# Lyrics with a flaw **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 13, 2015, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lyrics-with-a-flaw/717597 "2015-04-13T21:15:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2015, 7:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lyrics-with-a-flaw/717597/41 "2015-04-14T07:58:13Z")
“Cotton Field,” by Creedence Clearwater Revival, has: _It was down in Louisiana, Just about a mile from Texarkana, In them old cotton fields back home._ Texarkana is a good 30 miles from the Louisiana state line. ---
**Author:** ![Scougs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scougs/32/3158_2.png) [@Scougs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scougs)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2015, 9:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lyrics-with-a-flaw/717597/42 "2015-04-14T09:38:45Z")
I’ve always been bugged by The Killers “Somebody Told Me”. Great intro, great verse. Lovely gap, a couple of drum beats. Launches into the chorus: “Somebody told me, that you’ve got a boyfriend, that looks like a girlfriend, that I had in February of last year…” Great stuff. Scans well, intrigues, draws you into the song. Where’s he going with this? This is where: “It’s not confidential, I’ve got potential”. Really? Really?? You get me all wound up wondering about this androgynous boyfriend who looks like a girlfriend? What happened in February last year? And then the denouement is “It’s not confidential, I’ve got potential”? It’s like they had a great idea, didn’t know where to go with it, and just gave up. Admit it, you started reading this post about The Killers and assumed it was going to be about Human, didn’t you? Well, this thread is about “flawed” lyrics, as opposed to “flat out bonkers” lyrics. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2015, 11:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lyrics-with-a-flaw/717597/43 "2015-04-14T11:10:33Z")
> [@WOOKINPANUB](#): > > I have a vague memory of “Hathaway” as someone who had a big hit but I can’t quite pin it down. I took a quick look on wiki but the list was pretty damn long. I feel like it was someone who had a hit with title or line that goes along with the theme of the song but I too cannot remember exactly who or what. > > Also, please to enlighten this old crone as to the meaning of MKTO? I don’t know what it means, but here’s their site: [http://www.wearemkto.com/](http://www.wearemkto.com/) ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2015, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lyrics-with-a-flaw/717597/44 "2015-04-14T11:13:32Z")
Live and Let Die: > [@](#): > > But if this ever-changing world **in which we live in** > Makes you give in and cry For the longest time I thought it was “in which we’re livin’”. But if it’s the above, well… :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2015, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lyrics-with-a-flaw/717597/45 "2015-04-14T11:49:56Z")
> [@WOOKINPANUB](#): > > I have a vague memory of “Hathaway” as someone who had a big hit but I can’t quite pin it down. I took a quick look on wiki but the list was pretty damn long. I feel like it was someone who had a hit with title or line that goes along with the theme of the song but I too cannot remember exactly who or what. > > Also, please to enlighten this old crone as to the meaning of MKTO? According to wiki, MKTO are the two gents’ initials: Malcolm Kelley and Tony Oller > [@WOOKINPANUB](#): > > I know you’re a smart cookie so you may very well prove me wrong, but it seems to me “unique” and “classic” are all encompassing descriptors on their own. Doesn’t unique mean one of a kind? It doesn’t feel right to describe something as “extremely one of a kind” because it’s, you know, \*one \*of a kind. As such, doesn’t classic mean of the highest order / quality? If something is already the highest degree, it really can’t be “_so_” because it is already as classic as it can be. Maybe I’m being not only pedantic but inaccurately so( it wouldn’t be the first time) but for some reason that line gets on my nerves every time I hear it. George Carlin: Unique needs no modifier. Very unique, quite unique, more unique, real unique, fairly unique, and extremely unique are wrong and they mark you as dumb, although certainly not unique. ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2015, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lyrics-with-a-flaw/717597/46 "2015-04-14T12:10:58Z")
Any song that reverses the order of subject and object in order to force a rhyme, Yoda-style: “And when I’m with you I feel happy inside It’s such a feeling that _ **my love I can’t hide!** _” ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2015, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lyrics-with-a-flaw/717597/47 "2015-04-14T12:12:07Z")
