WORST single lines

Subject: WORST single lines
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 05 May 99 - 03:33 PM

Since so many responses came in for the Best single line thread, I thought it might be interesting to see which lines we love to hate. My personal favorite is a Dan Fogleberg line, can't remember the song title. He's talking about trying to revive a love affair, and says that love "once deceased is not easily exhumed." Pretty unsavory image, eh?

Another one that gags me is Barry Manilow confessing "I am music, and I write the songs." Thank God there's some other people writing them, too.

LEJ

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Allan C.
Date: 05 May 99 - 03:43 PM

She was bitten in the udder by an adder. I never saw her die that way before.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: SeanM
Date: 05 May 99 - 04:41 PM

This isn't precisely songs, but one of my alltime favorite worst lines comes from the classic epic 'Beowulf'

"And with mighty strokes, the lord of Seamen came upon the land"

Teacher read this aloud in 9th grade english (Age 14)...

Took about the next half hour to stop everyone laughing...

M

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 05 May 99 - 05:48 PM

"leather boots are still in style for manly footwear", from "Okie From Muskogee".

Any line from "I'm an Undertakin' Daddy" from Wayne Raney(who other than that song is one of the greatest artists I've ever heard)

"...where you keep your Rolling Stones records and a photo of Sacha Distel" from Peter Sarstedt's horrifying (sorry) "Where Do You Go to My Lovely"

You've got me goin' now, and I'll probably think of hundreds more, but perhaps the all-time worst (for me) has to be "...fearless men who jump and DIE!!" from Stuffed Sargent Sadly Battered's "Ballad of the Green Berets". Guys, guys! Open your parachutes, and you'll live!

By the way, don't take offence at my last choice. Believe me, bad song lines come from the political left AND right. Melanie, and Buffy St.Marie wrote quite a few clinkers in their day as well.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: RWilhelm
Date: 05 May 99 - 06:51 PM

In the desert you can't remember your name cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: JOField
Date: 05 May 99 - 07:31 PM

"I'm drunk because that you are gone..." from Here I Am, I'm Drunk Again.

But the song loaded with the worst lyrics of modern times goes:

Don't be afraid, it will not harm you, It's only me pursuing something I'm not sure of, Across the fields with nets of wonder, I chased the bright, elusive butterfly of love.

And while we're at it, I always thought that "Light My Fire" displayed an especially dumb-dumb approach to songwriting: "You know that it would be untrue...etc." Long way to go for a rhyme.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: alison
Date: 05 May 99 - 08:15 PM

Can't complain, mustn't grumble
Help yourself to another piece of apple crumble.....

(ABC... sometime in the 80's.. pity, the Look of Love CD was so good.......)

Slainte

alison

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: emily rain
Date: 05 May 99 - 09:04 PM

the dan fogelberg lyric is from "longer", as in "longer than there've been fishes in the ocean... i've been in love with you"

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From:
Date: 05 May 99 - 09:31 PM

"Pretty Peggy, O", the American version (1880, and probably by Rosinna Emmett). "The captain fell in love with a lady like a dove"

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: bseed(charleskratz)
Date: 05 May 99 - 10:32 PM

JOField named the worst song ever written as far as lyrics are concerned, "Light My Fire." By far the worst single line is its second verse:

The time to hesitate is through;
No time to wallow in the mire--
Try and we can only lose,
And our love become a funeral pyre.

Come on, baby, light my fie---urr.

It jus' don't get any worster'n thet.

--seed

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: katlaughing
Date: 06 May 99 - 08:52 AM

Top 40 in the last couple of years; can't remember the band:

She don't eat meat, but she sure like the bone!

Nasty!!! And a slight to vegetarians everywhere!

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Peter T.
Date: 06 May 99 - 08:56 AM

Unfortunately, the Beatles, from one of their finest songs ("She's Leaving Home"):
"Fun is the one thing that money can't buy".

Virtually destroys the rest of the song.
And how about:

"And in this ever-changing world in which we live in!" McCartney, "Liva nd L:et Die"
Yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 06 May 99 - 09:01 AM

Thank you for pointing out just how inane the lyrics of Jim Morrison were, and not just "light My Fire". Holy cow, why couldn't they have just said "he's dreamy, he's cute, he's oh so sexy...and left it at that!

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Peter T.
Date: 06 May 99 - 09:17 AM

"The perfume that she wore came from some corner store, on the down side of town,
and it lingered on, long after she'd gone."
(Gordon Lightfoot)

What did you expect with corner store perfume, Gord?

Yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Brian Hoskin
Date: 06 May 99 - 09:21 AM

Was it Hal David who wrote something like:

What do you get when you kiss a girl,
Enough germs to catch pneumonia
And when you do she'll never phone-ya
I'll never fall in love again.

oooh, nasty!

Brian.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Folk1234
Date: 06 May 99 - 10:35 AM

Almost anything by Leonard Cohen. I say 'worst' because of the doom and darkness of the lines. Nevertheless, have great admiration for his use of the language. For example: "Now in Vienna there's ten pretty women. There's a shoulder where death comes to cry. There's a lobby with nine hundred windows. There's a tree where the doves go to die. There's a piece that was torn from the morning..." from Take this Waltz. And then there's this from Tower of Song:"I said to Hank Williams: how lonely does it get? Hank Williams hasn't answered yet, but I hear him coughing all night long a hundred floors above me in the Tower of Song..."

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Felipa
Date: 06 May 99 - 10:39 AM

Daddy's Girl (country western song) - "I must be daddy's number one, for he loves me like I was his son" !

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Peter Fisher
Date: 06 May 99 - 11:07 AM

"Drop kick me, Jesus, through the goal posts of life
End over end through those righteous uprights."
If you write badly enough, its impossible for someone else to do a parody of it.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: KingBrilliant
Date: 06 May 99 - 11:13 AM

How about this little rhyming couplet.. from Barry White I think ..

"take off your brassiere, my dear"

I stand in awe!!!

Kris

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Lowcountry
Date: 06 May 99 - 12:09 PM

Almost everything from the worst supposed-to-be-decent CD of all time: "Over the Borderline" by Willie Nelson. Christ, Willie, give us a break!

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: dwditty
Date: 06 May 99 - 01:11 PM

Can't remember the line, but the one where Neil Diamond is engrossed in a conversation with a chair, of all things. It is from "I Am...I Said" As Bill Murray said in one of his movies, "There are two kinds of people in the world. Those that love Neil Diamond and those that hate him." I am of the latter. My wife is of the former. We try to talk each other instead of the furniture, although she does occasionally catch me mumbling about "someone being on my cloud."

DW

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: RWilhelm
Date: 06 May 99 - 04:35 PM

Someone left the cake out in the rain.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Kathleen Morgain
Date: 06 May 99 - 04:50 PM

Now I agree with the aesthetic reactions to the above named lines, with the possible exception of "drop kick me Jesus" which has always made me grin, but as for practicality, how many have stumbled many times over:

"we've patched her rents, stopped her vents, dogged hatch and porthole down.."

I love Stan Rogers songs, but that's a mouthful...

-Kathleen

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Guy Wolff
Date: 06 May 99 - 07:58 PM

For a wedding once we had to learn a song that went... "you are my ...something ...something ...You are my instant pleasure dome but la la la la la you are my home"..... Gag. The couple loved it though when we sang it .We also made the kind of money one can only make at a wedding.{Dose that make me a musition of the night?} You can see why I don't remember it all.Ah the seventies.What lyrics... Cheers to all~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 06 May 99 - 10:15 PM

Hey, Rick! Morrison didn't write "Light My Fire", Robbie Krieger did. However, describing animals jettisoned from Spanish galleons in "Horse Latitudes", Morrison described their silent terror as they drowned as "mute nostril agony", which is either a brilliantly conjured image, or a hoot, depending on what mood you're in.

LEJ

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Wotcha
Date: 06 May 99 - 10:44 PM

"You're only twenty nine/but when your mummy dies/she'll not return" The Sex Pistols

"Ich hast du" [I hate you] Rammstein.

"I used to talk to the trees/but they put me away ..." Spike Milligan.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: DonMeixner
Date: 06 May 99 - 11:27 PM

"The Ballad of Johnny Willow"

Johnny Willow is a soldier in the US Infantry, Right now he fights in Viet Nam to keep our country Free.

and after several more equally brilliant lyrics

A fightin' young man with a letter in his hand and a carbine in his right.... sung by Frankie laine

Don

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 07 May 99 - 01:01 AM

Fellow we met in Ann Arbor a long time ago, sang a sort of C&W parody (?) with the line:

I woke up crying in the night, and what do you suppose?
The raging river of my tears had washed out the bridge of my nose!

Now that I think about it, maybe that one belongs in the "best lines" thread, not here.

Sandy

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: bseed(charleskratz)
Date: 07 May 99 - 03:27 AM

I got tears in my ears from lying on my back in my bed as I cried over you--from the song of that name. Another that could go either way. --seed

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: leprechaun
Date: 07 May 99 - 04:17 AM

I can't get over you, so you'll have to get up and turn the light off yourself.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Matthew B.
Date: 07 May 99 - 06:55 AM

Here are some of my favorites:

How can I miss you when you won't go away?
from Dan Hick & his Hot Licks

and

From the gutter to you ain't up
origin unknown

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Sean MacRuaraidh (inactive)
Date: 07 May 99 - 07:20 AM

Hot dog, jumping frog, Alberquerque.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 07 May 99 - 10:37 AM

Hey "Lonesome", I'm gonna have to re-evaluate Jim Morrison. The "drowning horse nostrils" has got me seriously thinking.

I always thought that Good King Wenceslas had a rather familiar manner with his underlings. After all you don't expect a king to greet a servant with "Hi there page...."

What I'm finding surprising is that no one is jumping in to defend any of these "worst lines". At times in the past when I wanted to get some adrenalin flowing in a club gig, I just had to suggest to the audience that we'd have a medley of "worst songs ever written" and ask for requests. Inevitably folks would call out "You Light up My Life, Feelings, Green Green Grass of Home, Horse With No Name, Taxi, Tie a Yellow Ribbon, Honey, etc. No sooner would someone call one out, when someone else would protest "hey, that's a GREAT song, waddaya mean it's bad?" After I got them communicating with each other, I'd try to get them ALL singing on something like "Irene". Ahh, the good ol' days singing in bars.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: emily rain
Date: 07 May 99 - 02:55 PM

yeah, there's something strangely wonderful about a truly bad song... nothing makes me happier than my favorite terrible terrible song, "engine 143":

his head lay 'gainst the firebox door
the flames were rollin' high
i'm proud to be born for an engineer
and the c 'n' o road to die

... "i want to die for the engine i love
one hunnerd and forty-three!"

his face was covered up with blood
his eyes they could not see
and the very last words poor georgie cried
were "nearer, my god, to thee"

ha ha ha ha ha! what joy!

