List: Great songs tarnished by shit lyrics

SURELY it has to be that all time great clunker from House Of Love's "I Don't Know Why I Love You":

"I don't know why I love you/your face is a foreign food"

Presumably Mr. Chadwick was referring to a curry of some sort. Now obviously this would heighten his confusion as to why he loves the owner of such a face, but did he really have to share this quandary with the rest of us?

Actually, that album had a number of choice selections. See "Never", where Guy opines "World war/what a drag/a love of hate is really not the way". It's a "Give Peace A Chance for the Post-Smiths-pre-Stone-Roses Generation!

― Tim, Friday, 2 March 2001 01:00 (8 years ago) Permalink

Chadwick is a truly useless lyric writer. I haven't got any HOL any more, having traded 'em in years ago, but I still occasionally laugh out loud at his use of the phrase 'came a cropper' on a track on the Butterfly album. (Shake and Crawl?) No doubt someone can remember the whole lyric.

Generally, I have a high tolerance for crap lyrics.

― Dr. C, Friday, 2 March 2001 01:00 (8 years ago) Permalink

Any good song by Dr Dre is tarnished by his moronic, hateful lyrics.

― Patrick, Friday, 2 March 2001 01:00 (8 years ago) Permalink

I always wondered what the hell that line was from Chadwick, the 'foreign food' bit. I have to laugh.

Bad lyrics ruining good songs...hm, that's a good one. When it comes to bad singing combining bad lyrics making attractive enough songs here and there collapse, Wayne Hussey had a few going for him. Fave example from the Mish's "Sea of Love":

"And if wishes are stall-i-ons/Then kisses are gall-e-ons..."

AAAAARGGH.

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 2 March 2001 01:00 (8 years ago) Permalink

"Survivor" the new Destiny's Child single -- "You know I'm not gonna dis you on the internet coz my mama taught me better than that."

Come again?

― Sterling Clover, Friday, 2 March 2001 01:00 (8 years ago) Permalink

Led Zep, one fine band...but by Thor the lyrics of songs like 'Immigrant Song', 'Achilles Last Stand' and 'Ramble On' are just, well, not very good. "In the darkest depths of Mordooooohhhhoor." Also Deep Purple's 'Smoke on the Water': "Frank Zappa and the Mooothhhhhoaaaaaaahs were at the best place in town"...etc.

― Omar, Friday, 2 March 2001 01:00 (8 years ago) Permalink

turn on the news by husker du - "i hear it every day on the radio/somebody shoot some guy he don't even know"

loveless probably has horrible lyrics, but of course nobody can understand them.

― Jake Becker, Friday, 2 March 2001 01:00 (8 years ago) Permalink

To tie this into another thread neatly, much the way Robert Altman supposedly ties unrelated threads together neatly in films - to me, the Magnetic Fields' Busby Berkely Dreams is fantastic until he gets to the last line - "Do you think it's dangerous / To have Busby Berkeley dreams?" - and then it's just shit. It's clunky and godawful and tacked on and out of place.

And I really want to smack whichever Manic decided to tack on the two spoken lines at the end of "We Her Majesty's Prisoners".

― Ally, Friday, 2 March 2001 01:00 (8 years ago) Permalink

'Lone Ranger's sold his bad dog', etc, from the Sundays' 'Joy' (1990). That cowboy scenario, it just drove me out of my mind.

― the pinefox, Saturday, 3 March 2001 01:00 (8 years ago) Permalink

I hesitate post when I feel like my answer is no fun, but I can't think of any songs I would like if it weren't for the lyrics. Lyrics for me can give a song bonus points, but they never really detract & I definitely think of them as secondary to the music, production, singing, etc. A well-turned phrase is a thing of beauty, but a duff line never killed a song for me.

― Mark Richardson, Saturday, 3 March 2001 01:00 (8 years ago) Permalink

the stupid-ass corny sentimental reactionary lyrics to "sweet jane" spoil a fine riff and beat. "those were different times when poets studied rules of verse and ladies rolled their eyes." i know jack's wearing a corset. i still think the song's reactionary.

as mentioned elsewhere, the tired metaphor at the centre of the magnetic fields' "i don't believe in the sun" would have sunk a weaker voice and melody. i do like the self-doubt of the last line of "busby berkeley dreams" though.

the lyrics to husker du's "diane" always detracted from the guitars and melody for me.

in "outside looking in," still life took a fine creeping bassline and beat and murdered them with the most absurdly notable-for-their- badness teen angst lyrics ever: "searching for answers/in these dark cold caves of my mind/is there anyone who can help me to find/ what it is in life and love i cannot find/...all these words/ all these words that i cannot say." the moment where the vocals degenerate into screaming "why? why? why? why?" for what seems like a minute is legendary.

a number of sonic youth songs. "i'm insane" is one of their finest musical tracks. then thurston felt the urge to talk shit for five minutes on top of it. "kiss my fist/ lay off my brother." _bad moon rising_ was shaping up to be a perfect album until that point (well, except for all that crap about big hair in the middle of "society is a hole.") the same thing happened recently with "small flowers crack concrete": "death poems for the living gods of america/ plastic saxophones bleat/ bleed for nothing, nada."

