Song lyrics that bug you!

[BillStickersWillBeProsocuted]

I was listening to Objects in the rear view mirror by Meatloaf the other day and it contains the line:

"If life is just a highway, then the soul is just a car"

That line always bugged me - for a start that's a pretty big "if" but apart from that surely in that analogy the body is the car and the soul is the driver?!

Another one is maybe a bit more Niche but Tim Minchin has a song called "Grew on me" where he likeness his love for his wife with various illnesses (it's actually much more sweet than that makes it sound!) which contains the line:

"The successful removal of you would probably kill me too"

Surely if it kills the patient you can't call it a successful removal?! What really bothers me is “the attempted removal of you” would fit the song just as well and make more sense!

Anyway I'm bored at work so thought I'd see if anyone else has any pedantic lyrical bugbears?!

Totally agree - much better a half rhyme that works than trying to crowbar in a perfect rhyme that just sounds like doggerel (Des’ree’s famous ghost/most/toast verse for example!)

How do you feel about Na na na na's?

A bit less common I can only think of 3: Hey Jude, Batman and that one by My Chemical Romance!

Glad that Toto line that just doesn’t fit has been mentioned! On a lesser scale, I really love Step Into Christmas, but “eat, drink and be merry”
is not five syllables…

It’s a bit pedantic of me but I find it a bit annoying when the stress is on the wrong syllable too. These Words by Natasha Bedingfield is a prime offender: “There’s no othER way to bettER say”. The Manic Street Preachers do this quite a bit too - I often have to look up their lyrics because the stresses are all over the place and it makes it hard to work out what’s being said.

I love MCR from the bottom of my emo heart anyway but I feel like the na-na-nas work in that song, somehow - maybe because they’re interspersed with actual lines rather than just a “hey Jude” at the end.

Similarly though I absolutely love the “da da da, da da da” bit of Chelsea Dagger (and indeed the whole song).

How do you feel about Na na na na's?

A bit less common I can only think of 3: Hey Jude, Batman and that one by My Chemical Romance!

Hey, hey, personally, I would kiss them all Goodbye!

I thought it was an orgasm that he couldn’t give her?

Oh, I just read the lyrics.

Well I never.

i dont mind hey jude but it does go on a bit

Just listened to it again and Na Na Na references Batman. I wonder whether that’s deliberate?!

I remember the first time I properly listened to those lyrics too, hit me like a bolt out the blue realising I'd been singing along to it obliviously thinking what he could give her was some attention

"And no one heard at all not even the chair... " Well, no.

Also, (same song), "I'm not a man who likes to swear but I never cared for the sound of being alone"

Always expect him to go, "I'm not a man who likes to swear but I never cared for the fucking sound of being fucking alone..." though I realise that'd be tricky to shoehorn into the tune

Bob Dylan

Ain't no use in turning on your light light babe
The light I, never knowed
Ain't no use in turning on your light babe
I'm on the dark side of the road

Even my phone was fighting with me trying to type in ' knowed' - makes me want to scream everything I hear it

😂😂😂

But “Knowed” in “It ain’t me Babe” is vernacular though- Dylan’s influences were old-style folk music like Woody Guthrie and the like, it’s kind of a reference to how hillbillies might speak.

I always thought that ' all I wanna do is make love to you ' song was about a woman wanting a child. Towards the end she sings that she sees the same man again and she sings ' he saw his own eyes' which makes me think she has a child with her with his features!
Plus it goes on about flowers and seeds etc

It is 100% about that. She wants a baby, her hubby can't provide the seed, she goes out and sleeps with a random dude, gets pregnant then pleads with him to be okay with it and leave them alone when he inevitably finds out. It's horrific really but a damn catchy tune!

It is a catchy tune and on all the time at one stage! She has to beg him to stay quiet , so a part of me hoped he go for custody and tell her husband she was using random strangers for their sperm and got lucky with his ones!
Might have been messy all round ! Lol

Also Neil Diamond, in 'Play Me':

Song she sang to me
Song she brang to me
Words that rang in me,
Rhyme that sprang from me

'Brang' sounds like the kind of word that Cletus and Brandine would use in The Simpsons!

Ooh, same here. The winning Eurovision song in 1968 was basically just a load of lalalas. It makes the songwriter sound like a total idiot.

Didn’t the Pythons take the p out of that one with a joke Eurovision entry called ‘Bang Bang Bang Bang’ written by Sally who was eight? Or was it ten?

Mind you, a lot of traditional folk songs have fa-la-la refrains. I think they’re meant to be a substitute for instrumental accompaniment. There’s a fancy term for it that I can’t be bothered to Google right now.

Oh yes! How did I forget brang? 😄

Op how about steam and Bananaramas na na, banana, hey hey hey, goodbye

I kind of like the dirge of it

Was actually quite shocked about the meaning of Norwegian Wood by the Beatles. It more than bugs me. You won’t sleep with me so I’m going to burn your house down, haha. It’s incredibly vile especially as the music is all la la twinkly leading you to think it’s a bit of a classic when really it’s just classic misogynistic shite 😵

My real bête noir in song lyrics is the use of the ubiquitous "baby". 😡

It's annoying enough when used to denote a boyfriend or girlfriend -because no one really talks about "my baby" in real life unless the mean an infant - but when just randomly shoved at the end of a line as punctuation... makes me cringe!

I know quite a few couples who call each other "babe" though.

I knew I was missing one! 😂