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

10cc have a few of these:

bullhorn / padre / slugs ("Rubber Bullets)

Milton (as in John) ("The Dean and I")

Getty/ Rothschild/ Howard Hughes ("The Wall Street Shuffle")

Crosby (as in Bing)/ toupees ("Silly Love")

minestrone/ parmesan/ lasagne/ constipated/ Pluto/ Pisa/ crepe suzette ("Life Is a Minestrone')

Bullhorn = "I Don't Like Mondays"

Padre = "Green Green Grass of Home"

Indeed!

had to check, but sadly Weird Al's "Lasagna" - which also features "minestrone"! - did not chart.

Getty is also in "Last Child" by Aerosmith (#21 in 1976)

"Puttin' on the Ritz" may be the only one with "spats."

― Darth be not proud (Ye Mad Puffin), Friday, December 15, 2017

I feel like that song must have a few others as well. “Cutaway (Coat)”? “(Gary) Cooper”?

re: "slugs," so weird to realize "Teenage Lobotomy" was not a single. not that it would have been a hit anyway, but its ubiquity/significance today certainly outstrips that of "Rubber Bullets."

"Baccalà" in Rosemary Clooney's "Mambo Italiano"

It's a pity "The Worst Band in the World" flopped for 10cc as that had 'dharma bums' in the lyric.

"abacinate" - Slayer, Angel of Death

That’s not a hit song(!)

oh please it was even on South Park

I don't recall ever hearing the word 'unfettered' in anything other than 'Free Man in Paris'.

'Kegels' in "WAP"

Didn't Chuck Berry... no.

"Whomsoever" in Soundgarden's "Fell on Black Days."

It is also on the title track to the best-selling LP of all time

*smacks forehead*

Whomsoever be starting something
Whomsoever be starting something

The doggone girl is whomsoevers.

"Huarache," in "Surfin' USA," The Beach Boys

Although maybe this was a hit and I missed it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9S0ONyRctyE

gonna be a huarache tonight

“Huarache Raccoon”

“In Every Dream Home a Huarache”

here comes the story of the hua-ra-che

“amethyst” in Wang Chung’s “Dance Hall Days”

xp huarache comes into Maria Muldaur's "Gringo en Mexico."

I had never heard Prefab Sprout before the other day, but apparently I have a very word-for-word memory for lyrics quoted in ilm threads, because I was getting my hair cut a few days ago, heard the word "infrared" in the song that was playing in the salon, and thought, "Ah, this must be 'Faron Young' by Prefab Sprout."

"Naugahyde" in "Randy Scouse Git" by the Monkees, or "Alternate Title" as it was called on the UK where it was a number 2 hit.

*in the UK

heard the word "infrared" … and thought, "Ah, this must be 'Faron Young' by Prefab Sprout."

This is pretty damn impressive, tbh.

The Beach Boy's "Custom Machine" has naugahyde in it; wasn't a single, but Bruce (Johnston) & Terry (Melcher)'s cover was and it charted at #85.

'Naugahyde' is in "Powerful Stuff" by the Fabulous Thunderbirds, featured on the Cocktail soundtrack and a #1 US Album Rock hit in '89.

Just in case ABBA's "No Doubt About It" gets released as a single": "forbearance".

'Nefisa' by Earthling is probably the only pop single ever to namecheck Frantz Fanon.

prisencolinensinainciusol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VsmF9m_Nt8

Ayes

I have been very sure since about 1985 that Mark King sings the word 'conked' in Something About You, but it's carved, of *course* it is, it even sounds like carved, wtf brain?

sericulture

Ha, queue up to say what that one is.

Surely, someone besides Crowded House has used "deluge," but nothing occurs to me at the moment.

'Hubcap'* from "Bang A Gong"

*No, the Sleater-Kinney song of the same name doesn't count

― C. Grisso/McCain, Tuesday, 12 February 2008 23:30 (thirteen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Family, "Strange Band"

Man and his hubcaps, flashing the highway
Shielding his eyes, from the heat of the sun

Surely, someone besides Crowded House has used "deluge," but nothing occurs to me at the moment.

Jackson Browne, "Before the Deluge"

Jackson Browne, "Before the Deluge"

Well, that was easy LOL

But not, to my surprise, "Here Comes the Flood" by Peter Gabriel. It must be Peter Hammill who used it somewhere.

Have we abandoned the “hit song” criterion?

I was wondering that, Peter Hammill has certainly neve had a hit single!