Most inane couplet

Subject: Most inane couplet
From: michaelr
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 12:11 AM

I nominate this gem:

Sure don't know what I'm going for
But I'm gonna go for it, for sure

(Grateful Dead, "Saint of Circumstance" by Weir/Barlow)

Your turn!

Cheers,
Michael

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: cptsnapper
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 02:39 AM

Kissed her once again at Wapping. After that there was no stopping.

Ewan McColl Sweet Thames Flow Softly

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 04:41 AM

A quatrain, not a couplet, but no "inane" category is complete without it. The song (Teddy O'Neill) is an otherwise poignant and sorrowful lament of a young Irish colleen when her lover departs on an emigration ship. And THIS is the opening verse! (Dolores Keane very sensibly sings the second verse first and doctors these lines up a bit, so you don't tend to see them now in the lyrics sites - an excellent argument for the oral tradition if ever there was one.) You won't find this in the DigiTrad:

I've seen the old cabin he danced his wild jigs in
As neat a mud cabin as ever was seen
Considering 'twas used to keep poultry and pigs in
I'm sure it was always most elegant clean

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 05:17 AM

"British singer Des'ree has gained the dubious distinction of being responsible for the worst lyric in pop history.

In a fiercely fought BBC Radio poll in London, she took the prize for: "I don't want to see a ghost, it's the sight that I fear most, I'd rather have a piece of toast, watch the evening news."

She secured almost 30 per cent of the vote in the listener poll conducted by BBC DJ Marc Riley.

The runner-up prize went to Snap for "I'm as serious as cancer, when I say rhythm is a dancer."

Third place went to Razorlight for the lyric "And I met a girl, she asked me my name, I told her what it was."

Michael Fry, lead singer of ABC, had been hoping to land the prize with his lyric "Can't complain, mustn't grumble, help yourself to another piece of apple crumble."

"I have been waiting for this kind of accolade for years," Fry told BBC Radio before the result dashed his hopes of dubious immortality.

"I would say to anyone writing songs that you shouldn't really put food in song lyrics," he said before finishing in a disappointing fourth place.

"Foodstuffs and rock 'n' roll just don't go together."

Immortality is such a fickle jade ;)

Giok

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Nick
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 05:19 AM

I can see them they can't see me
I feel out of sight
I can see them they can't see me
Much to my delight

Moody Blues - Nice to be Here

Drivel

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: alanabit
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 05:43 AM

"She was just seventeen/You know what I mean".... ("I Saw Her Standing There - The Beatles") That second line is horrilble in all songs, in which it appears.

The rhyme of "California" with "warn ya" was probably funny once...

I have always wondered whether the atrocious rhyme: "The city's clamour could never spoil/The dreams of a boy and goil" (Hart/Rogers "Manhattan") was a spoof of a New York dialect or the result of a very bad hangover for Lorenz Hart.

I fear this is going to be a very long thread!

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Newport Boy
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 05:52 AM

In my rogues gallery, I have a copy of a sol-fa setting for male voices of 'Myfanwy' by Joseph Parry. An old-fashioned, but beautiful tune, published in 1875. I'm fairly sure that words and music were by Parry, although this copy attributes them to Mynyddog (Richard Davies 1833-77).

To come to the point, this copy has English words, attributed to Cubelyn (who I've failed to identify) which start:

Why shoots wrath's lightning, Arabella,
from those jet eyes? What clouds thy brow?

Even my (English) male choir found these impossible to sing. The more common translation is:

Why is it anger, O Myfanwy,
That fills your eyes so dark and clear?

Much better, although still not up to the Welsh.

Phil

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Splott Man
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 06:27 AM

If I were a sculptor,
But then again, no... - Bernie Taupin

I liked the Marc Riley list.
In some respects, pop lyrics are an easy target, as a a song will become a hit on its overall sound, or because the artiste is already successful, rather than its content.