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Peter T.
Date: 07 May 99 - 03:41 PM

O.K. Well, if that's the way you want it, Fielding (a Commie name if there ever was one, probably related to that pornographer Henry Fielding), Speaking as a paratrooper who has always felt that Barry Sadler and Lou Adler were two of the greatest Marine Band songwriters ever, I hobble to my computer to remind you that in our day we eschewed parachutes (because they made a noise like eschew, which was somewhat unnerving) NO!! BECAUSE WE WERE TOUGH!!!! Sure there were some who complained about having their knees driven up into their faces, but as psychological warfare against the Cong, it couldn't be beat!! And when we came out of the Green Beret shaped holes we had made in the landscape, we also had the advantage that we were now as short as the VC, and blended right in!!!
SO CEASE TO MOCK!!!
(It isn't much to assuage your disappointment, Rick, but does that help?)
I blush to admit that I never completed compiling the results of the grand Mudcat survey of Worst Songs ever that I sort of launched a long time ago (it is on a thread here, but I can't do blue thingies for some reason) as promised -- also Dave Barry published a book on the subject in the meantime. But it was certainly one of the most fun threads ever!! What puzzles me is how we could have missed "Where Do You Go To My Lovely?" the first time around.

Well, how about this:
Certainly, "Where Do You Go To My Lovely?" does not appeal to all, but as a searing indictment of the glitterati, and as a window into the soul of, on the one hand, a girl from the back streets of Naples rising from rags to Rags, and on the other, her childhood sweetheart whose passionate words are, as it were, the simulacra of a face pressed against the windowpane of his own life -- of such poignant art what can one say?

Yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 07 May 99 - 08:42 PM

"manic depression is a frustrated mess" - Hendrix. Jimi, that ain't the half of it!

"if there's a bustle in your hedgerow, don't be low now- it's just a spring-clean for the May Queen." - Led Zepplin. HaHaHa- WHAT?

"Did you here about the frog who dreamed of being a Prince - and then became one-

well, except for the names and a few of the changes- my story is the same one." Neal "Mr Introspection" Diamond

"everybody's talkin bout a new way of walkin- do you wanna lose your mind?" The Generic 60's Folkie Group

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Matthew B.
Date: 07 May 99 - 09:00 PM

I agree with the point about the hilariously awful lyrics in most of the songs by Jim Morrison and the doors.

Unlike the Beatles, most of whose lyrics belong in poetry books (Eleanor Rigby, I Will, It's Only Love, to name a few), the Doors' music was popular because we were all so stoned in those days (and ascribing meaning to that) that we tried to read meaning into the inebriated, discombobulated rantings they set to their music.

Jim Morrison's aloofness (due to his total contempt for all people and all things) just made him seem all the more "cool" to us when we were at that susceptible age.

The less understandable a song was, the more profound we imagined it to be. We loved it because we were young, but most of us outgrew the idea that their songs were saying anything altogether amazing. Seeing those embarrassingly dumb lyrics through adult eyes only makes it that much clearer to us now.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Alice
Date: 07 May 99 - 09:10 PM

lyrics from Rod McKuen poems

for more on the Worst song, Worst line, etc.,
click here

alice

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 07 May 99 - 09:42 PM

" yellow-matter custard - dripping from a dead dog's eye" -another profound example of Beatles poetry

LEJ (who never outgrew Jim Morrison's discombobulated rantings)

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Alice
Date: 07 May 99 - 09:56 PM

LEJ, my son recently had to take some "facts about the Beatles" to music class, and we found this ( Pete Shotton's book) on the internet about "yellow matter custard" as one of the facts. There are additional stories about the old circus poster and some of the acts on it that inspired For The Benefit of Mr. Kite.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Alice
Date: 07 May 99 - 10:08 PM

The story of how Lennon wrote that line, I think, is really an inspiration for how we pull together lyrics for songs, all the way from our childhood memories.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 07 May 99 - 10:39 PM

Lord, Lord, How could we have forgotten "Seasons in the Sun" by Terry Jacks? Thanks for the thread Alice. Oh and any line from it will do. How about: "Goodbye my friend it's hard to die, with all the birds singing in the sky". Arghhh, I haven't even got a joke..that says it all!

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Big Mick
Date: 07 May 99 - 10:46 PM

Blast you, Fielding. I love you to death, but I had just about wiped out all residual traces of that horrible song from my memory bank and you bring it back up. I will now spend the NEXT thirty years trying to lose it. I will fix your royal backside. Here is one back. "Yummy Yummy Yummy I got love in my tummy". And being Irish, It is not good enough to get even, we must get ahead, so how about "Na na, na na na na, hey hey, goodbye".

JOKE: Do you know the definition of Irish Alzheimers? You forget everything but the grudges.

All the best,

Mick

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 07 May 99 - 10:53 PM

Peter T. You have given me my biggest laugh in three weeks. (and I've needed one!)

First of all: I AM definitely related to Henry Fielding, although if he'd written one more like "Shamela" I'd be denying it. As to my communist affiliations: I didn't own enough Ben Shahn prints so I was expelled. Now about "Where Do You Go To My Lovely", I was about to renew my attack when Heather walked by and said "Oh, are you folks talking about your favourite songs? I LOVE that one!" So as far as I'm concerned from now on, "I want to look inside your head" is a wonderful line. Truthfully though, the damned thing CAN grow on you a bit. I think it's the chord pattern.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Wotcha
Date: 08 May 99 - 11:58 AM

Peter T. :

Airborne! How about the hackneyed Jody Call, "C-130 rolling down the strip/Airborne daddy gonna take a little trip..."

And let's not forget another jumper's favorite "Blood on the Risers..." He ain't gonna jump no more ...

Awful as these songs are, only the 82d Airborne Chorus can actually make them sound good.... Cheers, Brian

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 08 May 99 - 02:14 PM

Dear Mick

"We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun,....."

My sincere apologies. But just tell how that (expletive deleted) song has sold over 50 million copies. I mean, I want to feel optimistic as we head into the new millenium, but Jayzus!

If it's any consolation, I can't get "Where do You Go to My Lovely" out of my head now. And I'm trying to remember, did anybody figure out who the protaganist was? I heard Sofia Loren, but I can't picture her listening to Mick Jagger. Or WAS she Jagger in drag? Remember "You're So Vain"? Oh my God, I've done it again! Another Clinker, with a good tune. hummm, hummm, humm.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: The Shambles
Date: 08 May 99 - 08:27 PM

Rick

Seasons in the sun I had forgotten, thank you very much for bringing it up again.

As for 'Your so vain'. How can the person featured in the song, be accused of being so vain for thinking the song is about him, when the song IS about him?

As for King Wencislas, didn't he say "hither page", meaning, come here page, rather than HI THERE PAGE?

In your version I think they must have been pretty cool about this rank thing. "Hi to you too, Kingy Baby, how about you and me going out for some winter fuel"?

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: The Shambles
Date: 09 May 99 - 07:01 AM

Didn't you know that 'You're so vain' was about ME?

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Peter T.
Date: 10 May 99 - 09:51 AM

I suppose Noel Coward said it best of all -- strange how potent cheap music is.
I suspect that one reason the words and the songs get stuck in your head is that they are slightly wrong, like a jammed screw, and nothing you can do will get rid of them. I have tried for 15 years to get rid of ABBA song lyrics ("The history book on the shelf is always repeating itself!" from the immortal (curse it) "Waterloo". ABBA is a classic example: incredibly crafted, utterly danceable, almost but not quite coherent drivel. Anti-ABBA pills, please -- in all honesty, what would life be, without a song or a dance what are we, so I say thank you for the music, for giving it to me. --- AAAAArrrrgghhhhh!

Yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: WyoWoman
Date: 10 May 99 - 10:19 AM

As a teenager back then, I, along with every other female I knew at the time, secretly harbored the belief that if we could spend ONE night with Jim Morrison, we could help make his bleak vision sunny, could save him from all that beautiful-but-destructive despair and lift the soul-deep angst that permeated his dark, obtuse lyrics.

Then we came to, at least I did, sometime in the '70s, and realized that the guy was an idiot with a bad sense of rhythm and a worse sense of rhyme. But great hair. The guy had great hair.

As for truly bad lines, someone mentioned Rod McKuen, who wasn't really a songwriter, although his stuff was always recited with that deliciously icky woo-woo music floating around in the background, so maybe it counts. My favorite awful one of his is, "You've been in the sun so long you even taste like the sun..." (Ouch)

kc

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: dwditty
Date: 10 May 99 - 10:34 AM

Who could forget "Last Kiss" Oh where, oh where can my baby be? Just look down.
DW

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: The Shambles
Date: 10 May 99 - 05:38 PM

There is a song written by Gerry Garcia called 'Black Muddy River', which is a nice song but for one line that I just couldn't sing.

"The scream of an eagle on the fly".

ON THE FLY?

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: LEJ
Date: 10 May 99 - 05:42 PM

KC...great comments about Jim Morrison. My feeling was that if I could be as moody and dark as Jimbo, all the girls would want to spend one night making MY disposition sunny. I think Jim did considerably better in that regard.

However that may be, I do feel that Morrison and the Doors stood apart from the rest of the Flower-Power fluff of that era in creating a unique, dark and very inward-looking music. Morrison was certainly excessive in everything he did, but many of his lyrics express a deep feeling of loneliness,isolation and the longing for something beyond the mundane that spoke to a generation, and still does. His band created Rock Theatre on stage, and blurred the lines between the artist as personna and the artist as individual- this was the issue that eventually forced Morrison to reject Rock Stardom and withdraw to Paris to live the life of a poet. The great irony being that he was certainly more adept at entertainment than he was as a poet. I believe the man was certainly more than his great hair- the ultimate tragedy for him was that he himself was never sure.

LEJ

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Joe Offer
Date: 10 May 99 - 08:02 PM

Well, darn - somebody already posted my nominations - "Yummy, Yummy, etc.," and just about any line from "MacArthur Park." The thing is, picking "worst lines" from pop songs is like shooting ducks in a pond. You'll notice that most of the songs in the "best lines" thread are folk songs. I'd like to see a few more folk song nominations in this "worst" thread. That would be a good test of our honesty - not that I can think of any lines right off myself....
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Jerry Friedman
Date: 10 May 99 - 08:31 PM

Hmm, I'd describe the lyrics of "Light my Fire" as mediocre, but they wouldn't make my list of the worst. Morrison strikes me as too serious about his surrealism and his not-too-authentic blues roots, but I still like the Doors a lot (even some of the lyrics). He did perpetrate perhaps the most painful grammar in the history of American popular music, though--"Till the stars fall from the sky/ For you and I."

