BEST SONG with the WORST LYRICS

i'm thinking something by either new order or ac/dc

haha I was going to post "whatever it is, it's by New Order"

love is the air that supports the eagle

the recorded output of duran duran

whichever oasis song one likes best

Bon Scott wrote great lyrics!

I'll vote for "War Pigs" or "Light My Fire". I was tempted to pick Darkthrone's "Over Fjell Of Gsennom" for the, you know, advocacy of genocide but i) it's not like I can actually understand the lyrics as sung and ii) it's not my favourite song on Transilvanian Hunger.

Pretty much every EDM, Techno, House song ever. Best songs, worst lyrics through and through.

Except for maybe this one:

https://www.google.com.mx/amp/s/genius.com/amp/Darude-sandstorm-lyrics

Lets try that again

www.genius.com/Darude-sandstorm-lyrics

War Pigs is a good example. You seriously couldn't find a second word to rhyme with "masses"?

One more time:

https://genius.com/Darude-sandstorm-lyrics

You seriously couldn't find a second word to rhyme with "masses"?

This used to bug me, but now I'd be angry if it had been written any other way.

Because it's such a good song that you can get on board with the bad lyrics?

Bee Gees have a lot of will-this-do lyrics, at all stages of their career.

Close to the Edge

That's the most glaring example but the whole thing is pretty messy, although the basic conceit of war as a Satanic ritual is inspired. "Time will tell on their power minds"? "In the fields the bodies burning/As the war machine keeps turning" is a bit strained too, although tbf rock songwriters leave out words all the time. And the idea that politicians and generals are "making war just for fun" is a bit silly as an anti-war statement.:) That said, the songwriters were at least aiming for something interesting and ambitious here, as opposed to Semisonic's "Closing Time" or Bryan Adams's "Heaven", both of which make a mess of fairly trite sentiments, but neither one is a 'best song' contender.
2xp

In that period, I feel like Anderson's lyrics are just meant to sound good with the music without conveying semantic meaning, by which standard they succeed imo. The Black Sabbath and Doors songs both seem to me to be trying to say something.

Robbie Krieger wrote "Light My Fire", I'm not sure how seriously he took his lyric writing tbh.

Neil Young - "Down By The River"

Not exactly on topic, but the best song with cringeiest opening line would be "Jack Straw" by the Dead for me. It never fails to squicks me out.

The first time I heard Get Ready by New Order, I absolutely loved the sound of the final track 'Run Wild'. I then looked up the lyrics...

Open hearts, empty spaces
Dusty roads to distant places
But all the time when I'm alone
I think of you and how you've grown

Far and wide, sweet and simple
Jehovah knows that I've been sinful
But if Jesus comes to take your hand
I won't let go, I won't let go

I'm not cruel and you're not evil
And we're not like all those stupid people
Who can't decide which book to read
Unless the paper sows the seed

You're the kind of person
That I've always wanted to be with
Well, you're really cool
And you always say the right things to me
Now I'll tell you something
For my heart beats for you deep inside
You'll never be a burden
And my love for you will never die
Never die, never die, never die

If Jesus comes to take your hand
I won't let go, I won't let go
If Jesus comes to take your hand
I won't let go, I won't let go

Good times around the corner
Good times around the corner
Good times around the corner
I swear it's getting warmer

Good times around the corner
Good times around the corner
Good times around the corner

I'm gonna live till I die
I'm gonna live to get high

You guys are nuts, the "War Pigs" lyrics are classic.

The first thing that came to mind for me was Feather of Forgiveness by Polvo. The title pretty much gives it away. Awesome catchy '90s math-rock that I almost can't enjoy because the lyrical centerpiece is "I want to touch you with the feather of forgiveness".

Indeed! "Masses" and "masses" are two entirely different nouns. I'll allow it.

Ash Bowie is probably the worst lyricist out of any band I like. Actually... Steve Brodsky from Cave In/Mutoid Man etc. probably rakes that honour

xp

"Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others" is a potential Johnny Marr classic with a tossed-off Morrissey lyric on top of it.

Every New Order song. Bernard is absolutely shit at lyrics.

MacArthur Park obv. Not the BEST SONG but I do genuinely like it.

