While driving in from lunch, I heard "Upside Down" by Diana Ross on the Houston Jammin' Oldies station. Has anyone ever noticed the following lines?

Respectfully, I say to thee,

I'm aware that you're cheatin,

But no one makes me feel like you do.

How awful is that? What made Diana Ross agree to sing something so lame? (I know the answer, money.) But sometimes I wonder how songs ever make it onto the airwaves, much less become popular or win awards.

Share some really stupid verses...

-- Anonymous, April 06, 2000

Answers

Oh, where to start? Britney Spears's "E-mail my Heart?". Naw, too easy. We'll go with *NSYNC on this one, and a song of their new album entitled "Digital Getdown". Here's the chorus:

Digital Getdown Just you and me 20,000 miles away I can see you and you can see me

Digital Getdown Just what we need Can't get together naturally Get together on the digital screen

This is followed by gutteral noises such as "get freaky" and "get nasty" with that horrid Cher/Kid Rock Speak and Spell effect. So in other words, *NSYNC can only get some in cyberspace. I know touring is tough, guys, but come on - lay off the internet porn already!

-- Anonymous, April 06, 2000

Some that are stupid and scary:

Johnny, get angry,
Johnny, get mad,
Give me the biggest lecture [I think this is the word]
I ever had.
I want a brave man,
I want a cave man.

The name of the female artist (?) escapes me, but this is a for-real song from either the 50s or early 60s. They used to play it on the oldies station when I lived near Boston and it made me want to barf. Still does.

Even so, it's not as bad as the song (from the same era) called "He Hit Me (And It Felt Like a Kiss). Thank God they don't play that one any more.

Oh, geez, now I've got this crap running through my head.

-- Anonymous, April 06, 2000

I'm sure I'll be back here about 5,000 times with examples, but coming into work today I heard Paula Cole's "I Don't Want to Wait." I would argue that the whole song qualifies as insipid, but to single out a couple of passages:

He showed up all wet. On the rainy front step.

Well, thank God! I was afraid he showed up all wet because he jumped in a swimming pool on his way home.

And then Paula goes on:

"And the war he saw, lives inside him still

followed shortly by:

"The years went by, and now he has granddaughters."

Holy non-sequitur, Batman! What's the point of this passage? Did she just need something to fill out the rhyme scheme? (And a note to Paula: "Granddaughters" doesn't really rhyme with "father".)

Please don't hate me, Dawson's Creek fans. It's nothing personal.

-- Anonymous, April 06, 2000

i love tori amos, but you pretty much listen to anyone of her songs and call the lyrics "insipid." for example (it's in my head right now...)

"tuna, blubber, little rubber in my igloo..."

but, her earlier stuff made more sense. the last one i bought was "boys for pele" and i think that had more bizarre lyrics than the first two combined.

was this the forum where the alanis morissette lyrics generator was posted? that was pretty amusing. i think it's on the brunching shuttlecocks site.

-- Anonymous, April 06, 2000

I think you're all missing out on the all time worst song lyrics ever, which belong to "What if God Were One of Us" by Joan Osborne. I mean, come on!

"like a holy rolling stone.. no one to call him on the phone.. except the Pope maybe in Rome"

Is that even English?!? "Except the Pope maybe in Rome"?? And what about "What if God were one of us? Just a slob like one of us?" Ok, thanks Joan, but personally I do not consider myself a slob and frankly I can't picture God sitting up there on his heavenly throne surrounded by empty Fritos bags and half-empty Coke cans.

Shudder.

-- Anonymous, April 06, 2000

Oh, and I found the Alanis Lyrics Generator.

-- Anonymous, April 06, 2000

oh jan, you've been even more bruised by joan osborned than you may realize. i'm afraid you're editing her to make her sound MORE intelligent -- the song says (repeatedly) "what if god was one of us," not were.

every time i hear it, i shout "WERE"! and change the station as fast as possible.