Rod McKuen is a songwriter--the two I know are "I may not Pass this Way Again" (I'm on my way to find a friend,/ And I may not pass this way again...) and "Jean" (Jean, Jean, the roses are red,/ All the leaves have gone green....) The music is as sweet as the lyrics. But. Not only that. Unless I'm very much mistaken, Rod wrote the English words to... "Seasons in the Sun"! That's right, folks! The original French lyrics are by Jacques Brel, as is the music, and the original song is much better.

The problem with bad lines in folk songs is that they're bad because they're authentic, so you can't criticize them. See Tom Lehrer's introduction to "The Folk Song Army". But I must say I rather like "Our captain fell in love with a lady like a dove". To me the worst line in that Fenario/Fyvie-o/etc. song is "Destroying all the ladies in the area-o."

Surely "Drop-Kick me, Jesus" is a joke. Right?

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Rodney Rawlings
Date: 10 May 99 - 09:11 PM

The way you look tonight ... The way you LOOK tona-ha-hight ... The way you look toni-YI-YIght ... The way you loOOOOOOOok tonight ... Way y'look t'nite ... The way you look to-night ... Way you look da way you look da way you look ...

On the subject of pop, where's Jerome Kern when you need him?!

Rodney Rawlings Music, Melody, and Songs ("The song, not the singer.") http://www.druid.net/~rodney

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: KYST (inactive)
Date: 11 May 99 - 12:26 AM

I just ran across this.

FIVE CONSTIPATED MEN

There were five, five, constipated men In the Bible, in the Bible There five, five, constipated men In the five books of Moses

The first, first, constipated man Was Cain, he wasn't Abel The first, first, constipated man Was Cain, he wasn't Abel

CHORUS

The second, second constipated man Was Balaam, he couldn't move his ass The second, second constipated man Was Balaam, he couldn't move his ass

and it goes on and on!!!

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: WyoWoman
Date: 11 May 99 - 01:25 AM

Well, after that, I'm gonna retire. What could be worse than five constipated men? (I'm sure I'll get some answers...)

And of course, LEJ, there was more to Morrison than his hair or he'd never have become the idol he did. He obviously was giving voice to SOMEthing we all needed to have said at the time. But he began to believe his own P.R. and got just a smidge pretentious, don't you think? My abiding memory of The Doors was the first time I ever remember hearing them, and my roommate and I were lying on the floor of our dorm room, listening to "The End," through our HAIR DRYER HOSE, no less. At the time, it seemed to make great sense and to hugely enhance the eery effects of the music. That was also the night we decided to write down the Great Truths -- things we could say without question were always, unalterably true. We got to "Potato chips are hard to swallow whole" and "there's a funny smell in the room" and "Earth is way the f*** out in space," and the RA (resident advisor) busted us for laughing. But that was long ago and far away, and has nothing to do with five constipated men...

kc

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: bseed(charleskratz)
Date: 11 May 99 - 02:54 AM

Yes, Jerry, there is a "Dropkick Me Jesus"

It's by Bobby Bare (writer of "Detroit City"), and is on his "The Winner and Other Losers" album. It was actually the theme song for Monday Night Footbal for one season--or a few games, at least. I have the album and will try to get around to posting the words. For now, here's the chorus:

Dropkick me, Jesus, through the goalposts of life,
End over end, neither left nor the right,
Straight through the bars of them righteous uprights,
Dropkick me, Jesus, through the goalsposts of life.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Shack
Date: 11 May 99 - 09:51 AM

"Woke up this morning, spilled all the coffee." Poetic stuff, Willie! But nobody can ever beat, "You're my Jamaica; you're where I want to be-ee" (Charlie Pride)

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Peter T.
Date: 11 May 99 - 10:01 AM

Well, Joe, I don't know about single lines in folk music, but I have always hated everything about "Ilkley Moor Baht'eht" (You can spell it at random, it hardly matters), especially the terribly authentic way people sing it, emphasizing all those cute Northern semi-vowels. ("Then worms shall coom and eat thee oop!!!") The song is dreary, like Where Have All the Flowers Gone without the cheery optimism of WHAFG, and the tune is like something thought up by a whining drunk after a walk in a cute factory. It has no redeeming qualities, except that it is screamingly authentic, like the Black Death and cholera. I don't know anything about its history, and don't want to know anything about its history. The first person who ever sang it should have been strangled immediately and drawn-and-quartered in a public place as a warning to others.
Yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: WyoWoman
Date: 11 May 99 - 10:25 AM

You favor the strangling before the drawing and quartering then? I wish someone would have thought of that in the execrable last scene from "Braveheart," so we wouldn't have had to watch Mel Gibson writhe handsomely and overact for 20 minutes!

I don't know if it's the WORST single line, but for sheer inexplicable, we might go to that famous old Mexican fold song made so famous by Ritchie Valens (YEARS before my time, of course) "La Bamba." The first verse is cute, "Para bailar la bamba..." ("To dance la bamba, you need a little grace and another little thing...") then we cut to the "Yo no soy marinero, soy capitan, soy capitan..." What does it mean, "I'm not a sailor, I'm the captain..." Huh? This, as far as I can tell, is it for that song.

(It may not matter anyway, since people only sing "Para bailar la bamba, la la la la la la la la...etc." anyway.

kc

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Peter T.
Date: 11 May 99 - 10:45 AM

Dear KC, you are of course right. I meant to say taken out, disembowelled while still conscious (with a few worms sprinkled in the guts), and then drawn-and-quartered by slow horses. Almost exactly like watching the last half hour of Braveheart, and reasonably close to the experience of watching the first two hours.
Yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 11 May 99 - 10:57 AM

Peter, you've nailed it. "ilkley....etc" is pretty damned annoying. I've been trying to think of other folksongs that deserve to be on this list, but of course we're far more charitable towards them. My favourite band of all time, the Delmore Brothers sang "Hard luck Poppa countin' his toes. You can smell his feet wherever he goes". That's not a pleasant image.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Peter T.
Date: 11 May 99 - 11:52 AM

How about "Green Grow the Rushes ,O?" ("What is your nine-ho?") If you sing this in my presence you will be one is one and all alone and ever more shall be so!
(I especially hate discussions about who all the characters imprisoned in this song forever are. It seems to bring out the pontificators clothed all in green-o).
May their children turn out to be what they always hoped they would be, and thus reveal to them at the end of their lives the final barrenness of all their hopes and dreams.
(I learned that toast/curse from an Irish poet some years ago).
Yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Allan C.
Date: 11 May 99 - 01:18 PM

I have to wonder what you were "on", KC! Not that I haven't had similar revelations...

The "o" thing with Fenario and "Green Grow...) is to me one of the most irritating lyric devices found in some folk songs. For instance, I have a real problem with songs about Californi-O.

Speaking of the "o" thing - this was one of the main things which put me off from singing Madrigals. ex.: "Just as the tide was flo-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o--o-o-owing"

Good grief!

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Sean MacRuaraidh (inactive)
Date: 11 May 99 - 01:19 PM

On Ilkley moor bah tat - is a song I used to sing at University in Newcastle with a few friends - one from Hampshire - when we got drunk at parties. The foreign students liked and we also sang it in that ridiculous way were one person sings one line, the others sing the next - the tune shoots from high to low and the whole thing is mayhem in an acapello, barbers-shop style.

It was fun to sing and the lyrics were irrelevant though if you know the song properley then at least its capturing some of the old language of the North which is something I like.

If you think the song is dreary its because the people singing it are making it dreary. I realise how the subject matter might inspire that approach but its really not necessary.

Also, its one of those songs that everyone in the UK knows a bit of as we all do it at school at some point so there's no need to teach it to people first.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: WyoWoman
Date: 11 May 99 - 11:27 PM

Sean, now I'm curious about how that tune goes. Sounds like great fun. One of the things I miss about moving up here in the wild West is that the music jams are all bluegrass, which is great fun for the instrumentalists, and some for a singer, but you don't get those great, lively sings we used to have when I lived in New Mexico -- brought to us, of course, by friends who'd spent time in the U.K., and learned a thing or two about the deep fun of group sings. Allan -- Well, it WAS the '60s, of course, and I WAS but a kid, and doing a bit of what kids were doing back then. But just a bit... ;-}

kc

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Sean MacRuaraidh (inactive)
Date: 12 May 99 - 09:01 AM

I can't describe it and don't have the facilities to put it online.

Sorry.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: tomtom
Date: 12 May 99 - 10:13 AM

DWDitty,

The line from the N. Diamond song is:

"I am," I said, to no one there, and no one heard at all, not even the chair.

You're right. It's awful. And if the world is broken up into lovers and haters of N.D., we're on the same side.

tomtom

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Bert
Date: 12 May 99 - 10:22 AM

Peter T,

It's not supposed to be authentic, it's supposed to be funny. It should be sung in 'solemn mockery' of both the situation and the accent. I don't know who you've heard singing it but they obviously weren't getting the message across.

Bert.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From:
Date: 12 May 99 - 10:30 AM

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Roger the zimmer
Date: 12 May 99 - 10:30 AM

It would be unfair of me to single out lines which I hate but may have touched someone else tho' I would agree MacArthur Park has more than its fair share or cringe-makers. However, the non-vocal version by the Maynard Ferguson Big Band is a cracker!

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Peter T.
Date: 12 May 99 - 11:36 AM

Well, for a start my mother is a Tynesider, and I love all things Northern (except the food and that song!). KC, Ilkley Moor is the kind of deep group fun one associates with the Arrival of the Vikings and the Peterloo Massacre.
And you are right, Bert, it is usually sung in a tone of "solemn mockery" which is exactly what I hate most about it. It encapsulates the worst side of folk music, the kind of thing that is like fingernails on a blackboard. Bring on the quarter horses!!!
Yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Bret Maiers
Date: 12 May 99 - 11:46 AM

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Bert
Date: 12 May 99 - 11:55 AM

Peter,

Your point is taken, I can see how you would hate it if you don't like that sort of thing. I think that Monty Python proves that there is a clearly defined line between that which some people find funny and others find repulsive.

I don't agree with you about the food either, I just LOVE 'black pudding', but my wife won't have it in the house:-)

Personally, my worst kind of folk music is 'the interminable ballad' but it takes all sorts.

