Great tracks musically but with appalling lyrics..

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  • Second vote for Thin Lizzy/Phil Lynott - "Tonight there's gonna be a jailbreak, somewhere in the town".
    Er... maybe from the local jail?  
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  • EricTheWearyEricTheWeary Frets: 16253
    axisus said:
    Stuckfast said:
    "Generals gathered in their masses
    Just like witches at black masses"

    Sorry, that's pretty poor...
    Yeah, but you can't deny it rhymes

    It's not a rhyme when it's just the same word twice.
    Arguably not - it’s rhyming masses with black masses. In fairness the song says the two things are similar but the meaning of masses in each line is different. 
    Tipton is a small fishing village in the borough of Sandwell. 
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  • thecolourboxthecolourbox Frets: 9654
    edited April 2021
    Trude said:
    One thing that particularly annoys me is when a writer messes about with tenses and sentence structure in a really unnatural way just to get a rhyme.  It's just such a lazy man's cop-out.  There are many example of this, but the one that always gets me is Up the Junction by Squeeze:

    We spent our time just kissing
    The Railway Arms we're missing
    But love had got us hooked up
    And all our time it took up

    It just sounds clunky and doesn't scan at all.  And this is from a band often lauded for their lyrics...

    Yes, this annoys me too. In particular the following sentence structure, not from a specific song but it's often used when the singer is trying to sound thoughtful:

    The birds they fly in the sky
    The wind it blows from my bum
    The flowers they bloom in the fertilizer 
    Etc etc
    Please note my communication is not very good, so please be patient with me
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  • NeillNeill Frets: 941
    Trude said:
    One thing that particularly annoys me is when a writer messes about with tenses and sentence structure in a really unnatural way just to get a rhyme.  It's just such a lazy man's cop-out.  There are many example of this, but the one that always gets me is Up the Junction by Squeeze:

    We spent our time just kissing
    The Railway Arms we're missing
    But love had got us hooked up
    And all our time it took up

    It just sounds clunky and doesn't scan at all.  And this is from a band often lauded for their lyrics...

    I'm glad someone else mentioned this, personally I always found Chris Difford's lyrics hard to swallow, the music and Glen Tilbrook's guitar playing were the main appeal of squeeze.

    In that very song there's another line

    This morning at four-fifty
    I took her rather nifty
    Down to an incubator
    Where thirty minutes later
    She gave birth to a daughter
    Within a year a walker

    So "this" morning was at least a year ago... Why couldn't he write "that morning" or "one morning"?  That whole song really annoys me too.  
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  • GrumpyrockerGrumpyrocker Frets: 4118
    Second vote for Thin Lizzy/Phil Lynott - "Tonight there's gonna be a jailbreak, somewhere in the town".
    Er... maybe from the local jail?  
    Nah he's using Jailbreak as a metaphor. 

    Anyway, plenty of places have more than one jail if you want to pretend is literal. 

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  • StuckfastStuckfast Frets: 2393
    So Paranoid then. I give the first line a pass. But then we get to:

    People think I'm insane because I am frowning all the time

    I don't really know where to start with that. For one thing, in order to fit the melody, it has to be sung with the emphasis on 'in', 'I' and 'all'. None of those are natural words to stress in that line, so it sounds really clunky and awkward.

    And... 'frowning'? Really? You show your despair and suicidal thoughts by furrowing your brow slightly? How long would it have taken to come up with a better word than that? And who in the history of the world has ever thought "oh, that person frowns all the time, they must be INSANE"?
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  • TrudeTrude Frets: 914
    edited April 2021
    Neill said:
    Trude said:
    One thing that particularly annoys me is when a writer messes about with tenses and sentence structure in a really unnatural way just to get a rhyme.  It's just such a lazy man's cop-out.  There are many example of this, but the one that always gets me is Up the Junction by Squeeze:

    We spent our time just kissing
    The Railway Arms we're missing
    But love had got us hooked up
    And all our time it took up

    It just sounds clunky and doesn't scan at all.  And this is from a band often lauded for their lyrics...

    I'm glad someone else mentioned this, personally I always found Chris Difford's lyrics hard to swallow, the music and Glen Tilbrook's guitar playing were the main appeal of squeeze.

