Word(s) that only ever appeared in one (hit) song, ever.

"dependencies" in "Orinoco Flow"?

Lady GaGa's "Judas" has "condom" in it. I don't think I've heard it in another Top 10 hit before.

― LeRooLeRoo, Thursday, June 16, 2011 4:35 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It's on "Gone till November," (#3 UK, #7 US) but I guess it depends which version was being played.

"Aesop" in Mark Lindsay's "Arizona" (US #10, 1969)

That song is so entertaining. Maybe Arizona the hippie chick will stick around for the Aesop's fables. The singer is kind of unhinged throughout ("and all you can do is laugh at her, doesn't anybody know how to pray?") much as the long-haired freaky person singing "sign sign everywhere a sign" and the woman shrieking "go ahead hate your neighbor" are similarly only possible on the top of the pop charts for this brief period.

Essentials of my childhood - a lot of self-righteous grownups, some of whom were the "cool" schoolteachers.

Hahaha, totally! "Go ahead, hate your neighbor" also echoed on Henson Cargill's super preachy country smash "Skip-A-Rope." Listening to "One Tin Soldier" now (the Coven version) for the first time - wow.

"Arizona" has several times made me want to start a thread about songs where the singer/protagonist comes off as a serious dick without meaning to. In the first verse he seems to be identifying with this hippie chick muse, standing against the misunderstanding crowd, but then he spends the whole rest of the thing demanding she ditch her passing bohemian affectations and hang around with him. I guess the idea is that he wishes the crowd would pray for her to make these changes that he's going to wheedle out of her? Love how he belts out the title, though.

Maybe the apex of this kind of thing is "Once You Understand" by the appropriately imperative band Think. The evocation of strife, generational struggle and troubled consciences actually takes over the entire track to where there's basically not even a song there.

Will definitely check that out, thanks, I can't get enough of that stuff. I have one for you too: Albert Hammond "The Free Electric Band".

The one kind of cool thing about Henson Cargill is that he actually got that song high up on country music radio....theoretically, one could hear "Okie From Muskogee" followed by "Skip-A-Rope"

I believe there's a clip on Sonny & Cher of "One Tin Soldier", poorly animated. Also it was the theme to Billy Jack.

Oh yeah, I got into "Free Electric Band" about a year ago, love that one. That's one where I actually do still feel the intensity of the guy's desire to run away and join the free electric band, even as I see the total bubblegummy fakeness and artificiality of the whole story.

Never heard (or heard of) this Arizona song.

"Arizona" has several times made me want to start a thread about songs where the singer/protagonist comes off as a serious dick without meaning to.

Yeah, "Young Girl" Gary Puckett is another one..

Never heard (or heard of) this Arizona song.

― Betel-chewing Equipment of East New Guinea (Tom D.), Tuesday, March 24, 2015 11:41 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I basically recommend it! Depends how much "CUT OFF YOUR INDIAN BRAID!" you can stomach I guess, but it's a pretty good turn-of-the-70s number. I think I got it off this wonderful thread: Trippy Country-tinged Pop with AM radio hooks from the late sixties to mid-seventies

#1 "Rock Me Amadeus" probably has a couple - "Amadeus," of course, but probably also "Freemason."

May be cheating but foreign-language lyrics in general would seem to kill in this category: "Der Kommissar," "99 Luftballons," "Michelle"...

some possible candidates from "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald":

capsized
freighters
hatchway
seasoned

****

Hey Doctor Casino I thought of another condescension song from 1969, #3, revolting, lame, entertaining: Bobby Sherman "Little Woman"

Dr. C. also re: "a thread about songs where the singer/protagonist comes off as a serious dick without meaning to":

Subset of this: a dude informing a woman that he, the singer/protagonist, is the solution to her romantic problems, and she should therefore be rilly rilly grateful that he exists. Because otherwise she would be a withered cronelike old maid.

This was previously discussed in terms of Tom Petty's "You Got Lucky", but also:

"Let My Love Open the Door" ("you're so lucky I'm around")
James Taylor, "I'm Your Handyman"
Little Feat, "One Clear Moment"
Don Henley, "Last Worthless Evening"

There should be a whole counter-genre of women answering, "No thanks, Tom/James/Don/Pete, I'll actually be fine." Maybe there is! But I am not sure I can think of an example apart from "Without You" from My Fair Lady.

As much as I like the song, they're alot of that going on in the Everly Brothers' "Gone, Gone, Gone" - "If you change your way, baby/you might get me to stay, baby/better hurry up if you don't want to be alone", as if it weren't possible (or likely) she could find someone else.

*there's

I was listening to the "Sound of the sixties" and they were playing "Are You Sure" The Allisons, and at first it's all conciliatory, careful even, "Are you sure you won't be sorry?" until near the end where it's all "It's just your foolish heart" you stupid person, etc...

Definitely a worthy thread topic. I feel it should rightfully be Dr. Casino's, though.

but we alrezdy had an Eagles thread

"Mr. Big Stuff" fits the called-for "no thanks" genre.

y'all should start it! i'm swamped right now and the labor of thread-starting is beyond me.

re: Edmund Fitzgerald: "capsize" is in "Jumper" by Third Eye Blind (#5 on the Hot 100).

Or...wait. He's saying "cut ties with all the lies," not "capsize under the lies." Wow. Never mind.

