Some of them seem to me truly awful, and others seem to display a lack of humor. I’m sure you’ve got some of your own.
Disco is not at all represented. “Someone left the cake out in the rain.”
“I’ll call you Jag-u-ar if I may be so bold.”
Here are the lyrics to Gene McDaniels’ “Hundred Pounds of Clay”:
He took a hundred pounds of clay
And then He said “Hey, listen”
“I’m gonna fix this-a world today”
“Because I know what’s a-missin’ ”
Then He rolled his big sleeves up
And a brand-new world began
He created a woman and-a lots of lovin’ for a man
Whoa-oh-oh, yes he did
I guess they’re too young to remember Emerson, Lake and Palmer, too.
As alwaqys, I will go with the “Cake in the rain” and just about every other lyric in the interminable, irrelevent, nonsensical song that is “MacArthur’s Park.”
Jimmy Webb must have been doing some fine, fine ‘shrooms when he wrote that sappy piece of dreck.
Hat tip to Bob Seeger’s “chargin’ rock.” I only pick Rock and pop songs because my expectations for Rap and Hip Hop are so low.
Whatever Jimmy was doing for “MacArthur Park,” I have to figure he tripled the dosage for “The Yard Went On Forever,” which is something of a cross between On the Beach and De profundis.
Then again, I’m still trying to carve a screenplay out of Al Stewart’s “Year of the Cat.”
Barry Manilow should be locked up for having committed Copacabana.
“And as he started to go
She said, Billy keep your head low;
Billy, don’t be a –”
*POW* …plop…
And the problem with ELP (other than “Love Beach”. . . . )?
Brain Salad Surgery
It will murder you, it murdered me
We made it for our enemy
Brain Salad Surgery
Okay, Steve Miller, who’s Maurice, and what the hell is a “pompatus”? Could I slap someone with one? Would it make a good plot device? Frankly, it sounds like something the BMOC would put in a freshman coed’s drink.
Jurassic Park is fright’ning in the dark
All the dinosaurs are running wild
Someone shut the fence off in the rain
I admit it’s kind of eerie
But this proves my chaos theory
And I don’t think I’ll be coming back again
Oh no
This is why I wait until the pop music has made it through the Yankovic cycle before bothering to engage it. The end result is superior almost without exception.
I’m surprised that “Seasons in the Sun” isn’t occupying all twenty slots.
aw yeah, Swen, though my favorite would be:
Billy Mack is a detective down in Texas
You know he knows just exactly what the facts is
He ain’t gonna let those two escape justice
He makes his livin off of the peoples’ taxes
ok, Pablo. . .
That was NOT on BSS (Karn Evil #9 etc.) but later. not sure what album. still don’t have a good answer to my response (Love Berach not withstanding. . . . )
To give Weird Al his props, he went to considerable trouble to replicate Hal Blaine’s none-too-simple drumming in that song; it’s one of his finer moments in a career that has more of them than most people think.
Suddenly, a shot rang out, and I saw Julie falling
I ran to her, I held her close, when I looked down, my hands were red,
and heres the last words Julie said…
Daddy please don’t, it wasn’t his fault, he means so much to me
Daddy please don’t, we’re gonna get married…..aaahhh..ahhhh
ahhhh….ahhhhh…
By the time this song is over I’m ready to shoot the bitch myself and kick David Geddes’ nuts up into his abdomen.
yours/
peter.
Telly Savalas: “Rubber Bands and Bits of String”
Shannon is gone
I hope she’s drifting out to sea
She always loved to swim away
Maybe she’ll find an island
With a shady tree
Just like the one in our backyard
A real Pavement Pizzamaker.
Cordially…
But the boy’s not just a hero
He’s strictly second team
Tho he runs each night for touchdowns
In his father’s sweetest dreams
He’s gonna be a star some day
Tho you might never tell
But the blind man in the bleachers knows he will
David Geddes should be shot and his corpse should be left to rot in Barry Manilow’s jail cell. And Michael Martin Murphy’s Wildfire should be piped in on an endless loop. Rough justice, sure, but some crimes are beyond the pale.
okay, if nobody’s gonna come up with a better ELP comment,
I’m gonna go to the Kos site and. . . . . . .