    In that very song there's another line

    This morning at four-fifty
    I took her rather nifty
    Down to an incubator
    Where thirty minutes later
    She gave birth to a daughter
    Within a year a walker

    So "this" morning was at least a year ago... Why couldn't he write "that morning" or "one morning"?  That whole song really annoys me too.  
    Yes, and "rather nifty"?? Does he know what nifty actually means? What's wrong with "rather swiftly" if you're insisting on that kind of structure? I mean it's just as clumsy, but at least it makes logical sense.
    Some of the gear, some idea

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  • TrudeTrude Frets: 914
    And another thing - why would he take his pregnant partner to an incubator? Surely a maternity ward would be the first port of call, with a spell in ICU only following a serious issue occuring. 
    Again, lazy nonsensical writing just to shoehorn in the first rhyme he could think of.
    Some of the gear, some idea

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  • StuckfastStuckfast Frets: 2393
    Up The Junction annoys the hell out of me too. It's the line 'She left me when my drinking / Became a proper stinking' that does it for me.
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  • mudslide73mudslide73 Frets: 3049
    It's all worth it for the "the devil came and took me from bar to street to bookie" part imo. 
    "A city star won’t shine too far"


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  • TrudeTrude Frets: 914
    It's all worth it for the "the devil came and took me from bar to street to bookie" part imo. 
    Yeah, that's the maddening thing - you get the odd nugget of greatness among all the howlers 
    Some of the gear, some idea

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  • martmart Frets: 5205
    If we've nearly finished with Up the Junction, shall we work through Down in the Tube Station at Midnight next?
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  • mrkbmrkb Frets: 6637
    mart said:
    If we've nearly finished with Up the Junction, shall we work through Down in the Tube Station at Midnight next?
    Yes please can someone explain what sounds to me like “shrill piccaninny” means!
    Karma......
    Ebay mark7777_1
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  • HAL9000HAL9000 Frets: 9551
    mart said:
    If we've nearly finished with Up the Junction, shall we work through Down in the Tube Station at Midnight next?
    Come on now! ‘They smelt of pubs and Wormwood Scrubs’ has to be one of the greatest rhyming couplets ever.
    I play guitar because I enjoy it rather than because I’m any good at it
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  • HaychHaych Frets: 5594
    I shamefully admit I love Whenever, Wherever by Shakira but the lyrics "my breasts are small and humble so you don't confuse them with mountains" is a little beyond comprehension, like what was she thinking when she penned that line?

    I don't think I ever looked at Dolly Parton and thought, "are those tits or is that Everest and K2?"

    There is no 'H' in Aych, you know that don't you? ~ Wife

    Turns out there is an H in Haych! ~ Sporky

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  • ReverendReverend Frets: 4974
    Metallica - Whiplash:

    Bang your head against the stage
    Like you never did before
    Make it ring, make it bleed
    Make it really sore

    I mean, I love Metallica, but really?
    Its a song about heavy metal gigs. makes perfect sense to me.
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  • EricTheWearyEricTheWeary Frets: 16253
    mrkb said:
    mart said:
    If we've nearly finished with Up the Junction, shall we work through Down in the Tube Station at Midnight next?
    Yes please can someone explain what sounds to me like “shrill piccaninny” means!
    Question for Boris Johnson maybe.
    Tipton is a small fishing village in the borough of Sandwell. 
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  • thecolourboxthecolourbox Frets: 9654
    Haych said:
    I shamefully admit I love Whenever, Wherever by Shakira but the lyrics "my breasts are small and humble so you don't confuse them with mountains" is a little beyond comprehension, like what was she thinking when she penned that line?

    I don't think I ever looked at Dolly Parton and thought, "are those tits or is that Everest and K2?"
    I wondered if it was something that had been badly translated from the original Spanish lyrics, but having just googled the Spanish lyrics, they are exactly the same. And now I have that line in Spanish in my Google search history forever more
    Please note my communication is not very good, so please be patient with me
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  • bobblehatbobblehat Frets: 531
    Cant believe Cherry Pie hasn't got a mention. Although it was very much of its time its still a great tune.

    Swingin' in the living room, swingin' in the kitchen
    Most folks don't 'cause they're too busy bitchin'
    Swingin' in there 'cause she wanted me to feed her
    So I mixed up the batter and she licked the beater
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  • GrumpyrockerGrumpyrocker Frets: 4118
    bobblehat said:
    Cant believe Cherry Pie hasn't got a mention. Although it was very much of its time its still a great tune.

    Swingin' in the living room, swingin' in the kitchen
    Most folks don't 'cause they're too busy bitchin'
    Swingin' in there 'cause she wanted me to feed her
    So I mixed up the batter and she licked the beater
    Proper Sex Farm stuff there. Awesome. 

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