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Underground > Radio & Music >

Bad Lyric Planet

  
  

Page: 1(2)345

 
 
Suedey! SHOT FOR MEAT!
11:06 / 26.11.02
Oops. Am referring to the primitives, like.
 
 
ephemerat
11:36 / 26.11.02
I find it a bit hard to knock The Primitives or any of the above Oi or punk bands for writing lyrics that perfectly fit their genre of music. As Rizla pointed out, the words are supposed to be bollocks; criticising them for simplicity or banality is like criticising the numerous hard rock/soft metal bands for their overt sexual innuendo and macho posturing - this type of writing is requisite for the form and bands pride themselves on it.

Also, having not really analysed Avril Lavigne before I can say that (if she wrote this herself) I am pleasantly surprised; as songs go, it's clear and concise, it tells a story with a beginning, middle and end, it involves elements of love, jealousy, pride and ruination, it has at least one strong moralistic element and the whole thing actually scans: of course it appears teenage - she's a teenager; of course it's an old story - but it's one that is endlessly repeated and I'm sure it seems new to her. She ain't gonna be Keats, but nor is she gonna be McGonnagal.

Hm. Hang on - it seems she's actually 17. Shit. I thought she was younger than that - I may have to recant.
 
 
rizla mission
11:40 / 26.11.02
I think some of us are confusing bad lyrics with brilliant lyrics somewhat..

So, Tasmin Archer = bad lyrics. The Primitives = fucking brilliant lyrics! I mean, c'mon, "looks so cool in his purple socks / saw him sitting on a pillar box". Goddamned genius.

But anyway, I was searching the dark recesses of my mind yesterday looking for bad lyrics, and have sadly remembered Kula Shaker's memorable ode to psychedelic transcendence;

It's a feeling like no other,
Spending Easter with your Mother,
Did you know that Planet Earth was blluueee?


And also I seem to recall 'Let's Get Rocked' by Def Lepperd (which, to paraphrase GhostWorld, is a song so bad it's gone past good all the way back to bad again) has a verse which begins;

I'm just an average, ordinary everyday dude,
drivin' with my baby, together in the nude

Thankfully, I can't remember the exact words to the rest, but I think his 'baby' puts some shit with violins on the radio, and being a rock n' roll mutha, he's having none of it and insists on hearing some RAWK, just as the chorus breaks in .. could be the absolute epitome of 80s cock-rock awfulness..
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
12:40 / 26.11.02
Anyone who just named an artist, or couldn't remember lyrics, or be bothered to quote them, is hereby disqualified.

'rat: I think there should be a whole sub-genre here of yuppie-friendly ballads from 10 or so years ago that pay excrutiating lip-service to environmental issues. Step forward Julian "Give me daddy's cash!" Lennon:

But when I think about the hole in the sky
Saltwater wells in my eyes.
 
 
Harhoo
12:55 / 26.11.02
Yah, another vote for The Primitives as being excellent, if only because it reminds me of one of my all-time favourite songs 'Punk Boy' by Helen Love.

Anyway then, now that I've got the Morrissey quotation out of my system; the two main suburbs of Badlyricsville are sub-sixth form poetry and ludicrous rhyming. The real genius of the 80s was the facility with which bands could combine the two, not least in the work of Depeche Mode. I give you the first verse of 'Everything Counts', a scabrous expose of capitalism and its values:

The handshake
Seals the contract
From the contract
There's no turning back
The turning point
Of a career
In Korea, being insincere
The holiday
Was fun packed
The contract
Still intact

The korea/career rhyme has the power to cheer me up on a cold winter's evening.
 
 
No star here laces
13:11 / 26.11.02
So I've never actually heard this song, but I've heard this band, and I knew they would have some gems for us in this thread. Ladies and gents, "This ruined puzzle" by Dashboard Confessional...

this ruined puzzle is beige with the pieces all face down so the placing goes slowly.  the pictures of anything other than it's meant to be.  but the hours they creep, the patterns repeat.  don't be concerned, you know i'll be fine on my own.  i never said, "don't go."  i've written a note.  it's pressed between pages that you've marked to find your way back.  it says "does he ever get the girl?"  but what if the pages stay pressed, the chapters unfinished, the stories too dull to unfold?

