No, it's not like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife.

October 10, 2007 11:51 PM

Counting down the worst rock lyricists: #21: Alanis Morisette? Check. #4: Noel Gallagher (Oasis)? Check. #14: Will.i.am (Black Eyed Peas)? Double--no, Triple Check. #23: Robert Plant? Maybe. But of all the rock lyricists, this is the Worst Lyricist in Rock, ever? One begs to differ.

BLENDER magazine describes the winner (or should that be loser) Sting's lyrics-crafting ability as: "Mountainous pomposity, cloying spirituality, ham-handed metaphors: He can do it all." Hey, BLENDER, Mephistopheles is not your name, but I know what you're up to just the same. Uh, did ya forget about the "pomatus of love"?

posted by fuse theorem (52 comments total)

Your favorite list of lyricists who suck sucks.
posted by Joey Michaels at 11:57 PM on October 10, 2007

I keed! I keed!
posted by Joey Michaels at 11:57 PM on October 10, 2007

Said it on another site:

Any list of this type that has in its top 10 Jim Morrison, Donovan, one of the guys from Rush and Sting (not even separating Police-era from Solo-era), isn't worth anyone's time.
posted by Slap*Happy at 11:58 PM on October 10, 2007

Where is thy death, etc.
posted by Wolof at 12:00 AM on October 11, 2007

Counting down the worst double posts in the history of MeFi:
#27: this one.
posted by kyleg at 12:00 AM on October 11, 2007 [1 favorite]

Well I found out in the last thread that there are people who actually like "We Built This City". No, really.
posted by 2sheets at 12:03 AM on October 11, 2007

It’s not a double post if the first one was deleted, especially if it was at the poster’s request!
posted by tepidmonkey at 12:10 AM on October 11, 2007

Hahahahaha! Afroblanco was ashamed of having posted it. BUT HERE IT IS AGAIN! Now, will fuse theorem show as much clear afterthought and good judgement? Will he too petition the benevolent mods to have mercy on his wretched soul and remove this awful stain from the glorious blue? Stay tuned folks!
posted by flapjax at midnite at 12:12 AM on October 11, 2007

I just realized how Boy-Scout-esque I sounded there.

Be prepared: for snark. This isn’t exactly a very good list.
posted by tepidmonkey at 12:30 AM on October 11, 2007

Man, I don't know if he's truly #1, but Sting's definitely got some clunkers. "We have to shout above the din of our Rice Krispies"? "Mr. Khrushchev said 'we will bury you'/I don't subscribe to this point of view"? (Hell, pretty much all of "Russians", actually.)

But I agree with oneirodynia in the last thread: Blink-182 beats all of these guys, easily.
posted by equalpants at 12:33 AM on October 11, 2007

This list seems like a futile grasp at relevancy. Please, view our articles! Look, we made fun of Sting!
posted by blacklite at 12:37 AM on October 11, 2007 [1 favorite]

What, no Lenny Kravitz? Dude could endorse a line of rhyming dictionaries.
posted by retronic at 12:41 AM on October 11, 2007

Any list that doesn't have Neal Peart isn't worth anyone's time. I suspend judgment on Sting, however.
posted by abcde at 12:48 AM on October 11, 2007

Greg Graffin (#28) is on that list? What the hell?

They seem to be switching between anti-intellectualism, reprimanding poorly implemented intellectualism, and borderline racism and classism.
posted by spiderskull at 12:52 AM on October 11, 2007

Editorial AND a double.

Your favorite newsletter sucks.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 12:53 AM on October 11, 2007

Well I found out in the last thread that there are people who actually like "We Built This City". No, really.

So then on the plus side, this double gives those people a chance to repent before they find themselves condemned to that particularly nasty circle of hell in which tone-deaf Tourette's victims are submerged knee deep in hoopla, issued megaphones, and encouraged to broadcast their suggested changes to corporation names.

Curiously, this is known as both the "Starship" and "Verizon" circle of hell.
posted by gompa at 12:53 AM on October 11, 2007 [1 favorite]

Allow Robert Palmer to apologise
posted by mattoxic at 12:54 AM on October 11, 2007

How is Gavin Rossdale not on this list. I'm having trouble choosing which set of lyrics to post, because they're all such nonsense.

