Good Songs Spoiled By Just One Line

Blueingreen

There are a lot of gauche lyrics in in Scott Walker songs, but the ones that stand out for me are "Her thighs are full of tales to tell/Of the nights she's known" in Montague Terrace (In Blue).  Still probably my favourite Walker song but those lines make me cringe every time.

BillDL

Aaaah, and here was me thinking that she used to live next to Sellafield Nuclear Power Station and the lyrics were "Her thighs are full of TAILS".

jonnyburgo

When Chris de Bollockchops sings "Lady in red is dancing with me, cheeks to cheeks" surely the path to romance would have been somewhat shortened if they both turned around to dance facing each other. Winds me up.

chromatuna

George Harrison While My Guitar….

‘I look at the floor and see it needs sweeping’

munckee

I’m on fire by the boss

where he asks if your daddy can make you feel like he does. 

No need really. 

english_bob

A misheard one that always bothers me is from "Ful Stop" on Radiohead's A Moon Shaped Pool. I've looked up the lyrics more times than I care to remember so I know it's "truth will mess you up", but I just can't stop hearing "toot for Mexico".



And one that I definitely heard right, from "When It Comes" by Incubus.

"When it comes, it comes unannounced
And it feels like a matador is taunting me with his reddest red cloth"

All good so far...

"And I am the bull"

Thanks Brandon. I got that.

Dan_Halen

"...Even food don't taste that good..." from When You're Gone.

Decent pop-tastic tune but makes my teeth itch. I'm sure the food doesn't taste as bad as that lyric.

Skipped

munckee said:

I’m on fire by the boss

where he asks if your daddy can make you feel like he does. 

No need really. 

Hot Chocolate: "When you're in love with a beautiful woman, it gets hard."

Totally innapropriate for children and young teenage record buyers.

RocknRollDave

Skipped said:

munckee said:

I’m on fire by the boss

where he asks if your daddy can make you feel like he does. 

No need really. 

Hot Chocolate: "When you're in love with a beautiful woman, it gets hard."

Totally innapropriate for children and young teenage record buyers.

Wasn’t that Dr Hook?

Skipped

RocknRollDave said:

Wasn’t that Dr Hook?

Yes it was. My apologies.

BigMonka

I have a funny soft spot for Drops of Jupiter by Train which is full of weird millennium-era lyrics which sound really dated but also quite nicely nostalgic, like:
” She checks out Mozart while she does Tae-Bo”

And the awesome/awful bridge section:

” Can you imagine no love, pride, deep-fried chicken
Your best friend always sticking up for you
Even when I know you're wrong?
Can you imagine no first dance, freeze-dried romance
Five-hour phone conversation
The best soy latte that you ever had, and me?”

digitalkettle

BigMonka said:

I have a funny soft spot for Drops of Jupiter by Train which is full of weird millennium-era lyrics which sound really dated but also quite nicely nostalgic, like:
” She checks out Mozart while she does Tae-Bo”

And the awesome/awful bridge section:

” Can you imagine no love, pride, deep-fried chicken
Your best friend always sticking up for you
Even when I know you're wrong?
Can you imagine no first dance, freeze-dried romance
Five-hour phone conversation
The best soy latte that you ever had, and me?”

This might be the first one of these that genuinely has tainted the song for me ;-/

BlueStrat

Doesn’t really qualify as a good song ruined by one line as The Killers are shit but this song of theirs has some utter tosh in
Well somebody told me you had a boyfriend
Who looked like a girlfriend
That I had in February of last year

Philly_Q

digitalkettle said:

BigMonka said:

I have a funny soft spot for Drops of Jupiter by Train which is full of weird millennium-era lyrics which sound really dated but also quite nicely nostalgic, like:
” She checks out Mozart while she does Tae-Bo”

And the awesome/awful bridge section:

” Can you imagine no love, pride, deep-fried chicken
Your best friend always sticking up for you
Even when I know you're wrong?
Can you imagine no first dance, freeze-dried romance
Five-hour phone conversation
The best soy latte that you ever had, and me?”

