Great songs with lame lyrics

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by bob_32_116, Jun 20, 2018.

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  1. Veni Vidi Vici

    Veni Vidi Vici Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chicago, IL
    Can’t agree with that. Ramones lyrics are no more “lame” than three chords thrashed over sixteenths is lame. I think they capture something vital about rock’n’roll in their minimalism, in fact. I think a truly lame lyric contains a howler, a terrible rhyme, ludicrous grammar, something like that. Another of my favorite examples is by the maestro of banality, Paul McCartney, in “Live and Let Die”...

    But if this ever changin' world
    In which we live in

     
  2. BPMC

    BPMC Forum Resident

    Location:
    Riverside, CA USA
    And don't forget "Celebrated Summer". The melody and the playing are fantastic, but the lyrics make me wince!
     
    eflatminor likes this.
  3. bob_32_116

    bob_32_116 Forum Flaneur Thread Starter

    Location:
    Perth Australia
    Some people could probably make a great song with lyrics taken from the phone book.

    I'm reminded of a local TV "quiz" show called Spick and Specks. There are two teams of three players. One of the segments has one of the team reading from some text totally unrelated to music, and singing the words to a well-known song, and their fellow team-mates have to identify the song. They might be reading a recipe from a cookbook, and singing it to the tune of "Climb Every Mountain" - something like that. Even if they are singing in tune, it's surprising how hard it can be to identify the melody heard out of context.
     
  4. A Saucerful of Scarlets

    A Saucerful of Scarlets Commenter Turned Viewer

    Chapter 24 by Pink Floyd's lyrics are taken out of a science book and it totally works!
     
  5. redsock

    redsock Writer, reader, grouch.

    A "great" song? Probably not, but this couplet is beyond horrendous:

    Might like to wear cotton, might like to wear silk
    Might like to drink whiskey, might like to drink milk
     
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  6. warewolf95

    warewolf95 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Greenville, SC
    Good point!
     
  7. screechmartin

    screechmartin Senior Member

    Location:
    British Columbia
    Nobody has taken a shot at you yet, and, really, it is hard to disagree. There is much to admire about "Stairway to Heaven," but the lyrics are pompous and banal. Back in the day I think we all thought Plant was telling us something important, but now it just looks like he was just trying to wallpaper a strong melody and a supersonic guitar solo.
     
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  8. dkswaff

    dkswaff Forum Resident

    Location:
    Badstreet, USA
    "Hello, hello, hello, how low
    Hello, hello, hello, how low
    Hello, hello, hello, how low
    Hello, hello, hello"

    Also, I'm not sure what you're referring to as a happy accident of a song title. Someone made the comment that Kirk smelled like a female body deodorant.
     
  9. TheLazenby

    TheLazenby Forum Resident In Memoriam

    Location:
    Pittsburgh
    Not that it's a great song, but Madonna's "I don't like cities, but I love New York / other cities make me feel like a dork" gave me frightening flashbacks to literally any song on the "American Life" album three years prior.
     
  10. TheLazenby

    TheLazenby Forum Resident In Memoriam

    Location:
    Pittsburgh
    I like traffic lights
    I like traffic lights
    I like traffic lights
    That is what I said

    I like traffic lights
    I like traffic lights
    I like traffic lights
    I like traffic lights
    I like traffic lights
    But not when they are red

    I like traffic lights...
     
  11. PJC68

    PJC68 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Liverpool UK
    You can blame the drugs for that :D
     
  12. bob_32_116

    bob_32_116 Forum Flaneur Thread Starter

    Location:
    Perth Australia
    Lame lyrics are lame lyrics. If he wrote them while on drugs, that doesn't absolve him from blame.

    If anything
    is even worse. A landslide in the sky? Even the Beatles at their silliest were never anything like as bad as this. "I am the Walrus" is a philosophical masterwork by comparison.
     
    Odysseus likes this.
  13. "Good Morning Starshine". Nice melody, not saying it's a lame song or lame lyrics, but I'd definitely be embarrassed if someone overheard me trying to sing it. :D
     
  14. Harry Hood

    Harry Hood Forum Resident

    Location:
    England
    I'm still yet to hear anything worse than this -

    How do turtles talk to one another
    They just look, there's no reason to cower
    Just like people they're drawn to each other
    They don't live in no ivory tower
     
  15. bob_32_116

    bob_32_116 Forum Flaneur Thread Starter

    Location:
    Perth Australia
    What song is that?
     