Here's one at random:
We deviate our gravy brains
Set 'em on fire they're all the same
I'm a lionface, no sancho panzo, I'm riddled by you

I'm a monkey on a drip, sucker monkey on a drip
posted by spiderskull at 12:57 AM on October 11, 2007

Sorry, spiderskull, but "The cupboard is empty, we really need food / Summer is winter and you always knew" is without equal in the annals of Rossdalian verse. It is his "Ozymandias." And by that I mean that it is both boundless and bare, as well as a source of eternal despair.
posted by gompa at 1:05 AM on October 11, 2007

This post sucked yesterday too.
posted by Ironmouth at 1:09 AM on October 11, 2007

No better the second time around, sadly.

If you had to post a best of for every worst of and vice versa, I think this kind of thing would be a) less common and b) more revelant.

Okay, maybe still not relevant. But at least you'd have better context as to why one thing would be on the list over something else.

Or maybe not. I'll still offer my futile wish, in case some dissolute djinn feels like causing havoc on MSN, Cosmo, and Blender all at the same time.
posted by batmonkey at 1:10 AM on October 11, 2007

Sting gets a pass from me for this viciously well spitted bit:

Billy's joined The National Front
He always was a little runt
He's got his hand in the air
with the other cunts
you got to humanize yourself...

perhaps it's just the way he sprays this vitriol that has always sold it to me.

Also see Invisible Sun from Ghost In the Machine
posted by erskelyne at 1:37 AM on October 11, 2007

Meh. It's the rare lyricist whose work actually makes for passable poetry. The words aren't meant to be read, they're meant to be triggers that in conjunction with the instruments set an emotional tone for the song. "Ladies let me tell you about myself/ I've got a dick for a brain/ and my brain will sell my ass to you" from the Afghan Whigs 'Be Sweet' makes for shit prose but works perfectly as a lyric. It, combined with the snarling guitars and vocal delivery, gives you everything you need to understand the persona Dulli is presenting. The rest of the lyrics might as well be emotionally wrought glossolalia.

(Double meh. Ben Gibbard is a great lyricist, if a bit too twee.)

(And does Alanis count as a lyricist of any caliber? I thought she was just a piece of studio equipment.)
posted by bunnytricks at 1:42 AM on October 11, 2007

Donovan at #9?

Anyone that unfamiliar with his repertoire shouldn't be allowed to quantify lyric-writing ability, especially with their own bloated attempt at humor and pretentious wit.

But then this is Blender. What am I expecting?
posted by nonmerci at 2:05 AM on October 11, 2007

Additionally:

Worst lyric: “Walking slowly down the hall faster than a cannonball” (“Live Forever”)

That would be Champagne Supernova, you hacks.
posted by nonmerci at 2:09 AM on October 11, 2007 [1 favorite]

I read the first couple of pages, and then got to this:

"Slowly walking down the hall faster than a cannonball" (Live Forever)

Yeah, if you're going to complain about bad lyrics, at least get the song they're from right.
posted by corvine at 2:11 AM on October 11, 2007 [1 favorite]

heh, that'll teach me to not preview, nonmerci!
posted by corvine at 2:12 AM on October 11, 2007

Wow, I thought I was a pretty bad rock lyricist, but I must actually be pretty good, because according to Blender, Sting, Jim Morrison, Robert Plant, and Paul McCartney are all much worse. Thank you Blender! It makes you wonder who'd make their list of best lyricists. Devo, or something?
posted by epimorph at 2:24 AM on October 11, 2007

Well I found out in the last thread that there are people who actually like "We Built This City". No, really.

Amazing, isn't it? I worked in a place where they had the radio on all day when that turd was played twice an hour. I couldn't leave the machine, and grew to deeply, profoundly hate Starship.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 3:33 AM on October 11, 2007

grew to deeply, profoundly hate Starship

There is no doubt that song is truly one of the worst in the history of popular music (right up there with some of the very worst songs Survivor wrote), but I still cut them some slack because they were essentially the same people that wrote "Somebody to Love" and "White Rabbit".

But let's face it, even your most gifted lyricists' (I dunno, Elvis Costello? Leonard Cohen?) words look awkward on the printed page. If it were meant to be poetry it would have been released as poetry.
posted by psmealey at 3:43 AM on October 11, 2007

I love Iggy Pop but this lyric is abysmal:

she laughed and said "Iggy,
you have got a biggy!"

