Word(s) that only ever appeared in one (hit) song, ever.

argh palmers green i mean

"Underpass" is surely represented in John Foxx' "Underpass" as well.

"The Clapping Song" has "materialize" and "rowboat". Any joy there?

Not a hit song as such, but there's an early Elton John song entitled "Grimsby" which includes the line "No Cordon Bleu can match the beauty of your pies and peas."

D12 - My Band "acapellas"

missy doesn't pluralise that in 'lose control'

Caramba's "Hubba Hubba Zoot Zoot" is crowded with words that have only ever appeared in that particular song:

Hubba hubba zoot zoot
Num
Deba uba zat zat
Num
A-hoorepa hoorepa a-huh-hoorepa a-num num
A-num
Hubba hubba zoot zoot
Num
Deba uba zat zat
Num
A-hoorepa hoorepa a-huh-hoorepa a-num num
A-num
Hubba hubba zoot zoot
Deba uba zat zat a-num num
Hubba hubba zoot zoot
Deba uba zat zat a-num num
A-hoorepa hoorepa a-huh-hoorepa a-num num
A-hoorepa hoorepa
HAH
A-huh-hoorepa a-num num
A-num
Hubba hubba zoot zoot
Deba uba zat zat a-num num
Hubba hubba zoot zoot
Deba uba zat zat a-num num
A-hoorepa hoorepa a-huh-hoorepa a-num num
A-hoorepa hoorepa a-huh-hoorepa
HAH
A-num num
A-num
Hubba hubba zoot zoot
A-huh zoot a-huh
Deba uba zat zat a-num num
Hubba hubba zoot zoot
Deba uba zat zat a-num num
A-hoorepa hoorepa a-huh-hoorepa a-num num
Num
A-hoorepa hoorepa a-huh-hoorepa a-num num
Deba uba zat zat
A-hoorepa hoorepa a-huh-hoorepa a-num num
a-num
Hubba hubba zoot zoot
deba uba zat zat
HAH
A-hoorepa hoorepa a-huh-hoorepa a-num num
A-num
Hubba hubba zoot zoot
Deba uba zat zat a-num num
Hubba hubba zoot zoot
Duuh
Deba uba zat zat a-num num
A-hoorepa hoorepa a-huh-hoorepa a-num num
A-hoorepa hoorepa a-huh-hoorepa a-num num
HAH
A-num
Hubba hubba zoot zoot
Deba uba zat zat a-num num
Hubba hubba zoot zoot
Deba uba zat zat a-num num
A-hoorepa hoorepa a-huh-hoorepa a-num num
A-hoorepa hoorepa a-huh-hoorepa a-num num
HAH
Hubba hubba zoot zoot
Deba uba zat zat a-num num
HOH
Hubba hubba zoot zoot
Hubba hubba mo-re mo-re
Deba uba zat zat a-num num
A-hoorepa hoorepa a-huh-hoorepa a-num num A-hoorepa hoorepa a-huh-hoorepa a-num num A-num

Did Orinoco ever appear in another song but "Orinoco Flow"?

Not in the Womble song.

"clarify" and "classify" - 99 red balloons

Abacab
Paranoimia (mentioned in the song iirc)
Paninaro

"Classify" is in "Pop" by N'Sync

(That Caramba song may not have been a worldwide hit, but it was huge in Scandinavia)

Interactive (Bis, 'Kandy Pop')
CD-Rom (Will Smith, 'Just The Two Of Us')
Will Oldham (Biffy Clyro, 'Saturday Superhouse')

someone gonna write a song with all these words in so we can launch it top 40 (must beat that shitty Lloyds song)

CD-Rom (Will Smith, 'Just The Two Of Us')

^^^Busta Rhymes - Fire It Up

Busta sez 'CD-Rom' in 'Fire It Up'

"Firestarter" ?

"Get Busy" has "percolate" and "oscillate"

Born Slippy gauntlet:

succulent
derailed
high-density

Scaramouche
Fandango
Bizmillah

fandango also in Whiter Shade of Pale

Of course.

"Vestal Virgins"...?

More possiblities from another overblown epic:

Bustle
Hedgerow

"Pig skin" - paranoid android

"Pig skin" - In the End - Linkin Park

System of A Down - Chop Suey, "Self-righteous"

who'd a thought it

xp

surely Prince is not alone with 'Corvette'?

^^^Eiffel 65 - Blue

think we did this before but there really aren't that many hits mentioning 'the internet'. Mousse T's 'Horny' was the first one I recall.

Has any other hit song mentioned "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious"?

kate nash probably

For some reason I'm sorta proud I can write that word correctly without checking the spelling from anywhere.

"Defecating" - Fugees, Ready or Not

"Haver" - Proclaimers - 'I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)'

No doubt there's several other words/places in their songs, Kilmarnock/Stranraer/Leith for starters.

There may be some words in "The Logical Song" that haven't been used a lot in other lyrics.

Queen's "Machines (Or Back To Humans)" may not have been a hit, but it's surely the only lyric ever that has included the word "parahumanoidarianised"

Is "West End Girls" the only international hit song to mention "Finland"?

Well, I guess that Monty Python song wasn't a hit. :)

Oh yeah, I've heard that one. Probably wasn't a hit, yes.

