However, Billy Joel has said in interviews that the song was written while he was playing piano in a piano bar (makes sense, eh?) in California, while hiding to get out of a horrible contract.
According to Joel, everyone mentioned in the song is a real person. And he said that there really WAS a guy named Davey, how was a career Navy man.
Speaking of Billy Joel, by the way, how about his song Don’t Ask Me Why?
Yesterday, you were an only child
Now your ghosts have gone away
You can kill them in the classic style
Now you parlez vous Francias.
I’ll stand by all Dylan songs are crap, but my revulsion for
Come Monday might be a little overstated. I happen to like the tune a lot, but the cited line is absolutely awful.
I know you are, but what am I? 
OK, I’ve heard that song at least a hundred times and know all the lyrics and I STILL never noticed how goofy they are until you pointed it out. I guess everything Jack White touches turns to cool. 
I agree with Sample_the_Dog, though: the “opinions/pancake batter” lines are some of my favorite song lyrics ever.
I don’t know where you’re from, but I’m from Louisiana and I say “bu’on” – not as exaggerated as in the song, but it’s definitely not “button.” I find it’s actually the opposite with a lot of British stuff. In Elvis Costello’s “Green Shirt,” for example, there’s the line “you shine all the buttons on your green shirt.” When I sing along to it, it’s obvious how differently we pronounce “button.” I’ve noticed the same thing even with British punk.
[/hijack]
[Nitpick]
It’s “A mulatto…An albino…A mosquito…My Libido”
[/Nitpick]
Of any hit or semi-hit song the Who ever had, Happy Jack ranks at the top for the dumbest lyrics, i.e.
"The kids couldn’t hurt Jack
They tried and tried and tried
They dropped things on his back
And lied and lied and lied and lied and lied
But they couldn’t stop Jack, or the waters lapping
And they couldn’t prevent Jack from feeling happy"
Oh, and whether it’s pompatus, pompitus or pulpitudes, I don’t care if Moses collected the original reference on a tablet, it’s still a wretched lyric to a loathsome song.
Axl Rose was a terrible lyricist, and in that regard he was perfectly suited to Guns ‘n’ Roses, a terrible band. Comparing them to Clapton is silly, putting them in a sentence with Miles Davis should be a capital offense.
That’s no good because that line is obviously not meant to be taken seriously. Same for the rest of this song. I love this line, I figure it’s a Yogi Berra-ism.
Says you. I seriously considered jumping out of a moving car when I heard this song. I waited because I had trouble believing that was what he was really saying (I tuned in late to hear him sing “the ha’ist bu’in ta bu’in” 25 times). Come on, man, if you’re going to write a completely moronic lyric, have the guts to sing it so people can understand the words. It’s not an accent, he’s admitted that he tries to sing like a little kid. I can’t imagine it sounding worse than it did there.
I think it’s funny. Maybe it’s not intentionally funny, but I don’t know. Either way, it amuses me, so I can’t hate it.
Bingo. Totally stupid.
I’m not disagreeing, but how about “And there she was/like double cherry pie?” [later “disco lemonade”] Come on, guys. If you have John Lennon’s talent, you can do word salad. If you don’t, don’t.
So, SO stupid. All of it.
They made a movie called Feeling Minnesota (and Courtney Love was in it), and it’s a rule of the universe that movies named after song titles almost always suck, but I like this line anyway.
This is the first lyric I’ve heard here that I didn’t think was actually real. But apparently, it is. Wow. Every time you think you have no respect left for Zep…
There’s a lesson to be learned here: there’s a fine line between cleverness and utter stupidity, and rock lyrics have forever trod recklessly over that boundary.
God no, just taking the opportunity to pay out on my favourite bad band 
You want dumb rock lyrics? Step right up folks:
"She’s got the jack, she’s got the jack
She’s got the jack, jack, jack, jack, jack
She’s got the jack, she’s got the jack
She’s got the jack, jack, jack, jack, jack"
Thanks for that insight, AC/DC - but what was it she has, again?
What’s that, Stevie Ray? Feeling left out? Go for it:
“Yeah you really groove me baby when you move your hips
Shake it all around and change me pound for pound
I want you all the time just because
You know you really have give me a buzz”
Thanks for coming, SRV, you can go now.
I suffered A LOT during the heyday of the hair metal bands in the '80s, when it seemed everyone around me was listening . I’ve managed to block most of it out, but what stands out the most is Motley Crue (also guilty of umlaut abuse):
Now she’s bullet-proof
Keeps her motor clean
And believe me, you
She’s a number thirteen
Remembering the chorus alone of Shout at the Devil is torture enough. I won’t try to remember any other part of the song.