Bert.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Allan C.
Date: 12 May 99 - 11:56 AM

tomtom, I am not a great Neil Diamond fan and I believe that much of his stuff has found its rightful place among the muzak of the dentist office. But, regarding: "'I am' I said, to no one there, and no one heard at all, not even the chair." it may partially excuse it if you were to know how and where it was written. Neil, who says he was a great fan of Lenny Bruce (I think he said they were close friends but I wouldn't want to misquote him), had gone to the tryouts for a movie being made about Lenny. Well, the tryouts were over. Neil wasn't selected to play the part of Lenny. Crestfallen and disappointed, he sat in an empty hallway near the stage entry - just him and the chair - and attempted to express his feelings by writing that song.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Bret Maiers
Date: 12 May 99 - 11:57 AM

"The old horse died, the mule went lame I lost my cow in a poker game."

By Doc Boggs "My old horse died"

Later in the song he lets loose with this little gem:

"An earthquake came to make it good Swallowed the ground where my home stood. Mortgage man came around and partially claimed the hole in the ground."

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Peter T.
Date: 12 May 99 - 12:05 PM

Did the chair get the part instead for being less wooden? (cf. The Jazz Singer)
Yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Art Thieme
Date: 12 May 99 - 03:26 PM

Jack Webb in the detective radio show from the 40s, __PAT NOVAC FOR HIRE__ (one of the best written of the lard-boiled detective shows). The prose was intentionally overblown and wonderful while still being terribly unique.

SHE HAD A VOICE LIKE BOWEL OF WARM STEW!!!

Art

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Art Thieme
Date: 12 May 99 - 03:30 PM

Obviously (I hope) that should've been BOWL!

Art

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Bert
Date: 12 May 99 - 05:17 PM

You did that on purpose!

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Earl
Date: 12 May 99 - 06:56 PM

I have to take exception with "everybody's talkin bout a new way of walkin- do you wanna lose your mind?" Sounded sort of hackneyed in the 60's but it must have been pretty cool when Gus Cannon wrote it in the 20's.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Earl
Date: 12 May 99 - 07:20 PM

On second thought, it was stupid even in the 20's. Fun to sing though.

Another stupid line that's fun to sing is in Leadbelly's "Titanic" - "The Titanic went around the curve, ran into the big iceberg."

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: bseed(charleskratz)
Date: 12 May 99 - 09:59 PM

I wonder...might "Dropkick Me Jesus" have been written by Shel Silverstein? --seed

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: campfire
Date: 12 May 99 - 10:22 PM

I had skipped this thread until tonight. I had a horrible day at work and just decided to read threads I hadn't had time for.

Laughed myself silly and I'm in a much better mood now - Thanks All.

The only "worst line" that comes to mind at the moment is in the old hymn, "In the Garden":
...and the voice I hear falling on my ear
Someone always busts out laughing whenever we sing it, picturing someone falling on their ear.

campfire

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Art Thieme
Date: 12 May 99 - 10:44 PM

NEW WAY O' WALKIN
NEW WAY O' TALKIN'
DO YA WANT TO LOSE YOR MIND?

Obviously these are very serious references in the song "Walk Right In" about Jamaican Ginger liquor which had as it's unfortunate side efects BLINDNESS, A STAGGERING GAIT based on brain damage often called the "jake walk", and permanent DEMENTIA.

Many blues were composed by various country blues artists about the maladies---"Jake Walk Blues" for one.

In the film ___To Have And Have Not__ with Bogart & Bacall, Bogie's sidekick was Walter Brennan who had all the symptoms except blindness.

Walk Right In
Set yourself down
Baby, let your mind roll on.

...makes perfect sense to me!

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Allan C.
Date: 13 May 99 - 07:40 AM

Yeah, old Walter seemed to have a bad case of what they called, "Jake leg" - acquired from ingesting not only Jamaican Ginger liquor but any manner of wood alcohol which made the rounds during prohibition.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: JOField
Date: 13 May 99 - 11:11 AM

"It was the kind of town where they spelled trouble T-R-U-B-L-E, and if you tried to correct them, they killed you."

--"Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid"

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: LEJ
Date: 13 May 99 - 11:32 AM

OK Art, so maybe there are no bad lines, just lines we haven't had fully explained. I'll probably find out Dan Fogelberg was a County Coroner before he became a ballad singer.

LEJ

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: alison
Date: 14 May 99 - 09:08 PM

Hi,

Can't remember this one exactly... but you'll know it.

She wrecked the car and she got sad 'cos she was scared that I'd get mad, but what the heck.

slainte

alison

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: LEJ
Date: 14 May 99 - 09:28 PM

Right Alison! Was the next line...

"She left her purse behind her there, I tripped on it,went down the stairs, and broke my neck."

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Wotcha
Date: 14 May 99 - 09:41 PM

"On Ilkley moor Baht' at" is a fine drinking song -- hilarious after several pints (and it's the accent that is such fun -- that's the whole point of the song for southerners that is). And for another (bad?) song that requires an accent -- unless you've had enough zider, "Widdecombe Fair" : "Tom Pearce, Tom Pearce, lend me your grey mare ..."

Nothing quite beats the English rugby adaption of "Alouette" which turns a dainty French lounge song into something quite disreputable.

But modern British classics include any soccer team song: "Bring me a bucket of Vindaloo"; "Blue is the colour, football is the game ..."; "I did it Heighway" [after Steve Heighway of Liverpool in 72].

Cheers, burp ...@#* Brian

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: alison
Date: 14 May 99 - 09:47 PM

LEJ,

I reckon your line is better than the original... would have got the whole song finished alot quicker too... **grin**

slainte

alison

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Chris Clarke
Date: 17 May 99 - 05:45 AM

Bseed and KYST, please the full words if you have them for Dropkick Me Jesus, and Five Constipated Men in the Bible. Who were the other three? It's worse than not knowing the last two Seven Drunken Nights.

My own nominations are:

Hey good lookin' What ya got cookin'

And from The Messiah (OK it's not folk but bits of it are very country) -

We like sheep

See what I mean? Especially sung by the massed choirs of New Zealand (antipodean in-joke).

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: LEJ
Date: 17 May 99 - 12:13 PM

Amazing! I never knew that Wyoming and New Zealand had so much in common,Chris. Everytime a Wyoming stockmen walks past the flock, the plaintive cry "Daaaaaaad!" can be heard, raised by many voices.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From:
Date: 17 May 99 - 01:53 PM

Chris- Both Dropkick and Constipated are in the database. Seek, and thou shall find...

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: The Shambles
Date: 17 May 99 - 02:50 PM

Why didn't we suggest Dropkick and Constipated as a name for Kat and Bet's band?

Not brave enough eh?

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Chris Clarke
Date: 19 May 99 - 05:22 AM

Thanks, I now have Dropkick and Constipated. Don't they go together well. I need them as repertoire for the Antichrist Choristers. Any other suggestions?

LEJ - to Wyoming and New Zealand add Wales, although the only story there to which I attached any credence concerned a pig. No doubt every place has the same joke but about somewhere else.

The full Messiah line is:

And we like sheep

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Roger the zimmer
Date: 19 May 99 - 05:32 AM

From Bill Oddie (the Goodies) mock blues on the subject of, er, vomiting:
"I threw up in the bedroom,
I threw up in the loo
And if you'd a' bin there baby
I'd a' thrown up over you

Incidentally, now we're mocking the New Zealanders , is it true they think "One Man and His Dog" is like Blind Date? ("Cor, look at the fleece on that!")?

Tho' I did stay in a NZ-run motel in the Cook Islands where they mocked Canadians (surely not?) by listing local events with times followed by "for Canadians -when the big hand is on the ..." etc !

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Dani
Date: 19 May 99 - 09:47 AM

I'm sure I've submitted this for a best lyric match, but I'll submit it here, too. Randy Travis sings,

"Is it still over? Are we still through? Since my phone still ain't ringing I assume it still ain't you"

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Chris Clarke
Date: 21 May 99 - 03:15 AM

The archetypal New Zealand joke is:

"New Zealand - where men are men, and sheep are nervous."

To NZ, Wyoming and Wales we may have to add the SAS. During the campaign against insurgents in Oman in the seventies, in which British Forces were involved, the local Army was dependant for meat on the local herders. A wily local shepherd came and complained, as delicately as he could, that his flock was no longer available for human consumption as an SAS soldier had been seen interfering with one of the sheep. Horrified, the Armed Forces (prepared to believe anything about the SAS) compensated him the full value of the flock and instituted an internal inquiry. The shepherd departed satisfied. The army remained meatless and increasingly restive for several days until a second shepherd appeared, bearing a strong family resemblance to the first, and offered for a much elevated price his flock, which also bore a striking resemblance to the first. The Army, by this stage facing near mutiny, was in no position to refuse the offer.

Sorry, this has nothing to do with worst lines, but it's probably worth a song.

But what about:

God didn't make them little green apples And it don't rain in Indianapolis In the summer time

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 08 Jan 00 - 03:20 AM

In a little while from now
If I'm not feeling any less sour
I promised myself to treat myself to a visit to a nearby tower
And climbing to the top
To throw myself off
In an effort to make clear to who-
Ever what it's like when you're shattered
Leaving me to doubt all about God and his mercy
And if He really does exist
Then why did He desert me?
In my hour of need
I truly am indeed
Alone again, naturally

There aren't many songs about suicide that will actually make you laugh out loud.

Oh,and thanks to Bert for reminding me about this thread. Had to revive it.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 08 Jan 00 - 03:36 AM

How about these from Peaches by the Stranglers?

Oh shit, there goes the charabang
Looks like I'm going to be stuck here the whole summer
Well, what a bummer!
I can think of a lot worse places to be
like down on the streets
Or down in the sewer
Or even on the end of a skewer

Jon

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Midchuck
Date: 08 Jan 00 - 08:26 AM

I just found this thread, which mostly predates my discovery of this - I guess you can't call it a list, but it isn't really a webpage either - a whole new sort of animal...

Anyway, how could the thread possibly have gone on so long without anyone ever mentioning Kinky Friedman (and the Texas Jewboys - I swear I am not making that up!)

He was sittin up there for more than an hour
Way up there in that Texas tower,
Shooting from the 27th floor....

....

There was a rumor, about a tumor
nestled at the base of his brain
....

- "The Ballad of Charles Whitman"

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: pelrad
Date: 08 Jan 00 - 08:59 AM

"I am a foot without a shoe
A lawyer with no one to sue
Carrots looking for some stew
Oh, I'm lost without you!"

From the worst song Johnny Clegg ever wrote.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: kendall
Date: 08 Jan 00 - 11:37 AM

..her clothes WAS all bloody, and thrown all around, death marked the spot where poor Ellen was found.. Dont know whop wrote it..dont want to know.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Victoria
Date: 08 Jan 00 - 06:47 PM

Well THIS has been an entertaining thread to read!!! For worst lines from pop songs, I heard one recently that proclaimed "I burn like a wicker cabinet", and for the folk category, I would have to cast my "worst of the worst" vote for the song (title unknown) that described the moments after intimacy with the oh-so-picturesque "He pulled it back out/like a half drowned rat/and you know very well what I mean-o" (!) And they say romance is dead! LOL!

