MORE WORST LINES

Subject: MORE WORST LINES
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 18 Mar 00 - 12:37 PM

The original thread having become one slow-loading mammyjammer, here-in a new repository for those lines we love to hate...

Subject: RE: BS: MORE WORST LINES
From: Barky
Date: 18 Mar 00 - 09:24 PM

"I wanna feel your foamy inside,
I wanna complicate your life"

Don't remember the name or the guy it's by, but it's ICKY!!

~Barky

Subject: RE: BS: MORE WORST LINES
From: Mbo
Date: 18 Mar 00 - 09:47 PM

UGH! That IS weird! Here's a line I DON'T like **ducking flying objects**
And I can't help but wonder, no Willie McBride,
Do all those who lie here know why they died?
Did you really believe them when they told you "The Cause?"
Did you really believe that this war would end wars?
Well the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame
The killing, the dying, it was all done in vain,
For Willie McBride, it all happened again,
And again, and again, and again, and again


--Mbo

Subject: RE: BS: MORE WORST LINES
From: Bugsy
Date: 18 Mar 00 - 09:58 PM

What in particular don't you like about that verse? I think it pretty well sums up the situation at the time, (as we now know it).

Cheers

bugsy

Subject: RE: BS: MORE WORST LINES
From: Mbo
Date: 18 Mar 00 - 10:10 PM

Never mind. Forget I said it. No more arguing. Bye.

--Mbo

Subject: RE: BS: MORE WORST LINES
From: Bugsy
Date: 18 Mar 00 - 10:17 PM

I wasn't after an arguement. In fact it's one of the reasons that I don't post as ofton as I could. I was just interested in your thoughts.

Cheers

Bugsy

Subject: RE: BS: MORE WORST LINES
From: Barky
Date: 19 Mar 00 - 01:43 AM

Actually, I'll have to agree with Mbo here. I don't like that verse myself. I just read it for the first time, and I find it too depressing. All about people dying again. And again, and again, and again, and again. It's depressing to ask yourself if people know why they die... most of them don't. Just think about it...

~Barky

Subject: RE: BS: MORE WORST LINES
From: alison
Date: 19 Mar 00 - 01:46 AM

willie McBride is a good song(although played to death)... the rest of that verse is great... it's just the "again, and again, and again, and again" bit that annoys me....

slainte

alison

Subject: RE: BS: MORE WORST LINES
From: alison
Date: 19 Mar 00 - 01:49 AM

read the whole song Barky.. it'll be in the database.... written to show the futility of war.... and it does it very well.....

slainte

alison

Subject: RE: BS: MORE WORST LINES
From: alison
Date: 19 Mar 00 - 01:52 AM

Here's one from the musical "Scherezade" to show a really bad rhyme.....

"If Scherazadie, knew how to move her body" (pronounced "baddy")

Yuck.....

right up there with...

"you sheltered me from harm, kept me warm"

slainte

alison

Subject: RE: BS: MORE WORST LINES
From: Mbo
Date: 19 Mar 00 - 01:52 AM

It's not that it's too depressing...it's that it seems to invalidate the sacrifice of the dead. And I know people will rip me apart because I still believe in the individual sacrifice of those who fight for us--the old-fashioned glory theory. I've been a Marine Corps brat for 21 years, and I don't turn my back on the veterans who fought or the soldiers who died. Read the lyrics to "Willy McBride's Reply" in the DT. Those words to me mean more to me than this whole song does. There, so I said it.

--Mbo

Subject: RE: BS: MORE WORST LINES
From: Bugsy
Date: 19 Mar 00 - 02:02 AM

I agree it's depressing, but in the context of the song, the guy is holding this conversation in his head whilst sitting next to the grave of Willie McBride. These are the final questions in a string, which ask: Did you guys really know why you went to war? Did you REALLY think that THIS war would end ALL wars. and finally the real sad conclusion. It was all in vain, for it's STILL happening, again and again and again.

I must say that I find myself asking the self same questions. My grandfather went missing in action during the battle of the Somme, just before my father was born. After watching my father glued to the television screen every time any footage of WW1 came on in the vain hope of seeing his father, I must say (morbid though they may be) I would be asking these questions too.

I didn't want to get into an arguement with Mbo or anyone else for that matter, but I find that particular song to be very well written and feel it asks right questions.

Cheers

Bugsy

Subject: RE: BS: MORE WORST LINES
From: GUEST,chuck
Date: 25 Mar 00 - 09:57 PM

In a lighter vein,

"I like my women a little on the trashy side."

