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The worst lyric in an actual hit pop song?

by 143 Comments

Surely this poetic image is a contender:

–We danced the night away

We drank too much

I held your hair back when

You were throwing up

Great for the first dance song, eh? Any other suggestions?

2

Comments

  1. Worst lyrics? What are you talking about, BJB?

    Have you not a romantic bone in your body?

    The couple that heaves together, leaves together. The couple that barfs together, laugh together. The couple that techniclour yawns together, spawns together.

  2. I often quote this, but I’m happy to trot it out again…Garry Mills’s epic Top Teen Baby from 1960:

    I dig this cookie she’s the mostest of the lot
    And furthermore she is the only chick I got

    Sheer poetry.

  3. This song asks a simple but profound question, and provides a really really lousy answer.

    “Yo, I’ll tell you what I want, what I really, really want
    So tell me what you want, what you really, really want
    I’ll tell you what I want, what I really, really want
    So tell me what you want, what you really, really want
    I wanna, (ha) I wanna, (ha) I wanna, (ha) I wanna, (ha)
    I wanna really, really, really wanna zigazig ah”

  6. “James, James
    Hold the ladder steady.
    James, James
    I’m packed and I am ready.
    James, James
    Hold the ladder steady.
    I’m a-coming down into your arms.”

    From “James (Hold The Ladder Steady)”, the final one of four 1962 singles by 17-year-old Carol Deene (born Carole Carver). She had previously had a minor hit “Sad Movies (Make Me Cry)” in 1961.

    ***Listen At Your Peril*** It’s awful.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lR61G0D1jb0

    • You’ve obviously never heard Oh Oh Oh Willie.

      ‘I’m so much in love with Willie that it’s silly…I just go for darling Willie willy-nilly…’

      To be fair to James, it’s a typically puckish John D Loudermilk song, so it’s reasonable to suppose his tongue was firmly in his cheek when he wrote it.

        • Oh Oh Oh Willie was written by one Hal Shaper (it says here), whose main meal ticket was the English lyrics to an Italian song called Softly As I Leave You. It was first recorded by Matt Monro, and then (among many others nobody’s ever heard of) by Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Andy Williams, The Sandpipers, Bobby Darin, Doris Day, The Lettermen, Shirley Bassey, Johnny Rivers, Mantovani, Eydie Gorme, Brenda Lee, Lena Horne, Cliff Richard, Vic Damone, Howard Keel and Michael Bubblo.

          That’s some meal ticket.

      • Long, long ago, on Juke Box Jury, during a Carole Deene record, musical comedy star Stubby Kaye put a clothes peg on his nose and said “this record stinks and so does the person who sang it. ” Unfortunately, Ms Deene was that week’s singer behind the screen and she ran off in tears

  8. ONJ’s “Sam, Sam, you know where I am…”

    Good thing his name wasn’t Wilberforce or Onofrio, someone might’ve had to think for longer than half a second to think of a rhyme.

  9. “There’s a place I know if you’re looking for a show
    Where they go hardcore and there’s glitter on the floor” … “glitter on the floor” doesn’t sound particularly hardcore does it? Blood, vomit, goat’s entrails would be more appropriate surely. (Or am i too old to know that “glitter” is a euphemism for something more sinister).

    • The next line “cos baby I’m an addict” made it even worse. After lyrics like that bad I didn’t hold my breath waiting to hear the classic.

      Another contender is “why do I find it hard to write the next line?” Good question Gary, perhaps its a lack of either imagination or songwriting talent.

  12. 2 oldies-but-baddies here:

    “Can’t complain, mustn’t grumble, help yourself to another piece of apple crumble”
    (I maintain that Martin Fry is usually such a clever lyricist, that this must have been deliberately crap.)

    “I don’t want to see a ghost, It’s a sight that I fear most, I’d rather have a piece of toast”
    (from Des’ree’s “Life”, staggeringly enough nominated for a Brit Award for Best British Single in 1995)

    • Oh no. That’s the wrong Leven lyric.

