Lines and rhymes that make or break songs.

[H2IZCOOL]

I've noticed that we have been a little more "here" lately, but mainly talking about RL, the WSU football team, or THE BULLBOARD.

So I thought, why not try a music thread of the type we used to do? I'm going to list some gems and some dogs (IMO) of lyrics and ask you guys to do the same.

1. My old "favorite" from Diana Ross and the Supremes' "Im Living In Shame"

Came a telegram,
Mama passed away while making homemade jam.

I wonder if the jam was poison! Someone call the PO-lice!

Dog!

2. From Jim Croce's "Operator (That's not the Way It Feels)"

She's livin' in LA
With my best ol' ex-friend Ray

I know that Jim used "Ray" to rhyme with "LA" but what a great way to describe a so-called friend who stole your woman? ..."best ol' ex-friend"

Gem!

3. I mentioned this one on another thread a few weeks ago - but it fits:

Frankie Valli "My Eyes Adored You"

My eyes adored you
Though I never laid a hand on you, my eyes adored you
"Bout a million miles away you couldn't see how I adored you

... c'mon, Frankie! You've had over 30 years. You STILL can't come up with a rhyme?

Puppy! (Not a full grown dog; stlll a great song but that lack of rhyme always bothered me.)

4. "Lost Without Your Love" - David Gates and Bread

I'm lost without your love
Life without you isn't worth the trouble of."

The trouble of what? Coming up with a word that rhymes with love other than "of" ?

Puppy! Again, it is a beautiful song, but really!


How 'bout you guys? Favorite or really bad lines?

[Railyn]

Lots of them:

Highlights:
-Welcome to your life; there's no turning back. ~ Everybody Wants To Rule The World by Tears For Fears

-How can I be sure, when your confusion's my illusion? ~ Pale Shelter by Tears For Fears

-Hide on the promenade, etch a postcard: "How I dearly wish I was not here" ~ Every Day Is Like Sunday by Morrissey

-Look at the people in the streets, in the bars. We are all of us in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. ~ Message Of Love by the Pretenders

-Nobody's perfect. Even a perfect stranger. ~ Time The Avenger by the Pretenders

-And you may ask yourself, well, how did I get here? ~ Once In A Lifetime by Talking Heads

-And then I run 'til the breath tears my throat ; 'Til the pain hits my side as if I run fast enough I can leave all the pain and the sadness behind. ~ Rain In The Summertime by The Alarm

-Coming over the airwaves, the man says I'm overdue. Sing some songs; send some money; join the chosen few. Mister, I'm not in a hurry and I don't want to be like you. All I want from tomorrow is to get it better than today. ~ Jacob's Ladder by Huey Lewis And The News (it's long, but you can't break just one part out of it effectively)

Lowlights:

-I've been in love before. The hardest part is when you're in it. ~ Been In Love Before by Cutting Crew (Love the song, but that line is truly awkward.)

-Don't know what you got 'til it's gone. Don't know what it is I did so wrong. Now I know what I got; it's just this song, and it ain't easy to get back. Takes so long." ~ Don't Know What You Got ('Til It's Gone) by Cinderella (My brain hurts after reading that.)

-Fire. Smoke, she is a rising fire, yeah. Smoke on the horizon, well Fire. Smoke, she is a rising fire. Oh, smokestack lightning.
Smokestack lightning. ~ Fire by The Cult (What is Smokestack Lightning? This is just so disjointed and annoying.)

-Don't don't don't let's start. This is the worst part. ~ Don't Let's Start by They Might Be Giants (It's not the worst part - the whole song is, but it's a bad way to start and it goes downhill from there.)

-Sometimes I wish to God I didn't know now the things I didn't know then ~ Something To Believe In by Poison (I like the song a lot, but that line was always awkward to me)

[H2IZCOOL]

I forgot to list this gem earlier:

Ah, but I was so much older then
I'm younger than that now
From "My Back Pages" by Bob Dylan (although I prefer the Byrds cover.)

[Dawn]

Gems:

"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." - John Lennon, "Beautiful Boy."

Pretty much all of Pink Floyd's "Time," but especially this:

"You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today.
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you.
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun."

"For red is grey and yellow, white.
But we decide which is right, and which is an illusion." - Moody Blues, "Nights in White Satin."


Dog:

"But something took a hold of me
And I acted like a dustbin lid" - Paul McCartney, "The Other Me"

A dustbin lid?! How does a dustbin lid act?

[H2IZCOOL]

Aug 31, 2010 8:35:07 GMT -5 Dawn said:

Gems:

"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." - John Lennon, "Beautiful Boy."

Pretty much all of Pink Floyd's "Time," but especially this:

"You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today.
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you.
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun."

"For red is grey and yellow, white.
But we decide which is right, and which is an illusion." - Moody Blues, "Nights in White Satin."


Dog:

"But something took a hold of me
And I acted like a dustbin lid" - Paul McCartney, "The Other Me"

A dustbin lid?! How does a dustbin lid act?

Dawn, when I saw the Paul quote I got to thinking that it's a British thing. The Brits have a kind of unique set of expressions where they don't say what they mean, but use a phrase that rhymes with it. I dated a British girl for a short time many moons ago and she explained how it worked:

Instead of saying, for instance "there are the stairs" you might say "there are the apples and pears." You might say that in this type of language, apples and pears is slang for stairs.

