This blog post has been months in the making, as I wanted to spend longer gathering even better examples of truly rubbish lyrics from great Rock and Metal songs. If there are songs with shoddy writing that you feel I've missed, feel free to let me know on Twitter or the comment section, although keep in mind that I may have already covered your song choices in the first of these posts.
Anyway, let's get cringing!
1. "Pour Some Sugar On Me" - Def Leppard
"Step inside, walk this way,
You and me babe, hey hey"
I was surprised to learn the crappy edit of the song with this intro is the actual album version!
Def Leppard aren't lyrical wordsmiths by any standards but as long as they're capable of pumping out top quality music, that isn't a problem. However, there are times when that belief is put to the test, such as in the intro to their signature song. There are stories about this song being written and finished in an hour or so whilst on a break from recording other tracks and I'm tempted to believe them with lines like this. It's as if they couldn't be bothered to think of anything better to rhyme with "way" so opted for the Krusty The Clown ending. It's not even the only shit lyric, as someone on Twitter once pointed out that the song about sex officially stops being sexy at the line "one lump or two".
2. "The Jack" - AC/DC
"She's got the jack, she's got the jack
She's got the jack, jack, jack, jack, jack, jack, jack"
This song makes Rock Or Bust sound like bloody DragonForce
Give me any 40 minute Prog odyssey over this shit as I'm convinced "The Jack" is quite possibly the most boring fucking song in all of Rock. I know AC/DC albums tend to have uninspired filler tracks but this takes the absolute piss. Ignoring the fact that the band couldn't think of any clever or even bad lyrics after "she's got the jack" and decided to just repeat the line until you feel like jacking your life in yourself, the lyrical matter of this song doesn't match the music at all. It's a slow Bluesy number that is such a poor fit for a song about a girl with the clap; maybe that's what they were going for just to be cheeky but instead, it comes across as dirge.
3. "Death Or Glory" - Iron Maiden
"Climb like a monkey,
out of hell where I belong"
This lyric is the main reason I don't listen to this song that much anymore
Usually, Iron Maiden tracks (whether filler or singles) have great lyrics and even if they are overusing the theme of war, those songs can still drive a point home regardless of when that point was first made. However, this song has one line that removes listeners from the greatness of the music and feels like it doesn't belong with the rest of the lyrics. "Climb like a monkey" sounds like something out of an Ozzy Osbourne track, not an Iron Maiden one. Shame too, as the rest of the song is awesome.
4. "Should I Stay Or Should I Go" - The Clash
"If I go there will be trouble,
And if I stay it will be double"
Never liked this album cover, not sure why.
I think this argument was first brought up in a book by Al Murray (could be wrong) but I've always felt the same way about these lyrics too. Surely, if that's the dilemma The Clash are facing, the logical answer is to go! "If I stay it will be double" means that they're in a worse situation if they stay, so why the fuck are they so confused about this? There may be some underlying metaphorical bollocks about the connotations of "it will be double" but the denotation implies they'll be worse off if they stay. Good thing I started watching Stranger Things, otherwise I may have forgotten about these lyrics!
5. "What Difference Does It Make?" - The Smiths
"So what difference does it make?
So what difference does it make?
It makes none..."
Shittalking lyrics in a Smiths song? Fuck, I've got some explaining to do!
I'll admit, this entry is probably more of a personal pet peeve than me pointing out genuinely rubbish lyrics but stick with me! Morrissey is kind of like a musical Banksy; people can go on for days about all the poetic statements he's made about his beautifully grim view on life but when all's said and done, he comes across as a massive bellend, more so than Sting or Bono in my opinion. However, we're not here to talk about his alliance with vegan nutjobs PETA or his attitude towards his past/superior work, just these lines in this song which MAYBE a more humble musician wouldn't have included.
Call me pedantic but I have a massive problem with lyrics that answer their own rhetorical questions; imagine how much shittier that last track I talked about would be if The Clash sung "Should I stay or should I go? I should definitely go" in each chorus. It comes across as patronising, like we couldn't work out what Morrissey was fucking getting at without him spelling it out seconds later...and yes, I'm aware of the irony of that last sentence. At least Johnny Marr's guitar is a constant redeeming factor here, as is the case with most decent songs by The Smiths.