      This is the right one:
      The salt in the ocean is there
      Because the fishes cry too
      They cry for their loved ones
      They see taken into the bluuuueeee

  16. This was number one for what seemed like the whole year (which was 1983)

    I bought a ticket to the world
    But now I’ve come back again
    Why do I find it hard to write the next line?
    Oh, I want the truth to be said

  18. Horse With No Name by America is a pretty good example of the ‘will this do?’ school of lyrics writing.

    Setting aside the ‘You’re in the desert. You’ve got nothing else to do. NAME THE FREAKIN’ HORSE’ element, not to mention that the narrator must have skin like an armadillo if it only started to turn red after two days in the desert you have the following:

    There were plants and birds and rocks and things
    There was sand and hills and rings
    The first thing I met was a fly with a buzz
    And the sky with no clouds
    The heat was hot and the ground was dry
    But the air was full of sound

    I’m presuming this probably was written in the studio after a couple of tokes, but really….

    • ‘After nine days I let the horse run free because the desert had turned to sea’

      2 problems here :

      Because most deserts lie in the interior of continents, they don’t have water to moderate their temperatures.

      Horses can drink sea water now ?

    • Oh well, if we’re just going for sheer logic (or lack thereof), then we’re obliged to include:

      “Tonight there’s gonna be a jailbreak, somewhere in this town”

      Perhaps you might want to start at the jail, Phil…?

      • Ah, but… what if Phil is singing about good ol’ London Town? We have: Brixton, Pentonville, Thameside, Wandsworth, Belmarsh and, last but not least, “a name only Satan in all his splendour could have thought up, namely Wormwood Scrubs”.
        So in that case Phil was right to be vague.

        • … see also

          jailbreak
          ˈdʒeɪlbreɪk/

          verb (computing)
          1.
          modify (a smartphone or other electronic device) to remove restrictions imposed by the manufacturer or operator, e.g. to allow the installation of unauthorized software.
          “in order to use these programs, iPhone owners have to jailbreak their device”

  20. Vanessa Williams’ ‘Save the Best for Last’:

    Sometimes the snow comes down in June
    Sometimes the Sun goes round the Moon

    I admit the first can happen, though whether that is remarkable depends on where you are, but I’d like to see evidence of your second assertion, Vanessa. In your own time then.

  22. “I drive a Rolls Royce
    …cos, it’s good for my voice”

    has to be up there.

    Along with Mr Tantric himself:

    “It’s no use, he sees her, He starts to shake and cough
    Just like the old man in That book by Nabakov”

    If a book on the whole rock/nonce thing ever gets written, that song’s perspective (“Temptation, frustration, so bad it makes him cry”) would warrant a Yewtree-sized analysis.

    • Didn’t Richard Thompson write a song about Sting? Cos I seem to remember the lyrics for that are absolutely terrible. As are the lyrics for his Trump song someone posted on here recently.

      It’s a shame cos he plays a nifty guitar. But his voice and lyrics ruin the whole bangshoot for me.

      But he’s never had a hit, so is inadmissible for this thread.

      • Did he? It’s not a song he needs, it’s a charge sheet.

        With you on RT’s voice. I’ve never much cared for his tone either. And don’t get me started on his hat…

        • Found it.

          Here comes Geordie, back in town again
          Here comes Geordie, strutting down the lane
          Girls all want to toy with his affection
          Boys all say, he loves his own reflection

          Hey now, Geordie, sing us all a song
          Whoa there, Geordie, where’s your mother tongue?
          That don’t sound like Tyneside to me
          Geordie, are you from Jamaica, ee?

          Here comes Geordie in his private plane
          Got to save the planet once again
          Good old Geordie, righteous as can be
          Chop down the forest just to save a tree

          Good old Geordie went to buy a hat
          Geordie says, my head won’t fit in that
          It’s so swollen, much to my surprise
          They’re all too small, there’s nothing in my size

          Here comes Geordie acting in a play
          He’s no Gielgud or Olivier
          Stiff as cardboard, isn’t it a drag,
          Can’t act his way out of a paper bag

          Here comes Geordie, back in town again
          Here comes Geordie, strutting down the lane
          Girls all love him, think he is the end
          Boys all say, the mirror’s his best friend

          Here comes Geordie
          Here comes Geordie

          It’s absolutely pitiful.

