HEY, I just remembered Paula Cole… “Open up your morning light, say a little prayer for I.” I’m saying a little prayer that you find a more appropriate and grammatical rhyme for “light.”
Oh, that irritates the crap out of me! Why would she actually consider this acceptable? Paula, did you even try? How about, Now open up your tiny mind / And think of other words that rhyme?
See now, that sucks, but it only took me about twelve seconds to think of it.
I don’t know if they’re the worst lyrics ever, but the Turtles’ “Elenore” always seemed to me to be somewhat lazily written. A couple of examples:
I really think you’re groovy
Let’s go out to a movie…
Okay, it was the 60s and “groovy” was in common parlance, but this just looked like a way to squeeze “groovy” into a song lyric with a rhyme of some kind. Still, it’s not as bad as one of the subsequent lines:
You’re my pride and joy, et cetera…
Yes, they actually sing et cetera in the song. But in spite of the lyrics, the song peaked at number 6, so the listening and buying public didn’t seem to let the lyrics worry them too much.
I usually read these threads and think Dopers are just too literal-minded about song lyrics. But everything here so far really does suck, except for the Spinal Tap lyrics.
Spoons, I’ve never actually heard this song, but I seem to remember, when it was mentioned before, someone piped up and said the song was intended to mock other romantic songs… it is intentionally vague and uninspired.
These lyrics are all making me crack up though.
And O how I heart Madonna and defend her as profoundly misunderstood, but her little rap breakdown in ‘‘Mother and Father’’ makes me embarrassed. This is how she chooses to express her traumatic childhood, following the death of her mother when she was five:
*I cried and cried and cried all day
Until the neighbors went away
They couldn’t take my loneliness
I couldn’t take their phoniness
My father had to go to work
I used to think he was a jerk*
I don’t agree with the Spinal Tap either- “Big Bottom” is genius, especially the double meaning of “how could I leave this behind”
Another Beach Boys classic from Brian Wilson’s demented period- the homoerotic paean to Johnny Carson contains the following gems:
He sits behind his microphone
John-ny Car-son
He speaks in such a manly tone
John-ny Car-son
Ed McMahon comes on and says “Here’s Johnny”
Every night at eleven thirty he’s so funny
Don’t you think he’s such a natural guy
The way he’s kept it up could make you cry
And the fade out-
Who’s a man that we admire?
Johnny Carson is a real live wire.
Ugh. And this from the guy who wrote Good Vibrations, etc
How many of things on this list are your favorite:
Raindrops on roses
Whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles
Warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
Cream colored ponies
Crisp apple strudels
Doorbells
Sleigh bells
Schnitzel with noodles
Wild geese that fly with the moon on their winds.
Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes
Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes
Silver white winters that melt into Springs
Every single rock song ever that’s decided that the way to make a real impact is to say the same line or two over and over and over and over and over. The one I’ve noticed the most is “The Hand That Feeds” - mostly because I used to really lust after Trent Reznor, and now I have to change the radio station halfway through the song, because it’s just the same damned two lines for the rest of it.
Will you bite the hand that feeds you
Will you stay down on your knees
For a bit over two minutes. ARGH. Stop! Enough! I get it! I will bite the hand that mixes if you don’t quit!
I can’t help myself, every time I hear that song I sing it as, “Every rose has its thorn / Just like every night has its dawn / just like every metal band has a pussy song.”