6. "Soul To Squeeze" - Red Hot Chili Peppers
"Doo doo doo doo dingle zing a dong bone,
Ba-di ba-da ba-zumba crunga cong gone bad"
Probably the most RHCP-y song of all RHCP songs
Usually, Red Hot Chili Peppers songs have fucking great lyrics and even if you can't make out all of the words, they all mesh perfectly with the music and rhythm. However, I can remember hearing this part of the song and finding myself removed from the music. To me, the only band that can get away with fitting vocal nonsense to great music is Tenacious D (hence their absence from this list). For a band known for amazing lyrics, this string of gibberish is especially worthy of a place in this post although I probably would've included it even if they had the lyrical genius of a Poison song.
7. "Civil War" - Guns N' Roses
"What's so civil about war, anyway?"
Guys, have you heard? War is bad! GNR figured it out!
Yeah man, what IS so civil about war? That's, like, such a clever observation dude and get this; why do Universal Studios only ever show the Earth if they're UNIVERSAL Studios?
Aren't all glasses technically 3D glasses?
Is your mind blown yet, brah?
OK, in what I assume were Axl's last words before recording this bollocks, let's get serious now. I'm not sure what the worst thing about this lyric is; the fact that Axl is questioning his own message about all wars being civil wars, the way it's still trying to make the song seem like it gives a fuck about other people despite being all about Axl telling us how much HE doesn't need war or the pathetic, patronising tone Axl takes when he utters this line during the outro. The rest of the lyrics are pretty shocking too, although not in the way Axl intended. When you have verses singing "look at the people dying, look at the women crying" or some shit and then try to round the song off with a pseudo-philosophical question about war, you've got a perfect candidate for this blog post.
8. "ABC" - The Jackson 5
"Sit down girl, I think I love you,
No, get up girl"
It might not be "Rock" but I would argue it's a Funk/Pop-based Rock subgenre so it counts, damnit!
I've always hated this song about a teacher trying to chat up a child who doesn't know her basic alphabet as sung by a four year old but this lyric is the final straw for me. It's fucking annoying and makes no bloody sense; plus it makes Michael Jackson's teacher sound like an absolute prick, berating a young girl for doing exactly what he's ordering her to. People give modern Pop artists like Justin Bieber and Nicki Minaj shit for singing truly awful lyrics written by six studio producers to make as much money off idiotic teenage girls and teenage boys trying to get with idiotic teenage girls as possible but...well, you get the point I'm making.
9. "Bad Bad Boy" - Nazareth
"I'm a bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad-bad boy"
I'll admit this is similar to a previous entry on the list but it's still worthy of this list
If you've heard this song, you'll probably already think it's annoying anyway. If you haven't heard it, it's quite possibly one of the worst Hard Rock songs in existence. As soon as the slide guitar comes in and you realise it's yet another shitty rendition of the Blues chord progression, you know you're in for a godawful track. However, I'm not here to discuss this song's quality, just the lyrics.
They're serviceable for the most part but towards the end when the band ran out of ideas, it goes from shit to shite. Dan McCafferty starts singing the word "bad" over and over, similar to when Dave Grohl sings "The Best" in "Best Of You" - Foo Fighters, only this time it's grating and sounds like it goes on for fucking ages. They could've improved this song by...hmmm...well, not writing it, I suppose.
10. "Teenage Dirtbag" - Wheatus
"I've got two tickets to Iron Maiden, baby
Come with me Friday, don't say maybe"
Apparently, this song came from an actual album! Who knew?
Another song I fucking despise. To be honest, I could've copied the entire song's lyrics down as the whole thing is stupid but I chose these two lines for reasons I'll explain a bit later. It starts off with a dork singing about a girl named Noel, given a boy's name just to allow for a shitty rhyme, and he laments the fact that she's going out with a dick. If this song were written now, everyone would hate the lead singer for being a "nice guy", although he claims that this jock brings a gun to school so I'm not really sure who I'm supposed to hate here; someone who may shoot up a school or a whiny pussy bitching all the way through this song.
Anyway, by the end of the track (during the lyrics I've quoted), the girl he fancies approaches him at the prom and asks him if he wants to go see Iron Maiden with her. Leaving aside the fact that if the romance was genuine, this would NEVER HAPPEN, the cynical part of me thinks this is basically just the girl mentally screwing with the dork to get his hopes up. However, the lyrics or band aren't nearly clever enough to give that impression. Fuck Wheatus and fuck this song.
Chances are I'll hear a song with worse lyrics than any of these in the next week so, similar to what I'm doing with one of my Showdown posts, I'll add any extra songs to the end of this post until I reach 10 tracks with shitty lyrics; then I'll paste them all into another blog post.
If you have any recommendations of songs with terrible lyrics, let me know via Twitter or the comment section. Apologies if I forgot any feedback I received from the last one of these posts (as I know somebody messaged me). Next week, album review(s)!
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