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?!

If you use “chasing” in the sense of “searching for”, at least waterfalls are a) cool and b) not something you see every day. Pavements are as dull and commonplace as it gets!

Is she maybe thinking of the lucrative US market - where 'pavement' is usually used to mean the road itself?

More like heading out on the open freeway with a steely determination to achieve your goal; rather than just trudging down to the Spar on the corner to pick up a carton of milk and a multi-pack of Pom Bears for the kids?

If she was it didn't work!

Someone added to Urabn dictionary that "Pavements" was british slang for buttocks and "chasing pavements" meant going out in search of anal sex - it got the song banned from a load of stations out there!

https://www.digitalspy.com/music/a130009/adeles-chasing-pavements-banned-in-us/

I thought of that one as soon as I saw the O P ask about na na na. I like The Steam version best, though Bananarama one is pretty good too.

Don't have an issue with Hey Jude, but that Chris DeBurgh spaceman Christmas song on the other hand....bleurghh!! Makes me feel very unChristmassy.

I think the Des'ree ghost/most/toast has to be up there with the stupidest lyrics of all time closely followed by Katy Perry's feeling like a plastic bag.

some personal hates of mine:

That Wizzard song about Christmas : when the snowman brings the snow

You're Gorgeous- Babybird. Explicit and nasty.

Tubthumping I Get Knocked Down - he drinks a whisky drink
He drinks a cider drink
He drinks a lager drink

He is gonna have one heck of a thick head in the morning

Abba- Bang a Boomerang "love is a tune you hum de hum hum"

Abba - Dum dum diddle . Where do I start with this one? Brilliant instrumentals and tune though

Abba- On and On and On "what's our situation do we have some time for us/I said I was not exactly waiting for the bus!"

agree with a PP regarding Dancing Queen and feeling the beat of the tambourine. Drum? Yes? Timpani? Yes. Tambourine? Nah. Not feeling it . Of course Queen isn't an easy word to rhyme. Green? "Dancing queen, feel the beat on the village green?" Halloween? " dancing queen, feel the beat, it is halloween? " don't think they have that in Sweden!

I love Abba but the lyrics failed here

@SurvivingCPTSD I'm intrigued what the problem is with You're Gorgeous by Babybird? Isn't it a commentary on the way girls were treated by photographers around the time (page 3 girls, amateur pornography, exploitation etc)? I always thought it was fairly hard hitting and well put together.

@nancypowers1983 you could be right. The 15 year old me hearing it didn't so much hear hard hitting as "eew, that's an awful way to treat someone" and a song with the jaunty tune like that in the top 40 didn't give me an awareness vibe. But that's just how I heard it . Music is of course wonderfully subjective and if it didn't come across as bad song to you then that's good.

Big Puff Daddy "young black and famous/money hanging out your anus" . No. Just no. Euww. Anus has no place in a song lyric.

Coldplay "lights will guide you home/ and ignite your bones.". Sounds all nice and cosy until it threatens tower you on fire. No thanks. Forget you Chris Martin.

Eminem : "I guess that's why they call it a window pane." Err, no.

Had anyone mentioned Razorlight yet? That classic "she asked me my name/I told her what it was."

To set not tower

Someone added to Urabn dictionary that "Pavements" was british slang for buttocks and "chasing pavements" meant going out in search of anal sex - it got the song banned from a load of stations out there!

Grim. Just about every single innocent phrase has been given a filthy interpretation on UD. Even Rick Santorum!

agree with a PP regarding Dancing Queen and feeling the beat of the tambourine. Drum? Yes? Timpani? Yes. Tambourine? Nah. Not feeling it . Of course Queen isn't an easy word to rhyme. Green? "Dancing queen, feel the beat on the village green?" Halloween? " dancing queen, feel the beat, it is halloween? " don't think they have that in Sweden!

You are the dancing queen
Young and sweet, only seventeen
Dancing queen
Blood filters well through your
Healthy spleen

Perfect!

I always thought the Babybird song was meant to be a damning indictment on the shocking treatment of a lot of young exploited women by photographers and the media - certainly not a celebration of it - deliberately done in a way to make you stop and think about it all with it being sung by a man.

Anus has no place in a song lyric.

"With the lights out, it's less dangerous;
Here we are now - entert anus"

Had anyone mentioned Razorlight yet? That classic "she asked me my name/I told her what it was."

Maybe it's just how my mind works, but that reminds me of the fantastic Kevin Turvey - and the time when he's relating the minutiae of what happened: "I heard a knock on the front door... so I went down the hallway... to where I keep my front door"

Coldplay "lights will guide you home/ and ignite your bones.". Sounds all nice and cosy until it threatens tower you on fire. No thanks. Forget you Chris Martin.

This is exactly what I mean about Coldplay. I can just imagine Chris Martin writing that line and thinking “hmm, sounds a bit crap, not really what I meant to say…” but instead of crossing it out and coming up with something better he just thought “naaaa it’s fine”.

I actually find Des’ree with her toast and ghosts less annoying than this, because we all know that’s crap - but people talk about Coldplay like they’re sooo meaningful and emotional and their lyrics are just incredibly lazy.

(Loving the anus/pavement discussions btw)

This is brilliant 🤣🤣🤣

Just reposting my earlier post about chasing pavements.

She also said that “set fire to the rain” was about lighting a fag outside on a wet day.

There was a huge misunderstanding about that soon after it was released. I understood that she had been banned for life from appearing on Breakfast TV, after she set fire to Lorraine

Just remembered another!
Saturday Night by Suede.

She's been sat there,
Sat there in her black chair,
Office furniture...

Furniture said as "furni-chair"

And before anyone comes for me like the Barlow incident! I'm from the same place as Brett from Suede, we don't say "furni-chair" unless it's in that song.

Tbf to Ellie Goulding they are not her lyrics
It's a Waterboys song. They are very typical Waterboys lyrics so don't ever go and see them if they irritate you 😄
Personally I prefer the original but I did hear her version at a funeral

Haven't rtft but in Do They Know It's Christmas
Apparently "nothing ever grows" in Africa :)

It had never crossed my mind that that was even supposed to rhyme!

@ZebraDanios maybe it isn't and I've been imagining it since the 90s! I wouldn't put that past me right enough.

@nancypowers1983 It’s a bit of an odd line either way isn’t it?!

I do like the line about Terylene shirts in Filmstar though. I’m a chemistry teacher and it’s not often you see a reference to a polymer in a pop song.

i know this isnt about singers but i cant stand the way ellie goulding sings if yu can call it that

And it should be "sitting there", not "sat there" !

She does irritate me I can't stand any of her songs. I don't like waterboys either. But at least they don't wail like EG does.

I will think of this every time I hear that line now 😄 I do love Suede!