The train leaves at half past ten,
It'll be back tomorrow, same time again. - His Bobness

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Sorcha
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 08:12 AM

Where ever you go,
There you are.

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: GUEST,Old Nic Kilby
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 08:22 AM

How about this one from S B G (thats Sabine Baring Gould not Silver Backed Gorilla)
"Hare wasnt hisn
Now in prison"
From
Old Adam was a Poacher
The tune is a stunner,the words are S B Gs

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 08:30 AM

Aaaaugh, Splott, don't even get me STARTED on Bernie Taupin! What's that awful lyric from Elton John's (?first) big selling album that ends "got me quite cross"? If anyone remembers, post it please. Deserves to be permanently enshrined in the Mudcat Hall of Shame.

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: GUEST,Bobby Bob, Ellan Vannin
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 09:21 AM

With regard to alanabit's nomination of I Saw Her Standing There, the original lines by Paul McCartney were to have been -

Well, she was just seventeen.
She'd never be a beauty queen,
But . . . etc.

It was Mr Lennon who suggested the more vague (and suggestive) You know what I mean?

I also thought that Bonnie is a bit hard on Teddie O'Neill. It's surely just the style of song, more would-be whimsical than plain awful, more pathos than pathetic.

Unfortunately, I was beaten to the Bernie Taupin lines, which I've always thought poor. However, with the 12 days still upon us, I think we ought to thank Slade for the wonderful thought,

Look to the future now,
It's only just begun.

More moronic than oxy, I fancy.

Lhiuish,

Bobby Bob

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 09:50 AM

The rest of Teddy O'Neill ISN'T whimsical or awful though, that's just the point - it's actually a sensitive & sympathetic - and sad - song. (But I know exactly what you mean: All 897 verses of Sweet Glanlee get my vote in W&A category, fortunately for everyone it's too long to post here).

I do think McCartney's line is better, more interesting - makes you want to know what's going to happen next because usually it's the pretty girls who catch the attention in pop songs.

"More moronic than oxy" - love it!

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: GUEST,Net-Caster
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 10:01 AM

Since there's no requirement that these couplets be in songs, how's about this weak and clumsy opening:

"This is the Night Mail crossing the Border,
Bringing the cheque and the postal order..."

and indeed much of the rest of it.

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 10:07 AM

Fuzzy wuzzy was a bear,
Fuzzy wuzzy had no hair,
Fuzzy wuzn't fuzzy, wuz 'e?

Maybe a triplet rather than a couplet, sorry!

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Splott Man
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 10:41 AM

Bonnie...

same song:

I sat on the roof and kicked off the moss
Well a few of the verses well they've got me quite cross...

The extra "well" just makes the scansion worse!

GUEST,Bobby Bob, Ellan Vannin...

Slade were probably referencing a popular saying of the time - "Tomorrow is the first day of the rest of your life."

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 10:44 AM

Those verses got HIM quite cross ...?!!

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Amos
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 10:48 AM

Having my baby!
What a wonderful way of showing how much you love me!

I still have to control the barf impulse when I think of that song.

A

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Brendy
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 11:01 AM

>i>"Yeah, my blood's so mad feels like coagulatin'
I'm sitting here just contemplatin'..."

P.F. Sloan in 'The Eve Of Destruction"

B.

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Big Jim from Jackson
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 11:04 AM

From "Rough and Rocky"............

"One more kiss before I leave you
One more kiss before we part.
You have caused me lots of trouble
Darling, you have broke my heart"

Those last two lines just ruin an otherwise nice song!

Gag!!!!

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Mr Happy
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 11:12 AM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Mail




http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Gmq6mFAEqNQ

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 01:15 PM

"The rhyme of "California" with "warn ya" was probably funny once..."

Funny or not, it's a perfectly matching rhyme, not in any way strained.

