If the song has an established rhyme sequence and this line decides to either randomly break it or get incredibly lazy with the chosen words, that constitutes a bad lyric. If the words chosen make it genuinely difficult for me to enjoy the song, that's definitely a bad lyric. If an overused cliche or reference that's been used too many times is dragged up and used to make the song sound more romantic or intellectual (e.g. pretty much any song after "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" which refers to Romeo & Juliet)...yeah, you get the picture.
Let's get cracking!
1. "Hot Blooded" - Foreigner
"You don't have to read my mind,
to know what I have in mind"
I guess it's kinda fitting that the album cover also contains the same picture used twice
I really like this song for what it is. It's a cheap, 79p Hard Rock song that's always good to listen to when it comes on the radio but it's unlikely to be anyone's favourite. You might argue that it could've (and should've) been a more popular Arena Rock hit but considering the band couldn't even think of another word that rhymes with "mind" for the opening line of the first fucking verse, something tells me this band never really intended this to be their magnum opus. But hey, it's a dud lyric in an otherwise acceptable track. Just a shame it's one of the first lyrics after the chorus.
2. "The Trees" - Rush
"There is trouble in the forest,
And the creatures all have fled
As the maples scream "Oppression"!
And the oaks just shake their heads"
"WHAT?! How DARE you put Rush in this opinionated blog post about rubbish lyrics!!"
I wanted to include the lyrics for the entire song but chose instead to pick the verse which I felt was the silliest. I mean, whether you think the song is one of Neil Peart's finest lyrical works or a pretentious load of crap, at the end of the day it's just silly. It's a forced metaphor designed to highlight social/economic class strife that reads like a children's poem without the music. In fact, if it WAS written to be a poem, I'd probably enjoy it a lot more as the words aren't all that bad without context. However, it's not a poem. It's a Prog Rock track and they're lyrics for a Rock song.
3. "Spirit In The Sky" - Norman Greenbaum
"Never been a sinner,
I never sinned,
I got a friend in Jesus"
This lyric is worth a million sins, in my book! *chuckles internally*
Another case of a great track ruined by a shoddily lazy lyric. Up until the verse after the solo, the song does a pretty good job with the rhyming couplets and aside from being flatter than week old cola, it's a great tune. Sadly, Mr Greenbaum decided to phone it in at the two & a half minute mark and presumably thought "Sod it, it's been a long day. I'll just whack out the first thing that comes into my head" shortly before he came up with a line that feels disturbingly out of place. Not just that but the rest of the lyrics are all recycled from previous verses and choruses. Someone probably should've told Norman that Sloth is actually a sin before he cut corners whilst writing an entire song about how fucking great he was...Pride too, that's another sin.
4. "Daddy, Brother, Lover, Little Boy (The Electric Drill Song)" - Mr. Big
"I'll be your daddy, your brother, your lover and your little boy"
A visual representation of what this song turns into thanks to the lyrics...a trainwreck...get it?
It took me a while to actually buy this song and listen to it fairly regularly. Even now, I find myself skipping it despite loving the musical side to it. I can listen to romantic songs that talk about being someone's lover. I can live with tracks that imply a family connection to someone the singer really cared about. I can even stand a well-written tune that insists on telling the listener about how they're "your daddy". But when a singer serenades you about being all of those things at once and phrases it in a kind of creepy way, it ends up on blog posts like this. I totally understand the sentiment behind it but I also feel it could've been done in a way that wouldn't deserve a spot on The Jerry Springer Show.
5. "Jailbreak" - Thin Lizzy
"Tonight there's gonna be a jailbreak
Somewhere in this town"
I can't believe I never questioned this line when I first heard it
Credit where due, I wasn't the first to make this observation. I saw Dave Spikey (a stand-up comic) make a joke about these lyrics years ago and sadly, I can't find a clip of it on Youtube to link to. However, he still raises a good point. It makes it sound like everyone in the band was thinking "Gee, I wonder where a JAILbreak could take place" as they were writing it. There's not too much material to be mined from this comment so I guess the rest of this paragraph could be spent talking about how every other Thin Lizzy song mentions "the boys".
6. "You're So Vain" - Carly Simon
"You're so vain
You probably think this song is about you"
[INSERT WITTY REMARK CONNECTING 'SECRETS' WITH 'OBVIOUS NIPPLES']
OK so the self-referential nature of a song aimed at someone the singer hates is quite clever and definitely catchy. However, there is a crucial flaw to this song that nobody seems to want to admit. The song is called "You're So Vain", a line she repeats in the chorus. The whole point of the song existing seems to be to highlight the fact that there's a vain dick in her life, so technically the song is about the guy/amalgamation of men she's singing about. This wouldn't be a problem if she didn't also sing "you probably think this song is about you" in the chorus, a statement that doesn't really make the guy(s) seem vain as the song is actually about that person/people.