Subject: RE: BS: MORE WORST LINES
From: Mbo
Date: 25 Mar 00 - 10:12 PM

NO NO CHUCK! That's a GREAT song! I love it!

You should seen the look on the face of my Dad and Mom
When I showed up at the door with my date for the senior prom
They said "Son, she ain't no kid! She's a cocktail waitress in a Dolly Parton wig!"
I said "I know, Dad, ain't she COOL!?"
That's the kind I dig!
They say opposities attract, well I don't agree
I want a woman just as tacky as me!

VIVI Confederate Railroad! We lived in their hometown just as they made it big. Call it home-town pride!

--Mbo

Subject: RE: BS: MORE WORST LINES
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 26 Mar 00 - 12:15 PM

Some lyrics just look plain awful on paper, but if the moment's right, you can hear them sung and be totally moved. A song that has run through my brain for many years is Neil Young's "I am a Child". Pleasant little tune, with perhaps to me, the most juvenile and badly written lyric I've ever encountered...but years ago, watching him sing it was magical.

Rick

Subject: RE: BS: MORE WORST LINES
From: Bill D
Date: 26 Mar 00 - 01:33 PM

"...then the reeeeebel soldier died" ..(guess they hadda end it some place...why not 2 verses sooner?)

Subject: RE: BS: MORE WORST LINES
From: GUEST,Chuck
Date: 26 Mar 00 - 09:42 PM

Ok, mbo, I'll give you "Trashy side" if you want it. It does have a nice beat, i'll admit. But "rodeo song" is kind of rough. Can't repeat any of the lyrics, but it's on a lot of juke boxes. Obviously, it's not on the radio!

Subject: RE: BS: MORE WORST LINES
From: GUEST,Jim Dixon
Date: 27 Mar 00 - 10:53 AM

How about the Bloodhound Gang's "The Bad Touch":

"You and me, baby, ain't nothin' but mammals, So let's do it like they do on the Discovery Channel."

Actually, it made me laugh, but I'm glad I don't have to sing it.

Subject: RE: BS: MORE WORST LINES
From: Mbo
Date: 27 Mar 00 - 11:09 AM

Bizarre!

--Mbo

Subject: RE: BS: MORE WORST LINES
From: Molly Malone
Date: 27 Mar 00 - 01:09 PM

"But there were green alligators, and long neck geese..."

Or many it's the whole song I can't stand there.:)

"Easy and Slow" bothers me, too...but I think it's because of the mental image I got after watching The Piano.

Subject: RE: BS: MORE WORST LINES
From: Irish sergeant
Date: 27 Mar 00 - 06:11 PM

Okay Everyone: My worst lyrics? "My little toot-toot"

Subject: RE: BS: MORE WORST LINES
From: GUEST,chuck
Date: 27 Mar 00 - 06:40 PM

Yippee-aye-yay,Cow Paddy, she rode into town to find the man who killed her daddy.

Subject: RE: BS: MORE WORST LINES
From: Midchuck
Date: 27 Mar 00 - 07:50 PM

From the Chieftains' rendition of "Lily of the West..:

"I stepped up with my rapier,
and my dagger in my hand;
I dragged him from my false true love, and boldly bade him stand...."

How many hands did the protagonist have?

"Here, hold this a minute...."

This is a minor detail, but it's always bothered me for some reason.

Peter.

Subject: RE: BS: MORE WORST LINES
From: Caitrin
Date: 27 Mar 00 - 08:32 PM

Hehheh...I'd never thought about that, Peter! But now that I do...uhm...maybe he had the rapier and the dagger in the same hand? : )

Subject: RE: BS: MORE WORST LINES
From: Mbo
Date: 27 Mar 00 - 08:42 PM

Hey, didn't they do something like that in the end of "Hamlet"? The Hamlet/Laertes duel? A rapier and dagger in one hand!

--Mbo

Subject: RE: BS: MORE WORST LINES
From: Midchuck
Date: 27 Mar 00 - 08:44 PM

Take a big hand. You'd be better off with just the dagger anyway. You're getting too close to the guy for the rapier to be any use.

Actually, someone, i. e., me, who can't tell the difference between "b" and "br" shouldn't complain about anyone else's inconsistencies.

What we need is a way to view your post with the HTML working before you submit it.

But I digress.

Peter.