Not that "accuracy" in rhymes is ever the determining factor in this kind of thing. In fact, the more "accurate" the rhyme, the greater the sense of bathos when it becomes clear that the verse has been pulled out of shape to achieve it. (Though of course that can be perfectly acceptable when a humorous effect is intended.)

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Brendy
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 01:28 PM

I suppose there are a finite number of rhymes available, Kevin, and it is the clever songwriter that can avoid all those pitfalls of cliché.

The word 'Orange' has never successfully been rhymed, oddly enough.

B.

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 04:33 PM

orange has actually been successfully rhymed, ( well sort of ....)


Glenturret, Glen Scotia and last week Glen Fyne
Was rare at communion when we ran out of wine
Glenglassoch, Glen Lossie, Glendullan Glenmorangie
I prefer them to Cointreau which I find too orangey.

as sung by the incomparable McCalmans

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: GUEST,Lindsay in Wales
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 04:40 PM

Down in Nagasaki where the women chew tobaccy
And the women wicky wacky woo!


(the mind boggles!)

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Bill D
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 05:04 PM

the Master was Ogden Nash

"There goes the Wapiti
Hippiti-Hoppiti"


"If called by a panther,
Don't anther."

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: The Sandman
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 05:32 PM

I couldn't make a pot of tea nor get my trousers dry
And the dog shat in the tucker box nine miles from Gundagai.
not inane,but oneI would like to share.

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 06:05 PM

" Songs she sang to me
Songs she brang to me "




Neil Diamond Finally Agrees That 'Brang' Is not a Word
Singer Capitulates after Years of Lobbying by Grammarians

A watchdog group that lobbies for the correct usage of English announced a coup of sorts over the weekend: singer and songwriter Neil Diamond admitted he was wrong to use the word "brang" in lyrics for a popular 1970s song.

The National Association of Sticklers for the Precise Use of English said that after years of pressing Diamond to renounce his use of "brang" in the lyrics of "Play Me" the recording artist finally did so on Saturday.

The renunciation came when Edwin LeFevre, NASPUA president, encountered Diamond in a bookstore on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

"There he was, no mistaking him. No security or anything. So I just walked up to him and popped the question," LeFevre said. "I just point blank said, 'Weren't you wrong to use a word like brang in Play Me?'"

LeFevre said Diamond, who is estimated to have sold 120 million records worldwide, stared at him for a moment, smiled wanly and mumbled, "Yeah you might be right." Then he turned and walked away.

LeFevre said it was one his sweetest moments in more than a decade at the helm of NASPUA.

"Neil's use of 'brang' has grated on me for years," he said. "Just the other day I was out in Jersey at a Home Depot and there it was, playing up in the ceiling."

He began singing in a thin tenor, a bit out of tune.

Songs she sang to me
Songs she brang to me
Words that Rang in Me
Rhymes that Sprang from Me
Warmed the night

LeFevre said that NASPUA had contacted Diamond through intermediaries for years trying to get him to renounce use of "brang."

"Whenever they deigned to respond, they would cite artistic license," he said. "But you have to weigh that against millions of people who listened to that song and thought it was okay to say 'brang.' Not even the worst hillbilly naturally says 'brang.'"

A Diamond spokesperson reached today for comment was unaware of the encounter between the singer and the grammarian.

"When Neil goes out in public, he often encounters fans and often has warm, engaging exchanges with them," she said. "Otherwise, we don't discuss the precise nature of the encounters."

Buoyed by the unexpected success with Diamond, LeFevre said he planned to ask NASPUA's board to authorize the group to take steps to get hip-hop performers to use better English.

"That's a vast uncharted country and it's time to get it under control," he said.

This was posted by Bill Stockton on Monday, March 5th, 2007 at 4:21 am.

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 06:28 PM

I want down to the famous store
Set up by Frederick Gorringe,
And bought myself a dressing gown
In a lovely shade of orange.

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 06:48 PM

People stop and stare; they don't bother me
for there's no where else on earth that I would rather be.

