# 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:** 4
**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, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lyrics-with-a-flaw/717597/61 "2015-04-14T15:15:50Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > 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”. That’s funny; I never noticed the pronunciation but I would \*definitely \*call it a bad rhyme. What the hell is it even supposed to mean in this context? Assuming he’s not speaking of an actual feline in a crib I can only conclude that he just picked a random word to rhyme with table, which of course cradle does not :smack: The whole song is odd, though I do like it. ---
**Author:** ![cjepson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a9adbd/32.png) [@cjepson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cjepson)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2015, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lyrics-with-a-flaw/717597/62 "2015-04-14T15:18:18Z")
“Go Back” by Crabby Appleton is one of my favorite songs from 1970. But it does contain this one bit of poetic license: \*Now you look good to me Still, I can’t help but see You’ve been thinking of him all the time And you know it’s not right When you kiss me tonight You’re pretending his lips are mine\* No, you’re pretending my lips are his. ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2015, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lyrics-with-a-flaw/717597/63 "2015-04-14T15:20:03Z")
> [@wolfman](#): > > Its the kind of writing he wrote you would come up with in second grade while walking up to the teacher’s desk to turn in the assignment you forgot about till 5 minutes ago. _All_ of Steve Miller’s lyrics sound like they were written by a particularly unimaginative 2nd grader. And they didn’t improve with time, either; the lyrics from his latest stuff are just as trite and vapid as from his earliest work. ---
**Author:** ![Nonsuch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nonsuch/32/2922_2.png) [@Nonsuch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nonsuch)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2015, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lyrics-with-a-flaw/717597/64 "2015-04-14T15:22:41Z")
There’s a different category of bad lyric: the not enough words spread over too much song syndrome. Best example I can think of is Chicago’s “Beginnings.” I actually like this song a lot, but the lyrics do not pull their weight. Consider these lines: _When I kiss you I feel a thousand different feelings. The color of chills All over my body_ Leaving aside whatever “color of chills” are, there is so much room in the arrangement that Robert Lamm has to stretch these words to ridiculous length; a transcription for how he sings that last “body” might go something like “BAH-day, ay, ay, AY, ay-ye-ay, ay-ye-ay, ay-ye-ay.” That’s fourteen syllables if you’re counting. For gods sake, think of some more words. ---
**Author:** ![cjepson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a9adbd/32.png) [@cjepson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cjepson)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2015, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lyrics-with-a-flaw/717597/65 "2015-04-14T15:34:07Z")
I also love “You Make Me Feel So Good” by the Zombies, but the bridge goes like this: _So good, so good, don’t have to justify why I feel so good, so good, so good Never thought could be so good to me_ Yeah, “never thought could be so good to me”. Oh well. Then there’s Dylan’s “You Ain’t Going Nowhere”. The chorus ends with the line “Down in the easy chair”, and every verse ends with “You ain’t going nowhere” – except the last verse: _Now Ghengis Kahn he could not keep All his kings supplied with sleep We’ll climb that hill no matter how steep When we get up to it_ Why not “When we get up _there_”, which would have rhymed with every other last line in the song? Just being Dylan, I guess. ---
**Author:** ![Finagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2015, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lyrics-with-a-flaw/717597/66 "2015-04-14T15:55:06Z")
> [@Ethilrist](#): > > 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… Can’t blame Sheryl Crowe for this one – [she famously found the lyrics to the song while browsing through a used book store.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyn_Cooper) And “blowing and cursing them out” probably falls on the side of “clever” rather than “awkward”, as it slightly violates the reader’s/listener’s expectations. Or maybe she just sang the lyrics wrong, I dunno. One thing that’s becoming clear in this thread is that there’s a fair amount of “chacun a son gout” (literally, “each to his own goo”) to lyrics. For some people, a given lyric is like a poke to the eye while other people either don’t mind it or actually think it works. ---
**Author:** ![xizor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xizor/32/102_2.png) [@xizor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xizor)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2015, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lyrics-with-a-flaw/717597/67 "2015-04-14T16:14:15Z")
Bruce Springsteen is an all american boy from New Jersey and should know his baseball terms. > [@](#): > > I had a friend was baseball player, back in high school. > He could throw that **speed-ball** by you, make you look like a fool. Almost any type of pitch you can think of, fast-ball, curve-ball, screw-ball, would work in that line but Bruce has his friend throwing drugs at batters? 😕 ---
**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, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lyrics-with-a-flaw/717597/68 "2015-04-14T16:16:28Z")
> [@Finagle](#): > > Can’t blame Sheryl Crowe for this one – [she famously found the lyrics to the song while browsing through a used book store.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyn_Cooper) And “blowing and cursing them out” probably falls on the side of “clever” rather than “awkward”, as it slightly violates the reader’s/listener’s expectations. Or maybe she just sang the lyrics wrong, I dunno. I always heard that line as “before blowing and crushing them out.” ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2015, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lyrics-with-a-flaw/717597/69 "2015-04-14T18:41:23Z")
> [@Ethilrist](#): > > 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… Actually, it sounds like he’s blowing out his fingers, since \*them \*is a plural pronoun and _every match_ and _oversized pack_ are both singular. The only plural noun in there is _fingers_. ---