^^^haha this one also occurred to me

Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others is funny, though

I think I like most of the songs I like in spite of the lyrics. Because most lyrics are terrible.

Or, y'know, serviceable at best.

I think I like most of the songs I like in spite of the lyrics. Because most lyrics are terrible.

This x1000.

Neil Young - "Down By The River"

― to pimp a barfly (Eazy), Saturday, May 6, 2017 1:16 PM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

You're crazy

Srs question: Are there any extreme metal songs with lyrics that aren't total garbage?

Let me clarify: I like a lot of extreme metal but I'm a very casual fan and I'm not intimately familiar with many bands or songs. I like Black Sabbath and I like their lyrics on the whole. But songs like "War Pigs" set up an unfortunate formula that so many bands just seem to follow to a T: Gerund phrase, noun phrase, noun phrase, gerund phrase, gerund phrase, etc. (where each phrase is a description of violence/pain/suffering of some kind - and the subject matter isn't the problem here, it's more the lazy junior high school construction)

I also realize that grindcore and black metal lyrics are often impossible to decipher and that understanding them is probably not essential to the listening experience. I'm just curious, and I know this is probably a dumb question, as to whether there are any contemporary metal bands that are known for having decent lyrics.

"Ballad of a Thin Man"

I'm just curious, and I know this is probably a dumb question, as to whether there are any contemporary metal bands that are known for having decent lyrics.

Motörhead's lyrics were frequently smart, funny, and political without being preachy.

Several Beatles song also qualify imho, great catchy melodies and interesting arrangements but trite lyrics.

So many Dylan songs - "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go" might be the worst, besides the excellent refrain.

Yeah I'm not talking about Motörhead. Lemmy was a funny motherfucker. That's why I said "extreme metal" and "contemporary" - I mean, Motörhead was active up until Lemmy finally kicked it but their heyday was at least 30 years ago.

RE: Dylan, I will maintain to my dying day that "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" is a great song, lyrics included (hasn't anybody ever heard of metaphor? The song is biblical). I don't know what anybody hears that's so great in the words on "Love and Theft" or "Modern Times" - the former has a few great tracks at least but as far as I can tell that's down to production/arrangement - if the words are anything but strung-together cliches I'd love to have somebody explain to me how.

you're gonna make me lonesome when you go has great lyrics

Our first dance at my wedding was to You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go (Madeline Peyroix version)

Haha oddly enough I was thinking Dylan was the antithesis of this thread. Bland music, great lyrics.

Some of the Cranberries songs are pretty good, musically.

ZA-HAAM-BEH, ZA-HAAM-BEH, ZA-HAM-BEH, EH, EH, EH, OH, OH, OH, OH, OH, OH, OH, HE-EY-AHHHH, AH-AH-OHHHH

Come to think of it, Dolores O'Riordan on "Zombie" is like the godmother of Rihanna's vocal style

Not the absolute best songs obv., but I like 'em. 'A Horse With No Name' or 'Tin Man' or any number of Dewey Bunnell's songs for America.

Remembered a big one - "Life on Mars."

lot of great jokes and devastating details on love & theft

life on mars is weird--each line looks dumb if you look at it individually, but when you put them together all the nonsense coheres into a fairly compelling whole

otm

Agnostic Front - "Public Assistance"

MacArthur Park obv. Not the BEST SONG but I do genuinely like it.

i love waylon's version

the recorded output of duran duran

― ToddBonzalez (BradNelson),

I came here to post this. It's tough trying to pick just one. Maybe Hungry Like The Wolf or Union Of The Snake?

Brown Sugar by the Rolling Stones.

none of these suggestions match the ineptness of new order lyrics.

Isn't It A Pity

(george harrison original or galaxie 500 cover, whatever your leanings are)

any shins song off chutes too narrow, but especially So Says I

Brown Sugar has great lyrics wtf

honestly any big indie act from the aughts could give new order a run for its money, imo—sumner's a shit lyricist, but at least he's not pretending his gnomic tendencies are anything more than platitudinal

if you can defend the lyrics on The Skin Of My Yellow Country Teeth or anything off of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot though now that's a feat.

