Ridiculyrics

I have an intolerance for ridiculous lyrics in songs. A tune could be musically awesome, but if the lyrics let it down then it ruins the music’s credibility for me.

I’m not saying that the songs mentioned hereunder are shining examples of our culture by any stretch of the imagination, but they came to my attention through having utterly awful, cringeworthy lyrical content. Take it away Maximo Park in their track A fortnight’s time:

Would you like to go on a date with me?
And I know, it’s so old fashioned to say so
Five times five equals twenty-five
Don’t you know your times tables by now?

Come on lads, belittling someone’s mathematical prowess is perhaps not the greatest chat up line ever. By all means let me know how that one goes. And on a similar math theme there’s Rihanna in that song about her fight with amnesia, What’s my name?:

The square root of 69 is 8 somethin’, right?
‘Cause I’ve been tryna work it out

Riiiiiight. Might I suggest a piece of 80s tech called a calculator? And while your Flux Capacitor is primed, bask in the earth-shattering awesome of the 1984 hit Doctor doctor by the Thompson Twins:

Doctor, doctor
Can’t you see I’m burning, burning?

Call me old fashioned, but I’d question the efficacy of a physician who can’t tell when someone’s on fire. But it seems the Kings Of Leon have similar issues in the flame domain:

You, your sex is on fire

Seems a little heartless to point and sing about it when the poor girl’s bush is alight. Dialling 999 would be a more appropriate course of action, I’d wager. Speaking of which, somebody ought to get an ambulance out to Turbo B on his collaboration with Snap because he’s “as serious as cancer when I say rhythm is a dancer”. Such a massive facepalm in an otherwise excellent record.

Moving from dying to beyond the grave, it transpires that in order to fulfill contractual obligations to her record label, Des’ree rushed out the song Life, as evidenced by the fact she couldn’t find anything remotely poignant to rhyme with ‘ghost’…

I don’t want to see a ghost
It’s a sight that I fear most
I’d rather have a piece of toast
And watch the evening news

Fast forward to 2013 and the rap genius of Robin Thicke who weaves his considerable command of the English language with wholesome imagery such as, “You’re like a needle in a haystack. I wanna sit you where my face at” and “I’m lookin’ for you with a flashlight. I wanna feel what a real fat ass like”. Yes, Robin, I’d be honoured if you would write my Nobel prize acceptance speech. But what made me laugh most about his diabolical invasion of my aural canal was the chorus of Give it 2 U:

Hey girl
You know you’re looking so damn fine
You looking like you fell from the sky

Marvelling the broken limbs of a woman who has hit the pavement as the result of, say, a parachuting mishap, is hardly likely to befit the phrase ‘so damn fine’ (or ‘so damn fly’, or whatever piss-poor excuse passes for urban vernacular these days). Grow some sensitivity, man.

And speaking of sidewalks, for some reason everyone’s favourite Norf Lahndun popstress Adele likes Chasing pavements. What’s all that about? Is she proud of jogging to lose weight? Perhaps she’s hoping that while running through the alleyways of London she’ll stumble upon the Backstreet Boys, who thought that the way to appeal to women was to demonstrate how desperate they were in As long as you love me:

I don’t care who you are
Where you’re from
What you did
As long as you love me

Easy, fellas. If you try too hard you might end up with Chaka Khan who claims I’m every woman. Uhhh, clearly not, unless you have a colossal appetite. Perhaps, like Bono, Sting and David Gray, the Backstreet Boys take themselves way too seriously. Mr Gray deserves some kudos for managing to randomly inject references to two completely unrelated items in You’re the one I love:

Tell the repo man
And the stars above
You’re the one I love

Of course, David. While the nice man with the van is repossessing your telly, you should race after him and proclaim your undying love, because if you do that and then yell at the sky as well, it’ll get your stuff back.

Finally, I know it’s not fair to make fun of people with disabilities, but a special mention has to go to the members of One Direction Dimension who pooled their brain cell and managed to cobble together this kludgy sentence in What makes you beautiful:

Baby you light up my world like nobody else
The way that you flip your hair gets me overwhelmed

Seriously, every time this, probably fictitious, specimen of a lady walks by and flicks her hair, these five marionettes either go all bleary eyed or collectively ejaculate in their jeans? They’re barely old enough to get erections, let alone qualified to write about love. But maybe that really is the pinnacle of their writing talent. In which case, there’s hope for me yet, so I’m off to pen a masterpiece about the unrequited love that a downtrodden lemur holds for a seahorse, which would all be resolved if he could just afford an aqualung.