    • That Rolls Royce line is brilliant, love it!

      Here are a few more:

      “I met a girl. She asked me my name. I told her what it was.” – Razorlight

      “Young, black and famous – with money hanging out the anus.” – Puff Daddy

      “You work in a shirt with your name tag on it, drifting apart like a plate tectonic.” – Kaiser Chiefs

      “Girl you make me feel real good, we can do it til we both wake up.” – Color Me Badd

      “Bob Marley, poet and a prophet/Bob Marley taught me how to offit/Bob Marley, walkin’ like he talk it/Goodness me, can’t you see, I’m gonna cough it” – Red Hot Chili Peppers

        • I kind of like the idea of them, but they’re just bloody awful, aren’t they?

          One of the worst gigs I’ve ever seen was them debuting their new material for Stadium Arcadium outside the BBC. Honestly regretted being there; they looked, acted and sounded absolutely ridiculous.

          • I’m pretty sure without Anthony Pienis they’d be fine. Rock solid drummer, ridiculous bass player who can actually rein it in occasionally and play genuine notes, and John Fruitsalad was useful too despite being a hilarious pseud.

            I love a stupid LA musician. Remember how Dave Navarro out of Jane’s (and briefly RHCP) made a solo album, pressed like 100 copies of it and kept them all in a coffin in his front room because the album represented “his pain”.

            Brilliant.

    • In his own right, The Stingster had a hit with Russians, which includes the priceless:

      MIster Krushchev said, “We will bury you.”
      I don’t subscribe to this point of view.
      It’d be such an ignorant thing to do
      If the Russians love their children too.

  23. ‘Stranglehold’ by UK Subs is the most moronic slab of crap ever to grace any hit parade in any universe at any time. Apart from being a huge flag to Yewtree, the ‘lyricist’ can’t even be bothered to write words for most of it – he just counts numbers. Here’s the opening:

    One two three
    Four five six
    Gotta do a dance
    And it goes like this

  24. I feel inclined to blow my mind
    Get hung up, feed the ducks with a bun
    They all come out to groove about
    Be nice and have fun in the sun

    A bizarre mix of vague hippy-dippy sentiment – get hung up, groove about, be nice, have fun – and the extremely specific ‘feed the ducks with a bun.’ Mother’s Pride ain’t good enough for these quacks. And is it the ducks who come out and groove about? Frankly the whole thing’s a mess.

  26. Macca is the master (still love him mind):

    this was a hit:

    “Mary had a little lamb,
    his fleece was white as snow,
    Ev’rywhere that Mary went,
    that lamb was sure to go.
    And you could hear them singing:
    La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la.
    La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la …”

    As was this:

    “Give Ireland Back To The Irish
    Don’t Make Them Have To Take It Away
    Give Ireland Back To The Irish
    Make Ireland Irish Today

    Great Britain You Are Tremendous
    And Nobody Knows Like Me
    But Really What Are You Doin’
    In The Land Across The Sea …”

    This wasn’t (Driving Rain):

    “1 2 3 4 5 let’s go for a drive
    6 7 8 9 10 ooh ooh
    1 2 3 4 5 let’s go for a drive
    6 7 8 9 10 let’s go there and back again …”

    Neither was this (Bip Bop):

    “Bip bop, bip bip bop
    Bip bop, bip bip band
    Dig your bottom dollar
    put it in your hand
    Try to hang out
    underneath the stand
    Put your hands together
    gonna see a band
    Treat me…”

  27. The Smiths:
    Punctured bicycle
    On a hillside desolate
    Will nature make a man of me yet?
    or
    Why pamper life’s complexity
    When the leather runs smooth
    On the passenger’s seat?

    Also, not Hits but M’Lud, I have to submit:

    Mr Zappa’s
    She stripped away her rancid poncho, And laid out naked by the door,
    We did it till we were un-concho, And it was useless any more.