  16. Shonen Knife - "Mango Juice"



    Mango seeds don't fly. Lovely song but the Japanese language version sounds better, unless you understand Japanese.
     
    Last edited: Jun 27, 2018
  17. Harry Hood

    Harry Hood Forum Resident

    Location:
    England


    Decent enough track really. The offending verse starts at 2.18.
     
  18. mikedifr0923

    mikedifr0923 Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Jersey
    Agreed. Different songs and different styles have different intentions. Some songs are meant to have amazing lyrics.....some are just meant to tap your feet, bob your head or just have a good time
     
  19. Odysseus

    Odysseus Forum Resident

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA
    Actually I blame John Lennon and "I Am the Walrus" for making it 'okay' for guys to get away with writing bad lyrics.

    Lennon could craft a great lyric... "A Hard Day's Night" and "Real Love" are two examples of his lyrical abilities... but starting with "I Am the Walrus" the rock attitude for the generation growing up on the Beatles became, "Oh, I don't even know what my lyrics mean", or my personal favorite "The fans tell me what my lyrics mean"... That's just evasive B.S.

    Due to that logic/precedent guys like Noel Gallagher, Billy Cogan and Dave Grohl (all children of the 60s) have made careers out of writing nonsensical, gibberish and lame lyrics.

    It started/became acceptable with John Lennon and his "I Am the Walrus".
     
  20. bob_32_116

    bob_32_116 Forum Flaneur Thread Starter

    Location:
    Perth Australia
    No, I think the fad for nonsense lyrics started earlier than that. I'd say it was a hippie flower power thing. I'm thinking of First Edition's "Just Dropped In', JA's "White Rabbit", Traffic's "Hole In My Shoe", that sort of thing. It was supposed to sound oh so spaced out, man.
     
  21. mbleicher1

    mbleicher1 Tube Amp Curmudgeon

    Location:
    Washington, D.C.
    Except that "A Hard Day's Night" is not a good lyric ("I work all day to get you money to buy you things/And it's worth it just to hear you say you're gonna give me everything") and "I am the Walrus" may not mean anything, but it is evocative surrealism in the style of Lennon's favorite, Lewis Carroll. Almost every couplet or phrase conjures up strong mental images, with the only cop-outs being Lennon's made-up words—which was something he did long before psychedelics (e.g., In His Own Write).

    Further, I don't think "Walrus" started the trend of obscure lyrics. Dylan's surrealist songs most definitely inaugurated that, with John even admitting he was inspired by/responding to Dylan in writing "Walrus." Dylan's songs may or may not have had deeper meaning or significance behind each image and allusion, but like Walrus, they seemed to convey something. The trouble is, in the hands of people with fewer literary gifts than Bob (or John), you ended up with some real stinkers.

    Anyway, I think Live and Let Die has some of the dumbest lyrics of any major pop song by a major pop writer. I also think "Dancing with Mr. D" by the Rolling Stones is puerile.
     
  22. mbleicher1

    mbleicher1 Tube Amp Curmudgeon

    Location:
    Washington, D.C.
    Yeah, this is where the Beach Boys could've really used an in-house lyricist. I'm not going to get into a Mike Love debate—the dude salvaged the lyrics to "Good Vibrations"—but I imagine that he probably saw this as a way to appeal to the Beach Boys' devoted SLC fans (apparently it was a hotbed of popularity for them) and didn't really care how they sounded to everyone else.
     
  23. screechmartin

    screechmartin Senior Member

    Location:
    British Columbia
    Perhaps I misunderstand the purpose of the thread, but I don't think "I Am The Walrus," really qualifies. They lyrics to "Walrus" are silly but intentionally so---acid induced craziness. The lyrics that ruin songs for me are the lyrics that are simply placeholders for the melody. They don't mean anything; they are just there to qualify the melody as a song. Most of Oasis' songs are a good example, and I was listening to Cream's "Badge" today: a song where the lyrics are meaningless.
     
  24. bob_32_116

    bob_32_116 Forum Flaneur Thread Starter

    Location:
    Perth Australia
    No, you did not misunderstand, you understood the purpose of the thread precisely. I mentioned Walrus only to compare it with the Oasis song, not to suggest that Walrus has lame lyrics.
     
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