Yep, you said it mate, too dull to unfold indeed...
 
 
Ethan Hawke
13:19 / 26.11.02
Re: Avril Lavigne (she's just April Levine to me, punk!)

I didn't know song lyrics could tell a story! that's so totally cool.

Incidentally, what I find most interesting about that song is that I've only seen "boi" used to indicate a "boy" who wasn't born male. Perhaps I'm not up on the language of teens these days, or perhaps the conflict between skater boi and prep girl is more complicated than we thought.
 
 
Eloi Tsabaoth
13:44 / 26.11.02
i think this is all totally context based. For example, Up Up and Away by The Fifth Dimension...

Would you like to ride in my beautiful balloon
Would you like to ride in my beautiful balloon
We could float among the stars together, you and I
For we can fly we can fly
Up, up and away
My beautiful, my beautiful balloon
The world's a nicer place in my beautiful balloon
It wears a nicer face in my beautiful balloon
We can sing a song and sail along the silver sky
For we can fly we can fly
Up, up and away
My beautiful, my beautiful balloon
Suspended under a twilight canopy
We'll search the clouds for a star to guide us
If by some chance you find yourself loving me
We'll find a cloud to hide us
We'll keep the moon beside us
Love is waiting there in my beautiful balloon
Way up in the air in my beautiful balloon
If you'll hold my hand we'll chase your dream across the sky
For we can fly we can fly
Up, up and away
My beautiful, my beautiful balloon
Balloon...
Up, up, and away.....

Now that is absolute brilliance. A lovely song about a balloon.
 
 
rizla mission
14:41 / 26.11.02
it reminds me of one of my all-time favourite songs 'Punk Boy' by Helen Love.

I hereby buy you a milkshake and invite you to join my gang..
 
 
Jack Fear
14:52 / 26.11.02
Re: Everything Counts

You've got to be SHITTING me. Those CAN'T be the real words.

I always thought he just repeated "career"--"The turning point of a career, in a career (of) being insincere."

Which is better, if only just.
 
 
The Apple-Picker
15:26 / 26.11.02
Good lord. This is going to be a tough call. We now have my two most disliked lyricists up and running: Conor Oberst and whoever the heck it is who pens for Dashboard Confessional. The thing that makes them so bad to me is that I really do believe that they could be good lyricists--but once someone is rewarded with fame and praise, progress can be so completely corrupted.

Still, much as I want to shake the whiny boys of Dashboard Confessional, Conor Oberst is still coming in on top. The actual diction can be really bad--so overwrought. But it's the tone that pushes his lyrics over the edge: condescending or brow-beating.

Read the lyrics to "Let's Not Shit Ourselves," (on this page) which is a torturously long song to which Flux already posted a few lines, I believe.

Oberst writes lines like I have grown too old in my pain, which he hasn't earned. You need to support something like that with the rest of your lyrics, not just fling it into the water and expect it to swim.
 
 
gridley
19:53 / 26.11.02
Leave Avril alone, you meanies! You're all a bunch of preppies.

I have to agree about Depeche Mode though. I used to always say, "There are rhymes, half-rhymes, and damned rhymes. Damned rhymes are like when Martin Gore from Depech Mode rhymes 'support' with 'support.'"

cue the music...

Someone who'll stand by my side
And give me support
And in return
She'll get my support
 
 
Kit-Cat Club
20:01 / 26.11.02
More Depeche Mode:

People are People

People are people
So why should it be
You and I should get along
So awfully?

Halo

You wear guilt
Like shackles on your feet
Like a halo in reverse
I can feel
The discomfort in your seat
And in your head it's worse...
 
 
Ethan Van Sciver
05:48 / 27.11.02
gridley:

'support' wasn't meant to rhyme with 'support'. Most of the song doesn't rhyme, and just reads like a train of thought or a letter to a friend. Have to defend 'Somebody' here, because it brings back high school memories. Lovely ones.

Ethan Van Sciver
 
 
Harhoo
07:08 / 27.11.02
I shit not. http://www.sstab.se/roger/dmlyrics/E/everythi.htm and http://winterspells.tripod.com/depeche/de.htm as proof of Korea/career. I must admit, I do appreciate the sheer gumption it must take to try and pull out rhymes like that.

