My favourite 'bad lyric' has been mentioned on this site before:
Summer (the first time) - Bobby Goldsboro once sung:
"she was just walking by, when I looked in her eye, and I saw it was winking". A real gem.
But, how about this toe curler from UFO's Treacle People:
"I walked through a space that wasn't really there
And when I reached the other side, I didn't really care
I moved round a bit and started seeing people
But the people that I met were all covered in treacle"
..even our Elvis isn't immune:
"You like coffee and you like tea
much more than you like me"
but ABC's 'That Was Then But This Is Now' surely takes some beating with...
"Can't complain, mustn't grumble,
Help yourself to another piece of apple crumble"
I'm looking for the worst lyrics ever for a forthcoming book (well, not really...just for my own amusement).
We is talking bad bad lyrics....
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Jackson Monk
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We is talking bad bad lyrics....
Last edited by Jackson Monk on Mon Oct 24, 2005 5:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
corruptio optimi pessima
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Who Shot Sam?
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America's "Horse With No Name" always makes me cringe:
On the first part of the journey I was looking at all the life
There were plants and birds and rocks and things [:?:]
There was sand and hills and rings
The first thing I met was a fly with a buzz
And the sky with no clouds
The heat was hot [:?] and the ground was dry
But the air was full of sound
I've been through the desert on a horse with no name
It felt good to be out of the rain
In the desert you can remember your name
'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain[:roll:]
La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la
La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la
Ouch.
On the first part of the journey I was looking at all the life
There were plants and birds and rocks and things [:?:]
There was sand and hills and rings
The first thing I met was a fly with a buzz
And the sky with no clouds
The heat was hot [:?] and the ground was dry
But the air was full of sound
I've been through the desert on a horse with no name
It felt good to be out of the rain
In the desert you can remember your name
'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain[:roll:]
La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la
La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la
Ouch.
Mother, Moose-Hunter, Maverick
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LittleFoole
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Yeah, but....wasn't that song about shooting heroin ??? (heroin...horse...) ???? Just a vague recollection of that time...
As far as bad lyrics, ....Hmmmmmm.....
I nominate Good Morning Starshine by Oliver
Good Morning Starshine by Oliver
Good morning starshine
The earth says hello
You twinkle above us
We twinkle below
Good morning starshine
You lead us along
My love and me as we sing
Our early morning singing song
Gliddy glub gloopy
Nibby nabby noopy
La la la lo lo
Sabba sibby sabba
Nooby abba nabba
Le le lo lo
Tooby ooby walla
Nooby abba naba
Early morning singing song
Good morning starshine
The earth says hello
You twinkle above us
We twinkle below
Good morning starshine
You lead us along
My love and me as we sing
Our early morning singing song
Gliddy glub gloopy
Nibby nabby noopy
La la la lo lo
Sabba sibby sabba
Nooby abba nabba
Le le lo lo
Tooby ooby walla
Nooby abba naba
Early morning singing song
Singing a song
Humming a song
Singing a song
Loving a song
Laughing a song
Singing a song
Sing the song
Song song song sing
Sing sing sing sing song
[Extra verse, London 1993]
Good morning starshine
The universe rings
With milky way music
Our blue planet sings
Good morning starshine
And someday so strong
They'll hear the song we sang
Our early morning singing song
.....biggest bunch of phocking hippy-dippy gibberish !!!!!
;);) I always HATED that song....thanks for the memory 
As far as bad lyrics, ....Hmmmmmm.....