Forget your "ah, but if it's about several people & one of those people thinks it's about them alone, they're being vain" argument too. If that was the case, the song would still be about that person as she would then be singing "you're so vain" at them alone. In other words, if anyone thought the song was about them, it was and anyone who didn't think it was about them clearly wasn't that vain. It's a flawed lyric that undermines the rest of the song and probably didn't deserve half the critical analysis I applied to it here.
7. "Born To Run" - Bruce Springsteen
"Just wrap your legs round these velvet rims
And strap your hands 'cross my engines"
Maybe they'd sound better if they didn't sound like they were spoken with a mouth full of food
I've made my thoughts about Bruce Springsteen crystal clear on this blog but I will say that the rest of the lyrics to this are pretty good, as are the efforts of his supporting band up until the awkward-sounding bridge. However, aside from the classic "tramps like us..." line, the only lyric I could recall happens to be one of the worst I've heard from any band/artist. Leaving aside the fact that you don't actually strap your hands across an engine when riding a motorbike unless you want to experience a worse burning sensation than trying to spank an open flame, it's the kind of cheap chat-up line I'd expect to overhear at a pub after the village shithead decides to down pint number seven. Like most of the above, it's enough to completely stain the song and prevent me from enjoying it even slightly, although Mr Springsteen's presence doesn't help either.
8. "War Pigs" - Black Sabbath
"Generals gathered in their masses,
Just like witches at black masses"
A good example of a song that could easily lose a minute or two
Similar to the first entry in this post, these iconic opening lyrics fall into the trap of rhyming a word with itself. It's like Ozzy or whoever wrote these words wanted the first line but couldn't think of another word ending in "-asses" that didn't make the song sound ridiculous. Chances are it was a band decision, even though they could've used the line later on in the song and rhymed it with "fascists" or "assets" or something that didn't sound like a child had written it. I would have been tempted to give these guys a pass, as they are Black Sabbath and all, but the fact that concert-going Metalheads always, ALWAYS belt out these shitty lyrics at full volume like they're the finest words ever assembled earns them their spot here.
9. "All Right Now" - Free
"Now don't you wait, or hesitate.
Let's move before they raise the parking rate"
Last time I saw a sign reading "Free Fire and Water", I was at an arsonist's pool party!! *rimshot*
I confess, the lyrics I originally wanted to use were different to these ones. I initially thought the lines before these were "Hey baby, what's your name? Maybe we can see if it's the same", which was ripe for a good mocking. However, turns out they're really "maybe we can see things the same" which is just about good enough to avoid tearing apart. At least, they would be if these lines weren't directly after it. Have you ever read a poem written by a kid where the content makes no sense just because it needs a rhyme at the end of the line? Yeah, that's this lyric right here.
"Let's move before they raise the parking rate" may have been a common saying in the early 70's, I don't know. If it was, maybe this line doesn't belong here. However, considering they actually had a decent rhyme of "wait" and "hesitate" just before, this line just feels like they wanted to get the lyrics for the verse out the way so they could move onto the chorus. In other words, it's got a faint aroma of laziness about it. Still a decent track though.
10. "Pink" - Aerosmith
"Pink as the bing on your cherry,
Pink, 'cause you are so very"
After hearing this song, pretty sure it's at eight now
Aerosmith was always going to end up on this list, it was inevitable. I could've gone down the easy route and picked "I Don't Wanna Miss A Thing" or maybe something from Toys In The Attic but instead, I went for a song that I fucking hate that wasn't "I Don't Wanna Miss A Thing". Sammy Hagar wrote a song professing his love for the colour red and the result is a decent Hard Rock track. Aerosmith wrote a song professing their love for the colour pink/vaginas and the result is a kind of Country Rock puddle. That just about sums up Aerosmith compared to other Rock bands in a nutshell. Anyway, the lyrics I picked were the ones that sounded the most idiotic and made the least amount of sense. There are some decent ones in this track but the song is still terrible, as are these lyrics.
Do you agree with my choices? Do you think I was a bit harsh on some of these tracks and should've played it safer with songs known for crappy lyrics like "Ironic" or "Photograph"? Let me know in the comments and feel free to suggest some of your own tracks that could've done with a rewrite before entering the studio.
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