― sundar subramanian, Saturday, 3 March 2001 01:00 (8 years ago) Permalink

one classic album that springs to mind, thanks to the reissue, is Love's Forever Changes. Incredible music under some of the worst hippy poems ever. The Police's "De Do Do Do De Da Da Da" needs mentioning.

― brent d., Saturday, 3 March 2001 01:00 (8 years ago) Permalink

I think I might like 'Streets of your town' by the Go-Betweens more if it had better lyrics. The line 'Watch the butcher shine his knifes/And this town is full of battered wives' is particularly embarassing.

― Ally C, Sunday, 4 March 2001 01:00 (8 years ago) Permalink

"I dont believe in an interventionist God/But I know baby that you do". That is no decent way to start a song. (Cave's "Into my arms")

― simon, Sunday, 4 March 2001 01:00 (8 years ago) Permalink

I dunno, I think The Boatman's Call has one of the best opening lines in the history of absurdism. And I love that Destiny's Child line, and I haven't even heard "Survivor" yet.

― Otis Wheeler, Sunday, 4 March 2001 01:00 (8 years ago) Permalink

I'm a conscientious resister. I'm usually pretty indifferent towards lyrics. I don't think lame lyrics can hurt a good song--unless it's taken to an extreme. Great lyrics can very much enhance an already good song, though.

Good lyrics can really enhance the listening experience, but nevertheless, it's always an added bonus for me. That's probably why I'm such a fan of instrumental music. But getting back to the point, I'd say the lyrics to electronic music (trance/techno/trip-hop what have you) are pretty mediocre. I'm sure someone will bring up some exception to the rule, but the fact remains that _I_ haven't heard any electronic music with especially outstanding lyrics. And yes, I'm including Bjork and Portishead.

― Jack Redelfs, Monday, 5 March 2001 01:00 (8 years ago) Permalink

I always wonder if when I listen to music in foreign languages, that I don't understand, whether the lyrics are utterly vapid, or giving it about serial killers or whatever. I suspect that Stereo Total lyrics are shit if you understand German or French. I don't though, so to my ears it sounds dead cool.

― alix, Monday, 5 March 2001 01:00 (8 years ago) Permalink

Well of course this is always the case with Gainsbourg. I know enough French to get some kind of gist but not enough to catch all the filthy nuance. When I put the records on and there's an actual French person there I get a bit embarrassed, 'cause I always wonder if Gainsbourg is secretly a bit naff in France and I've just put on the musical equivalent of Robin Asquith's Confessions Of A Driving Instructor.

― Tom, Monday, 5 March 2001 01:00 (8 years ago) Permalink

"Confessions Of A Driving Instructor" ?? Uh, anyway, I don't know how Gainsbourg is perceived in France, but his words are perfectly alright. I would advise against playing his later, porn-like stuff in front of your buddy's French grandmother, though. "Love On The Beat"'s lyrics make "Je t'aime (moi non plus)" sound like Jessica Simpson.

― Patrick, Monday, 5 March 2001 01:00 (8 years ago) Permalink

couldn't agree more about that nick cave one, it's f$ckin awful

― piscesboy, Wednesday, 7 March 2001 01:00 (8 years ago) Permalink

Golly, 96 is right about that Go-Betweens couplet.

― the pinefox, Wednesday, 7 March 2001 01:00 (8 years ago) Permalink

Actually 'I don't believe in an interventionist God' is a great line. Although that may have something to do with the fact that I was in love with someone who did believe in an interventionist God at the time, and that I, erm, don't. All ended in tears, needless to say...

― alex thomson, Thursday, 8 March 2001 01:00 (8 years ago) Permalink

That's weird. That line from 'Streets of your Town' was always one of my favourites. I love the way the song sounds like a breezy love song and then it's undercut by a casual reference to the violence looming under the surface. The connection between the town butcher and wife beating might seem forced to you, but in the context of the delivery of the line it sounds magnifcent to me. .

