WORST single lines

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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: RWilhelm
Date: 06 May 99 - 04:35 PM

Someone left the cake out in the rain.

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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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 - 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: 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: 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:
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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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