The Ten Stupidest Lyrics Of All Time
By danseitz
Ever since Fred Allen started reading the lyrics of fifties rock songs as if they were poetry, there has been one immutable truth: most lyrics to pop music are stupid. But some, alas, are far, far stupider than others, and here are the ten we think define the bottom of the barrel…
10) Van Halen, Why Can’t This Be Love?
While Van Halen was never noted for its subtle poetry or clever wordplay, bar the careful tertza rima cantos of “Hot for Teacher”, they had some pretty stupid lyrics even by ’80s rock standards. Still, nothing can quite top “Why Can’t This Be Love?” with the classic line:
“Only time will tell if we stand the test of time.”
Also, tonight, Van Halen will rock you tonight.
9) Tom Jones, Thunderball
Bond themes can occasionally be amazing, like the surprisingly sweeping orchestral version of You Only Live Twice, but more often, they’re pretty much pre-packaged singles to tie into the movie. But Thunderball takes the crown as the quickest rush job, with this gem of a lyric, dragged out for quite a while:
“His fight goes on, and on, and on”
We’re sure it does, Tom. We’re sure it does. And each lyric ends with:
“And he STRIKES! Like Thunderball!”
It’s really a credit to Jones that he can sell this as well as he can. Seriously. His voice is so amazing you don’t notice how stupid the lyrics are until you hear it the second time.
Nazareth, Love Hurts
You’ve got to feel bad for Nazareth, because they had one huge hit, Love Hurts, and it’s retarded. No, seriously. It’s idiotic. How idiotic?
“Love is like a flame/it burns you when it’s hot”
For the record, they aren’t to blame for this; this was written by Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, and has been making singers ranging from the Everly Brothers to Emmylou Harris look stupid since 1960. Still, nobody looked at that?
7) Sonny and Cher, The Beat Goes On
Again, we’re not talking about towering intellectual titans here, but there are moments where you wonder if you’re hearing this correctly:
“The grocery stores, the super mart, uh huh/ Little girls still break their hearts, uh huh’ And men still keep on marching off to war/ Electrically they keep a baseball score”
Right…OK…two out of four lines make sense. We think.
6) Hinder, Better Than Me
OK, so far we’ve had two stupid love analogies, lyrics that are utterly random, and blatant padding. Let’s bring the creepy, with Hinder and that classic romantic line:
“I love the way your innocence tastes.”
We hear Chris Matthews is a fan.
5) Billy Squier, The Stroke
Granted, expecting lyrics of grace and class from a guy who wrote a song with the chorus “Stroke me, stroke me!” backed up by a bunch of guys yelling “Stroke!”, which we’re sure was absolutely not supposed to evoke a gay orgy, but kinda does anyway, is pointless. But figure this one.
“Spread your ear pollution, both far and wide.”
What is this? Cockney rhyming slang?
4) Sade, Smooth Operator
We know what you’re thinking: there are no lyrics to Smooth Operator, just “Smooth Operator” repeated over and over again. We were as surprised as you to learn that there are, in fact, other lyrics to the song. Then again, with lines like:
“Coast to coast
LA to Chicago”
You can’t really blame yourself for forgetting they existed.
3) Kiss, Burn Bitch Burn
OK, so we’ve had some bad love song analogies, and some Uncle Creepy lyrics, and now it’s time to combine the two. Ladies and gentlemen, Paul Stanley:
“I want to put my log in your fireplace.”
This might be his roundabout way of admitting that the burning sensation Kiss groupies feel would be his fault. But somehow, we suspect he was sincere. Well, at least he has his art. No, seriously. He’s an artist, and it’s almost as good as his lyrics work.
2) Eminem, Ass Like That
“I ain’t never seen
An ass like that
The way you move it
You make my pee-pee go
‘Doing-doing-doing’”
Did you know that rap lyrics are written by Indonesian children in sweatshops? It’s true! You don’t think a respected rapper actually wrote a song about his pee-pee, do you?
1) LFO, Summer Girls
OK, so picking on a boy band for retarded lyrics is a bit like picking on Prince for being insane. It’s not their fault, they genuinely can’t help it. Still, we’ve got to wonder why this song was ever a hit, because this is the chorus:
New Kids On The block, had a bunch of hits
Chinese food makes me sick.