**Author:** ![fachverwirrt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/94ad74/32.png) [@fachverwirrt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fachverwirrt)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2015, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lyrics-with-a-flaw/717597/70 "2015-04-14T19:00:19Z")
_Them_ has been used as a singular pronoun since Shakespeare. It’s time to accept it. ---
**Author:** ![dataguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/eada6e/32.png) [@dataguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dataguy)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2015, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lyrics-with-a-flaw/717597/71 "2015-04-14T19:04:02Z")
> [@Finagle](#): > > BTW, even though everyone gives him mega grief about it, I’m giving Neil Diamond a pass on “And no one heard at all, not even the chair”, because that has always conjured up for me some poor, lonely, song-writing bastard living in a rented squalid hellhole furnished only with a rickety kitchen chair he dragged home from the curb one day. The fact that “chair” happens to rhyme with “there” is probably purely serendipitous. Well, you may give him a pass for that one, but I’m not so charitable with this one from Play Me: _Song she sang to me Song she brang to me_ Brang. BRANG??? Look, I know he was looking for a rhyme with the next two lines: _Words that rang in me, Rhyme that sprang from me_ But that doesn’t earn a pardon from me. He could have done: _Song she’d sing to me Song she’d bring to me_ Or: _Song she taught to me Song she brought to me_ Or even: _Song she’d sung to me Song she’d brung to me_ …and then reworked the rest of rhyme scheme. Yeah, I looked it up and there are references to Old English, and such. But, to my ears, the only context where that word would fit is something like: “Woman, brang me a beer.” On the other hand, I will excuse the entirety of MacArthur Park because: drugs. ---
**Author:** ![dataguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/eada6e/32.png) [@dataguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dataguy)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2015, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lyrics-with-a-flaw/717597/72 "2015-04-14T19:07:11Z")
In the ChiLites “Have You Seen Her?” _Why, oh, why did she have to leave and go away_ See, I could take her leaving. But, why did she have to leave **AND** go away? ---
**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, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lyrics-with-a-flaw/717597/73 "2015-04-14T19:13:28Z")
> [@xizor](#): > > Bruce Springsteen is an all american boy from New Jersey and should know his baseball terms. > > Almost any type of pitch you can think of, fast-ball, curve-ball, screw-ball, would work in that line but Bruce has his friend throwing drugs at batters? 😕 He doesn’t know much about cars, either. From Racing in the Streets: I got a sixty-nine Chevy with a 396 Fuelie heads and a Hurst on the floor “Fuelie” heads are small block heads, so named because they came on fuel injected Vettes. They won’t in any way shape or form fit a 396 big block. Unless…he’s saying he has the heads on the floor…like as ballast. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2015, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lyrics-with-a-flaw/717597/74 "2015-04-14T19:48:17Z")
> [@WOOKINPANUB](#): > > 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” ? …but…but…Baby, Im-a want you. Baby, Im-a need you! ---
**Author:** ![panamajack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/47e85d/32.png) [@panamajack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panamajack)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2015, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lyrics-with-a-flaw/717597/75 "2015-04-14T19:50:21Z")
> [@Mixolydian](#): > > You consider me the young apprentice, > Caught between the Scylla and “Char-by-dis” > > :smack: Is this the published lyrics? It’s not the most distinct, but I can’t hear anything other than “Charybdis”. > [@Shoeless](#): > > 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? This is a Biblical reference, specifically to a quote that appears in Luke & Matthew. > [@Jesus](#): > > O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! Which is itself echoing the book of Jeremiah, in which God warns that he will destroy Jerusalem for not listening to him. Since God is so often portrayed as a male figure, ‘father hen’ makes sense, though it is a bit abstruse. ---
**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, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lyrics-with-a-flaw/717597/76 "2015-04-14T19:52:26Z")
> [@Typo\_Negative](#): > > …but…but…Baby, Im-a want you. Baby, Im-a need you! I had totally forgotten about that little gem. Thannnnnnnks **Typo** , that’ll be a fun ear worm to have. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2015, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lyrics-with-a-flaw/717597/77 "2015-04-14T19:54:36Z")
> [@fachverwirrt](#): > > _Them_ has been used as a singular pronoun since Shakespeare. It’s time to accept it. Not when it’s not clear what you’re referring to. ---
**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, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lyrics-with-a-flaw/717597/78 "2015-04-14T20:26:20Z")
> [@panamajack](#): > > Is this the published lyrics? It’s not the most distinct, but I can’t hear anything other than “Charybdis”. Yep, it’s String trying to show off his erudition. Could he say “rock and a hard place” instead? Sure, but it’s not as high brow. More like something the Rolling Stones would use. And I bet they never used “Mephistopheles” or “alabaster” in their lyrics! ---
**Author:** ![Doug\_Bowe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/df788c/32.png) [@Doug\_Bowe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doug_Bowe)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2015, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lyrics-with-a-flaw/717597/79 "2015-04-14T20:26:34Z")
“Once Upon A Time” has the following lyric that’s interesting: Once upon a hill We sat beneath a willow tree Counting all the stars and waiting for the dawn But that was once upon a time Now the tree is gone. Willows don’t grow up on hills. They grow down by the water. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2015, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lyrics-with-a-flaw/717597/80 "2015-04-14T21:24:32Z")
> [@Shoeless](#): > > 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? 😕 Maybe it was a rooster named Sue, and he’s confused. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lyrics-with-a-flaw/717597.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lyrics-with-a-flaw/717597.md?page=5)