And just to add some content to this message, I give you Duran Duran's "Don't say you're easy on me, you're about as easy as a nuclear war"
 
 
The Natural Way
08:03 / 27.11.02
"Everything Counts"? Duran Duran? It was the eighties, kids! Eighties' lyrics are superb....

"Grabbing hands, grab all they can...."

"The fatal sound of broken dreams..."

"Heavy metal THUNDER,
Listen to to the radIO!
Don't you remembuh...
we built this city,
WE BUILT THIS CITY ON ROCK AND ROLL!!!"

Yes!!!
 
 
ephemerat
09:42 / 27.11.02
Flyboy: "I think there should be a whole sub-genre here of yuppie-friendly ballads from 10 or so years ago that pay excrutiating lip-service to environmental issues."

Ho-yes. And for those similar yuppie-friendly ballads from 10 or so years ago that paid excrutiating lip-service to social welfare issues (while the artist loudly and publicly supported the furthest right-wing government this country saw in the 20th-century) I give you Mr. Phil 'Hypocritical-fuck-faced' Collins with 'Another Day in Paradise' (eeeeeuuuurgh-ak-grrrrhhhggg):

She calls out to the man on the street, sir, can you help me?
It's cold and I've nowhere to sleep, is there somewhere you can tell me
He walks on, doesn't look back, he pretends he can't hear her
He starts to whistle as he crosses the street, seems embarassed to be there
Oh, think twice, it's just another day for you and me in paradise
Oh, think twice, it's just another day for you, you and me in paradise
Just think about it

She calls out to the man on the street, he can see she's been crying
She's got blisters on the soles of her feet, she can't walk, but she's trying

Oh, just think twice, it's just another day for you and me in paradise
Oh yes, think twice, it's just another day for you, you and me in paradise
Just think about it, aha, just think about it

Oh Lord, is there nothing more anybody can do
Oh Lord, there must be something you can say

You can tell by the lines on her face, you can see that she's been there
Probably they moved on from everyplace, 'cos she didn't fit in there

Oh yes, think twice, it's just another day for you and me in paradise
Oh yes, think twice, it's just another day for you, you and me in paradise
Just think about it, aha, just think about it
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
12:42 / 27.11.02
I feel Mel C may have trumped that, though, with her own song about the homeless, 'If That Were Me':

I couldn't live without my phone
But you don't even have a home

and

When you're alone is it your hope that keeps you warm?

Ye gods.
 
 
Sax
13:10 / 27.11.02
However, surely the most crass and insensitive lyrics about homelessness must be those found in Living in a Box's hit single Living in a Box, in which they sang:

Living in a box.
Living in a cardboard box.

The Eighties, eh. Greed is good. Sheesh.
 
 
Jack Fear
14:27 / 27.11.02
Even worse--remember, Living in a Box actually posed their chorus in the form of a question:

Am I living in a box?
Am I living in a cardboard box?

Uh, NO, you fuckwit, you're living the life of an Eighties one-hit wonder, milking your fifteen minutes and awaiting a slot on VH1's Behind the Music. Jerkoff.
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
16:30 / 27.11.02
oh god. whenever anyone asks this question, i've only got one answer. Got to quote this in its entirety, I give Bros, and 'I Quit':

Most of my friends were strangers when I met them

Familitary breeds contempt.
Well
I'm better alone that in company

So get out and stay out of my life.
I'm at the point
I'm at the point where I quit.

I've had enough

I've had it right up to here now

I'm taking a break
well
I quit
yeah
I said I quit
yeah!

With this view and that new opinion when I see them

I don't need another pain in the neck.
Well
nobody listens to losers

So when you're surrounded by fools

Who needs another
who needs another clever dick.

I've had enough

I've had it right up to here now
I'm takin a break
I quit.
I've had it right up to here now
I'm taking a break
I quit
I quit.

I quit
yeah
I've had enough
...

or try 'Cat Among The Pigeons':

a piston thrust
a moment shared
no time
no time to despair.

