One of The Missus’s ongoing laments involves the infamous curve, which she seems forever ahead of. “Did you see,” she’ll say to me, “that [insert name of formerly unknown person] just made [insert some number which includes many zeroes and a currency symbol] from [insert random clever idea here]? I can’t believe it. That was my idea!”
Over at the Writing Well Is the Best Revenge blog, a recent post starts out by touching on a similar phenomenon: encountering ideas they’ve never had, but wish they did. Specifically, they talk about the Publisher’s Lunch e-newsletter, which provides reports of recent book deals. BIG book deals.
I know it’s, what, masochistic? Not because I begrudge anyone the fabulous deals they made–oh no way! If books are getting purchased and publishers are humming along, I’m all for it.
No–what’s masochistic is the constantly recurring thought that I am unable to suppress. And that is: oh–I should have thought of that.
Or worse: Oh, I COULD have thought of that.
We won’t even discuss “I DID think of that, years and years ago, but didn’t do anything about it” [Ed. note: viz., The Missus’s lament] because that way lies true madness. (Two little words: Animal Planet.)
Which leads them — gotta love it, someone else is easily distracted, too — to consider the announcement of the sale of Christopher Bowles’s book, Flushed from the Bathroom of Your Heart:
The 100 Worst Songs Ever, a highly personal, deeply offensive, politically incorrect and humorous catalog of pretentious lyrics, bad rhymes and syrupy pap, including classics we love to hate such as ‘Achy Breaky Heart,’ ‘Sometimes When We Touch,’ and of course ‘Ice Ice Baby’ by the singular Vanilla Ice, … for publication in 2010…
(By the way, I found a similar post on the Spinner.com site, from 2007: “The 20 Worst Lyrics Ever,” starting with the line from Elton John’s/Bernie Taupin’s “Your Song”: “If I was a sculptor/But then again, no.” Ha!)
All of which leads them to consider bad ideas they’ve never had… and of course to bad song lyrics, in particular.
Their nominees:
- Simon & Garfunkel: “Homeward Bound”
- Bobby Goldsboro: “Honey”
- George Michael: “Careless Whisper”
- Sheena Easton: “Morning Train”
- Paul Anka: “Having My Baby”
- Cyrkle: “Red Rubber Ball”
- The Archies: “Sugar, Sugar”
The whole post is entertaining, though, even tackling a quasi-icon like Neil Young (“Great music and from a guitar standpoint, pretty easy to play. The lyrics SOUND meaningful, but when you break them down…”) and an intellectual favorite, the Icelandic band Sigur Rós (“They recently started to sing in a completely made up language, so the audience would find their own meaning in the lyrics”).
Personally, I’ve always thought one of the worst lyrics ever penned and then captured for millions to experience was in 1939’s great film The Wizard of Oz. It’s in the Scarecrow’s “If I Only Had a Brain” song:
I would laugh and I’d be merry
Life would be a dinglederry
[screech of phonograph needle jumping out of groove]
“Dinglederry”?!? I imagine the lyricist, E. Y. “Yip” Harburg, probably has to start his term in Limbo all over again every time Ray Bolger sings that line.
Another oddball one, whose music haunts despite the relentless idiocy of the lyrics: 1966’s “96 Tears,” by the group known as ? and the Mysterians. (Yes, that’s “[Question Mark] and the Mysterians.”) Here’s the song itself (click Play button to start, volume control at left):
…and here are the lyrics, my God, the lyrics:
Too many teardrops for one heart to be cryin’
Too many teardrops for one heart to carry on
You’re way on top now
Since you left me
You’re always laughin’
Way down at me
But watch out now
I’m gonna get there
We’ll be together
For just a little while
And then I’m gonna put you
Way down here
And you’ll start cryin’
Ninety-six tears
Cry
CryAnd when the sun comes up
I’ll be on top
You’ll be way down there
Lookin’ up
And I might wave
Come up here
But I don’t see you
Wavin’ now
I’m way down here
Wonderin’ how
I’m gonna get you
But I know now
I’ll just cry, cry, I’ll just cryToo many teardrops for one heart to be cryin’
Too many teardrops for one heart
To carry on
You’re gonna cry ninety-six tears
You’re gonna cry ninety-six tears
You’re gonna cry cry, cry, cry, now
You’re gonna cry cry, cry, cry
Ninety-six tears c’mon and lemme hear you cry, now
Ninety-six tears (whoo!) I wanna hear you cry
Night and day, yeah, all night long
Uh-ninety-six tears cry cry cry
C’mon baby, let me hear you cry now, all night long
Uh-ninety-six tears! Yeah! C’mon now
Uh-ninety-six tears!
You’re welcome.
____________________
[The artwork for this post is the album cover for Little Broken Words, by the UK “piano-rock band” Keane. By using the album cover here, I don’t mean to imply anything about Keane’s lyrics — about which I know nothing. The title just provided an appropriate phrase for a post about rotten lyrics.]
cynth says
Oh, I could write a book…oh, wait that was the point! How about Do Wa Diddy, Diddy Dum, Diddy, Do? Or the ever popular, Louie, Louie which I read somewhere really didn’t have lyrics set down anywhere, they just sang something as they went along…EACH TIME THEY SANG IT!!!
marta says
I would play that song you’ve got there if I didn’t have two children asleep on the floor around my desk. No joke. But now when I go to sleep I will have horrible lyrics zipping through my brain.
That may be better than obsessing over all the great ideas I didn’t have.
John says
cynth: That story about Louie Louie may have been an urban legend. According to Wikipedia:
Which, if true, means Louie Louie is actually not a bad song, lyrically. I mean, there’s a beginning, middle, and end! (Hmm. Maybe the story you heard was about the song as rendered by The Rock-Bottom Remainders???)
marta: Now, you just know, don’t you, that the image of a writer sitting at a computer while dazed children litter the floor says something about writing, the Internet, and possibly motherhood? What a scene!
Jules says
HA. Thanks for the hearty laugh; in particular, I love the dramatic phonograph needle screech. Word on the dinglederry bit. Now I’ll be pondering my own list all day….
Sarah says
Wasn’t it “If I was a sculptor; but then again, who knows?” followed by the perfectly logical “for a man who makes potions in a traveling show”.
John says
Jules: So, where’s the list? It’s a day later and still no list!
Sarah: You had me worried for a moment there. (It doesn’t take much to convince me that I’ve misheard something. :) But I checked the lyrics at a dozen sites, including one called “Eltonology,” and they all seem to agree: it’s “…but then again, no.” Thank God, the embarrassment continues.