Dumb Lyrics in Hit Songs - Page 2

I loved them so much more when you couldn't understand what he was saying.

I'm paraphrasing because I can't find a link, but Buck once said, "I would never tell Michael how to write lyrics, and by the same token I would hope he'd never tell me how to play the guitar" or something similar.

One of my favorite grammatical wtf?s comes from the bridge of the Ronettes' "(Walking) In the Rain":

It just cracks me up how determined Spector, Mann, and Weil were to make that rhyme.

That's why I prefer Oran "Juice" Jones' perfected version!

(I saw you)
Hey hey baby how ya doin' come on in here
(Walking in the rain)
Got some hot chocolate on the stove waiting for you
Listen first things first let me hang up the coat
(You were holding hands and I'll)
Yeah how was your day today
Did you miss me
(Never be the same)
You did? Yeah? I missed you too
I missed you so much I followed you today
(I saw you)
That's right now close your mouth
'Cause you cold busted
(Walking in the rain)
Now just sit down here, sit down here
I'm so upset with you I don't know what to do
(You were holding hands and I'll)
You know my first impulse was to run up on you
And do a Rambo
(Never be the same)
I was about to jam you and flat blast both of you
But I didn't wanna mess up this thirt-seven hundred dollar lynx coat
So instead I chilled -- That's right chilled
I called up the bank and took out every dime.
Than I cancelled all your credit cards...
I stuck you up for every piece of jewelery I ever bought you!
Don't go lookin' in that closet 'cause everything you came here with is
packed up and waiting for you in the guest room. What were you
thinking?
You don't mess with the Juice!
I gave you silk suits, blue diamonds and gucci handbags.
I gave you things you couldn't even pronounce!
But now I can't give you nothing but advice.
Cause you're still young, yeah, you're young.
And you're gonna find somebody like me one of these days . . .
Until then, you know what you gotta do?
You gotta get on outta here with that alley-cat-coat-wearing,
punch-bucket-shoe-wearing crumbcake I saw you with. Cause you
dismissed!
That's right, Silly rabbit, tricks are made for kids, don't you know
that. You without me is like corn flakes without the milk! This is my
world. You're just a squirrel trying to get a nut! Now get on outta
here. Scat!
Don't touch that coat...

An all-time classic of WTF lyrics:

I'm still waiting for instructions on how precisely one would Wang Chung tonight.

Coincidentally, I tried again on my morning commute to listen to U2's "All That You Can't Leave Behind." I think I've only made it through the entire album about 3 times. Lyrics may be one of the problems. From the song "New York":


They make sense so maybe they don't belong in this thread. But lord that song is lyrically awful.

BrianM: I don't know if 'New York' or some of the other entries in here should really count, though. The thread is specifically for dumb lyrics in HIT songs. 'New York' was pretty much a filler song on an unremarkable album, as I recall.

True story, or so according to a friend of mine. When she was in college a sketchy guy who had a crush on her gave her a mix tape to take home over a break. She got on the highway, popped it in, and the first song was Swayze's "She's Like the Wind." She popped the tape out and chucked it out the window.

WHAT?!? Instead of playing it for laughs for, like, everyone she knows?

Her action was arguably safer for all involved.

I am I said
to no one there
and no one heard at all
not even the chair

I mean really, the chair?

and I just wanted to add for this from an earlier comment about the song Africa
Sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti

I believe they probably were generally talking. Said "hey what words should one avoid in a song" and then took it apon themselfs to write a song in which not only do the words Kilimanjaro, Olympus, and Serengeti appear, but they all appear on the same line in the song. Its genius!

That song also contains one of the best bad verses ever:

Hey, don't fuck with Neil, man.

Could be. I remember hearing that Cole Porter wrote "Miss Otis Regrets" on a dare from a friend to use that title (which is pretty goofy). Kind of like Dr. Seuss limiting himself to 50 words in Green Eggs and Ham.

Most of the time, if I enjoy a tune I can ignore the lyrics entirely if they are strange or don't make sense. But Papa Roach's Last Resort is an exception. Perhaps because the song really isn't even that good, but normally I wouldn't have any trouble ignoring the lyrics to a tune like that. For Last Resort, I HAVE to change the radio station. It just bugs the shit out of me.

"Cut my arm bleeding"? What the fuck does that even mean? Like your blood leaps out of your veins and slices through your flesh?