― Nick, Thursday, 8 March 2001 01:00 (8 years ago) Permalink

Mel C "If that were me'............I can't live without my mobile phone, but you dont even have a home...........classic, actually the song is crap too, this acts as an example of utterly crap lyrics...sorry

― alex menace, Tuesday, 31 July 2001 00:00 (8 years ago) Permalink

Excepting 'Space Oddity' and 'Boys Keep Swinging', everything David Bowie ever wrote. The man's lyrics range from the amusing ("Heroes", "Rock'n'Roll Suicide") to the simply unpleasant ("Fame"), all of it unintentional.

― dave q, Tuesday, 31 July 2001 00:00 (8 years ago) Permalink

Everything the doors ever did ( the oepdial thing in The End ) and Track 11 on Stories from teh city , stories from the sea. ( ie Horses in my dreams, like waves, like the sea , they pull out of here, they pull they are free) ( WTF)

― anthony, Tuesday, 31 July 2001 00:00 (8 years ago) Permalink

Stories... is obviously PJ Harvey.
Let me reformat that

everything The Doors ever recorded was marred by awful lyrics. ( esp. The End with its Oedpius Thing at the finale)

As well PJ Harveys Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea, Track 11 has bizzarre mixed metaphors. ( ie Horses in my dreams/like waves , like the sea/ The pull out of here / They pull, they are free)

But it is an almost perfect album otherwise.

― anthony, Tuesday, 31 July 2001 00:00 (8 years ago) Permalink

you can take your opinions about the doors and shove them up your bunghole.

i didnt mind the lyrics for 'forever changes', except on 'live and let live' and the snot line

― chris, Tuesday, 23 October 2001 00:00 (8 years ago) Permalink

wasn't just the lyrics - the Doors were marred by awful music too! ;)

[except for Riders On The Storm, which is great]

― m jemmeson, Tuesday, 23 October 2001 00:00 (8 years ago) Permalink

Luna are the kings of this category.

Chinatown - "you're out all night/chasin' girlies/you're late to work/and you go home earlies"

IHOP - "You got a banana split/Personality"

Fuzzy Wuzzy - "Maybe tonight will be the night/I could see your fuzzy wuzzy"

I'm sure y'all can come up with plenty more to skewer ...

keith

― zaxxon25, Tuesday, 23 October 2001 00:00 (8 years ago) Permalink

Luna are the kings of this category.

But their cover of "Bonnie and Clyde" makes up for a multitude of sins.

..New Order and the Smiths get my vote. I think I've said it many times: Johnny Marr was the talent in the Smiths. Some of those lyrics were just schmaltzy self-deprecating tripe... although some of them were very clever and cynical. "Girlfriend in a Coma" is good, though not great. "Meat is Murder" - both the song and the LP, has its moments of greatness ("Scratch my name on your arm with a fountain pen - this means you really love me") mixed with moments of the uninspiring ("Well I Wonder" - great song, cheesy lyrics - even for a clad-in-black bohemian pretending to live in 1960's Berlin.)

And New Order has some great ones "You've caught me at a bad time - so why don't you piss off." .. but "I'd like a place I could call my own, have a conversation on the telephone" , while not a crime against humanity, is not worthy of the music behind it.

― Dave225, Tuesday, 23 October 2001 00:00 (8 years ago) Permalink

Dave225 you are a mentalist, and not cuz of what you're saying about the Smiths either. "Regret" is probably New Order's best ever lyric.

― Tom, Tuesday, 23 October 2001 00:00 (8 years ago) Permalink

Dave225 you are a mentalist
..Thanks...?

― Dave225, Tuesday, 23 October 2001 00:00 (8 years ago) Permalink

OK for the space of one posting you are, sorry.

― Tom, Tuesday, 23 October 2001 00:00 (8 years ago) Permalink

I can't beleive noone has mentioned Macarthur Park yet (unless you have and I haven't seen it) EG: "Someone left the cake out in the rain...." ...."and I'll never have that recipe again!!!" It's fine if the recipe was for shit!!

― Mick, Wednesday, 14 November 2001 01:00 (8 years ago) Permalink

LMAO!!!

"Feel It" by the Tamperer

"WHAT she gonna look like with a chimney on her?"

omfg!!!

― Hazel C. Somerville, Thursday, 31 January 2002 01:00 (7 years ago) Permalink

Dean Wareham is a really, really terrible lyricist when he gets lazy. I like a lot of his G500 lyrics (assuming they were all his?) but even then some are dodgy. The awful lyrics to "King of spain, part 2" would defintely prevent me ever covering it.

Some of Grant McLennan's recent lyrics are exceptionally embarrassing. "Going Blind" has several winceworthy couplets, especially the "kitten purr" and "burnum wood" ones.