It would be unfair to put him on a list for it, though.
posted by h00py at 3:58 AM on October 11, 2007

Sting has a number of lyrics that truly make me cringe. He tries too hard. The Nabokov line in "Don't Stand So Close to Me." I mean jesus christ, I know he was an english teacher, but come on. I hate it when people overuse the word pretentious, but I think it fits Mr. Sumner pretty well.

It makes you wonder who'd make their list of best lyricists. Devo, or something?

"God made man
But he used the monkey to do it
Apes in the plan
Were all here to prove it
I can walk like an ape
Talk like an ape
I can do what a monkey can do
God made man
But a monkey supplied the glue"

Still relevent today.
posted by brevator at 4:18 AM on October 11, 2007

I think early Sodom takes the metal category, though to their credit they're not native English speakers.

Blasphemer

Black metal is the game I play
'cause no one show me the right way
I am a bloody Antichrist, only believe in bad
Spit at the church, Evil I get

Blasphemer. . . .
Rites of death, Return to Hell
I am Satan's child, attack you with Spell

I turn the cross upside down
and read Satanic Bible with fucking grown (?)
my life begins at midnight twelve
masturbate to kill myself (?!)

Blasphemer. . . .

I love to drink my own blood
my sin is my life in a war with god
I talk to the demons night tonight
make love and black masses in a dark shadow light

Blasphemer. . . .
posted by The Straightener at 4:21 AM on October 11, 2007

He tries too hard. The Nabokov line in "Don't Stand So Close to Me."

Agreed. Also, the line from that song enticed me to mispronounce Nabokov's name for years before I was very publicly corrected. Made me sound like a rube. (Maybe I am a rube).

SUMNER!!!!
posted by psmealey at 4:24 AM on October 11, 2007

I still cut them some slack because they were essentially the same people that wrote "Somebody to Love" and "White Rabbit".

That is absolutely so, psmealy. I stand before you proudly as one who does like "We Built this City". I wouldn't buy it. But I really enjoy it every time it comes on the radio in the lockerroom of the place where I work out. That thing has a monster hook. The lyric is stupid-pompus like the Airplane's "Volunteers" ("up against the wall!" and a great, great song). But mainly, it's the hook. They go for it. They get it. These are also the "Ballad of You and Me and Poonie" -- a song that has no hook but its own beautiful complexity.
All pop and rock lyricists suck. That's the whole point. So do most of the lyrics of Schubert's and other composer's lieder (ever read the lyrics to Beethoven's "Ode to Joy"?)
There was only a brief period of music when lyrics were good. Lorenz Hart, Ira Gershwin, Dorothy Fields (not Oscar Hammerstein). These guys wrote good lyrics, and got everyone's expectations up too high.
The best we can ask for from rock and pop performers is creativity, and a certain suggestive, jingle-jangle memorability.
posted by Faze at 4:26 AM on October 11, 2007

This post is so much worse than Afroblanco's. fuse theorem, you should e-mail him and apologize. You should then apologize to MetaFilter. You should then apologize to yourself, and promise to never, ever post like this again.

(Seriously, just a "more inside" link on the front page, that is beyond lame.)
posted by oddman at 4:26 AM on October 11, 2007

Ah! damn it! I snarked while half-asleep.
posted by oddman at 4:28 AM on October 11, 2007

Listing others' supposed lameness only underscores the lameness of the list maker. Blender looks pretty bad putting this crap out. Afroblanco on the other hand looked great by emailing Cortex to pull the plug on the las thread after he realized his error. We all post turds, but how many have the guts to realize it and correct it? He's the man.
posted by caddis at 4:29 AM on October 11, 2007

Well I found out in the last thread that there are people who actually like "We Built This City". No, really.

That fucked up my "world-view."
posted by Devils Rancher at 4:32 AM on October 11, 2007

What, no Lenny Kravitz? Dude could endorse a line of rhyming dictionaries.

Ugh. My hatred is a river wide, swift and deep. But I'm not in the mood to google the lyrics to "I can't Drive 55" so I'll let the Sammy Hagar thing pass, this time. If he's not on the next worst-of list though, I might ask Matt for my $5.00 back. The internets are getting clogged with some pretty bad trucks these days.
posted by Devils Rancher at 4:39 AM on October 11, 2007

Amateurs. Cheesy lyrics today even remotely worthy of the label all owe their celebrity to last millennium's...

