3. "Sometimes When We Touch" by Dan Hill:
I'm just another writer
Still trapped within my truth.
To quote Groucho Marx: "Mind if I bore a hole in you and let the sap run out?" This is inarguably the worst song in the history of songs; it's been scientifically proven. "Now That's What I Call Gregorian Chants" is more upbeat.
Although the entire lyrics to "Sometimes" are terminally and creepily treacly and unctuous, what mainly concerns me is this notion that, say I, for example, could be "just another writer still trapped within my truth." Well, this is completely and utterly antithetical to the web of deceit and lies upon which I've based my life.
2. "The Solid Time Of Change" by Yes:
A seasoned witch could call you from the depths of your disgrace,
And rearrange your liver to the solid mental grace...
Ewww. The next Yes album was the bloated double album of preening pretentiousness and cavalierly-tossed cosmic debris, Tales From Topographic Oceans, which didn't even match the depths of this particular disgrace from Close To The Edge.
1. "Still You Turn Me On" by Emerson, Lake, and Palmer:
Every day a little sadder
A little madder
Someone get me a ladder.
Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music is more lyrically profound. With my top two songs of energy-draining lyrical lunacy, we have come to the ninth circle of prog-rock hell. Here Yes and ELP-style bombast and hear-the-colors see-the-sounds delusionary grandeur comes dressed to the nines in quasi-mystical lyrical trippiness. More often than not, however, the words are just dumbed-down, lowest-common-denominator afterthoughts, assisted by a rhyming dictionary: "Now let's see, what word rhymes with 'sadder'... ?"
And what songwriting scenario could be sadder?
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - NFX
Neil Diamond's "Porcupine Pie" was much worse than "I am I said"
Porcupine Pie, Porcupine Pie, Porcupine Pie
Vanilla Soup, a double scoop please
No, maybe I won't, maybe I won't, maybe I will
The tutti fruit with fruity blue cheese
Ah, but Porcupine Pie, Porcupine Pie, Porcupine Pie
Don't let it get on your jeans
And though it sounds a little strange
Well, you gotta eat it with gloves
Or your hands will turn green
Ah, but porcupine pie, porcupine pie, porcupine pie,
It weaves its way through my dreams,
And I do believe I'm gonna have one and
Leave enough room for dessert, chicken ripple ice cream.
2 - GoHah
NFX--I stand corrected: that is worse. Thanks for bringing it to my attention--I had never heard of it, and I kind of hope I never do again.
3 - Matthew T. Sussman
Whoa, black betty, bam-ba-lam
Whoa, black betty, bam-ba-lam
Black betty had a child, bam-ba-lam
The damn thing gone wild, bam-ba-lam
She said, "i'm worryin' outta mind," bam-ba-lam
The damn thing gone blind, bam-ba-lam
I said oh, black betty, bam-ba-lam
Whoa, black betty, bam-ba-lam
Nice call on "I Am I Said."
4 - Michael J. West
Wow, not one mention of Jimmy Webb's notorious cake-the one left out in the rain.
5 - Russell Paika
Ain't No Mountain High Enough
It drives me nuts whenever I hear it.
And then there's "I got work to do, so much work to do." That actually comes on over the PA when i'm at work and it makes me feel like putting everybody in seperate Port-O-Johns and lighting them all on fire.
6 - dix
Elton John, Rocket Man:
"Mars ain't the place to raise your kids, in fact it's cold as hell. And there's no one there to raise them, if you did."
Line ALWAYS makes me cringe. Add in the fact that Elton had Bernie Taupin to write lyrics, and it's just plain ridiculous.
7 - gamacrit
"I Honestly Love You" by Olivia Newton-John (paraphrased):
If circumstances were different
We might be having the sex right now
But you've got your woman
And I've got my man
So I guess not.
Not a great song. Certainly can't compare with "Have You Never Been Mellow?" But the lyrics are perfectly understandable.
8 - Steve B
5. "Live And Let Die" by Paul McCartney and Wings:
But if this ever changing world in which we live in
Is actually
But if this ever-changing world in which we're living
9 - Al Barger
I totally don't see your beef with "Live and Let Die." It's a perfectly serviceable lyric for a James Bond theme.
Also, not that the lyric particularly makes sense, but I'll defend "Horse with No Name." That's not watered-down Neil Young-ism, but a really good one. This is one of the best songs Neil Young never wrote.
Also, if you're going that kind of comparison, Dylan seemed to think that "Heart of Gold" was ripping off HIS style.
I am glad, though, to see the prominent placements for the supposed "prog" rock. Yes and ELP will be live in infamy.
10 - Shark
Want some really stupid, annoying lyrics?
How 'bout we add "overrated" and "pretentious"?
pick one
xoxo,
"Gospel Plow" Shark
11 - Shark
Bobby Zimmerman was at his worst when moaning about his newfound Christoidanity -- but the following lyrics take it to a new level -- this is the kinda "poetry" future serial killers write during their adolescent years spent at Baptist summer "retreats":
Dylan sez:
"The iron hand it ain't no match for the iron rod,
The strongest wall will crumble and fall to a mighty God.
For all those who have eyes and all those who have ears
It is only He who can reduce me to tears.
Don't you cry and don't you die and don't you burn
For like a thief in the night, He'll replace wrong with right
When He returns.