I nominate Good Morning Starshine by Oliver
Good Morning Starshine by Oliver
Good morning starshine
The earth says hello
You twinkle above us
We twinkle below
Good morning starshine
You lead us along
My love and me as we sing
Our early morning singing song
Gliddy glub gloopy
Nibby nabby noopy
La la la lo lo
Sabba sibby sabba
Nooby abba nabba
Le le lo lo
Tooby ooby walla
Nooby abba naba
Early morning singing song
Good morning starshine
The earth says hello
You twinkle above us
We twinkle below
Good morning starshine
You lead us along
My love and me as we sing
Our early morning singing song
Gliddy glub gloopy
Nibby nabby noopy
La la la lo lo
Sabba sibby sabba
Nooby abba nabba
Le le lo lo
Tooby ooby walla
Nooby abba naba
Early morning singing song
Singing a song
Humming a song
Singing a song
Loving a song
Laughing a song
Singing a song
Sing the song
Song song song sing
Sing sing sing sing song
[Extra verse, London 1993]
Good morning starshine
The universe rings
With milky way music
Our blue planet sings
Good morning starshine
And someday so strong
They'll hear the song we sang
Our early morning singing song
.....biggest bunch of phocking hippy-dippy gibberish !!!!!
;);) I always HATED that song....thanks for the memory
[/i]Who Shot Sam? wrote:America's "Horse With No Name" always makes me cringe:
On the first part of the journey I was looking at all the life
There were plants and birds and rocks and things [:?:]
There was sand and hills and rings
The first thing I met was a fly with a buzz
And the sky with no clouds
The heat was hot [:?] and the ground was dry
But the air was full of sound
I've been through the desert on a horse with no name
It felt good to be out of the rain
In the desert you can remember your name
'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain[:roll:]
La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la
La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la
Ouch.
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Who Shot Sam?
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I've heard that said about almost every song with the word "horse" in the title. Could be true in this case I suppose, but the lyrics are still awful.LittleFoole wrote:Yeah, but....wasn't that song about shooting heroin ??? (heroin...horse...) ???? Just a vague recollection of that time...
Mother, Moose-Hunter, Maverick
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selfmademug
Below, please find evidence for the theory that drugs had no part in any of it, America were just an overflowing font of howlingly bad lyrics:
Seasons crying, no despair
Alligator lizards in the air
This from their unescapable 1972 tune Ventura Highway. I was listening to some MOR radio station the other day in the car with my son, and about 6 seconds after that line my son goes, "Did they say alligator lizards??"
Seasons crying, no despair
Alligator lizards in the air
This from their unescapable 1972 tune Ventura Highway. I was listening to some MOR radio station the other day in the car with my son, and about 6 seconds after that line my son goes, "Did they say alligator lizards??"
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Who Shot Sam?
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selfmademug
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martinfoyle
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The ridiculously overhyped kareoke singer Joss Stone revealed recently that the track named Daniel on her current album is a song she wrote about her brother who has spent time in jail. Here are the excrutiating lyrics
He shares my blood
He haunts my soul
Will he ever know, ever know, he's cutting his own skin
He's my brother
Come straight from my mother
He's stronger than he thinks he is
Let him know, let him know
I pray to God, won't he help him
Does he deserve this
I don't know
At times he comes across selfish
But he ain't a bad person, this I know
His lies, his cheats, his stealings
Makes me cry till I stop breathing
He's simply lost his mind
Lord I'm asking you Lord
Will help him find it, ooh
Oh it's sad, find a will
And you'll find a way, oohoooh
I live by that
Each and every day... yeah yeah yeah yeah
Daniel, won't you listen to the words I say
Writing this was harder than you'd ever think
You got a heart, you got a mind, you got a soul
And your eyes are kind, your eyes are kind, and your eyes are kind
oohooooh
hmmmmm
Daniel, won't you listen to the words I say
Writing this was harder than you'd ever think
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Otis Westinghouse
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... and I imagine listening to it's pretty tough too! Nice one.
Worst grammar ever goes to Macca for 'this ever-changing world in which we live in', which is the apocryphal version, but I've always thought 'surely he means '... in which we're living', but Google reveals a 100% preference for the repeated 'in'.
Worst grammar ever goes to Macca for 'this ever-changing world in which we live in', which is the apocryphal version, but I've always thought 'surely he means '... in which we're living', but Google reveals a 100% preference for the repeated 'in'.
There's more to life than books, you know, but not much more
I love EC's lyrics. There are albums where I wouldn't change a word (AF, IB, GH, North (well, there I would change a line), Trust, MAIT. And as for the rest, 99% of them are gold, but....if you look hard enough and are anal enough, you find some things...