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Mbo
Date: 08 Jan 00 - 07:24 PM

Don't get me wrong--I love the band America, and while lots of their songs are great, there are some that are weird, but fun to sing.

For instance in the song "Sandman" the chorus is "I understand you've been runnin' from the man who goes by the name of the sandman. He flies the sky like an eagle in the eye of a hurricane that's abandoned."

And in "Tin Man" (a great song) we have "Oz never did give nothing to the tin man, that he didn't, didn't already have. And cause never was the reason for the evening, or the tropic of Sir Galahad." Whuuuuuuuuuuut?

--Mbo

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: MarkS
Date: 08 Jan 00 - 10:18 PM

Dont forget the memorable background to Hooked On a Feelin' by Blue Swede - repeated forever and ever

"Oooga sacka oooga oooga, oooga sacka oooga oooga"

Hear it once and it is in your brain forever

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: JenEllen
Date: 09 Jan 00 - 12:31 AM

Some of my favorite poetry for the pathetic...

Then the punches flew
And chairs were smashed in two
There was blood and a single gunshot
But just who shot who???

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 09 Jan 00 - 01:17 PM

Victoria, the "half -drowned rat" is from an apalling scottish song "The Steggie" , which is one long hideously embarrassing double-entendre

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Gary Martin
Date: 09 Jan 00 - 08:14 PM

"The army remained meatless and increasingly restive for several days until a second shepherd appeared, bearing a strong family resemblance to the first, and offered for a much elevated price his flock, which also bore a striking resemblance to the first. The Army, by this stage facing near mutiny, was in no position to refuse the offer. "

After which they were near muttony.

I'll go away now.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Pete Peterson
Date: 09 Jan 00 - 09:33 PM

Isn't it interesting (I think this already been ramarked) how what we consider to be the worst lines are from the rock world and not the folk or country area. Kendall thinks that line from Poor Ellen Smith to be bad (I sing that one slightly differently) but every so often Alton Delmore reached too far for a rhyme, most egregious example that I have is
I just saw a whipporwill a-talkin' to a bear
They were both a-laughin' bout her givin' me the air
She left me standing, standing on a mountain, she left me standing way up there

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: The Duck of the Irish
Date: 10 Jan 00 - 01:37 AM

I expected to see this line, but I did not. So I can go to bed knowing I won this contest. I goes something like this. I understand you've been runnin from the man who goes by the name of the Sandman. He likes to fly, like an eagle in the eye of a hurricane thats abandoned. Sorry for the gloating, but this is the WORST ever.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Pete Peterson
Date: 10 Jan 00 - 09:20 AM

Sorry, Duck, look back about eight postings, MBO agrees with you and beat you to it. On reading it, so do I.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Auxiris
Date: 10 Jan 00 - 10:58 AM

More like a whole verse than a single worst line, but here anyway is a verse from "The Party's Over":

Your love was like a party, your kisses were my wine And I was drunk with lovin' you as long as you were mine; But someone else was thirsty and starved for sweet lips, too-- He stole my wine from me and now I'm sober, sad and blue!

cheers, Auxiris

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: The Duck of the Irish
Date: 10 Jan 00 - 12:15 PM

That's what I get, I thought I read them all. Sorry Mbo. I still had a good night's sleep. I had a dream about a song that went "Hot Stuff, I want hot stuff, I need hot stuff, Hot, Hot, Hot, Stuff, Stuff, Stuff". So I just might be back in the saddle again. If you combined all the stupid lines in this thread, and made it into a song. It would still be One Hundred Trillion times more profound than any Rap song that was ever made.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Skipjack
Date: 10 Jan 00 - 01:05 PM

Tha's Donna Summer, old Duck, "I want some hot stuff baby, this evening, I want some hot stuff baby, tonight". Not really our sort of thing.

....But while we're on that pop bubblegum stuff, there's a line in Diana Ross's "Chain Reaction" that goes ..."Tell Eddie Waring there ain't no salvation". I can't understand what US superstar (and scourge of groping UK Customs and Excise) wanted to communicate news of such import to an affable English Rugby League commentator, famous locally for his "up and under".

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Songster Bob
Date: 10 Jan 00 - 02:59 PM

I can't remember the line, but Ewan MacColl had this song in praise of Ho Chi Minh (or was it Mao Tse Dung?) that was impossibly embarrassing in its clumsiness, culminating in one verse (not necessarily the last one, either) with a truly awful line that looks in print to be unsingable (too many syllables, with emPHASsis on the wrong syLABles and tongue-twister juxtapositions of phonemes all in one line) and laughable (for its fawning and Red-speak terminology) at the same time. I wish I could remember it, but the song was so bad that I deleted the actual lyrics from even my temporary memory banks.

Bob Clayton

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: MandolinPaul
Date: 10 Jan 00 - 03:17 PM

Hey Good Lookin' by Hank Williams Sr.

I'm gonna throw my datebook over the fence
And buy me a new one for five or ten cents

For the most part, I like Old Hank, but he had some truly desparate rhymes, once in a while. Also check out his entire song: I Ain't Got Nothing But Time

Paul

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Vistoria
Date: 10 Jan 00 - 07:56 PM

Murray, thanks for the title to "The Steggie", knowing what it's called will help me avoid hearing it again! (Believe me, the first time was not intentional either!)

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Caitrin
Date: 10 Jan 00 - 09:55 PM

Though this goes WAY back, the song katlaughing mentioned is called "New Age Girl", by Deadeye Dick.
My worst line is really not bad in and of itself, but because it is repeated at least eighty-four thousand times: Take it to the limit one more time. Every time that song gets to the end on my CD player, I cut it off. Of course, some more modern pop is considerably worse. I mean, Britney Spears "Hit me baby one more time"? Yuck.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: sophocleese
Date: 10 Jan 00 - 10:56 PM

Caitrin, You're right, right, you're bloody well right, you have a bloody right to say..........why I never particularly liked Supertramp.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: john c
Date: 11 Jan 00 - 02:20 AM

Sure is a wonderful amount of dross in this thread. And its great to see the Kinkster getting a long overdue mention. They dont come much more awfull than the legendary Texas Jewboys. Hows about this for the worst song title of all time - also from Kinky Friedman. Get Your Biscuits in the Oven and Your Buns in the Bed. Or, alternativly, They Dont Make Jews Like Jesus Anymore. But by far and and away the clear winner in the worst line ever stakes comes from the song Elenore by the Turtles backin the sixties. The chorous goes

Elenor, gee I think youre swell, And you really do me well, Youre my pride and joy, Etcetra.

And they actually sang the word etcetra. Ahh, they dont write em like that anymore.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Caitrin
Date: 11 Jan 00 - 07:18 PM

Unfortunately, John, they do continue to write 'em like that. Because somewhere out there is Neil Gallagher's "Wonderwall". If someone can tell me just what a wonderwall is, I'll be happy for a week.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Gint
Date: 11 Jan 00 - 09:47 PM

it's 2.45am just dropped in and had to say

"thought I'd seen a ghost, I'd rather have some toast "

from something reccently in the charts (last 2yrs)

takes some beating if not try

mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From:
Date: 12 Jan 00 - 03:05 AM

Love this thread. I've always had a certian fond horror for "Just call me angel in the morning, angel". On the other hand, my roomie informed me some months ago that she had always heard the next line as "just brush my teeth before you leave me, baby", which elevated this nasty peice of dreck to the statis of 'our song'. And I admit I like it a lot better now. In a (misguided, I'm sure) attempt to be fair, I wanted to pick something folky as well. I've always thought the lyrics to The Nightingale were clunky and awkward, especialy the chorus. "And they kissed so sweet and comforting as they clung to each other; They went arm and arm down the road like sister and brother." Oo-kay.

Shard

[e-mail]

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: darkriver
Date: 12 Jan 00 - 08:51 PM

Well, someone up there (laughing too hard right now to scroll smoothly upward) mentioned looking for the bad lines in folk music. All right, then . . . .

(These are actually pseudo-folk--it's hard to imagine stuff this bad surviving the supposed 'folk process'.)

"I hear folks have names for things, like rain and wind and fire . . ."

and

"I gave my love a cherry, that had no stone . . ." (I really enjoyed that scene in the movie Animal House where some Sincere Young Man With A Guitar starts that last number, and one of the frat guys rips away the guitar and beats the SYM over the head with it.)

Others?

doug aka darkriver

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Terry Allan Hall
Date: 12 Jan 00 - 09:07 PM

Actually, those who can comprehend poetry understand "MacArthur Park" as a great example of SYMBOLISM...feel free to look up this word in your dictionary. Get it now?

Here's one that might be a bit more your speed:

"How can I get you off of my mind, while you're sitting on my face"

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: tradsteve
Date: 12 Jan 00 - 09:20 PM

"C'mon baby, lemme see your jugs. I'll confess to every murder since 1991" from some nameless rap song I heard on the music store loudspeaker the other day. Pure poetry... I shudder when I think of the inteligence of the record buying public.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Mbo
Date: 12 Jan 00 - 11:03 PM

Caitrin, Oasis' songs are riddled with Beatles references, which makes them even more fun th listen to. Wonderwall was the name of George Harrison's very first solo album, "Wonderwall Music." The Gallaghers thought the album was so good, they used it as title for something similarly as great as Wonderwall Music.

--Mbo

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 12 Jan 00 - 11:37 PM

My band was working on one of my songs, when I looked down and the sheet with my lyrics and tablature was gone. As I frantically searched for it, the guitar player turns to me in mock horror and exclaims "...and I'll never have that recipe again!OH-NOOOOO"

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: The Duck of the Irish
Date: 14 Jan 00 - 09:55 AM

This has got to be the one. The final line in the song by the Animals, about San Fran. "It's an American dream, includes Indians too" I rest my case!

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Neil Lowe
Date: 14 Jan 00 - 12:13 PM

"Do Be Do Be Do," from "Strangers In The Night."

And Frank and Nancy singing a duet: "And then I go and spoil it all by saying something stupid like, 'I love you.'"

Someone's knockin' at the door
Someone's ringing the bell
(repeat these two lines one time)
Open the door
Let 'em in. (From some vapid Paul McCartney album)

Wonder how long it took Sir Paul to think that verse up?

Regards, Neil

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: TheOldMole
Date: 14 Jan 00 - 12:35 PM

"I hear folks have "I hear folks have names for things, like rain and wind and fire . . ."

Not quite the line -- but in any case, it's not a part of the folk process. It's By Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe, from the Broadway musical "Paint Your Wagon."