    Mr S. Miller’s
    Hot Chilli is Groovy, After a movie, Or watching TV.

    Fountains of Wayne’s (admittedly tongue in cheek) Denise:
    She works at Liberty Travel,
    She has a heart made of…..gravel…

  28. I know I always target this one. I otherwise like Heaven 17, but this really gets my goat.

    “I was 37, you were 17
    You were half my age, the youth I’d never seen”

    Firstly, half of 37 is not 17, it is 18.5 – see me after class.
    Secondly, if you were 37, you must have once been 17 – unless you own a time machine, or were in a year-long coma.

    • Let’s not forget how the story unfolds..

      if half the things they say are quarter true of me (Good)
      Then how can I eclipse the youth you gave to set me free? (?)

      Something in your smile was hard to reconcile (Good)
      But time had come to testify to reason (?)
      Though years will not erase the remembrance of those days (Good)
      At least there’s no submission to heart’s treason (??? – see me)

  30. Busted said:
    “I’ve been to the year 3000,
    Not much has changed but they lived underwater,
    And your great, great, great-granddaughter is pretty fine”

    Point 1:
    “Live underwater” – so has the human race developed gills and are now living as fish following a great flood or polar ice cap melt in about 2300? More detail on “future history” please

    Point 2:
    “Your great, great, great-granddaughter is pretty fine”
    Lets allow 30 years for each generation. The family relationship is 5 generations removed, therefore 150 years.
    In 2017, we are 983 years away from 3000, so your great, great, great-granddaughter is 833 years old.
    Unless there was some form of cryogenic suspension (probably around the time of the flood?), I very much doubt that she is pretty fine.

  31. Human League – The Lebanon

    “Before he leaves the camp he stops,
    He scans the world outside,
    And where there used to be some shops,
    Is where the snipers sometimes hide”

    • Hurrah! I knew “The Lebanon” would be along eventually. It’s always welcome!

      Has anyone mentioned The Cranberries’ “I Shot John Lennon” yet? That’s a 24-carat stinker, (although admittedly not “an actual hit pop song”, as the OP requires).

      • Oh the Lennon song is amazing. Proper William McGonagall standard.

        “It was a fearful night of December 8th
        He was returning home from the studio late
        He had perceptively known that it wouldn’t be nice
        Because in 1980, he paid the price
        John Lennon died
        With a Smith and Wesson 38
        John Lennon’s life was no longer a debate
        He should have stayed at home
        He should have never cared
        The man who took his life declared:
        He said, “I just shot John Lennon,
        I just shot John Lennon”
        What a sad and sorry and sickening sight
        What a sad and sorry and sickening night.”

  32. “No matter where I roam
    I will return to my English Rose
    For no bonds can ever tempt me from she”

    Surely this takes some beating?

    Mind you, whoever left that cake out in the rain has got some explaining to do. Especially if the recipe was as unique as Richard Harris claimed.

    • A yes, as I said in a recent thread any song which has claims to be the worst of all time has English Rose and Imagine to beat first.

      Bryan Adams has a similar, though not quite so atrocious, grasp of grammar:

      She says her love for me could never die
      But that’d change if she ever found out about you and I

        • Wouldn’t work with the music. The second syllable of never is a quick “vuh” and is easy to jump off from into “die”. The “ways” of always is clumsy to sing quickly and get into the “be” without being really clunky and awful.

          I can’t say the ungrammatical nature of the line has ever bothered me. I think Run To You is a really good tune, BA’s subsequent descent into extreme naffness notwithstanding.