There's a cat among the pigeons
there's a pain in her chest

while the cat's among the pigeons he'll take the best.



or, probably my favourite individual lyric:

You're suitably at one with your body and the sun, yes you are!
You've read Karl Marx and you've taught yourself to dance
You're the best by far!
 
 
autopilot disengaged
19:24 / 27.11.02
pfft. amateurs.

don't you know that a truly bad lyric is both painfully-crafted and - creepy? i haven't heard this song, and i pray i never do. take it away BonJovi, and 'if i was your mother':

If I was your mother
Would you let me hold your hand
Would you say you were my baby
Would you always be my friend

If I was your mother
Could I teach you what's right
Could I tell you stories
Maybe tuck you in
And kiss you sweet goodnight

Tell me what I got to do
To make my life mean more to you
I could get so close it's true
If I was your mother

Would you always believe me
'Cause I'd wake up in the middle
Of the night
Just to see if you need me

Tell me there's no other
To who you're telling your secrets
And would you tell me
'Bout all the boys you been
Bringing home to meet me

Tell me what I got to do
To make my life mean more to you
I could get so close it's true
If I was yours

Tell me who I got to be
To make you a part of me
There’s no one else you’d never need
If I was your

Mother, mother
If I was your
Mother, mother

one word.

RUN.
 
 
Cop Killer
19:40 / 27.11.02
I just have to say that I completely disagree with the sentiment going around that punk and Oi! should be excused from this exercise because punk and Oi are notorious for having bad lyrics (along with metal, as well). However, that doesn't make the godawful lyrics any better, it just means that these people have lowered their standards for lyric writing, or were complete morons to begin with. And, there are many bands within the punk, Oi!, and metal genres that have good possibly great lyrics, and even more with lyrics that really aren't that bad, and that does leave a shitload with complete and utter horrible crap for lyrics, it doesn't necessarily excuse them just cuz a lot of other people have them. And this is especially so when the band thinks that they are on a higher ground and are totally fucking rightous for having lyrics like they have, which is the case with pretty much the vast majority of bad Oi! music out there. More bad lyrics from Bomb Squadron:

You've got your Dr. Martins/and your dyed green hair/where were you in '88/cuz I didn't see you there/you're a trendy fuck up/you think you're punk but you're really not/you're a trendy fuck up/you say you're pund but you're really not/oh no/oh no/oh no/oh no/
And then it comes to the climax, so to speak, of the song:
Trendy fuck up/Die Die x10

There's just no justification for crap like that...
 
 
01
20:39 / 27.11.02
I second the motion which nominates The Offspring as writing the most absolutely godawful lyrics on the face of the planet.


Case in point:

"She came over
I lost my nerve
I took her in and made her dessert"

"Dessert!??!!!" You made her dessert??!! For fuck's sakes! No you didn't you idiot! You needed something to rhyme with "nerve".
 
 
The Return Of Rothkoid
21:26 / 27.11.02
Hirs and Zes, I give you the joy that is "Wham Rap" by Wham!.

WHAM!
BAM!
I AM!
A MAN!
JOB OR NO JOB
YOU CAN'T TELL ME THAT I'M NOT
DO!
YOU!
ENJOY WHAT YOU DO?
IF NOT
JUST STOP!
DON'T STAY THERE AND ROT!

Yeah. You go, boys.
 
 
lolita nation
22:38 / 27.11.02
quoth autopilot: don't you know that a truly bad lyric is both painfully-crafted and - creepy?

i don't know, at least a bad-creepy lyric has the element of creepy which can inspire some interest. for me a really just dumb lyric trumps that. i love the beatles, but, "hello goodbye"? GAG ME. i also love the replacements, but i get so embarassed hearing this song that i have to run from whatever device is playing it:

Here come Dick, he's wearing a skirt
Here comes Jane, y'know she's sporting a chain
Same hair, revolution
Same build, evolution
Tomorrow who's gonna fuss

And they love each other so
Androgynous
Closer than you know, love each other so
Androgynous

Don't get him wrong and don't get him mad
He might be a father, but he sure ain't a dad
And she don't need advice that'll center her
She's happy with the way she looks
She's happy with her gender

Mirror image, see no damage
See no evil at all
Kewpie dolls and urine stalls
Will be laughed at
The way you're laughed at now