Jack Jones - "Wives and Lovers"

Xp According to the movie "The Doors" Agent Dale Cooper wrote the opening riff of "Light My Fire" but Val Kilmer only wrote the song's 2nd verse lyrics.

any shins song off chutes too narrow, but especially So Says I

Oh Chute, I like this album a lot tho and never found the lyrics egregiously distracting.

i love Chutes, but god if Mercer isn't the worst offender of the whole "bad lyrics" thing that gets talked about here

http://hazlitt.net/feature/praise-stupid-song-lyrics

luckily the popcraft outweighs it—he's no colin meloy

I think I like most of the songs I like in spite of the lyrics. Because most lyrics are terrible.

― It stops me from using my ghost powers and is a meatier from space (Old Lunch), Saturday, 6 May 2017 23:40

Or, y'know, serviceable at best.

― It stops me from using my ghost powers and is a meatier from space (Old Lunch), Saturday, 6 May 2017 23:41

Aside from what's in the singles charts I rarely have a huge problem with lyrics.

I think lots of extreme metal has good lyrics because a lot of it just describes cool things and that works well. Loved the Khanate lyrics, but it's a lot to do with the delivery.

Yes - "Close To The Edge"? It's a mixed bag lyrically but I love the words "total mass retain".

Under my Thumb by Rolling Stones

I love the marimba and it might be my favorte RS song but tje lyrics feel a tad mysoginistic

mysoginistic lyrics are part of the appeal. it's a hate song.

keith richards was asked about that song once and his defense was that he could imagine the song being sung by anyone about anyone, regardless of gender

Hard to single out just one Police song but I think I'll go with 'Wrapped Around Your Finger'

Ooh, the Police are a strong contender. "Don't Stand So Close to Me"? "King of Pain"?

I like "Under My Thumb" a lot and think it has good lyrics in the sense of being well-written pop lyrics that work with the music and effectively paint a picture. It's not just about hate but about revenge and domination, though, and the message could be a bit creepy if one extrapolates to consider how male partners often achieve(d) revenge and domination, especially in the 60s. (So I don't know if I completely buy Richards's defence.) That said, it can definitely be defensible for songwriters to write songs from the pov of creepy, indefensible protagonists.

Has any female singer covered "Under My Thumb" ?

Tina Turner.

does "worst" mean bad lyrics or objectionable lyrics?

keith richards was asked about that song once and his defense was that he could imagine the song being sung by anyone about anyone, regardless of gender

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Monday, May 8, 2017 4:47 AM

in his new Beatles book, Rob Sheffield argues that Jagger used his campiest, most sexually ambivalent performanes for his bitchiest lyrics, mitigating some of the misogyny.

Kinda feel like '90s alternative is the apotheosis of this trope. So much music from that era I love, with so many lyrics that scan like a cry for help from an angsty 13-year-old who enjoys pulling random words from the dictionary without reading their attendant definitions.

"Bustin at Em" - WAka

My personal favorite song with lyrics I really can't get behind is a Chuck Ragan solo tune, "On Broken Ears":

Repercussions come around
As a word named free (?) burns to the ground (??) somehow (??!)

Iggy Pop to thread

I'm only five foot one
I got a pain in my neck
I'm looking up in the city
What the hell what the heck

Ariana Grande’s “Into You” contains my favourite dumb lyric of last year: “A little less conversation / and a little more touch my body.” You know how porno dirty talk always sounds a little awkward? How sexts are always a little embarrassing? This is that. The puerility is vulnerability. It feels accurate. There’s no veranda—this is happening in a room that smells like rum and body odour.

from the hazlitt piece linked upthread. finding it alternately infuriating and exhilarating, the former bc of stuff like this—the lyric is awkward bc it's deliberately referencing two other song titles, why not mention that—the latter bc colin meloy is really bad

"On the first part of the journey
I was looking at all the life
There were plants and birds and rocks and things
There was sand and hills and rings"
Horse With No Name - America

the heat was hot

Its not exactly Neil Young.

Its approximately ...

Let's Talk About The Led Zeppelin Epic Track- "Carouselambra"

ellen willis made a similar argument about "under my thumb":

A crude but often revealing method of assessing male bias in lyrics is to take a song written by a man about a woman and reverse the sexes. By this test, a diatribe like "Under My Thumb" is not nearly so sexist in its implications as, for example, Cat Stevens's gentle, sympathetic "Wild World"; Jagger's fantasy of sweet revenge could easily be female—in fact, it has a female counterpart, Nancy Sinatra's "Boots"—but it's hard to imagine a woman sadly warning her ex-lover that he's too innocent for the big bad world out there."