> [@Finagle](#): > > So let’s talk about songs where the cracks in the songwriting process show through. We’re all used to songs where the lyricist makes it seem easy – everything rhymes, the lines scan, and the metaphors are relevant. Then there are the songs that bring out the latent English teacher in us all. Songs where it’s completely obvious that the artist said “meh, good enough” and flung their pencil or iPad against the wall. > > Recently I was driving home and “Galileo” by the Indigo Girls was playing. > At which point I am invariably yanked out of the song. > > “_Litlle_ airplane”, bitches my internal English teacher. “Could you have picked a lazier adjective?” > > I’m not thrilled with the choice of the word “fool” either, but “little” is clearly a word picked solely to make the line scan. It’s so irrelevant to the process of an airplane falling out of the sky. Just about anything would be better. “Crippled”. “Fragile”. “Flaming” “Broken”. Perfect? Maybe not. But at least it’s better than the adjectival equivalent of “Fuck it, good enough, this song is just filler anyway, I’m going to go get a beer.” That’s your problem with that song? not the fact that it’s an ode to the pinnacle of wisdom, Galileo, who, when push came to shove, fucking recanted, and wrote out a long confession of all the truths of the church, most especially the one where the sun revolves around the earth, which is the center of everything? Anyway, one that always bugged me is this:9 “ **You and I travel to the beat of a different drum**.” No, no, no! That doesn’t mean what Linda Ronstadt (or whoever wrote it) wants it to mean. As written, it means that you and I, together, travel to the beat of a drum separate from that of some other (presumed majority) group. What she wants to say is that you and I march to the beats of two different drums. There are a lot of reasons to hate that song that whines “I’m proud to be an American, where as least I know I’m free,” and the least of the is that “American” is an adjective, not a place. You are not free in “American.” Please, please rewrite this: either “I’m proud to be _in America_,” or “I’m proud to be an American, _because_ at least, etc.” ---
**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 14, 2015, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lyrics-with-a-flaw/717597/48 "2015-04-14T12:16:41Z")
> [@Superdude](#): > > According to wiki, MKTO are the two gents’ initials: Malcolm Kelley and Tony Oller > > George Carlin: Unique needs no modifier. Very unique, quite unique, more unique, real unique, fairly unique, and extremely unique are wrong and they mark you as dumb, although certainly not unique. Thanks, **Superdude**. I feel \*extremely \*validated. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![campp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@campp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/campp)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2015, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lyrics-with-a-flaw/717597/49 "2015-04-14T12:18:06Z")
**Tom Petty** _Into The Great Wide Open_ Eddie waited til he finished high school He went to Hollywood, got a tattoo He met a girl out there with a tattoo too The future was wide open He met a girl with a tattoo too? :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2015, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lyrics-with-a-flaw/717597/50 "2015-04-14T12:18:15Z")
Life by Des’ree is an absolute horrorshow of a song lyrics-wise. Consider this deathless gem: > [@](#): > > I’m afraid of the dark > Especially when I’m in a park > And there’s no one else around > Ooh, I get the shivers > > I don’t want to see a ghost > It’s a sight that I fear most > I’d rather have a piece of toast > And watch the evening news You…wrote a song about that? And recorded it? And people bought it? Why? ---
**Author:** ![MrAtoz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MrAtoz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrAtoz)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2015, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lyrics-with-a-flaw/717597/51 "2015-04-14T12:36:35Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > “Cotton Field,” by Creedence Clearwater Revival, has: > > _It was down in Louisiana, > Just about a mile from Texarkana, > In them old cotton fields back home._ > > Texarkana is a good 30 miles from the Louisiana state line. Blame that one (at least partially) on Huddie Ledbetter, aka Lead Belly, who wrote and originally recorded it. Lead Belly’s version says “ten miles from Texarkana”–still wrong, but closer. [QUOTE=RivkahChaya] That doesn’t mean what Linda Ronstadt (or whoever wrote it) wants it to mean. [/QUOTE] Mike Nesmith, of The Monkees. ---
**Author:** ![Gedd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gedd/32/4938_2.png) [@Gedd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gedd)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2015, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lyrics-with-a-flaw/717597/52 "2015-04-14T13:09:47Z")
> [@Gatopescado](#): > > We could do a whole thread on _A Horse With No Name_ alone. Dang! I mean, come on, the heat was HOT! ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2015, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lyrics-with-a-flaw/717597/53 "2015-04-14T14:12:28Z")
I know I’ve mentioned this one before, but in Johnny Cash’s “The Man Comes Around” he has the line: “Then the father hen will call his chickens home.” So… that would be a rooster, right? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2015, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lyrics-with-a-flaw/717597/54 "2015-04-14T14:30:23Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > What? Of course there are degrees of both “classic” and “unique”. How could there not be? > [@Superdude](#): > > George Carlin: Unique needs no modifier. Very unique, quite unique, more unique, real unique, fairly unique, and extremely unique are wrong and they mark you as dumb, although certainly not unique. There can’t be degrees of unique. You can sometimes modify unique, and I once left a teacher speechless by saying “What about _almost_ unique”? But it can’t take a modifies of degree. When people say “Really unique,” want the should say is "Unique in a startling or unintuitive way. All numbers are unique, for example, but 2 is unique beyond just being the only number with a value of 2: it’s the only even prime number, something that requires special explanation when teaching prime numbers to third graders. Classic has more than one definition, including “belonging to the body of work produced by ancient Greece and Rome.” It may be possible to find some definition of “classic” that can be modified, but the one to OP was using cannot. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2015, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lyrics-with-a-flaw/717597/55 "2015-04-14T14:33:42Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > Life by Des’ree is an absolute horrorshow of a song lyrics-wise. Consider this deathless gem: > You…wrote a song about that? And recorded it? And people bought it? > > Why? Maybe Raffi bought it. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2015, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lyrics-with-a-flaw/717597/56 "2015-04-14T14:39:14Z")
> [@Gedd](#): > > Dang! > > I mean, come on, the heat was HOT! I know! There were plants! And birds! And rocks! And…things! Unspecified desert things! ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2015, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lyrics-with-a-flaw/717597/57 "2015-04-14T14:52:14Z")
From Talking Heads’ “City of Dreams”: **From Germany and Europe…** They could’ve plugged in “every part of” instead and not have it sound so weird. ---
**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 14, 2015, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lyrics-with-a-flaw/717597/58 "2015-04-14T14:53:51Z")
Oh, say, Mr Weeknd, why’d you have to ruin a perfectly beautiful song such as [Earned It](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waU75jdUnYw)with the use of “Ima”, as in the line “Ima care for you” ? ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2015, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lyrics-with-a-flaw/717597/59 "2015-04-14T15:02:09Z")
Sheryl Crowe’s “All I Wanna Do” “Then he lights every match in an oversized pack Letting each one burn down to his thick fingers before blowing and cursing them out” I think she meant “blowing them out and cursing” or “cursing and blowing them out…” I’m not sure whether it’s written this way, or she just sang it wrong, but I always have this mental image of the guy putting a curse on the match that causes it to go out… ---
**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 14, 2015, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lyrics-with-a-flaw/717597/60 "2015-04-14T15:03:39Z")
Not quite the same thing, but in “I just Died in Your Arms Tonight” the verse is: Her diary sits by the bedside table The curtains are closed, the cat’s in the cradle It’s not the rhyme that’s bad, it’s that he pronounces “diary” as “daria”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lyrics-with-a-flaw/717597.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lyrics-with-a-flaw/717597.md?page=4)