Continuing on the them, Tricky's "Christiansands" is probably the only well-known (outside Finland) tune to mention Helsinki.

"Heck-a-slammin'" - Prince: "U Got The Look"

"Smells Like Teen Spirit" surely most be the only hit song to mention mosquito and albino?

Maybe even "rammin'" from same song.

xpost

Tricky's "Christiansands" is probably the only well-known (outside Finland) tune to mention Helsinki.

Surely the only international hit tune to mention Kristiansand anyway ;)

Bolton,
Barnsley,
Nelson,
Colne,
Burnley
Bradford,
Buxton,
Crewe,
Warrington,
Widnes,
Wigan,
Leeds,
Northwich,
Nantwich,
Knutsford,
Hull,
Sale,
Salford,
Southport,
Leigh,
Derby,
Kearsley
Keighley
Maghull,
Harrogate,
Huddersfield,
Oldham, Lancs,
Grimsby,
Glossop,
Hebden Bridge,

It's Grim Up North,
It's Grim Up North.

Brighouse,
Bootle,
Featherstone,
Speke,
Runcorn,
Rotherham,
Rochdale,
Barrow,
Morecambe,
Macclesfield,
Lytham St. Annes
Clitheroe,
Cleethorpes,
The M62,

It's Grim Up North,
It's Grim Up North.

Pendlebury,
Prestwich,
Preston,
York,
Skipton,
Scunthorpe,
Scarborough-on-Sea,
Chester,
Chorley,
Cheedle Hulme,
Ormskirk,
Accrington Stanley,
and Leigh,
Ossett,
Otley,
Ikley Moor,
Sheffield,
Manchester,
Castleford,
Skem,
Doncaster,
Dewsbury,
Hali-fax,
Bingley,
Bramall,
Are all in the North.

It's Grim Up North,
It's Grim Up North,
It's Grim Up North,
It's Grim Up North.

It's Grim Up North,
It's Grim Up North,
It's Grim Up North,
It's Grim Up North,
It's Grim Up North,
It's Grim Up North,
It's Grim Up North,
It's Grim Up North,
It's Grim Up North,
It's Grim Up North,
It's Grim Up North,
It's Grim Up North,
It's Grim Up North,
It's Grim Up North,
It's Grim Up North,
It's Grim Up North,
It's Grim Up North,
It's Grim Up North,
It's Grim Up North,
It's Grim Up North,
It's Grim Up North

PICK THE CHANGE OUT OF THAT LOT

Most of those cities have probably been mentioned in other songs too. Only not at the same time.

"cities"

someone must've said "fancy that" in a hit song once. maybe jay-z.

-- blueski, Monday, January 21, 2008 4:01 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

lol @ the idea of an American using that phrase

Surely this thread hasn't gotten this far without a mention of the word "prerogative".

ah ha!

Zip-a-doing dwoinggg

Just had a thought, is "critique" only used in Ray Stevens' "The Streak" ?

"smack dab" in "Up on the Roof" (as made famous by The Drifters)?

droogie don't crash here

from Suffragette City

doo-lang doo-lang doo-lang

from He's So Fine

xp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVXEiHkwTQM

Xp "Imagine Me Imagine You" by Fox

'flailing' - Losing My Religion.

Never heard that Ray Charles song before! Yikes at "A ten-room house / Some barbecue / And fifty chicks not over twenty-two."

"Flailing" reappears on Blink-182's radio breakthrough "Dammit."

I stand corrected on flailing.

Tom Lehrer must have a few. We'll all go together when we go comes to mind
https://tomlehrersongs.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/we-will-all-go-together-when-we-go.pdf

Agreed that there are some unusual words in there but I think it stretches the criterion of "hit."

Thinking about it further. The word "Hottentot" appears in "We Will All Go Together When We Go."

That Was the Year that Was did appear on the album chart, albeit not with that song.

On a further tangent the song "If I Were King of the Forest" from The Wizard of Oz includes the lyric "What made the Hottentots so hot?" It could be fairly argued that The Wizard of Oz soundtrack was a hit, not sure if that helps.

fair point about this hardly being a 'hit'.

Yeah no aspersions on you, giraffe; if you look upthread there are a lot of pretty niche suggestions.

This got me to wondering if Paul Simon's "Boy in the Bubble" is the only major hit with the word staccato in it.

Back in 2020 Tory Lanez released a whole song called "Staccato", but it didn't chart anywhere, and I can't find another example. Staccato is a common enough word, but it's slightly too posh-sounding, and also it has too many syllables to use easily in a rhyme. You say star-car-toe, I say stack-a-toe.

Lanez' song has the lyrics "I'm hotter than Folgers / money so thick, can't fold it, I told-ya / came back, put my baby mama in a Rover / Card got no limit, bitch, I'm a soldier", which is presumably supposed to be about a Range Rover, but I can't help but imagine him giving his girlfriend a Rover Metro 1.3HLS and bragging about the fuel economy.

"Staccato signals of constant information / a loose affiliation of millionaires and billionaires". They had millionaire and billionaires in the 1980s. And lasers in the jungle. Now there are more of them.

I have never heard another human being pronounce staccato in the ways you mention.

If you grew up with holes in your stack-a-toes, you'd celebrate the minute your star car gets towed.