Bits in songs that make you cringe

[HolidayAtNight]

Inspired by the thread the other day about "More Than Words" by Extreme. Like many posters, I hadn't heard the song in years, so went to listen to it. It was all going well until the bit when he sings "Hold me close don't EVAH LET ME GO" and I had to turn it off immediately.

What bits of songs do you find jarring and/or embarrassing? I have so many, but will try to choose a few. Lines where they've had to awkwardly shift the words around or use old-fashioned vocab/syntax to make them fit are definitely among the worst offenders.

In "Upside Down" by Diana Ross: "Respectfully I say to thee..." Whyyyy

In "A Spaceman Came Travelling" - the bit where he sings about a baby's cry and then the guitar imitates a newborn crying. This might be the worst one.

In "Come On Eileen" - "You in that dress, my thoughts, I confess, verge on dirty" Just no. The awkward old-fashioned phrasing, and the way his voice goes when he sings "dirty". Unbearable.

Ick Hucknall!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Love it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Panic! At The Disco: ‘when I’m pacing the pews in a church corridor’. Why are the pews in the corridor? Does he mean the aisle?

The Divinyls and a song which never fails to get me on the dancefloor

I close my eyes and see you before me
Think I would die if you were to ignore me
A fool could see just how much I adore you
I'd get down on my knees, I'd do anything for you

'Cause I don't want anybody else
When I think about you I touch myself
Ah-ah-oh, I don't want anybody else
Oh-no, oh-no, oh-no, yeah

I love myself, I want you to love me
When I feel down I want you above me
I search myself, I want you to find me
I forget myself, I want you to remind me

She says "I really love you" and he says (in the growly voice) "Show me..."

VOMIT cental.

Yep, Ick Hucknall!

Well, quite. For me it’s the line, “and now my bedsheets smell like you.” Yuck!!
I’m sure that’s caused a few embarrassing conversations with kids at some point.

Joni Mitchell's strange laugh at the end of Big Yellow Taxi

The bit at the end of The Right Thing to Do where Carly Simon instructs the band "Let's close now"

The video that somebody has put to it is a bit apocalyptic, but here it is:

I only discovered recently when aimlessly surfing that the actor who played Young Mr Grace was born 29 years before (in 1898!) the actor who played Old Mr Grace, his uncle who only appeared very briefly!

You’re both right. He says “show me” in the intro and the bit ChaosAD mentioned appears about 2 minutes in. There’s a breakdown just after the saxophone solo and the female voice says, “I really love you” again and then “gasps” and he makes this yucky growl noise.
Mum used to play the Stars album all the time when it was out and for about a year afterwards.

I think she was the young daughter of friends, for whom he regularly babysat. At first hearing, you might well assume that he's talking about a romantic interest; but if you look at the lyrics, it's clearly a song about the (entirely non-romantic) joy that a small child brings to him.

Maybe it was written to be slightly initially ambiguous - like Save All Your Kisses For Me by Brotherhood Of Man?

I don't think there's anything iffy to be read into her saying she wants to marry him (calling him 'Uncle Ray' - Raymond being his real name, whether he was technically her actual uncle or not). It's very common for little ones to say they 'want to marry' older loved ones, as they just see it from their childlike perspective as a way of expressing that they love them and enjoy spending time with them.

It sounds wrong to me. Surely it should be that's what you did? There are other ABBA examples, I can't recall at the moment.

Talking of songs that acknowledge they're songs, I never quite got the relevance of Duffy whispering "Hit the beat and take it to the verse now" at the beginning of Mercy - like she was a gangsta rapper!

Aside from singing about Doritos it makes me think the woman he's just met in the pub has said "why don't you come back to mine, I've wine and a packet of Doritos that I started earlier. Yeah, opened today. You'll be doing me a favour."

I'm literally crying with laughter at this 😂

This morning at 4.50, i took her rather nifty, down to an incubator where 20 minutes later, she gave birth to a daughter..
Squeeze. Up the junction.

It’s about a friendly game of basketball surely?😆

I slam the door - Boom!
When I come into the bedroom Wham! Bam!
'cause I'm the king of the castle
na na na turn me on turn me loose
come on, come on try to hit it, it's a hassle
come get some of this 'cause we got the innuendo
play me like Nintendo, never ever let go (no!)
keep it so loud you hit 'em the crescendoI slam the door…

Such finesse.

Craig Davids Fill me In. Love it but it's not really stood the test of time

Wearing a jacket, who's property?
Said you'd been queuing for a taxi
But you left all your money on the TV

Technology's moved on a bit in the last 20 years. No leaving your money on top of the TV these days!

Mike Oldfield: 4am in the morning.

Why not just "4 o'clock in the morning", "half-past 4 in the morning" or similar? Such an irritating tautology!

HAPPY by Pharrell Williams. "If you feel like a room without a roof",.......... so, like 4 brick walls or a courtyard then........ Hate it, makes me anything but fookin happy 😡

Oh I see. Well, both are correct. I'd not picked up on it before, though in an interview for an ABBA documentary, Bjorn mentioned there was the occasional error in his lyrics, and cited a line from Fernando - "since many years I haven't seen a rifle in your hand". As he pointed out, it should have been "for" not "since".

Oh my goodness, absolutely this. I love this song too, but the tautology ruins it for me.

Surely not worse than "Wives and Lovers"?

"Hey, little girl, fix your hair, do your makeup
Soon he'll be there at the door!
Don't think because there's a ring on your finger
You needn't try anymore"

And it gets worse.

"… Slow, slow hands
Like sweat dripping down our dirty laundry"

Really? Really??? I was getting all those good feelings imagining slow hands... and then sweat down dirty laundry? Whose fucking idea was that??

Natasha Bedingfield, These Words. It’s a crap song about writing a crap song.

Threw some chords together
The combination D-E-F
It's who I am, it's what I do
And I was gonna lay it down for you
Try to focus my attention
But I feel so A-D-D
I need some help, some inspiration
(But it's not coming easily)

Rod Stewart in Maggie May says he wants a dime to call his mother?? In Glasgow??

Nah this one is ok, it's present perfect tense which is fine.

I've read almost the whole thread and seen no mention of the very famous Beatles song you can't do that.

It's a song where a boyfriend is warning his girl that she's not allowed to talk to another boy.

He's warning her quite aggressively that if she dares to talk to this boy again that's it - he's gonna dump her.

The lyrics go

well it's the second time I've caught you talking to him

do I have to tell you once again I think it's a sin

I'm going to let you down and leave you flat

because, girl, you can't do that!