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Petr
Date: 14 Jan 00 - 12:37 PM

Your wife is cheatin on us again. or How can I miss you if you wont go away.

I keep missing you, but my aim is getting better.

I hate every bone in your body except for mine.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Petr
Date: 14 Jan 00 - 12:43 PM

love is like a stove burns you when its hot. Roy orbison

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Midchuck
Date: 14 Jan 00 - 01:32 PM

This should be a link to an extensive list of horrible country song titles. Let us see if I did it right.

Peter.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Midchuck
Date: 14 Jan 00 - 01:37 PM

I think I did! Oh, the cleverness of me!

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Bryant
Date: 14 Jan 00 - 05:45 PM

Suprised no one's mention any of the lines from this ghastly ditty.

My baby is a-workin' up an appetite
For a little bit of afternoon delight
Rubbin' sticks and stones together makes the sparks ignite

If I remember correctly, there are actual fireworks sound effects during the chorus. Blech!

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Rob-o
Date: 14 Jan 00 - 06:16 PM

Lots of comments on Where Do You Go to My Lovely . . . have to admit I bought the single (now, how long ago was that?) because it was so different. Loved but lost touch with it over the years, until I heard Blackie, of the Sons of Erin, play it during a solo gig in Newfoundland two years back. Recognized it immediately and it hit me with the same kind of whoosh! I felt on a recent trip to New Orleans and heard a band do Louisiana by Randy Newman -- another one you just don't hear performed that often. There's just something about the song that clicks, notions of "and with your carefully designed topless swimswuit, you get an even suntan, on your back, and on your legs, a-hah-a-hah" (indeed) notwithstanding. My brother Clifton can attest to my surprising him with a rendition of it during our recent holiday visit. Funny, he knew all the words, too.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Sorcha
Date: 14 Jan 00 - 06:24 PM

on the beaches of Cheyenne BEACHES???IN CHEYENNE??

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Jan 00 - 07:19 PM

Just read through this. I can't believe noone has nominated "My way". Every line of it.

Ilkley Moore - well, for Tynesiders surely Yorkshire Songs aren't Northern at all. The tune and the way it's treated with repeats and all, is from a hymn suinging tradition stilkl currtent round Christnmas inm the Sheffield Derbyshire area - especially with the words of "While Shepherds Watched. Try Village Carols

The good thing with the folk process is that the bad songs die out (so do a lot of good ones) and the bad lines get misremembered and improved.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: chuck
Date: 14 Jan 00 - 11:46 PM

Didn't see this one yet:

My darling Lollipop,You make my heart go giddyup

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Jeff
Date: 15 Jan 00 - 02:23 AM

Back when I first started working in radio, one of the creative groups sent out a funny little vignette about a station manager telling his staff that they were changing formats to the hottest thing in music "Punk Country".

He played an example, and although it is many years ago, I still remember how it began:

I wanna kick your cow C'mon and show me how

Frankly, I don't think it is too different from some "real" country songs. (one of the titles on the country song list referenced by Midchuck reminded me).

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: ToneDeafDave
Date: 16 Jan 00 - 12:20 AM

There is a book which may still exist, with more bad lines than this entire thread. It was, at one time, sung from once a week by IBM emplyees (so a retired IBM employee assured me, thirty years ago). I heard songs from it being sung at a Computer Conference - some one had got hold of the book, commissioned the Choir of British Secretaries in New York to sing it, and was giving away the resulting LP free . The line of people waiting to get their copy was so long I did not wait - for which I am very sorry to this day.

I can only remember one fragment of a line, from a song entitled "March on with IBM" - the fragment was "With our leader Mr. Watson to the fore." Enough said.

My favorite bad line in folk music has caused me to sing the song a few times. It is from a version of Lazarus and Dives which I got off a Young Tradition record. The song ends "There is a place reserved for you, to sit upon a serpent's knee". Perhaps the originator could have answered the famous childhood question "Where does your lap go when you stand up".

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: nonny mouse
Date: 16 Jan 00 - 11:17 PM

I got the no shirt, no shoes, sorry, son, no service blues

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Lin in Kansas
Date: 17 Jan 00 - 12:27 AM

Just tuned in--good gad, so many fond memories of my misspent youth!
Somewhere up there, somebody mentioned "Drop Kick Me, Jesus"--I was always under the impression that was a Kris Kristofferson song--not true? I seem to remember, at any rate, him doing a very "soulful" version of it on one of my now (thankfully) lost albums!
The "rain, and wind..." reference, I think, is from "Mariah," and actually goes something like this:
Way out here, they got a name
For rain, and wind, and fire...
The rain is Tess, the fire is Joel,br> And they call the wind Mar-i-i-ah."
(and actually, I've always kinda liked that one )

My nomination for worst: any line from any Tammy Wynette song ever done. (D-I-V-O-R-C-E!)

Lin

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Jo Taylor
Date: 17 Jan 00 - 08:07 PM

Try this...

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Jo Taylor
Date: 17 Jan 00 - 08:33 PM

Rick - you will be so happy to know that 'Seasons in the Sun' is doing very well in the UK charts - No.4 now, was no.1 last week!

This is called Rick's site... and I think you'll be pleased to know that 'Seasons in the Sun is listed - serendipity?! And I just had to copy this section of the lyrics as written:
"Good bye to you my thrusted friend,
we`ve known each other since we were nine or ten;
together we climbed hills and trees,
learned of love A B C;
skinned our harts and skinned our knees.
(sic)(sick?)thrusted friend? skinned our harts??
Worst Songs for 1974

Jo

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Jan 00 - 09:06 PM

"Thrusted friend" is a great image for a song...

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Dick Karon
Date: 17 Jan 00 - 09:19 PM

Just tuned in and am surprised to see that no one came up with the chorus & title, "These tears have washed I love you from the blackboard of my heart." The chorus goes on, "It's too late to change the slate & make another start, I'm satisfied the way things are although we're far apart, These tears have washed I love you from the blackboard of my heart."

If you want something more cebreal, trythe start of the chorus from "The Id goes Marchin' On": "Oh Dr. Freud, Dr. Freud, How I wish you had been otherwise employed."

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Mike,NZ
Date: 17 Jan 00 - 11:00 PM

Like Dick I have just tuned in and spent an entertaining 45 miinutes reading thru this lot. How does anyone choose a bad line from so many potentials. I laughed at the comments on 'Ilkley Moor' and agreed withsome of them. In the same vein is the song "I love to go a wandering with my knapsack on my back..." I still cringe at the chorus 40-odd years after being forced to stand in front of a class and sing it.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Chester
Date: 18 Jan 00 - 03:07 AM

I don't know if I'd say for certain it's the worst line I ever heard but there was a country song on the radio in maybe the 70s that drove me crazy because it just was so ungrammatical it made no sense. "Is it wrong for loving you? Is it wrong for being true?" I always wanted to wring his neck and say dammit, either say " Is is wrong to love you? " or "Am I wrong for loving you?" Don't get me wrong, I'm not stuck up about grammar. My very favorite rhyme ( so far ) in music is in Coal Miner's Daughter when Loretta sings " We worked and the work was hard; at night we'd sleep cause we was tard." The woman's a goddess (well, if you overlook the Republican Party endorsements in her autobiography).

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: John Gray / Australia
Date: 18 Jan 00 - 08:29 AM

In the Digitrad is the original version of Rolf harris' song "Tie Me Kangaroo Down" The second last verse has the worst ( most disgusting ) lines ; Let me Abos go loose Bruce, Let me Abos go loose. They're of no further use, Bruce, So let me Abos go loose.

There are some explanatory notes after the last verse. It was later released without this verse but the damage had been done. It was a very popular song when first released so I guess our attitudes here weren't real flash in the late 60's.

FME / John

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: InOBU
Date: 18 Jan 00 - 08:43 AM

This line is from a song by a band called No Fun, and is both the best and worst line writen by their bard...
Hitting on my sister
because I cant resister

what can one say about a lyric like that?
Larry

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Willie-O
Date: 18 Jan 00 - 09:38 AM

Really bad Canadian lines...Well my friend Lynn Miles has written a lot of disappointed love songs with skating imagery...my favorite has a line that goes:

"There is a Zamboni of sorts in all our hearts..."

As a metaphor, it's kind of like trying to move a piece of furniture that's three inches wider than the door frame... (what the hell?) but it's still better than:

"Sometimes when we touch, the honesty's too much
And I have to close my eyes and hide
I want to hold you till I die, till we both break down and cry
I wanna hold you till the fear in me subsides."

Y'know, there was a period of about five minutes when Dan Hill, the writer of this awful thing, burst on the scene, (it was quite a mess) when people actually took him seriously. I can still quote verbatim this immortal prophecy of some Ottawa Citizen "critic" in the late seventies:

"[Dan Hill] is, perhaps, our finest songwriter. So long Gord Lightfoot, and Murray McLauchlan and Bruce Cockburn, you better hustle if you want to keep up."

Well, three of those four names have a pretty assured position in the songwriters hall of fame...I just hope Dan Hill has a nice safe job and isn't allowed to write and record songs anymore.

Willie-O

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: blind desert pete
Date: 18 Jan 00 - 01:50 PM

Peter T. Airborne! I always hateed the jody romp em, stomp em kick em in the ass, hide their bodies in the grass.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: GUEST,chuck
Date: 22 Jan 00 - 11:09 AM

First heard this gem about 10 years ago on the radio:

Yubba dubba doo, the King is gone, and so are you.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: InOBU
Date: 22 Jan 00 - 11:45 AM

This line takes an accompaning story...
I love the song, but, I inject a Free before one word, for reasons which become apparent...
There was music there, on the Derry Air...
My friends Tony, both from Derry, had a band called the Derry Airs. They asked me to do a silk screan for their band T-shirt. I suggested a drawing of someones bum. They didn t get it, speaking no french... Tony T-bags got very serrious, No, Lehrry, like, ya know, the Free Dehrry wall, er sommat.
I told him I knew of what he spoke, but... and told him what Derry Air brought to mind in french. Red faces all round...
Now the D A sing, there was music there, on the free Derry air
Larry

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 22 Jan 00 - 02:03 PM

< What do you get when you kiss a girl, Enough germs to catch pneumonia And when you do she'll never phone-ya I'll never fall in love again.

Au contraire! That's great! Inspired! The song is intended as a hokey joke, and succeeds wonderfully!

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 22 Jan 00 - 02:20 PM

Since I expect I'm older than most here, I remember with a particular sense of revulsion a song of the early sixties:

Oh, it's delightful to be married, To be, to be, to be married!

How cutesy-baby can you get and still live?