-- Anonymous, April 06, 2000

Try this one on:

"If I was a sculptor...but then again, no."

Thanks Elton.

-- Anonymous, April 06, 2000

Oh please, please. Someone explain that Backstreet Boys song to me. It drove me nuts last summer.

"Believe me I say that I want it that way..."

and then

"I never want to hear you say, I want it that way."

What? Huh? What did they want? Who wanted it? Was it the mandatory older one with the moustache? What way is that way? Damnit - I understood Duran Duran's lyrics!

-- Anonymous, April 06, 2000

susan, i'm with you! the latest backstreet boys song: "show me the meaning of being lonely..." now granted, i haven't listened to the words closely, but to me, that translates as "please dump me."

-- Anonymous, April 07, 2000

early HEART just rocked. but when the mid '80s hit ... they just got too involved in that bad glam-rock thing (you know, big hair ... lace ... leather).

"All I Wanna Do Is Make Love to You" is just as bad (if not worse) than that terrible Paul Cole song. I'm not retyping the lyrics here ... If I did, I would be thinking about it THE REST OF THE DAY.

All I wanna do is make love to you One night of love, is all we knew...

UGH!

-- Anonymous, April 07, 2000

oops! i meant paula cole. it's friday and my fingers just don't want to do the work anymore.

-- Anonymous, April 07, 2000

This is why there only ever should have been one song. "The Boys are Back In Town" by Thin Lizzy. Who needs other songs after you hear that one?

-- Anonymous, April 07, 2000

How about the entire Pina Colada song? Talk about shallow people!

Run away now!

I was tired of my lady, we'd been together too long. Like a worn-out recording, of a favorite song. So while she lay there sleeping, I read the paper in bed. And in the personals column, there was this letter I read:

"If you like Pina Coladas, and getting caught in the rain. If you're not into yoga, if you have half-a-brain. If you like making love at midnight, in the dunes of the cape. I'm the lady you've looked for, write to me, and escape."

I didn't think about my lady, I know that sounds kind of mean. But me and my old lady, had fallen into the same old dull routine. So I wrote to the paper, took out a personal ad. And though I'm nobody's poet, I thought it wasn't half-bad.

"Yes, I like Pina Coladas, and getting caught in the rain. I'm not much into health food, I am into champagne. I've got to meet you by tomorrow noon, and cut through all this red tape. At a bar called O'Malley's, where we'll plan our escape."

So I waited with high hopes, then she walked in the place. I knew her smile in an instant, I knew the curve of her face. It was my own lovely lady, and she said, "Oh, it's you." And we laughed for a moment, and I said, "I never knew"..

"That you liked Pina Coladas, and getting caught in the rain. And the feel of the ocean, and the taste of champagne. If you like making love at midnight, in the dunes of the cape. You're the love that I've looked for, come with me, and escape."

-- Anonymous, April 07, 2000

Oh, dear God, Ron.

Yesterday, I couldn't get rid of "Johnny Get Angry." Now it's that damn pina colada song. I really hate that song.

I've got to stop reading this topic, or I'm gonna need therapy.

-- Anonymous, April 07, 2000

Cmon, you love the Heart song. You know you do.

-- Anonymous, April 07, 2000

My boyfriend's theory about that Backstreet Boys song is that they're talking about giving someone butt sex (his term). Like, he wants it that way (i.e., wants to give HER butt sex), but he doesn't want to hear HER say that SHE wants it that way (that she would like to give HIM butt sex.. perhaps with a strap-on).

This might say more about my boyfriend than it does the Backstreet boys. I don't know. But come on.. "Backstreet"? I think he might have a point.

-- Anonymous, April 07, 2000

Two words: Christina Aguilera "What I want, is what you got. And what you got, is what I want."
What? You're telling me she deserves a Grammy for that, while Garbage gets nothing? Exsqueeze me?
And, although I have two of his albums, any lyrics by Lenny Kravitz sound like Dr. Seuss. You know I'm right.