Truth is an arrow and the gate is narrow that it passes through,
He unleashed His power at an unknown hour that no one knew.
How long can I listen to the lies of prejudice?
How long can I stay drunk on fear out in the wilderness?
Can I cast it aside, all this loyalty and this pride?
Will I ever learn that there'll be no peace, that the war won't cease
Until He returns?
Surrender your crown on this blood-stained ground, take off your mask,
**He sees your deeds, He knows your needs even before you ask.
How long can you falsify and deny what is real?
How long can you hate yourself for the weakness you conceal?
Of every earthly plan that be known to man, He is unconcerned,
He's got plans of His own to set up His throne
When He returns.
=========
** Yaweh as Santa Claus!
12 - Shark
And a close second is... (Just for you, Big Al Barger!)
~PRINCE:
~ARRRRRRGH.. Must stop... can't take anymore.... aaaaaaaaaaaggggggg.....
** NOTE: 4,275 more verses -- and Prince STILL doesn't use the terms "croon -- moon -- june"
~what are the odds, eh?
13 - Shark
[Additional anthropological note: Drums pounding in the head is apparently a universal sign of an impending Transcendental Religious Experience -- almost as popular as "voices in the head".]
14 - Tim Hall
You're all missing the point about Yes. Nobody ever bought a Yes album for the lyrics. It'd be like buying a Morrissey record for the music....
15 - Shark
re: Yes lyrics --
more to the point: those lyrics were *written on LSD and were meant to be *listened to on LSD. Trust me: they make sense.
*Sorta like booze + Faulkner and Joyce.
16 - Tim Hall
They do? Then I'll take your word for it.
OTOH, I'll concede the ELP one, that one stinks. Did Greg Lake come up with it himself, of is it one of Pete Sinfield's?
I hope the 80s post is going to have something by Dio.
17 - Hunter
I will have to say that those lines from "A Horse With No Name" are not even the worst lines in that particular song. I offer the line "There were plants and birds and rocks and things". Could they simply not think of another thing that could be found in a desert, and just gave up and threw out "things".
And as far as bad desert imagery, we cannot forget the line from "Midnight at the Oasis": "Cactus is our friend".
18 - gonzo marx
one word....
inna-godda-davida
nuff said?
Excelsior!
19 - Sister Ray
I'll take Black Betty over "The Pina Colada Song" any time.
20 - GoHah
MJ West#4: The original "MacArthur Park" (the Richard Harris hit of the Jimmy Webb song) came out in 1969. I don't mind any song in any era being brought up in the comments, but you need to understand why it didn't make the cut in a list of 1970s songs (which means re-makes like Donna Summer, don't count).
Gamacrit#7: actually, "Have You Never Been Mellow" is one of my guilty pleasures, even though I have never, ever, come close to being mellow.
Steve B#8: When I was double-checking those lyrics online, nine or ten sites all said "live in" not "living." I know these resources aren't always the most reliable, but McCartney still sounds like he's singing "live in"--I guess he could be singing "livin'". I'd like to concede that I'm wrong--where did you get your info?
AL #9: I'm a McCartney fan, and I like "Live and Let Die," just not the arguable excess of "in" in that one line.
Shark#11: one great song came out of Dylan flirtation with Christianity: "Every Grain of Sand."
Tim Hall#14: Here's a great Morrissey line from a Smith's song:
I traveled south again
I traveled north
I got confused
I killed a horse ...
And I hope it was that damned Horse with no name.
Shark#15: Um, no, Yes lyrics may have been written on LSD but you only think they make sense upon listening--which is why I preferred "Kinks Kronicles." By the way, I was a big Yes fan before encountering "Tales from Topographic Oceans" which was like coming up against a stonewall of sonic and lyrical sludge, whatever frame of mind--or mindlessness--you were in.
21 - godoggo
How bout Tull, "Snot's running down his nose?" Does this strike anyone else as anatomically improbable?
Actually, none of my most hated songs, offhand at least, are from that maligned decade though.
22 - GoHah
good call, godoggo--I never caught that one. Another one that's not as out-there but still bugs me in an overly-picky way: Jackson Five's "I'll Be There" when Michael tells the object of affection: "Just look over your shoulders, girl!" "Shoulders" in the plural conjures up some uncomfortably contortionist come-hithers which, though consecutively possible, just not likely or probable, especially given that the usual entreaty is the singular "look over your shoulder."
23 - godoggo
There was a scene about that in a Michael Jackson biopic about that. Another brother stopped the recording because Michael made a mistake, and Berry Gordy said, "I love mistakes."
I was actually thinking, from the same song, "If you should ever find someone new/ you know he better be good to you/ 'cause if he doesn't..." Personally I would have made that "isn't" although I guess "doesn't" is more menacing somehow. Anyway, I love that song too much to put it on any "worst" lists.
24 - Mark Sahm
On 9. "Going To California" by Led Zeppelin, I think the thing that makes that line stick out is Plant goes into an Immigrant Song-esque wail for it. Every time that song comes on at random on my computer, I sing that line out loud to make my wife laugh.
I actually still dig that America tune, but you're right, the lyrics show their age. Good post.
25 - Eric Berlin
I'm pretty sure Axl sang "Live and Let Die" with the "in" !
Interesting list. I actually kind of like the Diamond and Led Zep quotage. As for Neil, the dude could do some song writing -- look what he did for The Monkees!