I heard a Maroon 5 song on the radio today (“One More Night”)and this particular line caught my eye (my ear?):
You and I get sick, yeah I know that we can’t do this no more
It got me thinking about other songs and their poor grammar. Most involve variations of “can’t [something] no more”.
I can’t get no satisfaction, etc.
What other songs have glaring errors?
Paula Cole’s “I Don’t Wanna Wait”:
“So open up your morning light
And say a little prayer for I”
Just a fucking horrible song.
I believed for years that people were being too hard on Paula Cole for this one, because (I thought) “I” was the end of that line but not the end of the sentence. I understood the full sentence to be “So open up your morning light and say a little prayer, for I / know that if we are to stay alive [unintelligible].”
Then when this came up in another stupid lyrics thread I actually looked it up, and discovered that not only was I wrong, but that the line is basically gibberish. “So open up your morning light and say a little prayer for I. You know that if we are to stay alive, and see the peace in every eye.”
“You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet” by Bachman-Turner Overdrive. Not only is it ungrammatical, but Randy Bachman sang it with a stutter as a joke on his brother Gary, who actually stuttered.
Meat Loaf’s “Not A Dry Eye In The House” contains the line “Act 4, you don’t love me no more!”
Meat Loaf’s “Not A Dry Eye In The House” contains the line “Act 4, you don’t love me no more!”
“Touch Me” by the Doors
Especially since it could have just as easily been “'til the stars fall in the sea / for you and me”
Much too easy if you count the song that don’t even try (“Since U Been Gone”, anyone?)
My nominee is Gaga for “You and I”. Seriously, it’s just as easy to rhyme me and it is to rhyme I.
Note that a double-negative is not necessarily a grammar error.
A Horse with No Name has the following:
Bwah? 
*In this ever-changing world in which we live in . . . *
“Live and Let Die”
I’ve mondegreened that to:
In this ever-changing world in which we’re livin’
Doesn’t make my inner grammarian all explodey. 
Aaron Tippin
There Ain’t Nothin’ Wrong With the Radio
I ain’t got nobody that I can depend on - Santana
I can’t get no satisfaction
Ain’t got no, I got life - Nina Simone
Old Man River, that Old Man River
He must know somethin’, but he don’t say nothin’
…
He don’t plant taters, he don’t plant cotton
And them that plants them are soon forgotten
R.E.M.'s “Leaving New York” included the inscrutable line “leaving was never my proud.” Of course, the band didn’t seem to be trying very hard on any part of the rather terrible Around The Sun, so I guess it fits right in with the rest of the dreck. Oh, and there was also that song by The Killers with the “are we dancer” part in it.
More from the world’s worst lyricists:
“But Oz never did give nothing to the Tin Man that he didn’t, didn’t already have.
And Cause never was the reason for the evening
Or the tropic of Sir Galahad”
“But it doesn’t mean you ain’t been on my mind”
"He flies the sky like an eagle in the eye,
Of a hurricane that’s abandoned "
“Sometimes late when things are real
And people share the gift of gab between themselves”
Anna (Go To Him) Arthur Alexander; Beatles
*“You say he loves you more than me
so I will set you free”
*
Bzzzzzzt. “You say he loves you more than he loves me, so I will set you free” makes no sense.
Has anyone bothered checking to see if these artists have a valid and current poetic license? If they do, then I’m afraid there aint nothin we can’t do.
Bryan Adams:
She says her love for me could never die
But that’d change if she ever found out about you and I