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| Ridiculous Lyrics; Bismillah! | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Nov 3 2010, 04:30 PM (624 Views) | |
| whatsthatonyourback | Nov 3 2010, 04:30 PM Post #1 |
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Waldo Jeffers
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It's hardly a new idea for a topic, but I was recently listening to Kings Of The Wild Frontier by Adam & The Ants, and I was struck by how awful some of it is. Many many tunes lack, err, tunes, and the lyrics are ridiculously bad. My favourite is the lyric "Get down on your knees and hear the insect prayer". Quite a proclamation, and the listener is really expecting something pretty dramatic after this. And what do they get? "Dirk wears white sox!". The title of the last A&tA LP, and a pretty meaningless phrase at that. Is that the best they could come up with? Of course, there's also the "Ant Music For Sex People, Sex Music For Ant People" lyric that they were so proud of they even stuck it on their otherwise excellent logo at the time. |
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| findus | Nov 3 2010, 04:58 PM Post #2 |
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Jerry Kerr
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Are we talking ridiculous as in pop-enough, or ridiculous as in bizarre-lentils? My overall impression is that there's a lot of stuff out there that only makes sense to the writer; a lot of stuff that is pop-enough, and some of it is good for what it is; and then there's the primo stuff that connects at some deeper level. "She gonna look like when there's a chimney on her" is still my favourite all-time lyric.
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| Alpha | Nov 3 2010, 06:36 PM Post #3 |
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Craig Brewster
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few strange ones I can think of "I am milk I am red hot ketchup" or "He's Got A Chain Of Flowers And Sows A Bird In Her Knickers" and finally "My dog needs new ears Make his eyes see forever" |
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| Naebody | Nov 3 2010, 07:03 PM Post #4 |
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Twat
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Don't mind that one at all. Woman's man has a brief fling with a tart. Man insists it's all over, but tart continues to hang around. Woman mulls what tart would look like under masonry. It's not Shakespeare, but it's good enough for disco. The ones that annoy me are songs that undermine good lyrics with appalling ones. I can usually let dreadful writing wash over me if the intention's okay. But if good lyrics force me to listen early on, each bad word that follows feels like a toothpick stabbing into in the cerebellum. For example, Fallen For You by Sheila Nichols. It lowers your guard with simple, clean writing like:
Yet, by the third verse, it's pulling this kind of shite.
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| whatsthatonyourback | Nov 3 2010, 08:17 PM Post #5 |
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Waldo Jeffers
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Wow, that's a good one! Bad one. Whatever. |
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| Naebody | Nov 3 2010, 09:52 PM Post #6 |
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Twat
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Isn't it, though. Can't face fifth-form onanism either. Placebo are repeat offenders, such as this ripe example from Pure Morning:
To which I reply, grow up or f*ck off. |
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| YazooArab | Nov 3 2010, 10:08 PM Post #7 |
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Paul Sturrock
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War, war is stupid and people are stupid. I rest my case. |
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| whatsthatonyourback | Nov 3 2010, 10:38 PM Post #8 |
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Waldo Jeffers
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Ah, see I like that one. If I wanted poetry I'd dig out my Norton Anthology and force one of today's skinny-jean youths to shout it through a bad microphone over a wall of feedback while we both get drunk on overpriced cider and he gets off with my girlfriend. Actually, that sounds great! It was supposed to be crap, but I want to go to that gig NOW. |
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| Naebody | Nov 3 2010, 11:18 PM Post #9 |
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Twat
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Yeah, I deliberately chose Placebo to divide the crowd. It's not quite as simple as "shit lyrics are shit." Poetry as lyrics tends to be overbearing, which is why author-musician collaborations rarely work. The Fugs are justly forgotten, Alan Moore and William Boroughs brought nothing to the million or so projects they tried, and Will Self's thing with Bomb The Bass provided one of the worst records ever pressed in earnest. Great lyrics can be shallow in a way good writing in other media rarely can. 'Wonderwall' is barely literate wankoff when read as verse but works fine when attached to a four-chord guitar run. The line is crossed only when a lyric is so exceptionally clumsy it derails the song. Here's another example, which struggles to express the timeless theme of wanting a nice girl to touch your cock. It's the second verse of I Won't Dance, as popularised by Frank Sinatra.
Beat that. |
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lyric.


4:36 PM Jul 13