Ah, Pabs. That Wildfire comment hurt me. Shoot, Bennie & the Jets..a contemporary…is far worse.
Oh, and don’t forget The Night Chicago Died!
Cordially…
“Take the Money and Run” is truly bad, and makes number two on my list.
However, the most toxic schmaltz spill known to man is “Honey”. Line by line, the lyrics are merely nauseatingly insipid, like eating vaseline, but the cumulative impact is deadly:
“One day while I was not at home
While she was there and all alone
The angels came
Now all I have is memories of Honey”
OK, now I have to go jam my hand into the blender to distract me from the pain.
No AC/DC?
She had the face of an angel, smiling with sin
The body of venus with arms
Surely an oversight on somebody’s part.
The song Brain Salad Surgery was not released until Works Vol. 2, 4 or 5 years after the B.S.S. album came out. If you get rid of side 2 of Works Vol. 1 and combine it with Vol. 2, you get a great couple of CDs, bad lyrics notwithstanding.
Muskrat, Muskrat, candle light
Doin’ the town and doin’ it right in the evenin’
It’s pretty pleasin’
Muskrat Suzie, Muskrat Sam
Do the jitterbug at a Muskrat Land
And they shimmy, Sam is so skinny
And they whirl and they twirl and they tango
Singin’ and jinglin’ a jangle
Float like the heavens above
Looks like Muskrat Love
Nibblin’ on bacon
Chewin’ on cheese
Sam says to Suzie
Honey, would you please be my Mrs
Suzie says, yes, with her kisses
Now, he’s ticklin’ her fancy
Rubbin’ her toes
Muzzle to muzzle
Now anything goes as they wriggle
Sue starts to giggle
And they whirled and they twirled and they tango
Singin’ and jinglin’ a jangle
Floatin’ like the heavens above
Looks like muskrat love
Dan, you’re cruel.
Should we assume the original working title of that article was “The 20 Worst Lyrics of the MTV Generation”, but they figured their readers wouldn’t realize there was lame pop music before MTV?
Well, yes, probably. I’d say that’s a reasonable assumption, although technically some of those are pre-MTV. Like the Wings one. But as far as being cruel, I’m not the one who brought up Seasons in the Sun.
Emerson, Lake, and Palmer have never deserved the bashing they receive. As for the bad lyrics–no one writes good lyrics. That’s why it’s called pop *music*.
Everybody jumps on Terry Jacks for “Seasons in the Sun,” but his reading of it is miles ahead of Rod McKuen’s, and McKuen is the guy who actually came up with the English words for the tune. (It’s a French melody by Jacques Brel.) Jacks tweaked the lyric slightly, though I think the sheer hatred for his recording is based on its comparatively-upbeat tempo.
Terry’s ex-wife Susan Jacks – now there’s a singer.
While you all have made great (and hilarious) additions to the horror of bad lyrics, I am in a cruel mood soooooooo …
Someone’s knockin’ at my door,
Somebody’s ringin’ the bell.
Someone’s knocking at my door,
Somebody’s ringing the bell.
Do me a favor, open the door,
and let ’em in.
OOOO YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH.
The above lyric has been proven to leach 5 points of IQ from the listener for every five minutes of listening time.
If you listen for an hour, you’ll you’ll end up as smart as Cindy Sheehan but still smarter than Laurie David.
At the risk of offending our host, may I mention this gem, which pegs the needle on my smarm meter:
BJTexas: You’ll remember that Macca once caused to be released under his own name (or Wings’ name, anyway) a recording of “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”
Oh, but did you ever sit through Bert Parks singing it?
Five points per second. Before I saw that, I was smarter than Einstein.
LOUSY LYRICS
Poetry can’t get away with lousy wording, it might be trendy and popular for a short time, but in the end they are forgotten and forgettable. Music is different, some very fine songs can have very foolish lyrics.