WORST single lines

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...