I've always hated the line "as for me my little brain/isn't very bright/choose for me, O, Santa Claus/what you think is right".

Heaven forbid I speak ill of Townes Van Zandt but I've always been irritated by the end of "Tecumseh Valley" where she "turned to whoring/out on the streets/with all the lust inside her". There isn't anything at all lustful about the rest of the song--the whole story is that she's a poor, uneducated girl trying to make ends meet. My friend always replaces it with "she turned to whoring/out on the streets/in all her desperation/and many a man returned again/for empty consolation".

And there's a whole raft of nineteenth century pop songs that are good tunes but much better off without words ("Rose of Alabama", "Kingdom Coming" ["Year of Jubilo"], "Old Zip Coon", etc.).