And I think it’s fly when girls stop by for the summer, for the summer
I like girls that wear Abercrombie and Fitch,
I’d take her if I had one wish,
But she’s been gone since that summer..
Since that summer
We’re still trying to figure out what the hell the first two lines have to do, and what’s utterly baffling is the song is full of non-sequiturs like this. Lines like “Hip hop marmalade spic and span”, “the great Larry Bird jersey 33″, “Call me Willy Whistle ’cause I can’t speak baby”, “Macaulay Culkin wasn’t Home Alone” are all over this song. In fact, all of those are from one verse. In fact, they’re all from the first verse!
Congratulations, LFO: you sang the worst lyrics of all time. Kill your songwriter in celebration. Please.
Any we missed? Tell us in the comments!
Friday, August 6, 2010 6:02PM
I don't know the artist but this caught my attention on "Crossing Boundries" one evening:
"We went back to my place and cooked up some chili. Which warmed us on the inside because the outside was to chilly."
I threw up in my mouth a little.
Friday, August 6, 2010 7:07PM
Actually, Nazareth IS to blame for that idiotic lyric, because it was originally "love is like a STOVE/burns you when it hot" which, y'know, makes logical sense. They felt the need to CHANGE it to the much stupider version.
Research fail. Hey, BeatCrave, maybe hire a writer who actually knows something about music?
Friday, August 6, 2010 7:08PM
Oh wow man Kiss was Da Bomb back in the day!
Friday, August 6, 2010 7:12PM
You can't forget about every lyric from REM's "It's the End of The World". Nothing in that song made sense and is nearly impossible to sing or understand
Friday, August 6, 2010 7:23PM
I like Paul Mc's line in "Live and Let Die": "But in this ever changing world in which we live in" wha???
Friday, August 6, 2010 7:33PM
How have 3Oh!3 not managed tonmake this list?!
Friday, August 6, 2010 8:09PM
How did they look past "Let's Get Rocked" by Def Leppard. The whole song is unapologetic in it's cheesiness, but the unforgettable line, "Let's get the rock out of here," goes above and beyond hair metal silliness.
Friday, August 6, 2010 8:10PM
How is that terrible trash Gaga "writes" #1
Friday, August 6, 2010 8:28PM
Any song by 311
eg.
Many moons since first I saw you
Many moons since first we did the do
Many moons since first I saw you
Many moons since first we did the do
Maybe they just be pimpin' for Mountain Dew…
Friday, August 6, 2010 8:54PM
Paul Stanley does not sing Burn Bitch, Burn. Gene Simmons does
Friday, August 6, 2010 9:03PM
Really? Now I can't get those 2 minutes back. Tgheyre gone forever and I'm blocking my browser from visiting this url ever again.
Friday, August 6, 2010 9:07PM
lol wheres Nirvana at
Friday, August 6, 2010 9:11PM
Practice What You Preach by Testament had this gem:
I never was the one, the one to say the things you say
Never seem to wonder what you say
Friday, August 6, 2010 9:15PM
I thought that it was "ever-changing world in which we're livin'"
Friday, August 6, 2010 9:27PM
98 degree
"you are the cure against my hurt and my pain" .. hmm how could u have a cure AGAINST anything?? its always "FOR"..
spice girls
"when two become one" hmm becomes one…
metallica
"motorbreath, its how i live my life.."
Red hot chilli peppers
"lopsided eyes and a crooked frown, make more of life, just settle down, every single little princess needs a crown, make more of life, just settle down" for the sake of rhyming???
Red hot chilli peppers
The entire lyrics of Cant Stop. eg "J. Butterfly is in the treetop, Birds that blow the meaning into bebop" WHAT???
Red hot chilli peppers
"First born unicorn, Hard core, soft porn" ok rhyming again?
sigh.. too much dumb lyrics to mention..
Friday, August 6, 2010 9:39PM
Guys, your forgetting the insane clown posy, “fucking magnets, how do they work.”
Friday, August 6, 2010 9:49PM
My favorite has to be from Eddie Money's "Take Me Home Tonight":
"I feel a hunger…
It's a hunger!"
Friday, August 6, 2010 9:50PM
"Don't switch the blade on the guy in the shades (oh no!)"