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Greg B
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 06:59 PM

Then again, maybe the fact that he could get the lyrics to
"Your Song" in the mail, and write a nice melody to it, and
then sing it convincingly proves that Sir Elton really is a
damned good tune-writer and performer.

I mean, if you listen to what he does with that material---
he does really make it work. He delivers musically what Hugh
Grant does to dialog.

These guys didn't, if I recall correctly, ever sit in the
same room with a piano and build a song. Taupin wrote lyrics,
and Elton finished it off with a melody and performance.

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Brendy
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 07:02 PM

Oh well done, Kevin. I stand corrected, and happy to be so!!!
Nice one... where does that come from?

Well brought up too, Murray.
Would "... Glenglassoch, Glen Lossie, Glendullan Glenmorangie
I prefer them to Cointreau which I find too orangey...." be described as an inane couplet, MacCalman's notwithstanding?

B.

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Anne Lister
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 07:19 PM

There was a singer visiting from the US I remember seeing once in action in Aberdeen and he may even be a Mudcatter, for all I know - don't remember his name, unfortunately, but what stuck was the following verse, which was but one moment out of many:

"He took out his fiddle and played a mournful tune
He made a cup of coffee and stirred it with his spoon."

Mostly what I remember of the night was what a nice man he was, but how awful his lyrics, and how Mary McLaughlin and I sat stifling our giggles out of courtesy ... and how difficult that was ...
And I'm sorry if you are indeed a Mudcatter and I've mortally insulted your lyrics, or if you are a friend of his and have encouraged his songwriting over the years!

Anne

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Geordie-Peorgie
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 07:20 PM

'I don't want a pickle, just wanna ride my motor-sickle'

'And I don't wanna die! Just wanna ride my motorcy------cle

There was an American comedian (Rich Someone) on UK TV tonight - he rhymed 'orange' with 'dorringe' and when asked what it meant he said it was Southern States/Cajun for 'door-hinge' LOL

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Joe_F
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 08:16 PM

These dance hall girls sure know how to make a man feel alone.
Is this the way it always is in Baltimore?

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 09:07 PM

...where does that come from?

I have to stick my hand up for that. There actually was a department store called Gorringe's, near Victoria in London. It closed a few years ago,

The name Gorringe isn't that unusual - google it and a fair number turn up, including a Major-General in the Great War. And there was a British military in the Boer War called "Gorringe's Flying Column" (I never knew the British went in for Flying Columns".)

For the plural "oranges" there's an acceptable enough rhyme in "porringers", a kind of dish.

Here's a wikipedia list of words without rhymes. (It suggests that "door hinge" could serve as a rhyme for orange.)

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: john f weldon
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 09:09 PM

I hate to be critical of the mighty Bob...
And it's not really a couplet but...

How many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
And how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?

How many ears???

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Brendy
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 09:34 PM

From a link within the Wiki page that McGrath linked to:

"Dan Warner, of Fraser, Mich., writes, "Can you supply me with a word that rhymes with 'orange'?"


To answer your question, I got in touch with Hilary B. Price. As the cartoonist who draws the strip "Rhymes With Orange," she may be the world's expert on this subject. Price told me, "Marilyn vos Savant, who writes 'Ask Marilyn' for Parade magazine, claims there is a word 'sporange.' But the word is not in my dictionary."

"Sporange" isn't in most dictionaries. It does appear in Webster's Third Unabridged and in the enormous Oxford English Dictionary, both of which say it's a variant of "sporangium," a botanical term. Webster's Third gives two pronunciations for "sporange": the one you'd expect and "spuh-randj," with the accent on the second syllable. "Spuh-randj" is the only pronunciation given in Oxford. So although "sporange" looks as if it rhymes with "orange," whether it really does is debatable.

There is a hill in Wales called the Blorenge—but that's a proper name, not an ordinary word. Hilary Price told me she didn't know of any single rhyming word, either. "As far as I'm concerned," she said, "the closest rhyme is 'door hinge.'""

