Worst opening line of song lyrics

[eschereal]

Actually, “Oh, say, can you see” is a pretty idiotic opening line. But it was a drinking song, so I guess that makes it OK.

[burpo_the_wonder_mutt]

@eschereal

Actually, “Oh, say, can you see” is a pretty idiotic opening line. But it was a drinking song, so I guess that makes it OK.

“Oh, say, can you stand?”

[Mean_Mr.Mustard]

@wolfpup

May I recommend the definitive scholarly work on this subject, Dave Barry’s Book of Bad Songs. It started as a survey of bad songs he did when he was a columnist for the Miami Herald that received such continuing overwhelming response that, well, it turned into a book.

Before the book even gets started, in the introduction and the pre-introductory warning about how these songs are going to get stuck in your head and you won’t be able to dislodge them with a crowbar, we are introduced to such gems as:

Martina McBride (and Lynn Anderson and many others) wailing the lyrics of “Rose Garden”:
I beg your PARdon,
I never promised you a rose GARden!

These aren’t the opening lyrics but I have to include them because they’re so priceless …

Neil Diamond, “I Am, I Said”:
I am, I said
To no one there
And no one heard at all
Not even the chair.
You gotta admit, there are few things as annoying as a chair that doesn’t listen when you’re pouring your heart out to it!

And of course “MacArthur Park”, which needs no further comment and was honored in Barry’s book by taking the #1 spot for “Worst songs ever written”:
Someone left the cake out in the rain
I don’t think that I can take it
'Cause it took so long to bake it
And I’ll never have the recipe agaaaaaaaain!
Oh, no!

Is this your first day on the interwebs?
mmm

[Dung_Beetle]

@wolfpup

May I recommend the definitive scholarly work on this subject, Dave Barry’s Book of Bad Songs.

By far, the funniest book I’ve ever read. I think it’s because I was just the right demographic to know almost all the songs mentioned. I’ve been delighted since then to run across the ones I didn’t know (It Must Be Him, by Vikki Carr, fucking slew me).

[BobLibDem]

Crossing the highway late last night
He shoulda looked left and he shoulda looked right
He didn’t see the station wagon car
The skunk got squashed and there you are

In case you didn’t recognize it, this is from the immortal Dead Skunk In The Middle Of The Road.

[GargoyleWB]

How about skeevy songs that have aged poorly culturally…

“She was just seventeen, you know what I mean…”

“Girl, you’ll be a woman soon…”

[LLCoolL]

@caligulathegod

(You’re) Having my baby
What a lovely way of saying
How much you love me.

+1000

Absolute dreck. Ughh.

[Lorne_Armstrong]

Summer - it turns me upside down.
Summer, summer, summer - like a merry-go-round.

[penultima_thule]

@Guest-starring_Id

“Have you heard, about the lonesome loser…”

LRB’s love of their own harmonies made them indifferent to the industrial strength saccharine lyrics of so much of their output.
I’ll see your “Lonesome Loser” and raise you “I’ll be home on a Monday”
“Can you guess where I’m calling from? The Las Vegas Hilton!” etc.

[Shodan]

@TCMF-2L

I know for many Ozzy and Black Sabbath can do no wrong…

But for me ‘Generals gather in their masses, just like witches in Black Masses’ stinks the place out.

Not a fan, but the line doesn’t really work as a reference.

If the masses are what the generals are gathering, then it doesn’t work because the witches aren’t being gathered - they are themselves gathering. If it is masses of generals gathering, then it doesn’t work because there aren’t masses of generals, only one or two.

Recognizing that precision of language is beside the point. Still…

Regards,
Shodan

PS - not an opening line, but Elton John’s Rocket Man -

Mars ain’t the kind of place, to raise your kid.
In fact, it’s cold as hell.
And there’s no one there to raise them, if you did.

There is no one there to raise them if you raise them. Oooookay.

[digs]

Okay, I shouldn’t bump a zombie (which is good advice for the Apocalypse, too)…

But I’ve got to say that even back when I was a Sabbath fan, I knew they had the stupidest rhyme of all time. That couplet that Shodan referenced had another problem besides the grammar…

Generals gather in their masses / just like witches in black masses

You can’t rhyme a word with itself! Ozzy, you can’t be scary and lazy at the same time.

[Annie-Xmas]

My, my at Waterloo Napoleon did surrender…

Wrong on so many levels, including factually.

[buddha_david]

@digs

Generals gather in their masses / just like witches in black masses

You can’t rhyme a word with itself! Ozzy, you can’t be scary and lazy at the same time.

Geez, everyone always picks on this line from “War Pigs” but they totally ignore the opening stanza from their song “Black Sabbath”:

What is this that stands before me? / Figure in black which points at me

At least “War Pigs” gets the scansion right…

[FoieGrasIsEvil]

@Don_Draper

The line “The world is a vampire” from Bullet the Butterfly’s Wing by Smashing Pumpkins always grated on my nerves for some reason.

IDK, I’ve always really liked those opening lyrics.

The world is a vampire, sent to drain
Secret destroyers, hold you up to the flames
And what do I get, for my pain?
Betrayed desires, and a piece of the game

[MonkeyMensch]

@CalMeacham

Yes!!!
I second this. For years I thought he was saying “meridian”

No, no. The line is 'I’m not talking ‘bout my Lydia’

[Guest-starring_Id]

@digs

You can’t rhyme a word with itself!

oh yes you ca-an!

quality!

[digs]

@Guest-starring_Id

oh yes you ca-an!

quality!

Okay, that was fun for the right side of my brain, but painful to the left side:

Seems he died from having too much to drink,
that’s how his truck ended up in the drink

Aaaaaargh!
The chorus shows the same degree of craft:
Texas and whiskey
funerals and Texas
whiskey and funerals
Texas and whiskey
funerals
Texas funerals