Now, something meets Boy, and something meets Girl
They both look the same
They're overjoyed in this world
Same hair, revolution
Unisex, evolution
Tomorrow who's gonna fuss
And tomorrow Dick is wearing pants
And tomorrow Janie's wearing a dress
Future outcasts and they don't last
And today, the people dress the way that they please

(from
 
 
Bear
10:18 / 28.11.02
The lyrics for J-Lo's new song are annoying me at the moment, not the lyrics exactly but the fact that everyone's heard how much a Diva she is - I'm still Jenny from the Block yeah sure you are
 
 
ephemerat
12:28 / 28.11.02
Cop Killer: "I completely disagree... that punk and Oi! should be excused from this exercise because punk and Oi are notorious for having bad lyrics (along with metal, as well)... that doesn't make the godawful lyrics any better, it just means that these people have lowered their standards for lyric writing, or were complete morons to begin with... it doesn't necessarily excuse them just cuz a lot of other people have them."

I think mainly that we're looking for really, truly, honestly cringe-inducing lyrics and I just don't find that level of horror with a lot (but not all) of the punk/Oi stuff - it's not the notoriety, the status quo or a perceived lowering of standards so much as the intent behind the lyric writing. They've chosen to write terrible lyrics. They don't care that the lyrics are bad anymore than they care if they can't play their instruments - it's par for the course, it's part of the spirit of the scene. So, sure, the lyrics are bad - but they don't make me cringe. To do that they can't just be bad - there are plenty of songs with bad lyrics that I genuinely love - they need that extra something...

They need to be bad plus they need to be, for example, so pretentiously, adolescently overblown with absolutely no self-awareness that I shake and shiver and clutch at my ears. Or they need to be bad plus they need to be so smugly patronising, oily and hypocritical that I find I can't listen to them without my jaws clamping together, my hackles rising, my knuckles popping and my entire blood supply rushing to my face with the sheer shame and embarrassment I'm feeling on behalf of an artist who clearly has none. There are almost certainly other routes to that special cringe-factor that, thankfully, I can't think of at this moment. Except possibly, altogether now:

'I'd like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony
Grow apple trees and honey bees and snow-white turtle doves'
 
 
rizla mission
12:59 / 28.11.02
As proof that even the most universally acclaimed, incredibly influential songwriters can have REALLY REALLY bad days, I present, in it's entirety, 'Wiggle Wiggle', truly Bob Dylan's finest moment:


Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a gypsy queen,
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle all dressed in green,
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle 'til the moon is blue,
Wiggle 'til the moon sees you.

Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle in your boots and shoes,
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, you got nothing to lose,
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, like a swarm of bees,
Wiggle on your hands and knees.

Wiggle to the front, wiggle to the rear,
Wiggle 'til you wiggle right out of here,
Wiggle 'til it opens, wiggle 'til it shuts,
Wiggle 'til it bites, wiggle 'til it cuts.

Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a bowl of soup,
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a rolling hoop,
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a ton of lead,
Wiggle - you can raise the dead.

Wiggle 'til you're high, wiggle 'til you're higher,
Wiggle 'til you vomit fire,
Wiggle 'til it whispers, wiggle 'til it hums,
Wiggle 'til it answers, wiggle 'til it comes.

Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like satin and silk,
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a pail of milk,
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, rattle and shake,
Wiggle like a big fat snake.

The best thing of course being that none of the things mentioned actually wiggle.. I mean, c'mon, 'wiggle like a ton of lead'?
 
 
JohnnyYen
01:40 / 06.02.03
Hey, I was born and raised in a foundry, and I tell ya, some of them lumps of lead can wiggle like nobody's business.

But anyway, back to Avril Lavigne (incidentally, has anyone else noticed she's an anagram of "R Evil Vagina"?) - That line in skater boy:

She had a pretty face
But her head was up in space

Wouldn't it be so much better as:

She was so upper clarse
But her head was up her arse?