Curiouser and curiouser....

B.

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 09:45 PM

"Gorringe" is/are a company that make jodhpurs for the horse-riding fraternity (I have a pair)

And I love the song about "Nine Miles From Gundagai"....I have seen a picture of a statue just outside Gundagai, of a dog "sitting" on the tuckerbox...he certainly is not shitting or shatting, but we know what the singer meant

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: GUEST,Marie
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 09:47 PM

And then there's this one from Steve Miller's "Take the Money and Run"

Billy Mack is a detective down in Texas
You know he knows just exactly what the facts is

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Brendy
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 09:47 PM

.... looks like 'Gorringe' gets the prize.... Somebody should inform the good Ms. Price, by the looks of it...

On another tack, Trad songs are full of forced syllables/rhymes, in that way.
I always grated at terms like '... convenient to the town.', and '... has plenty of cause for to spleen.', for instance.

B.

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 10:00 PM

Agreed, Greg B, the melody & performance of "Your Song" ARE lovely - I have no disagreement with you over EJ's talent. But even his gorgeous singing cannot carry me past those naff, truly barfworthy words. They damage the credibility - and the spell - of the whole song for me, I'm afraid. How can the mind relate any image or feeling to "But then again, no" or "Got me quite cross (with that irrelevant roof/moss line that screams RHYME ME). These add nothing to a musically-great number.   

You're quite right, Sir Elton IS a damned good tune-writer and performer - and it's not him I'm criticising. But those lyrics let him down. They sound EXACTLY like something that dropped through the letterbox.

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 10:33 PM

This isn't an inane lyric, just logic-defying. From the refrain of The Seven Joys of Mary:

... and blesséd may he be
Both Father, Son, and Holy Ghost ...

"Both"? When citing the Trinity?

But there it is, in black-&-white, right there in the Oxford Book of Carols. Think June & Maddy sang it that way too though I can't remember. (Have to confess, I've changed it to "praise".) Lovely song, though -

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Celtaddict
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 11:29 PM

The line about Glenmorangie/too orangey is from the song "Leave Us Our Glens" by George Donald and Buff Hardy; it is a comic song, saying basically, you could take away everything else from Scotland, just leave us our glens, sounding very patriotic about the land, then lists a great number of single malts with names starting in 'Glen.' It is in the DT.

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Jan 08 - 01:55 AM

Your problem with the line "how many ears must one man have", john f, is this: you are being too literal in your interpretation of it. It's a poetic metaphor for a person's overall moral and ethical awareness of other people's suffering, not his ability to hear out of one, two, or more physical ears.

There is nothing wrong with that lyric or the song it's in. It's one of those rare songs that is just about perfect.

If you want to pick on Bob, look up the words to "Wiggle, Wiggle". Really quite unusual. ;-)

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 05 Jan 08 - 04:04 AM

Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like satin and silk,
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a pail of milk,
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, rattle and shake,
Wiggle like a big fat snake.

Never heard of this song before, and if you'd asked me who wrote it, Dylan is the last person I'd have thought of.

Want more? http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/wiggle.html

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: GUEST,passer-by
Date: 05 Jan 08 - 04:44 AM

There was a little old lady who was walking down the road, struggling with bags from Tesco There were people from the city having lunch in the park, I believe that it is called al fresco

Brilliant!

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Lowden Jameswright
Date: 05 Jan 08 - 05:38 AM

"Now the worst part is over
That trip down to Dover"
..... poetry at it's beat

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: Lowden Jameswright
Date: 05 Jan 08 - 05:40 AM

...best even (if I could type)

Subject: RE: Most inane couplet
From: s&r
Date: 05 Jan 08 - 06:25 AM

Leisure
by William Henry Davies

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

I had to learn this at school and still find the every couplet in whole thing inane and insufferably twee. But my English teacher loved it.

Stu