          • Run To You is a lyrical high point of the Adams oeuvre. Here’s but one of the many, many lows:

            I wanna be your t-shirt when i
            t’s wet – wanna be the
            shower when you sweat
            I gotta to be the tattoo on your skin – ya lemme be your
            bed baby – when you climb in
            I wanna be the sheets when you sleep – lemme be the
            secrets that you keep
            I gotta be the spoon – ta stir your cream
            I wanna to be the one that really makes you scream
            I wanna be – your lipstick when ya lick it
            I wanna be – your high heels when ya kick it
            I wanna be – your sweet love babe – ya when you make it
            From your feet up to your hair – more than anything I swear

            I wanna be – your underwear

            I wanna be the itch that you scratch – wanna be your
            chair when you relax
            I got to be your razor when you shave
            Wanna be the habit that really makes you crave
            I wanna be – your hot tub – when you’re dippin’
            I wanna be – your bathrobe – when you’re drippin’
            I wanna be – your cocktail baby – when you’re sippin’
            I just wanna be right there – more than anything I swear

            I wanna be – your underwear

            Wanna be your sleepin’ bag – baby slip inside
            Let me be your motorcycle n’ take ya for a ride –
            alright
            I wanna be – your hot sauce – ya when you’re cookin’
            I wanna be – your sunglasses – hey good lookin’
            I wanna be – wanna be the one – ya stick your hook in’
            I just wanna be right there – more than anything I swear

            Oh ya I wanna be – your underwear

              • Fair play to Bryan Adams: he’s had many cruddy efforts.

                My favourite of his comes from The Only Thing That Looks Good On Me Is You, as you can sing the next line before you’ve heard it:

                Yeah it’s you – it could only be you
                Nobody else will ever do
                Yeah baby it’s you – that I stick to
                Yeah we stick like glue.

  36. Neil Diamond – I am I said… “did you ever hear about a frog who dreamed of being a king?.. & then became one/well except for the names & a few other changes if ya talk about me?/the story’s the same one.. um I’m not a believer, Neil.

  38. Nice to hear Chris Difford was challenged on 6 Music on Sunday regarding the time difference on Up The Junction and admitted it’s bothered him as well.

    This morning at four fifty
    I took her rather nifty
    Down to an incubator
    Where thirty minutes later
    She gave birth to a daughter
    Within a year a walker
    She looked just like her mother
    If there could be another

    • Here it is. Let all regret that Lee Mavers never made another album just melt away…

      All this world seems bent upon
      Contemplating Babylon
      Fate is sealed inside a bomb
      Where has all the freedom gone
      There’s a place for everyone
      Live and die our Kingdom Come
      I believe the day will come
      To understand where you come from
      I’m not scared to die — God help me
      We went to the same school and we
      All learned the same rules of lament
      The knot will never come undone
      Accidents show mercy none*
      There isn’t anywhere to run
      The masterpiece is done
      The war has won
      There’s a place for everyone
      Live and die our Kingdom Come
      But until the web is spun
      Everybody must have fun

      *This is my favourite line, a pinnacle of awfulness.

  40. As the OP I am shocked, shocked, SHOCKED I tell you that no one has brought this up:

    The wild dogs cry out in the night
    As they grow restless, longing for some solitary company
    I know that I must do what’s right
    As sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti
    I seek to cure what’s deep inside, frightened of this thing that I’ve become

    Never mind that Kilimanjaro is bigger than Olympus, so the simile is nonsense, If you force yourself to listen to Africa by Toto, you will find the scansion of the last two lines is ear-burstingly dire.

    • Huge fan of any simile which figuratively compares a mountain to a mountain.

      The lyrics are pure hilarious bunk but I really love Africa and that’s half the fun. Great tune.

  43. alice cooper, sghools out.

    “well we got no class”
    “and we got no principles”
    “and we got no innocence”
    “we can’t even think of a word that rhymes”

    both dumb and great at the same time.

    • alice seem to do this a lot….

      “who do you think we are…..special forces in a armoured car” from of course “special forces”.

      “come and lay down on the floor with me…its warmer here by the fire”
      “she didn’t know that there was more of me…she had to learn to love all four of me” from the splendidly batshit “no mans land”.
      a song about a man working partime as a santa…picked up by a bored housewife…who then reveals his multiple personalities.

      my fave….”I love that mountain with those four big heads…I love velvita slapped on wonderbread..
      I love a commie, if he’s good and dead” from “I love America.

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