NDD
 
 
straylight
02:59 / 06.02.03
Where to start, with such a beautifully large topic? I am so tempted to dig through piles and piles of cds...but the first thing that comes to mind is the, er, brilliance of the Donnas. The album this song is from was put in my hands and I seem to remember doing spoken-word-esque interpretations of it while lying on my living room floor:

Another friday night with the contraband
Waiting for my plane to land
Have a sip of this jack and mixer
Watch the lakers beat the sixers

I'm tired of hitting on you
It's about time to be getting on you
All messed up and I don't care
So c'mon take off your underwear

Give me one more hit c'mon
Just one more hit c'mon

[Chorus]
I got enough to split it
Do you wanna hit
We're never gonna quit it
Do you wanna hit it

I can't stand up but that's ok
So let's crawl to the back of my chevrolet
But check your door make sure you lock it
Cause you got something for me in your pocket

I think you'll like what I can do
I saved the last shot just for you
Chug some more from my flask
So c'mon it's not too much to ask

Give me one more hit c'mon
Just one more hit c'mon
(Chorus 2x)
Do you wanna hit it
 
 
Baz Auckland
03:14 / 06.02.03
Lolita: I thought 'Androgynous' was the Crash Test Dummies, a band that had some good songs on their first album and went downhill, very very fast soon after by trying to be pop instead of folk. (shudder). If that awful song was a cover of the replacements, that makes it even worse.

Writing a bad song is bad, covering a bad song is just horrible.
 
 
Aethelwine Jedi
11:48 / 06.02.03
Holy shit! God damn! Babylon Zoo! Remember them? No? How I envy you. But I can't be the only one who purchased his album for 'Space Man', right? RIGHT? Anyway, Jas Mann (if that was his name) was like a prototype for Brian Molko. I give you Confused ART.

Red light, green light
Red light, green light
Red light, green light
Red light, green light

Passion is dead
Computer sex
We capture fire
Karma has died

Violence kills, the innocent
Of modern youth a common truth
Passion dies, Silent souls
Governments they take control

Extra terrestrial behaviour
In my own backyard
The television always lies
The camera blinds my eyes

A.R.T.
Confused A.R.T.
Confused A.R.T.
Confused art
Confused art

The sad thing is that I still like The Boy With The X-Ray Eyes, though. I' sorry. I'm not proud.

And Rotterdam by The Beautiful South has always managed to really piss me off.
And the women tug their hair
Like they're trying to prove it won't fall out
And all the men are gargoyles
Dipped long in Irish stout

The whole place is pickled
The people are pickles for sure
And no-one knows if they've done more here
Than they ever would do in a jaaaaaar

Lastly, I find some of Enrique Iglesias's stuff like Love To See You Cry (Maybe I just wanna touch you for your warm inside again, maybe I just wanna let you the sweetest pleasure is me. I don't know why why but I love to see you cry. I don't know why why it just makes me feel like... Eh? ) and Escape (You can run, you can hide, But you can't escape my love) really, really creepy, mostly because he sounds so earnest.
 
 
Ganesh
12:17 / 06.02.03
Indeedy - with such a huge selection, how does one decide exactly which lyrics are the most cringe-inducing?

For the pedants among us, grammatical horrors like "in this ever-changing world in which we live in" render a song lyrically beyond the pale. I'd put All Saints' 'Never Ever' in this category for the first couplet:

"A few questions that I need to know
How you could ever hurt me so"

No, dear, you already know the questions, it's the answers you're looking for. And where's the question in 'how you could ever hurt me so'? Clearly Shaznay's "flexing vocabulary" is a little too flexible. Actually, All Saints gain another black mark for covering 'Under The Bridge' and changing the pronouns to masculine, just in case anyone thought they were having a lesbian relationship. With a city.

Then there's the rather more endearing bad rhymes, where it's obvious that the pen-chewing writer's eventually just thought 'sod it, this'll do' ("you and I should get along so aw-ful-lee"). Neil Tennant, normally a fine chronicler or subtle shades of mood, must've been having an off-day when he penned

"I'm always hoping you'll be faithful
But you're not, I suppose
We've both given up smoking 'cause it's fatal
So whose matches are those?"

Some lyrics become ridiculous when removed from their specific listening context. As a doomy late teen, I can recall a time when Depeche Mode's 'Black Celebration' album really, like, summed up my mood, maaan.

"Death is everywhere
There are flies on the windscreen
For a start
Reminding us
We could be torn apart
Tonight"

'Cause we're, like, flies, d'you see? On a windscreen...