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 22 Jan 00 - 02:33 PM

Bert said:

"Your point is taken, I can see how you would hate it if you don't like that sort of thing."

On the other hand, "It's just the sort of thing you'd enjoy, if you LIKE that sort of thing!"

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 22 Jan 00 - 03:03 PM

Dick Karon said:

Dr. Freud! One of my VERY favorite songs! Always gets a good laugh, and often requests for a copy of the words, but not as good in these latter days when psychotherapy is no longer hot in the public consciousness as it was in the 50s and 60s.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: JVZ
Date: 22 Jan 00 - 05:56 PM

Sometimes, a song is so bad, it's good.

She's my darlin', she's my daisy; She's humpbacked and she's crazy; That cross-eyed gal that lives upon the hill. Oh she took strychnine and died and I hope she's satisfied, 'Cause she done the whole darn thing against my will.

John

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Troll
Date: 22 Jan 00 - 06:24 PM

Early Elvis: I Forgot To Remember To Forget. What profound imagery.

troll

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Caitrin
Date: 23 Jan 00 - 02:03 PM

Oh, if we're going to get into military songs,I know lots of those. I have an uncle who was Airborne and got a big kick out of teaching me stuff that would tick off my mother.
For instance...
There are no airborne rangers in the navy,
There are no airborne rangers in the navy,
They spend all their time on boats,
doing God knows what with goats,
There are no airborne rangers in the navy. It goes on to say unflattering things about West Point and the air force, as well. There's doubtlessly a Marine Corps verse, too, but I don't know it.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: hrodelbert
Date: 24 Jan 00 - 12:55 AM

Don't know that this is the worst line but certainly one of the saddest. "I could have loved you better didn't mean to be unkind, you know that was the last thing on my mind"

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 24 Jan 00 - 12:59 AM

hrodel... that's one of the very Best.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: GUEST,Petr
Date: 24 Jan 00 - 11:51 AM

How about, Stalin wasn't stallin' when he beat the beast of Berlin. or Saddam is at 'em again, Uncle sam thought he had 'em but Saddam is at 'em again, Skiddly Dubai, Skiddly Dubai Abyssinia, Abyssinia ... (Scat style) cant remember the rest Cheers Petr

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Amos
Date: 24 Jan 00 - 12:03 PM

Should I mention the awful '45 we used to spin in the mess hall? One side went:

"Nashville Katz; he runs a kosher deli.

Nashville Katz; it's the only one in town!

Nashville Katz! It's not like you're in Brooklyn!

Nashville Katz! He's the only one around!.

And the other side has an ode to a Brooklyn girlfriend named Shirley Klein:

"Oi've gotta a goil her name is Shoily Klein.

I'm so glad that Shoiley Klein is mine!

Shoiley! She's a sexy goily! Shoiley!"

Dreckkk!

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: GUEST,chuck
Date: 24 Jan 00 - 01:54 PM

"Your'e wanted by the po-lice and my wife thinks your'e dead"

I almost like that one!

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Sapper_RE
Date: 24 Jan 00 - 02:52 PM

From the old hymn, The Church is One Foundation:-

Waft Waft ye winds the story, Of what our Lord hath done. Sapper

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: GUEST,Paul
Date: 24 Jan 00 - 04:25 PM

In the category of really bad lines contained within otherwise pretty good songs, I've always shuddered at. . .

"Looking at the rain, feeling the pain of love loss running through my BRAIN," by Gordon Lightfoot.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: GUEST,Chuck
Date: 24 Jan 00 - 07:33 PM

You're not the only choo-choo that was left out in the rain, the day after Santa came (Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones)

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Molly Malone
Date: 18 Feb 00 - 04:36 PM

Saw Five Constipated men on this and had to add the verse I heard the other day.

Well the fourth, fourth constipated man
His name was Noah, he nearly filled the ark.
etc, etc....
There's a new group to the Arizona Ren Festival called "Hey Nunnie Nunnie." They do this one and I couldn't stop laughing!

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: GUEST,Slider
Date: 19 Feb 00 - 06:26 AM

How about the Eagles song "Already gone" where one line of the song ends with the word "shelf" and is rhymed with the line "and you'll have to eat your lunch all by your self." Some stuff might not be bad , but just undecipherable like a J. Geils' tune that has a line that sounds to me like"some people call me Maurice for I speak of the pompitous of love..."Maybe I'm not hearing it right,but I haven't been able to figure it out all these years. Another song that was all too clear to understand and god-awfull to boot was entitled "I've been to paradise ,but I've never been to me" Soooo bad it made my toes curl every time I heard it. I changed the title to "I've had some parasites, but I've never had VD." ;~)

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: GUEST,Bud Savoie
Date: 19 Feb 00 - 11:05 AM

Hey Shamb, are you blonde?

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: GUEST,Bud Savoie
Date: 19 Feb 00 - 11:09 AM

I mean, "You're so Vain" and "Good King Wenceslaus"; your perception is underwhelming!

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Osmium
Date: 19 Feb 00 - 11:13 AM

Try "put hatch and portal down" it sings easier and means the same.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: GUEST,Pixie
Date: 19 Feb 00 - 08:09 PM

I have only one line to quote....or is it two? "Please don't tell my heart, my achy breaky heart"

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Ebbie
Date: 20 Feb 00 - 02:50 PM

"Even windows have pains- they cry when it rains"

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: cowboyuk
Date: 20 Feb 00 - 05:24 PM

The worst lyrics I ever heard 'dead skunk in the middle of the road, stinkin to high heaven'

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: High and Lonesome
Date: 06 Mar 00 - 03:15 AM

My nomination is: "Josephina, Don't you lean-a on the bell. And to Slider, the line "I speak of the Pompetus of Love" is one of the great nonsense lines of modern pop music, because it absolutely definitely sounds like it means something, something we all must know something about, but what it is, I can't quite tell you. There was a movie out a couple of years past, worth seeing, called "The Pompetus of Love." And it was Steve Miller, not J. Geils (Steve Miller being the much better pseudo blues man of his era.)

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Hyperabid
Date: 06 Mar 00 - 05:52 AM

Refferring to an earlier entry regarding "Peaches" by the Stranglers...

(Put's on tin helmet and sports protector before beginning remainder of rant)

Punk music wasn' about producing William Blake - style poetry. The rougher and readier the lyrics - the better. The entire genre was about deconstructing the sad, manufactured state of popular music at the time. I'm sure many punk bands would be proud to be listed on this thread as in many ways they were the folk heroes of their age.

And don't whatever you do get me started on country and western lyrics!

Hyp

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: GUEST,Jim Dixon
Date: 06 Mar 00 - 10:22 AM

In the realm of Christmas carols, can you match this one for insipidity? - "We wish you a merry Christmas. We wish you a merry Christmas. We wish you a merry Christmas and a happy New Year."

Someone asked Paul Simon if he doesn't get bored singing "Sounds of Silence" at every concert. His response was, "I'm just glad I don't have to make a living for the rest of my life singing 'Feelin' Groovy.'"

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Mister Dressup
Date: 06 Mar 00 - 07:03 PM

I've been reading many of the messages on this thread, and I'm surprized that no one has mentioned the truly inspiring lyrics in the song "Back on the Chain Gang" by the Pretenders:

"....like a pigeon from hell...."

Don't get me wrong, I've always loved the Pretenders (Ok so they're not Folk music, more semi-Punk music especially their first album), but I can't listen to that particular line without laughing.

Mister Dressup

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: GUEST,The Beanster
Date: 07 Mar 00 - 02:04 AM

John Cougar Mellonhead--"I cannot forget from where it is that I come from." (John, I'll BUY you a book on grammar, okay?) LOL

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: GUEST,The Beanster
Date: 07 Mar 00 - 02:20 AM

EJ,

I thought that line from Led Zep was "If there's a bustle in your hedgerow, don't be alarmed now." (Not that that helps the line much!) I very well may be wrong about this and maybe I was just trying to help a ridiculous lyric along all these years with my own imagined version, but are you sure? Now I'm curious...

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: GUEST,Sandy Smith
Date: 07 Mar 00 - 05:10 PM

Did no one ever learn:

Oh Lord our God arise Scatter our enemies And make them fall Confound their politics Frustrate their knavish tricks On thee our hopes we fix God save us all.

Gos save us if England becomes a republic!

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 07 Mar 00 - 05:58 PM

Dressup, you're right. I've always had a soft spot(so to speak) for Chrissie Hynde, but some of her lyrics certainly indicate drug involvement.

"...came in the house, like a pigeon from hell
That got in our eyes and descended like flies."

this from the same woman who wrote about her new baby

"Welcome here from Outer Space
The Milky Way's still in your eyes
You found yourself a hopeless case
One who's seeking perfection on Earth
Or some kind of rebirth."

How about the King of the Esoteric Line, Michael Stipe.

"Birdy in the hand, part of Life's rich demand
And its urgency, begin and I missed it
I looked for it, and I found it,
Miles Standish proud - Congratulate me"

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: tar_heel
Date: 07 Mar 00 - 06:24 PM

i tried my darndest not to listen to too much radio this past christmas,because i didn't want to hear....."grandma got run over by a raindeer!!"oh crap!!!now i'll be singing it all week!!! help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: GUEST,chuck
Date: 18 Mar 00 - 11:42 AM

141 could draw faster than he, but Irving was looking for 143.

(i42nd fastest gun in the west)

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 18 Mar 00 - 12:50 PM

New WORST lines thread click

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 26 Sep 01 - 01:14 AM

refresh for grins.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: GUEST,=)
Date: 26 Sep 01 - 05:04 AM

just a few from me~

"hey you and me baby ain't nothing but animals so lets do it like they do it on the discovery channel

"there's a train leaving at five, be under it"

"when I'm in the mood dude, well I get some nuggets and stuff"

"you had harpoon scares and your boobies were hairy" -bloodhound gang

most of "Roll Your Leg Over"

just to name a few

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: John Hardly
Date: 26 Sep 01 - 07:35 AM

""And in this ever-changing world in which we live in!" McCartney, "Liva nd L:et Die" Yours, Peter T. "

I think this belongs in the "Mis-heard Lyrics" thread. It isn't redundant "ins" if the phrase is "In this ever-changing world in which we're living..."

...well, Okay, there's one fewer redundant "ins".

John Hardly's timely repair dept.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: GUEST,Frugz
Date: 26 Sep 01 - 08:19 AM

There surely can't be many more worse than this

BLOOD ON THE SADDLE

There was blood on the saddle, blood all around And a great big puddle of blood on the ground

The cowboy lay in it, all covered with gore He'll never ride tall in the saddle no more

Oh pity the cowboy, all bloody and dead A bronco fell on him and mashed in his head

Frank

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 26 Sep 01 - 02:16 PM

And this lovely line in "Lovely Agnes" by Sally Rogers:

"We'll cross over Lake Michigan 'til we come to the shore."