Steve Kilbey's lyrics are mostly wank. When I was younger I desperately hated the lyrics to "Unguarded Moment" but I can cope with them better now.

― electric sound of jim, Thursday, 31 January 2002 01:00 (7 years ago) Permalink

I thought "what she gonna look like with a chimney on her" referred to the potential change in a person after marriage, after 'settling down' and starting a home, ie. "will you still find her appealing after she's settled into the role of the suburban housewife?"

― Mitch Lastnamewithheld, Friday, 1 February 2002 01:00 (7 years ago) Permalink

Some good song of NIN, have been destroyed by stupid lyrics

PD: Smiths have the greatest lyrics ever

― warsaw, Saturday, 1 March 2003 23:30 (6 years ago) Permalink

I agree w/ N abt 'Streets of Your Town', and I love the fact that Radio One wld only play ir on sunny days. Lots of Go-Betweens lyrics are magnificently 'wrong' - "They had problems with their father's law/They sleep in the back of a feminist bookstore" from 'The Clarke Sisters' is another fave.

― Andrew L (Andrew L), Saturday, 1 March 2003 23:39 (6 years ago) Permalink

Moby feat. Mimi Goese - "When It's Cold I'd Like to Die": "I don't wanna swim the ocean / I don't wanna fight the tide / I don't wanna swim forever / When it's cold I'd like to die"

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Sunday, 2 March 2003 00:15 (6 years ago) Permalink

Also the Smashing Pumpkins' "Ava Adore"

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Sunday, 2 March 2003 00:16 (6 years ago) Permalink

I thought that This Heat's Deceit (grebtestLPevah) had dumb lyrics - just war cliches strung together. 'Independence' is just the bloody Declaration of Independence but with awesome eerie orientalesque backing to rival any of Timbaland's. Then I went to the war museum in Ho Chi Minh City. Next to the entrance to the Victims Room, which is full of pics of Agent Orange victims and of Americans torturing & killing Vietnamese, is the Declaration of Indepedence. That cast the song and the album in a new light. I suppose the devastating music is supposed to subvert the tired 'Johnny comes marching home'-isms. It's still pretty silly opening a song about the Roman Empire with "amo amas amat amamis amatis amant" though. (it's the first 6 ways to say 'love', a chant that is the first thing you learn when you study Latin) And then there's "poppies are red and the fields are full of poppies" in 'Cenotaph'.

― Keith McD (Keith McD), Sunday, 2 March 2003 01:45 (6 years ago) Permalink

oh yeah and "We are all Romans and we know all about straight roads and every straight road leads home, home to Rome"

― Keith McD (Keith McD), Sunday, 2 March 2003 01:54 (6 years ago) Permalink

I disagree with the Magnetic Fields comments way up above. The cheesy denouments and bad metaphors seem at home in this sprawling Tin Pan Alley project (69 Love Songs.

Even the groaner last line switch to "the corpse you really love" works. Now that's talent.

― Aaron A., Sunday, 2 March 2003 03:04 (6 years ago) Permalink

yeah, 'Survivor' by Destiny's Child has the worst lyrics ever. it actually made me angry listening to it. but the music was pretty bad too.

for a band that made good music, Ride's lyrics were pretty lame - and didn't even flow very well.

She knew she could fly like a bird
But when she said 'please raise the roof higher' nobody heard
They never noticed a word
The light bulbs burn, her fingers will learn

― lolita corpus (lolitacorpus), Sunday, 2 March 2003 04:08 (6 years ago) Permalink

"Sun King" and "Hello Goodbye" by The Beatles.

"Killer" by Van Der Graaf Generator. Juicy metal riff spoiled inevitably by crap lines like "Fishes can't fly, fishes can't fly, and neither can I!"

"Let Us Now Make Love" by Genesis (among many possible candidates from same). Terrific music coupled with very unworthy lyrics ("Please/I beg you hear this humble voice/Please/My emerald goddess wash away the wound...")-- ultra-foppish, even for early Peter Gabriel.

"Jesus Christ Superstar" ("Buddha was he where it's at/Is he who you are?/Could Mohammed move a mountain/ Or was that just P.R.?")

― Joe (Joe), Sunday, 2 March 2003 05:54 (6 years ago) Permalink

I'd like the "Another One Bites The Dust/Good Times" rip "Rock Your Body" by Justin Timberlake if he didn't threaten to strip us before the end of the song.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Sunday, 2 March 2003 23:48 (6 years ago) Permalink

Four-and-a-half-words:

"THONG THA THONG THONG THONG"

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Sunday, 2 March 2003 23:51 (6 years ago) Permalink

Cam'ron's "Hey Ma" -- on second thought, in this case the bad lyrics may actually make the song more likable.