She imagines how she might have lived
back when legends and history collide [lived/collide?]
But he's part ugly beast and Hellenic deceased [Hellenic deceased?]
But I know what I spake [Give me a brake!!]
Who do you see when you turn your eyes down?
Who do you see when I'm not seeing you? [double whoms?]
The dark down road of his approach in constant rain was drenched [my tenth grade english teacher would approach this line with red pen in hand and down hard would come]
Been through their big deals and smalls [is he talking Biggie here?]
Oh mother, oh mother, sometimes you are so mortifying [sometimes? ya think?]
"My Favourite Things" are playing [This line has always bothered me: shouldn't it be "is" playing ]
Darkness would become me underneath the table
As the fury raged around the house
Your despairing tread was angry and unstable
You never suspected
Just as that cartoon mouse
Went undetected [darkness would become me under the table? and whom would light become?; your despairing "tread" was angry? how angry were those shoes?]
You like coffee and you like tea
Much more than you like me [moon/june could have also worked]
Along the fine windows of shameless and plunder [shamelessness? Only iffy line in North].
Remember the glass we charged in celebration? [are they buying Murano glass on credit?]
Since nights were long and days were olden
Woman to man has been beholden [nights are long, but days are olden and woman is beholden? is this Middle Ages EC?]
Now the flagstone streets where the newspaper
shouts ring to the boots of roustabouts [so, who's doing the shouting? the streets? the newspapers? and what's with the "ring"?]
A stripping puppet on a liquid stick gets into it
pretty thick
A butterfly drinks a turtle's tears, but how do
you know he really needs it? [I don't know, Elvis, how do you know he really needs it? Hey, let's ask the stripping puppet!!]
The ceiling was festooned with phosphorous stars [the ceiling feels phony to me]
Not quite aside, they snide "She's number four" [how do you "snide"?]
Bedtime, y'all.
She imagines how she might have lived
back when legends and history collide [lived/collide?]
But he's part ugly beast and Hellenic deceased [Hellenic deceased?]
But I know what I spake [Give me a brake!!]
Who do you see when you turn your eyes down?
Who do you see when I'm not seeing you? [double whoms?]
The dark down road of his approach in constant rain was drenched [my tenth grade english teacher would approach this line with red pen in hand and down hard would come]
Been through their big deals and smalls [is he talking Biggie here?]
Oh mother, oh mother, sometimes you are so mortifying [sometimes? ya think?]
"My Favourite Things" are playing [This line has always bothered me: shouldn't it be "is" playing ]
Darkness would become me underneath the table
As the fury raged around the house
Your despairing tread was angry and unstable
You never suspected
Just as that cartoon mouse
Went undetected [darkness would become me under the table? and whom would light become?; your despairing "tread" was angry? how angry were those shoes?]
You like coffee and you like tea
Much more than you like me [moon/june could have also worked]
Along the fine windows of shameless and plunder [shamelessness? Only iffy line in North].
Remember the glass we charged in celebration? [are they buying Murano glass on credit?]
Since nights were long and days were olden
Woman to man has been beholden [nights are long, but days are olden and woman is beholden? is this Middle Ages EC?]
Now the flagstone streets where the newspaper
shouts ring to the boots of roustabouts [so, who's doing the shouting? the streets? the newspapers? and what's with the "ring"?]
A stripping puppet on a liquid stick gets into it
pretty thick
A butterfly drinks a turtle's tears, but how do
you know he really needs it? [I don't know, Elvis, how do you know he really needs it? Hey, let's ask the stripping puppet!!]
The ceiling was festooned with phosphorous stars [the ceiling feels phony to me]
Not quite aside, they snide "She's number four" [how do you "snide"?]
Bedtime, y'all.
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Otis Westinghouse
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Some of those are clunkers but many of them are fine lyrics, e.g. the lines from You Tripped At Every Step (of course darkness can become, i.e. suit, someone!) and the evocative line from the brilliant After The Fall. The ones that make me groan are the ones with the cheesiest wordplay, not the fun of 'Do I step on the brake to get out of your clutches?' but the lameness of 'You lack lust, you're so lacklustre.' Then again, Elvis was never too partial to the Arsenal.