Yeah, just about any passage from Corey Hart's "Sunglasses at Night"
Friday, August 6, 2010 10:36PM
You missed the #1 with a bullet entry.
“Fucking magnets, how do they work?”
Friday, August 6, 2010 11:26PM
What about Dr Dre's classic line:
"Never let me slip, cuz if I slip then I'm slippin"
Saturday, August 7, 2010 12:24AM
How about that stupid "Can we pretend that airplanes in the night sky are like shooting stars song? "Back when I was trying to get a tip at Subway." Maybe if you just did your job instead of trying to get a tip, you might get the tip, too. I wonder if anyone ever tipped him. He seems pretty hurt by that era in his life.
Saturday, August 7, 2010 1:03AM
Ok….so everyones heard it…t-pains bartender song….”she made us drinks, to drink, we drunk them, got drunk”..haha
Saturday, August 7, 2010 3:11PM
What about Shakira:
"I'm starting to feel just a little abused like a coffee machine in an office"
Sunday, August 8, 2010 3:40AM
Somehow you missed Fergie's line in Big Girls Don't Cry:
And I'm gonna miss you like a child misses their blanket
Sunday, August 8, 2010 6:25AM
"Abra, abracadabra
"I wanna reach out and grab ya."
Enough said.
Sunday, August 8, 2010 9:23AM
Thin Lizzy – Jailbreak "Tonight theres gonna be a jailbreak, somewhere in this town"
At the jail maybe …………??
Monday, August 9, 2010 9:12AM
Ummm…
A doo doo doo
A da da da
That's all I want to say to you
Monday, August 9, 2010 12:05PM
To be fair Chicago does have a coast… http://cl.ly/1vVN
That Sade lyric has bothered me for some time, because of the more commonly known term "Coast to Coast." Technically, she gets away with it.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010 8:19AM
Of the endless string of Gene Simmons banality the song "Killer" sticks out. How many times can you transcribe the same word? And speaking of Paul Stanley, he gets a special nomination for "Uh! All Night."
Friday, August 13, 2010 1:54PM
Incubus says ,the resembles a backlit canopy, with holes punched in it, FAAIILLL!
Tuesday, August 24, 2010 1:03AM
How bouts "And the love you make is equal to the love you take".. wtf is that shit?! LOL
Tuesday, August 24, 2010 3:52AM
don't be a cock – the whole point of the song is that "rock" is standing in for "fuck" – make sense now?
Tuesday, August 24, 2010 7:22AM
Fred Allen??? Are you sure you don't mean Steve Allen?
Tuesday, August 24, 2010 12:29PM
What’s insane about Prince?
Tuesday, August 24, 2010 4:58PM
Van Hagar shouldn't really count as Van Halen. The band Van Halen died after 1984.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010 5:57PM
Speaking of an Halen, "Jump" should be right up there. "Can't you see me standing there I've got my back against the record machine. I ain't the worst that you'e seen. Don't you see what I mean? Might as well jump!
Tuesday, August 24, 2010 7:05PM
Pink's "Just Like A Pill" ….
"And I swear you're just like a pill / Instead of makin' me better / you keep makin' me ill"
….. so how is that like a pill at all? no, Pink does not go on to describe her allergic reactions to pills. instead, she says
"I can't stay on your life support, there's a shortage in the switch,
I can't stay on your morphine, cuz its making me itch
I said I tried to call the nurse again
but shes being a little bitch"
… apparently you're NOT any longer on life support if you've already noticed there's a short in the wiring. i'm assuming the morphine is given to you by the nurse whom you've emphatically described to your room visitor as a "bitch." so it shouldn't be making you itch; it should be making you feel less in pain. because that's why they prescribe it. idiot.
"I think I'll get outta here, where I can run
just as fast as I can
To the middle of nowhere"
why the hell did the nurse give you morphine if you're physically capable of running away? and what the fuck are you doing running from a hospital into a desert? i hope you fucking die in the desert, Pink. you're such a moron.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010 6:05AM
I may be on to something here….I think LFO might just be the inspiration for the Jersey Shore D-Bags.
Monday, January 24, 2011 6:32AM
Why is keisha not on this list?
Tuesday, August 2, 2011 7:12PM
You are correct sir. Someone didn't do their research.