I'd also like to nominate the chorus of Leona Lewis' hit single "Bleeding Love":

UGHHHHH. Not only is the line itself painfully cliche, but the repetition turns the lyrics into a form of chinese water torture.

The first dozen or so times I heard that, I thought it was something about "breathing." It's actually not a terrible pop song, lyrics aside, but that chorus is a head-scratcher. And messy-sounding.

Someone did a version of this where the woman in the song responds. She tells him off and leaves. It was brilliant.

It's not a hit song, but I'd like to nominate the first to lines of Fear's I love Livin in the City:

My house smells just like a zoo
It's chock full of shit and puke!

Every time I hear that I think: "Well, clean it the fuck up!"

And now for a word about Manfred Mann's Earth Band*:

Everybody enjoys scratching their heads over being "revved up like a deuce" or "wrapped up like a douche" or any number of other HILARIOUS interpretations, but I love singing along with that song (a) because I'm old, (b) because the tune is catchy, and (c) because the nonsense lyrics actually kind of mean something when you just let them wash over you.

*it's their version that I think most people know. I've never owned the original Springsteen version and really need to fix that.

Yeah, you really do. Mann had a way with removing all of the fun and looseness from Springsteen's early material (not just "Blinded by the Light") and replacing it with annoying, fussily overproduced melodrama. The worst part is that classic rock radio stations play his versions far more often than Springsteen's.

Also, Springsteen pronounces "deuce" correctly, so there's that.

Not a hit, but The Ramones' "Every time I eat vegetables, it makes me think of you" is the maybe my favorite genius dumb line of all time.

Anyone remember how drastically that song was censored on MuchMusic? I don't know if the record company edited it for MTV and Much had to play that version (Canadian TV is usually more lenient than American), but dude. Seriously.

They bleeped the word "resort". I'm not even fucking kidding.

The Storyteller version is kinda awesome as well. (Thanks for pointing it out to me, Dave)

I can top that. They piped in music where I used to work, and one of the songs that was in rotation for a couple of months was Nickelback's 'Figured You Out'. Sure, it's a terrible song, but the edit for it always made me laugh.

Did they edit out the reference to 'white stains on your dress'? NO
Did they edit out the reference to being 'down on your knees'? NO

The only edit was the word PANTS: 'I love your _____ around your knees'.

So, there you go. The word PANTS is offensive.

*sniffle*

I think you can just add every Nickelback song to this thread.

Rath had a point. Less Nickelback and Papa Roach and more dumb-like-a-fox lyrics (like Prince and Steinman) and surprisingly dumb lines in otherwise great songs.

And it's HIT songs. Not some filler from the end of the disc.

I have to defend Bleeding Love a little. Lewis is no slouch, and it's one of those songs that is produced, but not overproduced as to hide a singer's lack of talent. I like the melody, and I'll admit that if I had to listen to it for an entire summer, it'd get old, fast, but it's one I still enjoy. My taste is suspect, though.

That said, this cover is pretty awesome.

I mean, it's fun as hell to sing (I admit to that, this was a high school dance mainstay), but what in god's name is he talking about in this one? And do I let it pass because I think it's being deliberate in its absurdity?

I think Chickety China is a Canadian Chinese food chain of some kind.

And the repetition of the chorus isn't all that different from Sting repeating "Sending out an SOS" at the end of "Message in a Bottle".

From here.

It's not the repetition that makes it odd, though. It's the bleeding imagery, which is kind of gross and incongruous for a big, radio-friendly love ballad. I give the songwriter credit for maintaining the blood/wound metaphor throughout, though.

I like that little musical quote from "Stand By Me" that the Mystery Jets throw in. Cute.

I've got a soul but I'm not a soldier.

That's a pun.

Riding on the range.
I've got my hat.
On.
I've got my boots.
Dusty.

I've got my saddle.
I've got my horse.
He's called T-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-Trigger.
Of course.

Yeah, the repetition is something that gets to me as an individual listener, but that isn't what qualifies it for 'dumb lyrics' - it's the lyrics themselves, which are, as noted, gross and incongruous (and the sort of thing that bad poetry is almost always composed of). Melody has nothing to do with it either. It's a hooky song, no doubt, but the lyric is crap.

It's a painful lyric that makes me want to punch kittens, which they have decided is so clever it needs to be repeated over and over.

Shooting fish in a barrel here:

"One look from you and I would fall from grace
And that would wipe the smile right from my face."