There's more to life than books, you know, but not much more
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Jackson Monk
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ReadyToHearTheWorst
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smalls - UK slang for 'nether garments' (see also Lindisfarne's Fog on the Tyne "slap em down and slavver on their smalls").Been through their big deals and smalls [is he talking Biggie here?]
Ladies and gentlemen, please rise and charge your glasses for [insert toast here]Remember the glass we charged in celebration? [are they buying Murano glass on credit?]
I'd guess he's describing street corner news vendors trying to attract attention during rush hour.Now the flagstone streets where the newspaper shouts ring to the boots of roustabouts [so, who's doing the shouting? the streets? the newspapers? and what's with the "ring"?]
Yes, some of those other lyrics are a bit clumsy, but it's a drop in the ocean of text he's penned.
Last edited by ReadyToHearTheWorst on Tue Oct 25, 2005 6:58 am, edited 1 time in total.
"I'm the Rock and Roll Scrabble champion"
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King Hoarse
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verbal gymnastics
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Ay ay ay ay moosey
To help me through the day
One of the finest lyrics ever written. Take a bow Modern Romance.
I know I've said this one before too but for the newbies
De do do do, de da da da
Is all I want to say to you
by the Police (look out there goes Gordon!).
To help me through the day
One of the finest lyrics ever written. Take a bow Modern Romance.
I know I've said this one before too but for the newbies
De do do do, de da da da
Is all I want to say to you
by the Police (look out there goes Gordon!).
Who’s this kid with his mumbo jumbo?
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selfmademug
Alexv, you pick some odd examples! A bunch of those seem pretty straightforward to me and some are quite elegant... I'm not a huge fan of Battered Old Bird (as I know some good folks here are) but I quite like "The dark down road of his approach in constant rain was drenched." It's very Coleridge, or even Gerard Manley Hopkins. Likewise I think "Now the flagstone streets where the newspaper shouts/ ring to the boots of roustabouts" is very evocative and a damn economic use of language: you immediately see and hear a whole street scene in just 14 words.
Like KH, I immediately heard Shameless & Plunder as capitalized, a joking brand name for (in that case) the utterly over-the-top wealth on the streets of Manhattan. Oh well... Elvis has his eye-rolling moments but I don't think we're in the same league here as some of the other stuff mentioned in this thread.
Like KH, I immediately heard Shameless & Plunder as capitalized, a joking brand name for (in that case) the utterly over-the-top wealth on the streets of Manhattan. Oh well... Elvis has his eye-rolling moments but I don't think we're in the same league here as some of the other stuff mentioned in this thread.
Last edited by selfmademug on Tue Oct 25, 2005 7:47 am, edited 1 time in total.
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mood swung
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don't quote me, but I think it's one way to clear one's sinuses.how do you "snide"?
when the world and its wife work you over
and the stormy clouds chase all around
and he's gone the one you said was certain
I will BE YOUR LUCKY DOG.
or
who in the world are you pretty baby?
where in the world did you spring up from?
why in the world are you so contag-y?
how do I get what I got to get gone?
but somehow he makes it work.
Like me, the "g" is silent.
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Who Shot Sam?
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I seem to recall reading an interview with EC where he talked about the inspiration for the butterfly drinking turtle's tears/dead monkey's hand section of "DDTM". Anyone know what I'm talking about?
Ah, never mind - here it is - the hallucinations of a drunkard:
"I showed everybody the lyrics and I explained it in simple terms. I used to just put lyrics down and say, "The hell with whether people think this is stupid, because I'm taking a chance here by saying something in a strange way." But with "Deep Dark Truthful Mirror," I demystified the lyric by explaining very, very simplistically, so there was absolutely no ambiguity in the meaning of it. I said, "Here's a drunk guy, he's on his way home, he won't go home, he's chasing something that isn't there. He won't admit his problem and he starts to hallucinate." It's a simple thing.