Well, of course! What else are you going to do? Stop in the middle?

And I have to bite my tongue whenever that song is sung, because so many people consider it the loveliest song ever. Lovely!

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 26 Sep 01 - 03:00 PM

Please go to this continuation thread: BS: MORE WORST LINES.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Donuel
Date: 26 Sep 01 - 05:05 PM

I love her 'panama '. by Franks

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: GUEST,David Hughes
Date: 05 Mar 13 - 07:27 AM

This thread may have died a decade ago, but let me reply to a 7 May 99 post by (the sadly late) Sandy Paton:
   "Fellow we met in Ann Arbor a long time ago sang a sort of C&W parody ... with the line: 'I woke up crying in the night, and what do you suppose? The raging river of my tears had washed out the bridge of my nose!' Now that I think about it, maybe that one belongs in the "best lines" thread, not here."
   I agree with Sandy's last comment, since I'm the "fellow". Rest of the song is so-so. Another of my songs that's been partly posted on the web is "You left your footprints on my stomach when you walked out of my heart". Sandy & Caroline told Scottish singer Jean Redpath about both of these back in 1973 while she was teaching at Wesleyan, and I taught her the songs; she sang "Footprints" at Carnegie Hall ca 1978. (Michael Cooney & I with Bromberg on dobro sang it at Philly Folk Festival, 1971.)
More recent song, with about 50 references to chickens and eggs, is "The Embryonic Love Affair" (www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vmvrj_pIhM). (I should sing the chorus so often - too long.) A Dutch friend wrote a Dutch version ("De Kip of het Ei") which I sang, at her request, at her funeral last year to lighten the mood.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: GUEST,Pancho and Lefty
Date: 05 Mar 13 - 12:21 PM

How about the Towne's VanZant line in "Pancho and Lefty":
"He wore his gun outside his pants for all the honest world to feel"
...why not use "fear" instead of "feel" - just creepy

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Mar 13 - 05:58 PM

In Elvis's famous laughing version of 'Are You Lonesome Tonight' I've always assumed that the daft line 'Do you gaze at your doorstep and picture me there' set him off.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 05 Mar 13 - 08:06 PM

"Blow the dustcake from your nose" from an otherwise terrific Stan Rogers song, Field Behind the Plow.

Martin Pearson has cited "Song she brang to me" from Neil Diamond's Play Me.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: michaelr
Date: 05 Mar 13 - 10:57 PM

"I must have been through about a million girls"

Elvin Bishop Band, "Fooled around and Fell in Love". Yeccch.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Joe Offer
Date: 05 Mar 13 - 11:33 PM

Worst Lines?
Just about everything from Neil Diamond and Rod McKuen.
But for the absolute worst, I'm going to post the whole thing:

Spring was never waiting for us, girl
It ran one step ahead
As we followed in the dance

Between the parted pages
And were pressed in love's hot, fevered iron
Like a striped pair of pants

MacArthur's Park is melting in the dark
All the sweet, green icing flowing down
Someone left the cake out in the rain

I don't think that I can take it
'Cause it took so long to bake it
And I'll never have that recipe again, oh no

I recall the yellow cotton dress
Foaming like a wave
On the ground around your knees
The birds like tender babies in your hands
And the old men playing checkers, by the trees

MacArthur's Park is melting in the dark
All the sweet, green icing flowing down
Someone left the cake out in the rain

I don't think that I can take it
'Cause it took so long to bake it
And I'll never have that recipe again, oh no

There will be another song for me
For I will sing it
There will be another dream for me
Someone will bring it

I will drink the wine while it is warm
And never let you catch me looking at the sun
And after all the loves of my life
After all the loves of my life, you'll still be the one

I will take my life into my hands and I will use it
I will win the worship in their eyes and I will lose it
I will have the things that I desire
And my passion flow like rivers through the sky

And after all the loves of my life
Oh, after all the loves of my life
I'll be thinking of you and wondering why

MacArthur's Park is melting in the dark
All the sweet, green icing flowing down
Someone left the cake out in the rain

I don't think that I can take it
'Cause it took so long to bake it
And I'll never have that recipe again
Oh no, oh no, no, no, oh no

Read more: RICHARD HARRIS - MACARTHUR PARK LYRICS

Gee, it's even worse than I remembered. It's a perfect curse, though:

May you all be
pressed in love's hot, fevered iron
Like a striped pair of pants

and I see above that way back in 1999, I hated "MacArthur Park." I wonder why it didn't turn up when I did CTRL-F before.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 06 Mar 13 - 01:46 AM

A short book called "Great First Lines of Country Songs," or something like that, makes me curious what the title of the song was, attributed to Johnny Slate and Red Lane (whoever they are), where the memorable first line appears as:

Ever Since We Said "I Do," There's So Many Things You Don't.

(Country Music's like that some times.)

John

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: PHJim
Date: 06 Mar 13 - 02:19 AM

I love Billie Holiday, but I cringe when I hear,
"I'd rather my man would hit me,
Than for him to up and quit me."   (Ain't Nobody's Business)

or
"He isn't true, he beats me too,
But I love him, yes I love him."   (My Man)

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: PHJim
Date: 06 Mar 13 - 02:21 AM

How about:

And I was like baby, baby, baby, oh
Like baby, baby, baby, no
Like baby, baby, baby, oh
I thought you'd always be mine, mine

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: mg
Date: 06 Mar 13 - 03:19 AM

I think it probably has been mentioned many times here, but ..come to your life like a warrior nothing can bore yer..awful awful awful in an otherwise beautiful song.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: GUEST,Larry Saidman
Date: 06 Mar 13 - 03:35 AM

Well, I've looked through this thread, and I'd like to announce a winner. For the single worst line. (drum roll please).

"Looking at the rain, feeling the pain of love loss running through my BRAIN"   Gordon Lightfoot.

Canada's doing well here, though.....Dan Hill could have won, but the dreadfulness comes from more than one line:

Sometimes when we touch, the honesty's too much
And I have to close my eyes and hide
I want to hold you till I die, till we both break down and cry
I wanna hold you till the fear in me subsides."

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: GUEST,colin Holt
Date: 06 Mar 13 - 07:26 AM

Worst lyrics/ worst song.. Elton John "are you ready for love"
I don't think he wrote it to be fair.. But every time I hear it on Junk radio.. I want to throw up.......

Catch a star if you can
Wish for something special
Let it be me, my love is free
Sing a song to yourself
Think of someone listening
One melody, you're all for me

I'll write a symphony just for you and me
If you let me love you, I'll paint a masterpiece
Just for you to see
If you let me love you, let me love you

.. hang on .. the bile is rising again ....

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Acorn4
Date: 06 Mar 13 - 03:31 PM

He took her up to his high rise apartment,
And there he told her exactly what his heart meant.

Rod Stewart - "Do You Think I'm Sexy?"

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: GUEST,Larry Saidman
Date: 07 Mar 13 - 12:39 AM

Yep, that's pretty bad.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 07 Mar 13 - 03:14 AM

Always found this - from Peter Bellamy's 'Testimonial' pretty naff:

"And in the silt were the banks are trod by cattle at the drinking hole,
*There nestles yet beneath the clod, a wondrous Neolithic tool*"
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: fat B****rd
Date: 07 Mar 13 - 12:06 PM

"Sure I might leave you or
Even deceive you, it's possible
Lightning might strike me
A cobra might bite me, it's possible."

From The Drifters " Baby, what I mean" Just possible I suppose.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: GUEST,999
Date: 07 Mar 13 - 12:45 PM

Any GD line from America's 'Horse With No Name'.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: GUEST,999
Date: 07 Mar 13 - 01:01 PM

I have just been informed that someone beat me to Horse with no Fooking Name. Sorry. The song is unfortunately deathless poetry. Pick a line, any line . . .

On the first part of the journey
I was looking at all the life
There were plants and birds and rocks and things
There was sand and hills and rings

The first thing I met was a fly with a buzz
And a sky with no clouds
The heat was hot and the ground was dry
But the air was full of sound

I been through the desert on a horse with no name
It felt good to be out of the rain
In the desert you can remember your name
'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain
La la la...

After two days in the desert sun
My skin began to turn red
After three days in the desert fun
I was looking at a riverbed
And the story it told of a river that flowed
Made me sad to think it was dead

After nine days I let the horse run free
'Cause the desert had turned to sea
There were plants and birds and rocks and things
There was sand and hills and rings
The ocean is a desert with its life underground
And a perfect disguise above
Under the cities lies a heart made of ground
But the humans will give no love

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: GUEST,Larry Saidman
Date: 07 Mar 13 - 06:17 PM

It does make you wonder how a song that not only has virtually no melody (3 notes), and also has such inspid lyrics, ends up being one of those rock songs that has stood the test of time.   Go figure!

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: GUEST,999
Date: 07 Mar 13 - 07:59 PM

This'll perk us all up.

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: PHJim
Date: 08 Mar 13 - 12:18 AM

This song only had about one line, but what a line. Mid sixties?

Worst line nominee

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Nick
Date: 28 Mar 13 - 03:46 PM

Self confessed worst line from Donald Fagen/Steely Dan -

"Is there gas in the car, yes there's gas in the car"

Good track though

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Valmai Goodyear
Date: 29 Mar 13 - 10:03 AM

From Stephen Foster's Hard times Come Again No More:
'It's a wail that is heard on the shore.'

From the English traditional song The Constant Lovers:
'I heard a strange voice make a terrible sound.'

Valmai (Lewes)

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: GUEST,John from Kemsing
Date: 29 Mar 13 - 10:28 AM

In one of James Blount`s song he states "I have a plan - - -" and then professes "I don`t know what to do". Some plan!!
John

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: GUEST,Mark
Date: 22 Apr 13 - 04:50 PM

A set of touching lyrics from Jimmy Cross: "I Want My Baby Back":


"....Some mush head on a motorcycle
Heading right at us and I knew
At last me and my baby were
About to meet the leader of the pack

Well, when I come to
I looked around
And there was the leader
And there was the pack

And over there was my baby
And over there was my baby
And way over there was my baby....."

And for single lines, who can forget the romantic -

"I pushed my soul in a deep dark hole and then I followed it in..."

And - from "Muskrat Love" -

"Muzzle to muzzle, now anything goes
As they wriggle, and Sue starts to giggle"

Subject: RE: WORST single lines
From: Elmore
Date: 22 Apr 13 - 09:16 PM

Don't ever marry Old Joe Clark, I'll tell you the reason why. He blows his nose in old corn bread, and calls it pumpkin pie.