Well, I looked up dustbin lid and it's slang for "kid"

"I acted like a kid" makes sense.

[H2IZCOOL]

I don't know how I forgot this one before, from the Beatles White Album, While My Guitar Gently Weeps.:

I look at you all see the love there that's sleeping
While my guitar gently weeps
I look at the floor and I see it need sweeping
Still my guitar gently weeps

It really looks like George was stretching for a rhyme, although the over all song seems to be about someone who can't get their act together, so having poor housekeeping habits could be one of the symptoms.

Interestingly, according to Wikipedia, the floor sweeping was not George's original lyrics. Wiki cites this couplet:

The problems you sow, are the troubles you're reaping,
Still, my guitar gently weeps.

I like those words a lot better.

[Ken]

Highlights:

All of The Beatles' "Across The Universe", especially:

Images of broken light which
dance before me like a million eyes
That call me on and on across the universe
Thoughts meander like a
restless wind inside a letter box
they tumble blindly as
they make their way across the universe

"Andy Norris" by Badfinger, a great rocker written by Joey Molland. I really like how the words flow with the melody.
I've run out of money
Run out of good
Right out of reasons and misunderstood
Run out of rhythm, run out of rhyme
Right out of feelings
And right out of time

"Pain" - Alice Cooper - In the booklet notes from the box set "The Life and Crimes of AC" - Alice explains that he wrote the song as if pain was a person. Very clever IMO

And I'm the compound fracture
In the twisted car
And I'm the lines on the face
Of the tramp at the bar
And I'm the reds by the bed
Of the suicide star

You know me- I'm pain
I'm your pain
Your own private pain
Unfathomable pain

I can't think of any "duds" at the moment, but when I do I will post them!

[Pete70s]

I always liked the Wings song "Spirits Of Ancient Egypt", but the lyrics have always bugged me... This couplet in particular:

"You're my baby, and I love you.
You can take a pound of love and cook it in the stew."

And this one:

"You're my baby, do you love me?
I can drive a Cadillac across the Irish Sea."

AND this one:

"You're my baby, I know you know.
You could sell an elevator to Geronimo."

I don't know if Paul or Denny Laine wrote these lyrics, but they just sound REALLY lame.....

[gremashlo]

BEST--"And I need you more than want you/And I want you for all time"--Glen Campbell, "Wichita Lineman"

WEIRD but GREAT WHEN IN CONTEXT--
"Please stop asking me who I am/Go and find somone else/to tell you jokes to...what a great party this is"--Bill Fay, "Screams in my Ears"

JUST PLAIN BAD--"They say Spain is pretty, but I've never been/Daniel says it's the best place that he's ever seeeeen..." Elton John, "Daniel" (it was awfully hard not to put the entire song...just awful lyrics for an otherwise good song)

[Jughead]

As much as I love Kylie Minogue, she's done some rather weird rhymes herself.

From 1988's "I Should Be So Lucky"

It's a crazy situation,
You always keep me waiting.
Because it's only make-believe.
And I would come a-runnin'
To give you all my loving.
If one day you would notice me.

[m c dornan]

Ups:

nobody loves me but my mother,
and she could be jivin' too

B B King


The summer had inhaled and held its breath too long

Jefferson Airplane


No good times
no bad times,
there's no times at all, just the New York Times

Simon & Garfunkel


you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows

Bob Dylan


And in her eyes you see nothing
no sign of love behind the tears
cried for no one
a love that should have lasted years

beatles



Lows:

Desolation...


Creation...


Communication...

Moody Blues (and that's the whole lyrics)


Love love me do
you know I love you
I'll always be true
So please love me do

Beatles (well, it was of their very first songs)


People disagreeing everywhere you look
makes you wanna stop and read a book
why only yesterday I saw somebody on the street that was really shook!

Bob Dylan (unfortunately, not one of his earliest songs)

[Dawn]

One came to mind earlier today as we were listening to Sunflower in the car:

"Got to Know the Woman" is a nice rollicking song, but has the lyric:


Ah, you make a make a man out of me
(You make you make a man out of me)
Come on
Come on come on and do the chicken

Do the chicken??! Dennis Wilson was a very talented songwriter, but this line just sounds so out of place and hokey, not to mention dating the song.

[m c dornan]

Sept 12, 2010 15:32:47 GMT -5 Dawn said:

One came to mind earlier today as we were listening to Sunflower in the car:

"Got to Know the Woman" is a nice rollicking song, but has the lyric:


Ah, you make a make a man out of me
(You make you make a man out of me)
Come on
Come on come on and do the chicken

Do the chicken??! Dennis Wilson was a very talented songwriter, but this line just sounds so out of place and hokey, not to mention dating the song.

But was the chicken funky?

[alandhopewell]

Steve Miller's got a couple that set my teeth on edge....

"Billy Mack is a detective down in TEXAS
You know he knows just exactly what the FACTS IS"

"So c'mon, get your ROCKS OFF
I'm gonna knock your SOCKS OFF, you see...."