What songs with incomprehensible lyrics do you love?
I heard Beck’s Loser the other day and it reminded me of one of my favorite nonsense lyrics
And my time is a piece of wax falling on a termite
It’s choking on the splinters
Then we’ve got REM’s What’s the frequency, Kenneth?
I know it’s about the 1986 assault on Dan Rather, but man, what a weird song
Richard said, “Withdrawal in disgust is not the same as apathy” A smile like the cartoon, tooth for a tooth You said that irony was the shackles of youth
You wore a shirt of violent green, uh-huh
Although you could list REM’s entire catalog here.
She said, ‘I’m home on shore leave,’
Though in truth we were at sea
So I took her by the looking glass
And forced her to agree
Saying, ‘You must be the mermaid
Who took Neptune for a ride.’
But she smiled at me so sadly
That my anger straightway died.
Chrimson and clover, over and over. Chrimson and clover, over and over. CHRIMSON AND CLOVER, OVER AND OVER. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . yah! Ba da da da da da!
About half of David Bowie’s collection, and all of the Cars.
Have been the un-American?
Just you and your idol sing falsetto
'Bout Leather, leather everywhere, and
Not a myth left from the ghetto
Well, well, well, would you carry a razor
In case, just in case of depression?
Sit on your hands on a bus of survivors
Blushing at all the Afro-Sheeners
It almost makes sense. You want it to make sense. You feel a fool because it just makes no sense, but you won’t admit it.
The Cars
If the illusion is real
Let them give you a ride
If they got thunder appeal
Let them be on your side
or
Edge of night, distract yourself
Obstacles don’t work
Homogenize
Decentralize
It’s just a quirk
They have entire albums of that. And I love it all.
Or Whiter Shade of Pale
She said, ‘There is no reason’
And the truth is plain to see
But I wandered through my playing cards
And would not let her be
One of sixteen vestal virgins
Who were leaving for the coast
And although my eyes were open
They might have just as well’ve been closed
It’s just random sentences strung together. Thye don’t even make them rhyme.
Bonus:
Long Cool Woman In A Black Dress
It’s not the lyrics are obscure when you look them up, but the way they sing it makes it unintelligible at any speed.
And this, despite the fact that Procol Harum had a band member (Keith Reid) whose sole role in the band was writing lyrics. I blame it on the fact that it was 1967, and a combination of (a) drugs and (b) attempts to be profound and metaphorical.
Oh, it was all the rage in those days. Also Robert Hunter and whoever the guy was with Elton John, I forget his name. “It’s just a box of rain” … “There ain’t no shoe strings on Louise”… etc., etc.
The song’s title is actually Your Move and is (loosely) referring to a chess game.
Most of the lyrics for *A Change Would Do You Good" supposedly come from individual random lines written on slips of paper that were the drawn from a hat:
Good one! My mom used to sing that to me, along with that other famous nonsense song, Mairzy Doats
“Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey
A kiddley divey too, wouldn’t you?”
The first thing I thought of when I saw the thread title is De Do Do Do , De Da Da Da
by The Police, though it’s mostly the title / chorus that’s nonsense.