Yeah, it's the Outhere Brothers
Comin' back at yo' ass for tha 9 4
For all you motherfuckers that didn't know
We comin' back, ruthless Roy, crazy
Ya know wha I'm sayin'? BIAAAAATCH!

Don't stop movin', baby
Ooh, that booty's drive me crazy
Wiggle wiggle, wiggle wiggle
Don't stop movin', baby
Ooh, that booty's drive me crazy
Wiggle wiggle, wiggle wiggle

Wiggle wiggle, wiggle, don't stop
Wiggle wiggle, wiggle wiggle, don't stop
Wiggle wiggle, don't stop
Wiggle wiggle, don't stop

Don't stop movin', baby
Ooh, that booty's drive me crazy
Wiggle wiggle, wiggle wiggle
Don't stop movin', baby
Ooh, that booty's drive me crazy
Wiggle wiggle, wiggle wiggle

Don't stop, don't, don't stop movin', baby
Don't stop, don't, don't stop movin', baby
Don't stop, don't, don't stop movin', baby
Don't stop movin' baby, drive me crazy

Energy, energy, energy, energy
Energy, energy, energy, energy

Put yo' ass on my face
I love the way your pussy tastes
Girl, you know you are the one
Take that ass and make me cum

Put yo' ass on my face
I love the way your pussy tastes
Girl, you know you are the one
Take that ass and make me cum

Don't stop movin', baby
Ooh, that booty's drive me crazy
Wiggle wiggle, wiggle wiggle
Don't stop movin', baby
Ooh, that booty's drive me crazy
Wiggle wiggle, wiggle, wiggle wiggle

Wiggle wiggle, wiggle wiggle
Wiggle wiggle, wiggle, wiggle wiggle
Wiggle wiggle, wiggle wiggle
Wiggle, wiggle wiggle, wiggle wiggle

Girl, you got to suck my dick
And you got to suck it quick
Girl, you got to suck my dick
And you got to suck it quick

Energy, energy, energy, energy
Energy, energy, energy, energy

Put yo' ass on my face
I love the way your pussy tastes
Girl, you know you are the one
Take that ass and make me cum

Put yo' ass on my face
I love the way your pussy tastes
Girl, you know you are the one
Take that ass and make me cum

Don't stop movin', baby
Ooh, that booty's drive me crazy
Wiggle wiggle, wiggle wiggle
Don't stop movin', baby
Ooh, that booty's drive me crazy
Wiggle wiggle, wiggle, wiggle wiggle

Wiggle wiggle, wiggle, don't stop
Wiggle wiggle, wiggle wiggle, don't stop
Wiggle wiggle, don't stop
Wiggle wiggle, don't stop

Don't stop movin', baby
Ooh, that booty's drive me crazy
Wiggle wiggle, wiggle wiggle
Don't stop movin', baby
Ooh, that booty's drive me crazy
Wiggle wiggle, wiggle wiggle

Drive me crazy, drive me crazy
Drive me crazy, don't stop movin', baby
Drive me crazy, drive me crazy
Drive me crazy, don't stop movin', baby

Energy, energy, energy, energy
Energy, energy, energy, energy

Biatch!

is this really a 'best song'

Is the sentiment in "Wild World" really that different from the one in Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams"?

I'm not even sure I agree about the "Boots"/"Under My Thumb" analogy. Maybe I could see it if there were a sequel where Nancy Sinatra bragged about how her man now does just what he's told, speaks when he's spoken to, and had become the sweetest pet in the world.

["... did just what he was told, spoke when he was spoken to, ...]

I'm only five foot one
I got a pain in my neck
I'm looking up in the city
What the hell what the heck

You're crazy, those are great lyrics!!!!

Iggy is a top notch lyricist.

Remembered a big one - "Life on Mars."

― flappy bird, Sunday, May 7, 2017 11:09 AM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

wrong as fuck

lol at Outhere Brothers making a best song list

"man, 'i wanna fuck you in the ass' really puts a damper on what is otherwise a genre-defining classic"