"Now, if I wrote that on the sleeve it would take away some of the mystery, and stop people from going, "Well what the hell does it mean, 'butterfly drinks a turtle's tears'?" You know, "Jesus wept, he felt abandoned." You have to leave space in the room for people's imagination to run around in. I make no apology for using those images, 'cause they're very striking. I mean, what am I supposed to have? A voice that goes [whispering with hands cupped round his mouth], "And then he started to hallucinate." Wouldn't that spoil it? Isn't that kind of treating people like children?
"But sometimes when you've got the musicians who are concentrating on the musical interpretation of it, you have to explain it in the most simplistic terms so it's not hidden to anybody. You have to be slightly disparaging about your own lyric so the music can really do its job. Say with The Dirty Dozen Brass Band, they don't enter until the first chorus. The guy is marching down and down this chord sequence; it's quite literal. And just at the point where he's at the most down point in each verse they enter like somebody picking him up again off the floor. They have the effect to my ears of sounding like they're picking this guy up, but only to look at his own reflection. And then in the last verse, where the hallucinations begin, they start to wind through the chords and do all these slurs: they slide between the chords. That's using the music in a visual way. I do see these things when we're arranging stuff. They've got such a -- rich isn't the right word -- such a grainy sound that it makes it not easy to understand, but easy to feel what's happening. Which is probably better than understanding it completely literally, be-cause it isn't literal. It's hallucination." (SPIN, 1989)
"I suppose the oddest part of the recording was in New Orleans, because we had The Dirty Dozen Brass Band playing these parts with just drum patterns and maybe an acoustic guitar marking out the changes and Allen Toussaint playing piano. Very bare arrangements. But when we took them to L.A. we found we didn't really want to put much more on those tracks. On 'Deep Dark Truthful Mirror', we certainly intended to have a more conventional soul-band sound--but it didn't seem right. Once Toussaint's piano part was on, he's got such tremendous personality, what was the point? No bass could compliment that. So the process of doing the record backwards uncomplicated it for me. It made it easier to hear the song." (MUS, 1989)
"Allen Toussaint has the most complete technique as a pianist I've ever seen, and I've worked with a pretty good pianist for 10 years. His touch was elegant. And he was a gentleman, and I mean that as the highest compliment. Few people carry that with any sense of bearing. I don't know what he thought of this song. It's about a form of madness." (MUS, 1989)
Ah, never mind - here it is - the hallucinations of a drunkard:
"I showed everybody the lyrics and I explained it in simple terms. I used to just put lyrics down and say, "The hell with whether people think this is stupid, because I'm taking a chance here by saying something in a strange way." But with "Deep Dark Truthful Mirror," I demystified the lyric by explaining very, very simplistically, so there was absolutely no ambiguity in the meaning of it. I said, "Here's a drunk guy, he's on his way home, he won't go home, he's chasing something that isn't there. He won't admit his problem and he starts to hallucinate." It's a simple thing.
"Now, if I wrote that on the sleeve it would take away some of the mystery, and stop people from going, "Well what the hell does it mean, 'butterfly drinks a turtle's tears'?" You know, "Jesus wept, he felt abandoned." You have to leave space in the room for people's imagination to run around in. I make no apology for using those images, 'cause they're very striking. I mean, what am I supposed to have? A voice that goes [whispering with hands cupped round his mouth], "And then he started to hallucinate." Wouldn't that spoil it? Isn't that kind of treating people like children?
