I’ve got one name for ya: Robert Calvert. (Warning: Music plays when you open the pages, and the sound encoding is kinda crappy.)
Sweet Honey in the Rock has one in the same vein (sorry about the pun). I think it’s called “More Than a Paycheck.”
We bring home asbestosis, silicosis
brown lung, black lung disease
One of my favourites:
From Genesis’ Return of the Giant Hogweed. As a matter of fact this song also features “herbicidal batterings”, and not least, “heracleum mantegazziani”.
Mr. Crowley by Ozzy uses the word polemically.
If I recall the story correctly, Ozzy got a book that Alister Crowley once owned from Jimmy Page. The book was signed by Crowley and had a quote that it was ‘polemically sent’.
Slee
I’m trying to figure out how you guys missed sacroiliac from Blondie’s Rapture.
Before this thread dies I have to post this. I’ve always loved the words Happy Rhodes uses. There aren’t any truly amazing ones like “sacroiliac” or “transsubstantiate” but a fairly cursory look at her lyrics gave me this list, which I alphabetized. It’s nowhere near complete.
airborne
analyzed
anon
asunder
atmosphere
banality
behalf
birthright
brier
brood
cadence
captivity
carcinogens
cellophane
chariot
charisma
circuitry
circumstances
clarify
coffined
collide
compelled
complex
comply
complying
comprehend
conquered
consequence
cowslips
cranium
craze
criteria
crucified
deafening
declaration
defiled
deliverance
describing
directive
discretion
disgrace
dismembered
disrepair
dragonfly
drears (her plural of dreary)
dwindle
encompass
endurance
entities
entity
erased
eroded
escapades
explode
extinction
facades
faring
fatal
feeble
festers
fierce
fleeting
flinching
formulating
freckles
funnyfarm
gender
genetic
genius
gloom
harbors (as in “[Who/what] harbors my individuality?” )
harlequin
hereafter
hindered
hindsight
hooves
hydrosphere (my 3rd favorite)
idiocy
immunities
impeccably
inert
infesting
insanity
instinctively
interactions
intimidate
invade
legacy
legitimate
linear
loathe
lobes
lunatic
luxury
maim
malignant
marvel
melded
mildew
mingle
misfired
moats
mortal
mortar
naivete
nocturnal
nonexistent
oberon
oblige
oblivious
oozing
oversight
ozone
parallel
paralyzed
paranoia
parasites
pathetic
penchant
pensioners
periphery
petty
phobos
pillars
pitiful
pleading
podium
precision
predisposed
presence
prey
prod
profanities
proprietor
psychopath
quickening (as in “quickening pace” not the womb thing)
rainkeeper
rearrange
reciprocity (my favorite)
refuge
regardless
representative
requiem
resolve
rewind
roam
rupture
sardined
savours
schemes
searing
self-destruct
sentinel
serenading
serenely
serum
simplicity
slumber
sordid
specieism (my second favorite)
spectrum
strobes
structure
sublime
suseptible
swifter
synergy
tantrums
terrain
thorough
titania
tombstone
tragic
transparent
tundra
ultimately
unbridled
unfounded
unreal
utmost
vagabond
vagueness
variations
ventured
vibrant
vile
virus
vultures
wallow
warpaint
wary
wavered
wretches
yearning
Plus the phrases
“brutal simplicity”
“culture-shocked”
“lob of spirits”
“practical consideration”
“sappy wimps”
“tarry on”
“time whiles by”
“to and fro”
Steely Dan
“never gonna do it withouth the **Fez **on”
“Tobacco they grow in Peking
In the Year of the Locust
You’ll see a sad thing
Even Cathy Berberian knows
There’s one roulade she can’t sing” from your gold teeth
"After closing time
At the Guernsey Fair
I detect the El Supremo " from show Biz kids
“When you put me on the Wolverine
Up to Annandale
Oleanders growing outside her door
Guadalajara won’t do” from My old school
thats just a couple tracks, they serioulsy use some strange phrases (and the elusive Oleanders way back in the 70’s) in their tunes.
Cake does quite a bit as well. TMBG are off in bizzaro land. you could drop Iron Maiden into the mix, I sincerely doubt there has ever been another band or artist who ever even considered using (forgive the spelling) Kwizatch haderach in a song.
nice topic though kinda fun
You’re just jealous, dead-guy boy.
Tim Rice’s show “Blondel” contains a lot of them, but I can’t find a link. From the Assassin’s Song:
All that I am here today I owe to my family
That is why I don’t have family here today.
They were tortured in the orchard.
It was messy with fruit but I have improved since then.
Being naugh-tay is my faugh-tay.
A quick look didn’t find him, but forgive me if I missed it. Tom Lehrer uses wonderfullty weird words, inclyuding rhyming “duck-billed playtus” with “Oedipus” in “Oedipus Rex” He also uses, in various songs:
**Maelstrom
masochism
genuflect
abdomen
transubstantiate
simultaneus
uranious
Hottentot
**
and many others, including the name of every element known at the time.
Allan Sherman used quite a few odd ones, too –
**Hippopotami
transistor
**
My goodness. Another Bonzo Dog Band fan on the board, finally. 
Other uncommon words in Bonzo lyrics:
tickertape
mustachioed
binoculars
sideboards
ennui
gorgonzola
chilblains
Nimrod
supersonic
pre-fabricated concrete coal-bunker
exuberance
serviettes
uproot
benefactor
hexachloraphine
The band Spahn Ranch even have a song called “Infrastructure”.
The weirdest ones I know are from the band 16 Volt in the song “Skin”. The chorus is:
“Out of focus
Wanting pith
Higher locus
Bowers of bliss
This skin.”
Merle Haggard: I’m proud to be an Okie from Maskogee
Kinky Friedman: I’m proud to be an Asshole from El Paso.
Kinky also wrote:
Ride, ride 'em Jewboy
Ride them all around the old corral.
I’m, I’m with you boy
If I got to ride six millon miles
Keep on Chooglin’
Chooglin on down to New Orleans/Born on the bayou
OK, now I have to share my own :smack: . Your quote reminded me of Stan Rogers’s Fisherman’s Wharf, which I and apparently quite a few on-line sites thought said something like:
I saw percanegan concrete and glass
right down to the water line
I have heard an old song down on Fisherman’s Wharf
Can I sing it just one time
But apparently there is no such word and according to other sites, its should be “Upper-Canadian”. I’ll have to give it a more careful listen! :o
Two more from Bad Religion:
One of my favorites:
From the bottom, it looks like a steep incline
From the top, another downhill slope of mine
But I know, the equilibrium’s there
(Faith No More: Falling to Pieces)
Flanders and Swann used it first:
The bold Hippopotami began to convene
On the banks of that river so wide
More from Flanders and Swann:
inamorata
ignoramus
antepenultimate
terminus
horsepower
omnibus
okapi
hartebeast
gnu
bedstead
skirting boards
Your joists are full of dry-rot
Electrician
glazier
blowtorch
putty
High decibel gain
congnac
armagnac
referendum
Equipoise… lots of words there. Some fairly unremarkable, I would argue. Like “tragic.”
I almost forgot to mention OMD’s “Genetic Engineering.” I’ll wager that that phrase never turned up in pop music before.
Yeah, now that I google the lyrics, the line I was hearing as “syncophants” seems to be generally interpreted as “save your friends.” Is there an official lyric sheet?
X-Ray Spex also wrote a song called “Genetic Engineering.”