Similarly, Boney M's evocation of Rasputin as a "cat who really was gone" doubtless sounded perfectly cogent in 197whatever. Boney M, of course, contributed to that whole sub-genre, the Social Issue Song. Perhaps not the obvious choice to deconstruct the Northern Ireland issue:

"Belfast
Belfast
Belfast

Got to have a believin'
Got to have a believin'
Got to have a believin'
All the people
'Cause the people are leavin'
When the people believin'
When the people believin'
When the people believin'
All the children 'cause the children
Are leavin'

Belfast
Belfast
When the country rings the leaving bell you're lost
Belfast
Belfast
When the hate you have
For one another's past
You can try (you can try)
You can try (you can try)
You can try
To tell the world the reason why
Belfast
Belfast
Belfast

It's the country that's changin'
It's the country that's changin'
It's the country that's changin'
All the people
'Cause the people are leavin'
It's the world that's deceivin'
It's the world that's deceivin'
It's the world that's deceivin'
All the people
'Cause the people believin'"

(And so on for another three verses!)

Musicians invariably embarrass themselves over Issue Songs. As well as Julian Lennon's notable 'Saltwater' (does he really cry every time someone mentions the ozone layer?) there's Bruce Hornsby and the Range's masterfully Dickensian

"The man in the silk suit hurries by
As he catches the poor old lady's eye
Just for fun he says 'Get a job'"

The Cranberries probably deserve a special award for outstandingly Godawful achievements in this field, with a veritable panoply of preachily-impassioned-but-crap sixth-former wordplay to rival the hectoring of our own Barbetrolls

John Lennon's death:
"It was the 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"

Bosnia:
"Bosnia was so unkind
Sarajevo changed my mind
And we all call out in despair
All the love we need isn't there
And we all sing songs in our room
Sarajevo erects another doom"

Diana's death:
"As I lie here in the bathtub I wonder
And I wonder why did they take her
And squeeze her life away
Paparazzi on mopeds
Fresh air in their heads
Paparazzi on mopeds
Cotton wool balls in their hand, ah..."

Drugs:
"To all those people doin' lines
Don't do it, don't do it
Inject your soul with liberty
It's free, it's free"

The environment:
"What about Chernobyl?
What about radiation?
We don't know, we don't know"

War in general:
"You must have nothing
More with your time to do
There's a war in Russia
And Sarajevo too"

Finally, some songs are great because their lyrics achieve a sort of Uber-cringiness that transcends space and time. Witness the incomparable force for female emancipation that was Charlene:

"Hey lady, you lady cursing at your life
You're a discontented mother and a regimented wife
I've no doubt you dream about the things you'll never do
But I wish someone had talked to me like I wanna talk to you

Oooh, I've been to Georgia and California and anywhere I could run
I took the hand of a preacher man and we made love in the sun
But I ran out of places and friendly faces because I had to be free
I've been to Paradise
But I've never been to me

Please lady, please lady
Don't just walk away
'Cause I have this need to tell you why I'm all alone today
I can see so much of me
Still living in your eyes
Won't you share a part
Of a weary heart that has lived a million lies...

Ooh, I've been to Nice and the isle of Greece
Where I sipped champagne on a yacht
I've moved like Harlow in Monte Carlo
And showed 'em what I've got
I've been undressed by kings and I've seen some things
That a woman ain't s'posed to see
I've been to Paradise
But I've never been to me

(Spoken bit!)

Hey, you know what Paradise is? It's a lie
A fantasy we create about people and places as we'd like them to be
But you know what truth is?
It's that little baby you're holding
It's that man you fought with this morning
The same one you're gonna make love with tonight
That's truth, that's love...

Sometimes I've been to crying for unborn children
That might have made me complete
But I.. I took the sweet life
I never knew
I'd be bitter from the sweet
I've spent my life exploring the subtle whoring
That costs too much to be free... hey lady...

I've been to Paradise
But I've never been to me"

Ahhh...

I feel quite worn out now...
 
 
Jack Fear
13:00 / 06.02.03
Pedant time:

"in this ever-changing world in which we live in"

I heard it that way, too, for years, but I think that's actually "in this ever-changing world in which we're living."

Which is slightly less horrible, but only just: not grammatically incorrect per se, but still like sandpaper to the eardrums.
 
  

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