"But sometimes when you've got the musicians who are concentrating on the musical interpretation of it, you have to explain it in the most simplistic terms so it's not hidden to anybody. You have to be slightly disparaging about your own lyric so the music can really do its job. Say with The Dirty Dozen Brass Band, they don't enter until the first chorus. The guy is marching down and down this chord sequence; it's quite literal. And just at the point where he's at the most down point in each verse they enter like somebody picking him up again off the floor. They have the effect to my ears of sounding like they're picking this guy up, but only to look at his own reflection. And then in the last verse, where the hallucinations begin, they start to wind through the chords and do all these slurs: they slide between the chords. That's using the music in a visual way. I do see these things when we're arranging stuff. They've got such a -- rich isn't the right word -- such a grainy sound that it makes it not easy to understand, but easy to feel what's happening. Which is probably better than understanding it completely literally, be-cause it isn't literal. It's hallucination." (SPIN, 1989)
"I suppose the oddest part of the recording was in New Orleans, because we had The Dirty Dozen Brass Band playing these parts with just drum patterns and maybe an acoustic guitar marking out the changes and Allen Toussaint playing piano. Very bare arrangements. But when we took them to L.A. we found we didn't really want to put much more on those tracks. On 'Deep Dark Truthful Mirror', we certainly intended to have a more conventional soul-band sound--but it didn't seem right. Once Toussaint's piano part was on, he's got such tremendous personality, what was the point? No bass could compliment that. So the process of doing the record backwards uncomplicated it for me. It made it easier to hear the song." (MUS, 1989)
"Allen Toussaint has the most complete technique as a pianist I've ever seen, and I've worked with a pretty good pianist for 10 years. His touch was elegant. And he was a gentleman, and I mean that as the highest compliment. Few people carry that with any sense of bearing. I don't know what he thought of this song. It's about a form of madness." (MUS, 1989)
Last edited by Who Shot Sam? on Tue Oct 25, 2005 8:19 am, edited 2 times in total.
Mother, Moose-Hunter, Maverick
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verbal gymnastics
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ReadyToHearTheWorst
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Great discussion guys. I appreaciate your comments. By the time I depart this Board I will be fully versed in British slang.
Otis, I know that darkness can become one (as in suit a person), but when you follow up "darkness would become ME" with "under the table" you create the confused mental picture of something (darkness) becoming "me" under the table. Darkness is not "becoming" in the sense you speak of, it's actually becoming "me" (in the lyric) which is not the intended thought. It's sloppy writing.
ReadytoHear: thanks for british slang, that explains it. On the "charge", my gripe is that I found it a pretentious little word (just a personal gripe). On the flagstone street thing, I just think if you parse the sentence out it's a mess. And I heartily agree, as I said at the beginning of my post, that the guy has created massive amounts of beautiful lyrics, so this is just nit picking.
KH, I agree that if you read it to be a reference to a store then it's fine, not if it's to a street though: they have no windows. I never thought of the store reference. With that explanation I am happy to say that North has no blemishes (I love that record). Believe it or not that "shameless" thing has always bothered me.
SMM: I see your point about poetic license and evocativeness of imagery, but given our boy's genius I just found them unnecessarily arch.
In doing my little list last night what struck me most was how tight the early records were lyric-wise in comparison to the later stuff. Records like Armed Forces and Get Happy, which are full of word play, nevertheless have an economy of lyric that is the exact opposite of EC's approach on Spike, Mightly Like A Rose, Blood and Chocolate, and Brutal Youth just to name a few of the later records. It's funny how at the time, the early records were sometimes criticized for the puns, wordplay and wordiness. When you compare it to EC's later output they read like "Love Me Do". Overall, both approaches work, but I prefere the earlier EC. North and PFM. where he intentionally toned the wordiness down, I think, are exceptions among his later records, and I like them.
Now for a really bad lyric from another icon (why go after easy targets?):
"And in this ever changing world in which we live in"
and what about:
Blinded by the light
revved up like a deuce
another runner in the night
[REPEAT AND REPEAT]
Otis, I know that darkness can become one (as in suit a person), but when you follow up "darkness would become ME" with "under the table" you create the confused mental picture of something (darkness) becoming "me" under the table. Darkness is not "becoming" in the sense you speak of, it's actually becoming "me" (in the lyric) which is not the intended thought. It's sloppy writing.
ReadytoHear: thanks for british slang, that explains it. On the "charge", my gripe is that I found it a pretentious little word (just a personal gripe). On the flagstone street thing, I just think if you parse the sentence out it's a mess. And I heartily agree, as I said at the beginning of my post, that the guy has created massive amounts of beautiful lyrics, so this is just nit picking.
