WORST single lines

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.

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: 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: 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: 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: 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: GUEST,999
Date: 07 Mar 13 - 07:59 PM

This'll perk us all up.

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 - 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,999
Date: 07 Mar 13 - 12:45 PM

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

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: 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: GUEST,Larry Saidman
Date: 07 Mar 13 - 12:39 AM

Yep, that's pretty bad.

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,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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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,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,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: Donuel
Date: 26 Sep 01 - 05:05 PM

I love her 'panama '. by Franks

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: 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: 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: 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,=)
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: Lonesome EJ
Date: 26 Sep 01 - 01:14 AM

refresh for grins.

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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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,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: 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,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: 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: 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: 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: Ebbie
Date: 20 Feb 00 - 02:50 PM

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

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: 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,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: GUEST,Bud Savoie
Date: 19 Feb 00 - 11:05 AM

Hey Shamb, are you blonde?