MacArthur Park (Jimmy Webb / 1967):

"I recall the yellow cotton dress
Foaming like a wave
On the ground around your knees
The birds, like tender babies in your hands
And the old men playing checkers by the trees

MacArthur Park is melting in the dark
All the sweet, green icing flowing down
Someone left the cake out in the rain
I don't think that I can take it
'Cause it took so long to bake it
And I'll never have that recipe again
Oh, no!"
posted by Mike D at 4:53 AM on October 11, 2007

Agree 100% with the Jethro Tull snark. Worst lyrics ever.

If you want great lyrics, listen to The Tragically Hip.
posted by bwg at 4:54 AM on October 11, 2007

Sting, Jim Morrison, Robert Plant, and Paul McCartney are all much worse

Win or lose, sink or swim
One thing is certain well never give in
Side by side, hand in hand
We all stink together
Play the game, fight the fight
But whats the point on a beautiful night?
Arm in arm, hand in hand
We all stink together

MacArthur Park is Shakespeare compared to the drivel above.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 4:55 AM on October 11, 2007

My favorite music has the suckiest lyrics sometimes. Motorhead's "Ace of Spades" reads like Lemmy just wrote every gambling cliche that he could think of on a bar napkin at 4:00 am and by sheer drunken coincidence some of it happened to rhyme. Yet no one can reasonably deny that it's one of the best rock songs ever. Paranoid era Ozzy's lyrics are laughably bad to read on the printed page. Cheesy couplet after cheesy couplet.

Has he lost his mind
Can he see or is he blind
Can he walk at all
Or if he moves will he fall


But Paranoid is a kick-ass rock album all the way through.

Rock and Pop musicians are writing stuff to bob your head and dance to. They're not trying to be Coleridge. Well, except for Rush. And Iron Maiden.
posted by Cookiebastard at 5:01 AM on October 11, 2007

Agreed with a few, disagreed with most, don't care about the rest. It was worth it, though, to see Henry Rollins described as a "beefy nihilist".
posted by TedW at 5:15 AM on October 11, 2007

Bernie Taupin? C'mon, that's ridiculous. And I also don't believe that he and Elton almost never communicate. I've read interviews with Elton where he talks about about what great friends they are.

If I had to pick two really bad lyricists I would say Steve Miller (Abracadabra is just plain awful) and Jeff Lynne.

Your'e lookin good just like a snake in the grass,
One of these days you're gonna break your glass.
Dont bring me down,no no no no no no no no,
Ill tell you once more before I get off the floor
Dont bring me down.
posted by gfrobe at 5:21 AM on October 11, 2007

Crappy lyrics sometimes are the best kind, especially when with a brainless but catchy beat, outrageous riffs and master skins work. What's with you people, don't you read comic books? Get your groove on!
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:23 AM on October 11, 2007

Somehow, this sucks even worse than it did yesterday.

.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 5:29 AM on October 11, 2007

I know these things go for wide appeal, so they're going to pick more famous artists, but I'm for my money, it's hard to beat Funker Vogt. They're great angry German industrial, but english is definitely not their first language. I submit, for your consideration, "Shaven".

shaven cunts fuck much more horny
i know this for quite a while
so the juices run in torments
and not only bloody spearm

so fuck until the cunts are steaming
a shaven cleft on wet skin
let us play some kinky games
to increase our horny passion

i'm the great pubedresser
i cut pubes like a master
always dressed in black leather
want to lick your naked skin

pearls of sweat drop from her body
building up a lake of lust
with each stroke she starts to shiver
posted by Uther Bentrazor at 5:36 AM on October 11, 2007

i give you, Def Leppard:

You got the peaches, I got the cream
Sweet to taste, saccharine
'Cos I'm hot, say what, sticky sweet
From my head, my head, to my feet
Do you take sugar? one lump or two?
Take a bottle, shake it up
Break the bubble, break it up

Easy target tho.
posted by daveyt at 5:38 AM on October 11, 2007

Worst lyricist ever?
Dolores O'Riordan, bar none. A shame because I like(d) her voice a lot.
I've never heard someone rhyme "day" "way" and "say" in so many different songs.

Also, can we please ban the use of the word "mind" in any songs written after 1972. Thx
posted by banishedimmortal at 6:10 AM on October 11, 2007

Noel Gallagher has made a career out of lyrical nonsense. I thought 4th was being generous.
posted by triv at 6:23 AM on October 11, 2007