Subject: RE: BS: MORE WORST LINES
From: GUEST,Guest, leeneia
Date: 27 Mar 00 - 09:00 PM

Subject: RE: BS: MORE WORST LINES
From: Bill D
Date: 27 Mar 00 - 09:02 PM

well, we do, sort of....Max's trick

Subject: RE: BS: MORE WORST LINES
From: GUEST,Guest, leeneia
Date: 27 Mar 00 - 09:05 PM

1. Throughout this world I'm bound to ramble, through sun and wind and driving rain...

This is from the old trad song "I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow." Try singing the words "sun and wind and.." This was not written by a singer.

2. From "I Wonder As I Wander:"

for poor orn'ry people like you and like I...

Makes me grit my teeth ev'ry time I hear it. No true folk song would have kept such clumsy language over the years.

Subject: RE: BS: MORE WORST LINES
From: Caitrin
Date: 27 Mar 00 - 09:24 PM

I always heard it "For poor wretched sinners", leeneia. (It's one of my favorite Christmas songs.)

Subject: RE: BS: MORE WORST LINES
From: Billy the Bus
Date: 28 Mar 00 - 05:24 AM

Ain't seen nuttin in this thread that looks like an even half-bad line.

Mbo - and the others down the McBride war line - glad you find it depressing - war is!

Molly - despite lving in the land where "The Piano" was written and filmed, sorry I've never seen it. Seen a couple of shots of them carrying the piano through the surf. No challenge, I've carted a couple or three pianos up bush tracks - and that is depressing - especially for one of the pianos - it couldn't even give a muffled "thunk" when it got there.

Hamlet duels? Worst folk lines?

Ok, here's my contri to the WORST LINES thread....

Please watch the quotes.....;)

" "

It ain't been writ yet - git off yer button doit!

Sam

Subject: RE: BS: MORE WORST LINES
From: kendall
Date: 28 Mar 00 - 08:04 AM

I often wonder what sort of vessel Stan Rogers had in mind when he sang,.."it was hard down by the tiller.." then later .."three hands upon the wheel.." I know there is such a thing as an Hermaphrodite brig, but, this is hard to picture. He also sings Leeward instead of looward. yeah, I know, picky picky..

Subject: RE: BS: MORE WORST LINES
From: GUEST,Jim Dixon
Date: 28 Mar 00 - 11:14 AM

Caitrin, I think leeneia was complaining about "like you and like I", because nobody really talks like that, not even in dialect. Wouldn't you say "like you and me"? Obviously, it was only written that way to fit the meter and rhyme, which is why it is bad writing.

Which makes me think-- let's let the folk process go to work here. Does anybody know a way to IMPROVE that line?

Subject: RE: BS: MORE WORST LINES
From: Bobby Bob, Ellan Vannin
Date: 28 Mar 00 - 02:56 PM

I think Elton John's

"If I were a sculptor -
But then again, no . . .

is pretty poor. Lennon was after a particular effect in Strawberry Fields. That line from Your Song is just piss poor.

Shoh slaynt,

Bobby Bob

Subject: RE: BS: MORE WORST LINES
From: GUEST,Carisa
Date: 28 Mar 00 - 03:17 PM

I've got one!

If you love repetition, this is the one for you...

In the Bleak Mid-Winter, the third line is "Snow was falling, snow on snow. Snow on snow. In the bleak mid-winter, long ago."

OK, it was cold and it was snowing...alot...we got it.

:-) -Carisa

Subject: RE: BS: MORE WORST LINES
From: Amos
Date: 28 Mar 00 - 03:42 PM

Kendall -- I think what they meant to imply was that it took three deckhands (with two hands each) to manage the wheel. That would be one of them six-foot diameter wheels I expect. Hermaphrodite indeed! Besides, I've never seen it written that hermaphrodites got an extra hand in the deal, although it would be sorta appropriate, I guess...all things considered.

Subject: RE: BS: MORE WORST LINES
From: Amos
Date: 28 Mar 00 - 04:36 PM

Here's another "worst line", a plaintiff story of a sick little boy getting on to the airwaves using his dad's CB:

"C'mon back, twuckers, an' tawlk to Teddy Bear...".

The whole song is like one of those orful Walter Keane paintings with the oversized child-eyes staring out of them like so many mis-bred hootowls.

Subject: RE: BS: MORE WORST LINES
From: kendall
Date: 28 Mar 00 - 05:16 PM

what I had the problem with is, a ship or boat, has either a tiller or a wheel. Not both

Subject: RE: BS: MORE WORST LINES
From: GUEST,Guest, leeneia
Date: 28 Mar 00 - 05:37 PM

Yes, Jim Dixon, the problem with "I Wonder as I Wander" is the incorrect "like I." One can soften the effect by singing "like yo-u and I," but actually the whole thing ought to go back into the shop for a retooling.