From overdramatic to "meh" in two lines.

This is a good place to ask about Squeeze's "Up the Junction" because I don't know if it's a dumb lyric of if I'm a dumb listener. The entire song is set up like this tale of long-lost love, how he met this girl and they moved into the basement and he worked all through the winter and had a daughter ("within a year a walker") and finally she leaves him (SPOILER!). But right there in the middle of the song he sings about the birth of his girl "This morning at 4:50" etc. etc. That one lyric is unstuck in time from the rest of the song. Is it dumb, or am I?

Every single Limp Bizkit song ever.

Yeah, I think everyone gets the pun. It's that it doesn't make any sense, unless there's some ongoing cultural perception of soldiers specifically having soul (it's generally quite the opposite, I'd think). A play-on-words that doesn't play effectively on the meanings of those words may technically be a pun, but it's not a very good one.

Compare this to one of the master of pop puns, Elvis Costello, in "Man Out of Time": "'Cause the high heel he used to be has been ground down/
And he listens for the footsteps that would follow him around."

heel = "a contemptibly dishonorable or irresponsible person"
OR
heel = "a solid, raised base or support of leather, wood, rubber, etc., attached to the sole of a shoe or boot under the back part of the foot"

You throw "high" in front of it, and you get a specific kind of heel on a woman's shoe, plus a particularly awful, dishonorable person.

Whatever amity I had for that song went down the toilet with that awful Southland Tales video. Much like the video (and the movie), I get the feeling that the pun thinks it's smarter than it is.

I guess one might read the pun as a repudiation of the "I support our troops, and, by proxy, whatever war they're in" sentiment, in that you don't necessarily have to be a soldier to have an informed and conscientious opinion about a war. That reading does bring a lot of external baggage into the pun, though.

I walk these streets.
A loaded six-string on my back.
I play for keeps.
Cause I might not make it back....

When on tour, it's not all drugs and pussy. You're knee-deep in the shit my friend.

I think you mixed up "dumb" with "badass".

Yeah, "That morning at 4:50" would scan better, and fit with the rest of the timeline.

Why, in "The Lady Is A Tramp", does she think that California is "cold and damp"? OK, sometimes parts of it are, but that's true of just about anywhere, and it's not what most people think of when you mention California. Is the idea that she's dismissing the whole state on the basis of being cold and damp because she's some high-society dim-bulb who doesn't know any better? Or is Lorenz Hart making some subtle point that's eluding me?

Come on. That's poetry.

Ke$ha has done it again. Her new radio song 'Blah Blah Blah' features these blah-tastic lyrics:

Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

Coming out your mouth with your blah blah blah
Just zip your lips like a padlock
And meet me at the back with the jack and the jukebox
I don't really care where you live at
Just turn around boy and let me hit that
Don't be a little bitch with your chit chat
Just show me where your dick's at

Music's up
Listen hot stuff
I'm in love
With this song
So just hush
Baby shut up
Heard enough

Stop ta-ta-talking that
Blah blah blah
Think you'll be getting this
Nah nah nah
Not in the back of my
Car-ar-ar
If you keep talking that
Blah blah blah blah blah

Boy come on get your rocks off
Come put a little love in my glove box
I wanna dance with no pants on, holla
Meet me in the back with the jack and the jukebox
So cut to the chase kid
'Cause I know you don't care what my middle name is
I wanna be naked
But your wasted

Music's up
Listen hot stuff
I'm in love
With this song
So just hush
Baby shut up
Heard enough

Stop ta-ta-talking that
Blah blah blah
Think you'll be getting this
Nah nah nah
Not in the back of my
Car-ar-ar
If you keep talking that
Blah blah blah blah blah

You be delaying, you always sayin' some shit
You say I'm playin' I'm never layin this di...
Sayin blah blah blah cause I don't care who you are
In this bar it only matters who I am

Stop ta-ta-talking that
Blah blah blah
Think you'll be getting this
Nah nah nah
Not in the back of my
Car-ar-ar
If you keep talking that
Blah blah blah blah blah

Blah blah blah
Think you'll be getting this
Nah nah nah
Not in the back of my
Car-ar-ar
If you keep talking that
Blah blah blah blah blah
Ohh
Blah Blah Blah
Stop talking
Stop ta-ta-talking that

and to think, this dumb bitch makes more money than a doctor or astronaut. Beardy Jesus wept.