This might be the first one of these that genuinely has tainted the song for me ;-/

Having said several times that I don't really care about lyrics... that is truly awful.
I've never consciously heard the song, but I know it was one of those big US hits which didn't really trouble the charts over here (or maybe it did, I don't know).  I'm pretty sure there was a transcription of it in Guitar World.

digitalkettle

Philly_Q said:

digitalkettle said:

BigMonka said:

I have a funny soft spot for Drops of Jupiter by Train which is full of weird millennium-era lyrics which sound really dated but also quite nicely nostalgic, like:
” She checks out Mozart while she does Tae-Bo”

And the awesome/awful bridge section:

” Can you imagine no love, pride, deep-fried chicken
Your best friend always sticking up for you
Even when I know you're wrong?
Can you imagine no first dance, freeze-dried romance
Five-hour phone conversation
The best soy latte that you ever had, and me?”

This might be the first one of these that genuinely has tainted the song for me ;-/

Having said several times that I don't really care about lyrics... that is truly awful.
I've never consciously heard the song, but I know it was one of those big US hits which didn't really trouble the charts over here (or maybe it did, I don't know).  I'm pretty sure there was a transcription of it in Guitar World.

Thankfully, they are (or were) well disguised in the vocal delivery!

BillDL

The first band I was in didn't really take off for a variety of reasons following a couple of gigs.  The main reason was that the bassist was friendly with a keyboard player who wrote voluminous prose and rhyming poetry.  In theory it should have given us plenty scope to hash out a melody and rhythm, but the poetry was all about him being dumped, or a pigeon with a stumpy leg, or the teacher he fancied when he was 15 that was cruel by ignoring him.  It was utter shite.  Pure melancholy drivel.  This was just one of the issues.  The bassist wanted him in but the guitarist (me), the drummer and the vocalist didn't want keyboards (or his dreary "lyrics").

Snap

Kilgore said:

OK, cards on the table. I've got a soft spot for Oasis anthemic pop rock.

Now Noel is dab hand at naff lyrics but,
Don't Look Back in Anger. 

"Stand up beside the fireplace
Take that look from off your face."

Really winds me up. 

Yes!

and from the same song:

"Slowly walking down the hall, faster than a cannonball."

And another of his, from the collaboration with the Chemical Brothers, Setting Sun

"How does it feel like?" which surely should be either how does it feel, or what does it feel like.

Not noted for his command of grammar

Wyzard

Snap said:

Kilgore said:

OK, cards on the table. I've got a soft spot for Oasis anthemic pop rock.

Now Noel is dab hand at naff lyrics but,
Don't Look Back in Anger. 

"Stand up beside the fireplace
Take that look from off your face."

Really winds me up. 

Yes!

and from the same song:

"Slowly walking down the hall, faster than a cannonball."

And another of his, from the collaboration with the Chemical Brothers, Setting Sun

"How does it feel like?" which surely should be either how does it feel, or what does it feel like.

Not noted for his command of grammar

Strictly IMO, of course:

"Wonderwall" could have been usefully re-named "Unconnected Snippets From A Variety Of Songs That I Smashed Together While Waiting For A Properly Coherent Lyric To Turn Up, Or Something".

Less catchy, but more accurate, perhaps.

PetGerbil

BigMonka said:

I have a funny soft spot for Drops of Jupiter by Train which is full of weird millennium-era lyrics which sound really dated but also quite nicely nostalgic, like:
” She checks out Mozart while she does Tae-Bo”

And the awesome/awful bridge section:

” Can you imagine no love, pride, deep-fried chicken
Your best friend always sticking up for you
Even when I know you're wrong?
Can you imagine no first dance, freeze-dried romance
Five-hour phone conversation
The best soy latte that you ever had, and me?”

Dear past and future songwriters... romance DOES NOT RHYME WITH dance!!
And you! DeBurgh, Stop It!

LastMantra

BlueStrat said:

Doesn’t really qualify as a good song ruined by one line as The Killers are shit but this song of theirs has some utter tosh in
Well somebody told me you had a boyfriend
Who looked like a girlfriend
That I had in February of last year

That's a shocker.