-- Anonymous, April 08, 2000

"Dear lies
you suuuuck"

You YUCK!

-- Anonymous, April 08, 2000

lol Andrea, you're right about Lenny Kravitz come to think of it. "I wish that I could fly, into the sky, so very high." haha ... but I like him too!

-- Anonymous, April 08, 2000

I don't know how to live without your love I was born to make you happy 'Cos you're the only one who's in my heart I was born to make you happy Always and forever you and me That's the way my life should be ...

Yuck. It's insipid, and it's dreadful 'I'm nothing without a man' propaganda as well. That Britney, she's poisoning the minds of young girls everywhere. When I'm running this world (and it will happen one of these days) it will be illegal to record a song like that.

-- Anonymous, April 09, 2000

I've basically given up on the music industry to provide me with brilliant lyrics or insightful poetry, but I've become fascinated with the other end of the spectrum- the apex of stupid songs- Japanese Pop. And I don't mean Jennifer Love's attempts at rocker, because the best silly lyrics come from the Japanese bands themselves. Trust me, I know my chicken.

My favorite right now is Shonin Knife's "Catnip Dream": "He is a cat and he's very, very fat. American Calico cat" Now, maybe they're saying something about how Americans are fat and lazy, but I prefer to think of a big fat cat eating catnip. "Catnip is a kitty cat drug, wonder what he's dreaming of Catnip dream, catnip dream, catnip dream...meow meow meow."

No pretension, all fluff. Gotta love it.

-- Anonymous, April 10, 2000

Well, Mike & Megan, you missed the most obvious horrid lyric in that damn Paula Cole song (at least I think it's the same song):

"Open up your morning light Say a little prayer for I"

What the fuck? "For I"? In what part of the world is that version of English acceptable?

I'm with Jan about "what if God WERE one of us". There are so many songwriters who make this error that I have given up! (I used to have a lot of examples, but all I can think of now is that wretched song [by the Thompson Twins??], "If I Was King for Just One Day", or something like that.)

How about my favorite insipid Carpenters' lyric of all time (and they could be really insipid!):

"Don't you remember you told me you loved me baby Said you'd be coming back this way again, baby Baby baby baby baby oh baby I love you..."

The "baby baby baby baby oh baby" is the best!

-- Anonymous, April 10, 2000

Well, I suck. Please insert carriage returns in the appropriate places in the above response. Thank you.

-- Anonymous, April 10, 2000

ChickenGrrl:

I didn't put that lyric in there because I couldn't believe that that was what Paula Cole was actually saying. I gave her credit for having at least a third-grade education, and figured I was just hearing it wrong.

I was going to add something making fun of Kid Rock for his: "My only words of wisdom are [radio edit]," but I talked about it with some friends and we decided to give the guy a little credit. Maybe those really are his words of wisdom. Maybe he's just not that bright, and has trouble expressing himself in a non-profane matter. Maybe his albums are just a cry for help.

And wasn't Celine Dion going to retire? Why am I still hearing her songs on the radio. I heard one song twice on the way to work yesterday, so I spent the whole day unconsciously humming "And that's the way it is." If my co-workers had heard me, I think they would have been morally justified in putting me out of my misery.

-- Anonymous, April 10, 2000

Is it possible that I am the only person in America who thinks that Jewel's lyrics are a complete joke?

No, that's not possible. Someone else had to have heard that song she recorded which begins, "If I could tell the world just one thing, it would be: we're all ok."

Ugh. Sweet enough to put a diabetic over the edge.

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2000

What are you talking about A.J.? Don't you know that "only kindness matters."
Could anyone on earth possibly take herself more seriously?

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2000

The first time I heard the Paula Cole song about the cowboys, I thought she said,"Where's my Bobba Fett" instead of "Marlboro Man". It actually sounds like that. For about 24 hours, I thought she was brilliant. Then, someone corrected me.

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2000