"Got drops, got Coups, got Trucks, got jeeps/We gon take a ride tonight"

― scott m (mcd), Monday, 3 March 2003 00:06 (6 years ago) Permalink

I love him dearly and credit him with every subsequent record i ever owned but "take the time to close your eyes and look around" is Neil at his worst...err, that is, until "Let's Roll"...

and the Geto Boys - even Scarface - but Willie Dee was the worst. This one was always a head-scratcher:

"and if you don't like it, spouse / you can suck my dick until your lips fall off"

they were famous for rhyming second lines with nonsensical first lines - so after that first line, you're thinking "ooookay, he's going somewhere good...'burn down your house?' 'snap on you like a mouse?' Nope!

― roger adultery, Wednesday, 5 March 2003 08:04 (6 years ago) Permalink

placebo - burger queen

― weasel diesel (K1l14n), Wednesday, 5 March 2003 09:16 (6 years ago) Permalink

Y are you doing this it makes absolutly no sense!?! Its senseless.... so stop! Before you become big hug ecomputer nerds or somethign and can't get dates to the prom.... you probably wont even be interested in goign cuz you'll be glued to the computer screen!
Well to bad...

― None of your biz, Sunday, 14 March 2004 15:46 (5 years ago) Permalink

haha nice

― Kim (Kim), Sunday, 14 March 2004 16:04 (5 years ago) Permalink

"ILX - Y are you doing this!?!"

― Kim (Kim), Sunday, 14 March 2004 16:06 (5 years ago) Permalink

It would be "too bad."

Go to English class.

― Aja (aja), Sunday, 14 March 2004 16:06 (5 years ago) Permalink

Best part - thread had been dormant for over a year.

― Kim (Kim), Sunday, 14 March 2004 16:09 (5 years ago) Permalink

Two words. Faith Hill.
That woman has lent her voice to some of the most unfortunate lyrics EVER. And I quote "It's not right, it's not fair, what you're missing over there" Also,anything that ends in "so", like "I miss him so" or I need her so". I am usually fairly lyric-tolerant, but these burn me.

― Jen S, Thursday, 18 March 2004 03:56 (5 years ago) Permalink

The entirety of Art Bears' World As It Is Today. I finally bought it when I was in London for 14 pounds (ugh.) and can hardly listen to it. I haven't given up on it yet, but I am SORELY disappointed.

― poortheatre (poortheatre), Saturday, 20 August 2005 20:42 (4 years ago) Permalink

I should reiterate that it's only unlistenable because of the lyrics. The music is incredible.

― poortheatre (poortheatre), Saturday, 20 August 2005 20:54 (4 years ago) Permalink

Hate to pile on an easy target, but Interpol has to be considered for this awful line:

Subway, she is a porno

― kornrulez6969 (TCBeing), Saturday, 20 August 2005 22:30 (4 years ago) Permalink

Because it's a target that will get be beaten up in these parts:

Baby, can’t you see
I’m calling
A guy like you
Should wear a warning
It’s dangerous
I’m fallin’

There’s no escape
I can’t wait
I need a hit
Baby, give me it
You’re dangerous
I’m lovin’ it

Too high
Can’t come down
Losing my head
Spinning ‘round and ‘round
Do you feel me now

With a taste of your lips
I’m on a ride
You're toxic I'm slipping under
With a taste of a poison paradise
I’m addicted to you
Don’t you know that you’re toxic
And I love what you do
Don’t you know that you’re toxic

It’s getting late
To give you up
I took a sip
From my devil's cup
Slowly
It’s taking over me

Too high
Can’t come down
It’s in the air
And it’s all around
Can you feel me now

With a taste of your lips
I’m on a ride
You're toxic I'm slipping under
With a taste of a poison paradise
I’m addicted to you
Don’t you know that you’re toxic
And I love what you do
Don’t you know that you’re toxic

Don't you know that you're toxic

[x2]
With a taste of your lips
I'm on a ride
You're toxic I'm slipping under
With a taste of a poison paradise
I'm addicted to you
Don't you know that you're toxic

Intoxicate me now
With your lovin' now
I think I'm ready now
I think I'm ready now
Intoxicate me now
With your lovin' now
I think I'm ready now

― marc h. (marc h.), Saturday, 20 August 2005 23:56 (4 years ago) Permalink

get ME beaten up (sheesh) :-\

― marc h. (marc h.), Saturday, 20 August 2005 23:56 (4 years ago) Permalink