is also intended to play off the concept of “transparent dangling carats”, as would be found in diamond pendants. Or maybe I’m just giving Alanis too much credit for cleverness…
At any rate, kudos is a singular, as opposed to plural, noun. So singing of an “ever elusive kudo” is akin to speaking of one molass.
Here’s a classic http://www.lovedungeon.net/humor/dave/the_bad_song_contest_iii.html]Dave Barry column on the topic of this thread.
I thought the “transparent dangling carrots” line refered to the old metaphor of a horse chasing after a carrot dangling from a rope tied to the end of a stick over the horse’s head, so that the carrot is forever out of reach. I figured the line meant catching on when she was being led on or used, the motive for putting “the carrot” there becoming obvious or transparent. In other words: not being a sucker.
I mentioned this in the thread about songs we can’t stand, but the line: “I love you like a fat kid loves cake,” from “21 Questions” by 50 Cent send me up the wall; proof of his lack of talent. Ladies, would you consider it romantic if someone said it to you? Even the girl at work who gripes about my “hating on” 50 Cent all the time agrees it’s a bad line.
The new Train song is called “Calling All Angels”, and they do seem to be headed down the road to sappy ruin like Collective Soul. Although I always liked the “smokes a pack a day…” lines. It was funny.
Jim Morrison’s lyrics lose their appeal without the Doors to back him up. Whenever someone calls him a poet, I direct them to listen to Nico’s version of “The End” from 1974. Stripped of cool backing music it sounds like the bad high school English class poetry it is. If Morrison is a poet, then Nipsy Russell should be our poet laureate.
“Cracklin’ Rosie makes me smile…” Neil Diamond. Who is Rosie and why is the poor girl cracklin? Is she on fire? Is Diamond some kind of pyromaniac who doused Rosie in gasoline and set her alight and is now smiling in maniacal glee while she writhes in fiery agony.
Yeah, me too.
Another Jim Morrison gem:
I’m gonna love you 'til the stars fall from the sky, for you and I.
What kind of a poet can’t think of a rhyme for “me?”
Jim Morrison didn’t write “Touch Me.” Robbie Krieger did.
I always wondered that myself til I read recently that he was referring to that abomination of cheap liquor (if it can be called that) called wild irish rose here is a link to the an article on it.
http://www.drugs.indiana.edu/publications/iprc/factline/high_potency.html