KH, I agree that if you read it to be a reference to a store then it's fine, not if it's to a street though: they have no windows. I never thought of the store reference. With that explanation I am happy to say that North has no blemishes (I love that record). Believe it or not that "shameless" thing has always bothered me.
SMM: I see your point about poetic license and evocativeness of imagery, but given our boy's genius I just found them unnecessarily arch.
In doing my little list last night what struck me most was how tight the early records were lyric-wise in comparison to the later stuff. Records like Armed Forces and Get Happy, which are full of word play, nevertheless have an economy of lyric that is the exact opposite of EC's approach on Spike, Mightly Like A Rose, Blood and Chocolate, and Brutal Youth just to name a few of the later records. It's funny how at the time, the early records were sometimes criticized for the puns, wordplay and wordiness. When you compare it to EC's later output they read like "Love Me Do". Overall, both approaches work, but I prefere the earlier EC. North and PFM. where he intentionally toned the wordiness down, I think, are exceptions among his later records, and I like them.
Now for a really bad lyric from another icon (why go after easy targets?):
"And in this ever changing world in which we live in"
and what about:
Blinded by the light
revved up like a deuce
another runner in the night
[REPEAT AND REPEAT]
Although this thread is doing all it can to better itself, and rise up out of the annex, Let me bring it back with 'A Girl Like You' by Edwyn Collins...
"I've never known a girl like you before
Now just like in a song from days of yore..." (I usually have one of those Simpons-esque 'shudders' , even at this early point...)
"Here you come a-knocking
Knocking on my door
And I've never met a girl like you before"
"You've made me acknowledge the devil in me
I hope to God I'm talking metaphorically
Hope that I'm talking allegorically
Know that I'm talking 'bout the way I feel..."
A 'Rhyming Dictionary' song if there ever was one..
"I've never known a girl like you before
Now just like in a song from days of yore..." (I usually have one of those Simpons-esque 'shudders' , even at this early point...)
"Here you come a-knocking
Knocking on my door
And I've never met a girl like you before"
"You've made me acknowledge the devil in me
I hope to God I'm talking metaphorically
Hope that I'm talking allegorically
Know that I'm talking 'bout the way I feel..."
A 'Rhyming Dictionary' song if there ever was one..
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Who Shot Sam?
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It's a beautiful song in a lot of ways, but the use of "she" in The Jam's "English Rose" always annoyed me. Is it a reference to an older song, or just a stupid affectation?:
No matter where I roam
I will come back to my english rose
For no bonds can ever tempt me from she
I’ve sailed the seven seas,
Flown the whole blue sky.
But I’ve returned with haste to where my
Love does lie.
No matter where I go I will come back to my english rose
For nothing can ever tempt me from she.
I’ve searched the secret mists -
I’ve climbed the highest peaks
Caught the wild wind home to hear her soft voice speak
To hear her soft voice speak
No matter where I roam
I will return to my english rose
For no bonds can ever keep me from she.
I’ve been to ancient worlds
I’ve scoured the whole universe
And caught the first train home
To be at her side.
No matter where I roam
I will return to my english rose
For no bonds can ever keep me from she
No matter where I roam
I will come back to my english rose
For no bonds can ever tempt me from she
I’ve sailed the seven seas,
Flown the whole blue sky.
But I’ve returned with haste to where my
Love does lie.
No matter where I go I will come back to my english rose
For nothing can ever tempt me from she.
I’ve searched the secret mists -
I’ve climbed the highest peaks
Caught the wild wind home to hear her soft voice speak
To hear her soft voice speak
No matter where I roam
I will return to my english rose
For no bonds can ever keep me from she.
I’ve been to ancient worlds
I’ve scoured the whole universe
And caught the first train home
To be at her side.
No matter where I roam
I will return to my english rose
For no bonds can ever keep me from she
Mother, Moose-Hunter, Maverick
It's obviously an homage to both H. Rider Haggard and "Rumpole of the Baily"..."She who must be obeyed."
http://www.forwardtoyesterday.com -- Where "hopelessly dated" is a compliment!