I also dislike the line "When Mary birthed Jesus," which makes Mary sound like a cow calving and not like a human being.

The melody's beautiful, though. Wonder how long it was around before the words.

Subject: RE: BS: MORE WORST LINES
From: Amos
Date: 28 Mar 00 - 09:17 PM

Kendall, that's really funny -- I see what you were looking at, I had missed the contradiction....and the way I got it wrong is cracking me up. So you don't think genetic hermaphrodites have three hands? Y'know, one for the money, two for the show.

Subject: RE: BS: MORE WORST LINES
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Mar 00 - 09:51 PM

"Snow had fallen, Snow on snow. Snow on snow " Gives that layered effect that snow has. Sounds good too, try saying it out loud. Holst put a damn good melody to that one.

Subject: RE: BS: MORE WORST LINES
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 28 Mar 00 - 10:11 PM

I like the country tune Green, Green Grass of Home, but have always hated

There's a guard and there's a sad old Padre
On and on, we'll walk at daybreak

That's a rhyme that's so bad you end up thinking about it rather than what's going on in the song.

Subject: RE: BS: MORE WORST LINES
From: The Lighthouse
Date: 28 Mar 00 - 11:19 PM

Heard "Green Green" by the new christy minstrels on the radio the other day. Yuck!!! But I think "Eve of Destruction" takes the cake for triteness trying to come off as genius!!! Over the top performance on the recording doesnt help it either.

Subject: RE: BS: MORE WORST LINES
From: GUEST,chuck
Date: 29 Mar 00 - 12:36 AM

There's got to a category for, "it's so bad, it's good!"

consider this classic:

"Oh, your red scarf matches your eyes, You close your cover before striiking, Your father has the shipfitter blues, Loving you has made me bananas"

(You burned your finger that evening, While my back was turned. I asked the waiter for iodine, But I dined all alone...)

Subject: RE: BS: MORE WORST LINES
From: fox4zero
Date: 29 Mar 00 - 12:56 AM

About the rapier and dagger, as in Hamlet vs Laertes: The rapier was held in the right hand, and the dagger was held in the left hand. The dagger in this case was known as "main gauche", or "left hand". Regards to all...Larry Parish

Subject: RE: BS: MORE WORST LINES
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 29 Mar 00 - 01:43 AM

Remember that classic of the little-known Psychedelic/Country Genre, Let It All Hang Out ?

" It's rainin' inside a big brown moon
How's that mess ya baby up
Eatin' a Reuben sandwich with sauer kraut
Sure ain't no doubt
Keep a open mind
Let it all hang out."

Subject: RE: BS: MORE WORST LINES
From: Mbo
Date: 29 Mar 00 - 10:26 AM

Thanks for the clarification, fox! At least SOMETHING makes sense around here!

--Mbo

Subject: RE: BS: MORE WORST LINES
From: Midchuck
Date: 29 Mar 00 - 10:54 AM

fox4zero said:

"The rapier was held in the right hand, and the dagger was held in the left hand."

That was what I assumed in my original post. That's the problem. How did the singer drag the bad guy from his false true love when his hands were all full of sharp thingys? Did he have a prehensile...no, did he ask the other guy to hold onto the dagger for him so he'd have a free hand to drag him with? That would have been counter-survival. Did he ask the woman to hold it? At that point he wouldn't have been sure whose side she was on.

This whole thing has got me really upset.

Peter.

Subject: RE: BS: MORE WORST LINES
From: Mbo
Date: 29 Mar 00 - 10:59 AM

Hmmm...could he have just used his arms? I mean, grabbing someone isn't that hard with just a dagger in your hand, maybe when bringing the arms around to pull the bad guy off, the weapons in his hands were enough to cause him or her to part more easily? I'm grasping at straws...

--Mbo

Subject: RE: BS: MORE WORST LINES
From: Amos
Date: 29 Mar 00 - 11:11 AM

The lines as Baez sang them were

"I strepped up to my rival, my dagger in my hand
I seized him by the collar, and boldly made him stand..."

In Baez' version the impession I always had was that we were talking about the U.S. West, especially since it starts with the narrator coming to Louisville.

In this context the use of a rapier, especially in a formal Continental style, is much less likely.