It’s probably unfair to list Bon Jovi, as listing their stupid lyrics would provide enough material for a whole other thread, but these in particular cause my brain to short-circuit:
Remember when we lost the keys
And you lost more than that in my back seat
And the mind-boggling
I’m a cowboy
On a steel horse I ride
I’m wanted (wanted)
Dead or alive
Erm, I don’t think so. I’d have to dig, but I’m pretty sure that one is just one of the many recycled proto-blues and early blues lines that you run across all the time. Sorta like “I got a woman, long and tall, sleeps with her head in the kitchen and her feet in the hall,” anything about “sittin’/climbin’ on top of the hill/world/etc,” “leavin’ trunk blues,” or the old “I don’t know but I’ve been told…” form. There are probably hundreds more examples.
Speaking of bad lyrics, hair bands, and abusive punctuation…
*Oh I gotta sing with some disgrace
I’m in no hurry
And I don’t know why
I don’t know why
anymore
no, no, no
Cum on feel the noize
Girls rock your boys
We get wild, wild, wild,
wild, wild, wild*
Oops, sorry, meant “spelling”, not “punctuation”. Maybe they couldn’t figure out a way to LedZep the band name, so had to settle for putting noize in a song title.
<Does Butthead voice>He said “cum”. Heh heh.
Since we’re talking Zep, did anyone mention Fool in the Rain? I didn’t think of it myself, I saw it in a different discussion about the same list. But that’s always been my least favorite Zeppelin song.
Ah, Mr Plant:
You were pumping iron
While I was pumping irony
Heaven Knows (ut won’t be held responsible)
No such band ::fingers in ears:: lalalala…
I’m a bit late to this thread lemme think about it.
Three pages and no Ynwie J. Malmsteen?
I AM A VIKING
I am a Viking
I’m going out to war
I’ve got death on my mind
As I was leaving
Oh Yesterday
I’ve got no fear in my heart.
A Line that kills me, grammatically -
“I just died in you arms tonight” - Cutting Crew
There’s a backlash a’brewin down here in Oz against Nickelback’s recent single which features lines like -
I like the dirt that’s on your knees
I like the way you still say please
While you looking up at me
You’re like my favourite damn disease…
An even “better” selection from that song:
And I love the way you pass the check
And I love the good times that you wreck
And I love your lack of self respect
While you’re passed out on the deck
I love my hands around your neck
WTF. Combine a lame-ass rhyme scheme (extra bonus points for attempting to rhyme “respect” in there) with a possible reference to abuse and/or erotic asphyxiation techniques. Lovely.
I detest that song, but I’ve found that their “Too Damn Good” song grates on my nerves just as much, so it’s not just the somewhat offensive lyrics that does it, apparently.
A couple of doozies.
Richie Valens’ Boney Maroney
I got a girl named Boney Maroney
She’s as skinny as a stick of macaroni
Oughta see her rock-n-roll with her blue jeans on
She’s not very fat she’s just skin and bones
Ouch.
Bruce Springsteen’s I’m On Fire
At night I wake up with the sheets open wide
And a freight train runnin’ through the middle of my head
Huh?
Met At Work’s Down Under
I come from a land down under
Where beer does flow and men chunder
And to think I sang this song for years not knowing that “chunder” means “to vomit”. Oh, there’s an inspirational line to make your country proud!
I think those sheets are “soaking wet”, not “open wide”. And maybe your sheets would be soaking wet, too, if
Someone took a knife, baby, edgy and dull
and cut a six-inch valley through the middle of [your] soul.
Uh, yeah…
Oh, almost forgot this gem from The Godfathers’ “Birth School Work Death”:
Been turned around till I’m upside down.
Been all at sea until I’ve drowned.
And I’ve felt torture, I’ve felt pain,
Just like that film with Michael Caine.
Btw, IMDB lists 117 films w/ Michael Caine.
This one’s easy for me. I’ve got a few examples, but the one I like to use the most is the awful Foreigner song “Feels Like the First Time.” It’s nothing more than the most banal cliches one could imagine strung together, like something a not-too-bright teenager would come up with if ordered to write a song:
I would climb any mountain
Sail across a stormy sea
If that’s what it takes me baby
To show you how much you mean to me
And I guess it’s just the woman in you
That brings out the man in me
I know I can’t help myself
You’re all in the world to me
Almost unbelievably bad, yes? Sure, there are lyrics that people just don’t like for one reason or another, but purely stupid lyrics are something else entirely.
Here are a couple that have always bugged me because of really bad grammar. Here’s Sir Paul from “Live and Let Die:”
But if this ever-changing world in which we live in…
Preposition problems there, Mr. McCartney?
And how about this from Kansas - “Point of Know Return:”
Was it you that said, “How long, how long,
How long to the point of know return?”
“You that said?” What’s wrong with the schools in Kansas? “You who said” would be much better.
I could go on. And on and on. But I’ve got work to do.