I love Rock & Roll. So put another dime in the jukebox, baby! (As Joan Jett so memorably sang.)

But sometimes rock lyrics can be jaw-droppingly stupid, eh? In a slapped-palms-to-the-forehead manner a writer of genre or literary fiction could never get away with.

Examples? For your delectation and awestruck delight, ladies and gentlemen, I present to you:

She had the face of an angel / smiling with sin / the body of Venus, with arms . . .

                                                                                --AC/DC: “A Touch Too Much”

Let’s sway under the moonlight / this serious moonlight . . .

                                                                                --David Bowie: “Let’s Dance”

Twenty-twenty-twenty-four hours to go / I wanna be sedated . . .

                                                                                --The Ramones: “I Wanna Be Sedated”

I'll be damned, here comes your ghost again / but that's not unusual / it's just that the moon is full / and you decided to call.

         
                                                                                  --Judas Priest (lyrics by Joan Baez): "Diamonds & Rust"  

The first two choruses, in their entirety, of Cheap Trick's "Surrender":

Mother told me, yes, she told me
That I'd meet girls like you
She also told me, "Stay away
You'll never know what you'll catch"
Just the other day I heard
Of a soldier's falling off
Some Indonesian junk
That's going round

Father says, "Your mother's right
She's really up on things
Before we married, Mommy served
In the WACS in the Philippines"
Now, I had heard the WACS recruited
Old maids for the war
But mommy isn't one of those
I've known her all these years

Your favorites? I can’t wait to groan . . . 

--edited by Carl E. Reed on 10/16/2013, 11:38 AM--

Good thread!

I struggled with Alanis Morissette's "Ironic" lyrics as she listed elements that were/ supposed to be (?) ironic, but mostly were things that just sucked, especially: "It's a black fly in your Chardonnay."

I also had a hard time with the chorus in Jewel's "Hands" song: "My hands are small I know / but they're not yours, they are my own."

Well, don't you know about the bird

--edited by GD Deckard on 10/16/2013, 2:19 PM--

Well, Bob Dylan did tell Joan Baez that she was a terrible songwriter. And I've always cringed a bit at those lyrics. I do, however, love the first line: "I'll be damned, here comes your ghost again ..." I also love the line about the hotel in Washington Square.

.

Wait a damn moment! It was in that very song that Joan, addressing Dylan, sang: "My poetry was lousy, you said." An ipso facto proof if ever I saw one.

.

The diamonds and rust thing, I never cared for that.

--edited by Mimi Speike on 10/16/2013, 7:08 PM--

Personally, I much prefer outwardly dumb lyrics with high energy music (such as "I Wanna be Sedated", which is at least pretty funny - and you can dance to it) to the vapid, pretense of poetry you find in a lot of serious songwriters.   An example does spring to mind, (because I just heard it on the radio):  

         "When the singer's done let the song go on,                    

               It's a fine line between the darkness and dawn

               They say in the darkest night, there's a light beyond..."

which is from a song Art Garfunkel sang back in the seventies.  I don't know if he wrote it or not.  For his sake, I hope not.  I mean, could he have fit any more cliches into those lines?  

Really, song lyrics aren't poetry, and they shouldn't try to be.  They can be great in and of themselves but they're supposed to work as part of a team, with the music, and the best do that.  

Oh wait, I almost forgot, maybe the worst rock song ever (and it was a hit):  "In the Year 2525"  It deserves quoting in full:

In the year 2525, if man is still alive.

If woman can survive, they may find

In the year 3535

Ain't gonna need to tell the truth, tell no lie
Everything you think, do and say
Is in the pill you took today

In the year 4545
You ain't gonna need your teeth, won't need your eyes
You won't find a thing to chew
Nobody's gonna look at you

In the year 5555
Your arms hangin' limp at your sides
Your legs got nothin' to do
Some machine's doin' that for you

In the year 6565
You won't need no husband, won't need no wife
You'll pick your son, pick your daughter too
From the bottom of a long glass tube

In the year 7510
If God's a-coming, He oughta make it by then
Maybe He'll look around Himself and say
"Guess it's time for the Judgement Day"

In the year 8510
God is gonna shake His mighty head
He'll either say, "I'm pleased where man has been"
Or tear it down, and start again

In the year 9595
I'm kinda wonderin' if man is gonna be alive
He's taken everything this old earth can give
And he ain't put back nothing

Now it's been ten thousand years, man has cried a billion tears
For what, he never knew, now man's reign is through
But through eternal night, the twinkling of starlight
So very far away, maybe it's only yesterday

Alright, maybe that didn't deserve quoting at all.  

What a way to spend the night

(clapping ala Leonard Pinth-Garnell):  "Awful.  Awful.  Couldn't be worse."

@Atthys: Holy . . . !!! [low wolf whistle] That is an EPIC of . . . what would you call it? Adolescent drug poetry? Addled drag poesy? Adumbrated dick pricking? Sophomoric, surreal, stoner sci-fi?

--edited by Carl E. Reed on 10/17/2013, 8:25 PM--

All of the above, and set to the most pretentious, melodramatic music, complete with spanish guitars and strings and trumpets.  The lyrics make Led Zeppelin sound like John Donne in comparison.  

This made me laugh so hard. I love this thread.

--edited by Brandi Larsen on 10/18/2013, 10:56 AM--

Mine isn't as good as the other ones, but I've never been able to figure out what the line "Motoring . . . What's your price for flight?" means, in the song "Sister Christian" by Night Ranger.

(That doesn't stop me, however, from singing this song at karaoke on a fairly regular basis.)