M's "Pop Muzik" (mentioned upthread for a different phrase, later disproved to be specific to it) also has "infiltrate," "Molotov," "gunslinger," and "hotcake." I bet at least a couple of those have shown up in other hits (though as far as I can tell "Bo Diddley Is a Gunslinger" never pop-charted), but maybe one or two haven't.

Sean Paul's "Infiltrate" certainly wasn't a US hit, but it looms large in his legend and I feel like I've heard it out in the world here and there. The rest are toughies.

It wasn't a huge hit (#28), but Janet Jackson's 'Son of a Gun' had the lyric "Gunslinger shoot em up".

Can't find anything with hotcake or Molotov though.

I keep thinking "I Gotta Feeling" and going "er, no."

"Molotov cocktail, the local drink" starts the second verse of Don Henley's "All She Wants to Do is Dance."

In the not-hits-but-notable department, Carly Simon has a song called "Hot Cakes" and The Fall have a song called "Hot Cake" - the word appears in both!

Well, there's always "Love and a Molotov Cocktail" The Flys, but not a hit.

Probably Pet Shop Boys have ..

Molotov:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_She_Wants_to_Do_Is_Dance

They're pickin' up the prisoners and puttin' 'em in a pen
And all she wants to do is dance, dance
Rebels been rebels since I don't know when
And all she wants to do is dance
Molotov cocktail- the local drink

^ U.S. Billboard Hot 100 #9

The song with the most unique words?

Well, let's propose "I'm in love with the girl on the Manchester Megastore Checkout Desk"

As she sells her records on such labels as

EMI, CBS, A&M, RCA, Hansa, Stateside, Creole, Apple, Decca

Charisma, Virgin, Zapple, RSO, Island too. Stiff, Jet, Logo

Factory, Zoo, who all turned me down

And not forgetting there's

Bell, Gull, MAM, WEA, RAK, Phonogram,

Rediffusion, Swan, Atlantic, Carousel, Transatlantic

Chrysalis, Polydor, Warner Brothers, Manticore

So with Molotov well covered, is "Don't Stand so Close to Me" the only one with Nabokov?

And yes I know there are two versions and both charted. Whether they count as two songs is debatable.

Artist: The Genius/GZA
Album: Liquid Swords
Song: Labels
Typed by: OHHLA Webmaster DJ Flash

Intro: RZA

Lot of people, you know what I'm sayin, they be gettin misinformed
thinkin everything is everything, that you could just get yourself
a little deal, whatever, youknowhatI'msayin you gonna get on you
gonna get rich. And all these labels be trying to lure us in like
spiders, into the web, knowhatI'msaying. So sometimes people gotta
come out and speak up, and let people understand, that you know you
gotta read the label you gotta read the label if you don't read the
label you might get poisoned...

Lyrics: Genius

TOMMY ain't my motherfuckin' BOY
When he fake moves on a nigga you employ
Well I'll EMIRGE off ya set, now ya know God damn
I show LIVIN LARGE niggaz how to flip a DEF JAM
And RUFF up the motherfuckin' HOUSE
Cause I smother you COLD CHILLIN' mother fuckers are still WARNER BROTHERS
I'm RUTHLESS my clan don't have to act wild
That shit is JIVE, an old SLEEPING BAG/PROFILE
This soft comedian rap shit ain't the rough witty
On the reel to reel it wasn't from a TUFF CITY
Niggas be game, thinking that they lyrical surgeons
They know their mics are formed at VIRGIN
And if you ain't boned a mic you couldn't hurt a bee
That's like going to Venus driving a MERCURY
The CAPITOL of this rugged slang, is WU-TANG
Witty Unpredictable Talent And Natural Game
I DEATH ROW an MC with mic cables
The EPIC is at a RUSH ASSOCIATED LABELS
From EASTWEST to ATCO, I bring it to a NEXT PLATEAU
But I keep it phat though
Yo, I'm hittin' batters up with the WILD PITCH style
I even show an UPTOWN/MCA style
Who thought he saw me on 4TH & BROADWAY
But I was out on the ISLAND, bombing MC's all day
My PRIORITY is that I'm FIRST PRIORITY
I bone the secret out a bitch in a sorority
So look out for A&M, the abbot and the master
Breakin' down your PENDULUM
As I fiend MC's out with a blow that'll numb the
a-ppendix, I'm holdin more more weight than COLUMBIA
Index INTERSCOPE, we RCA. clan
That's comin' with a plan to free a
slave of a mental death MC don't panic
Throw that A&R nigga off the boat in the ATLANTIC
Now who's the BAD BOY character, not from ARISTA
But firin' weapons released on GEFFEN
So duck as I struck with the soul of MOTOWN
While CENTRAL BROADCASTING SYSTEMS are slowed down
You're Dirty, like that Bastard
It's gettin drastic

(xpost to Mark)

Nabokov

http://genius.com/Nick-cave-and-the-bad-seeds-there-she-goes-my-beautiful-world-lyrics

#45 in UK charts

Hotcakes is in Charlie Daniels' "Dixie on My Mind" but that's not the same "Dixie on My Mind" that was a Country #1 for Hank Williams Jr.

"Kismet" in Teena Marie's "Square Biz"

Kismet also in I'm always touched by your presence dear and misirlou. Elvis also had a song with the same name but I don't think it was a single.

"Obscenities" in "Automatic" by the Pointer Sisters?

And murmured vague obscenities - Janis Ian 'At Seventeen'

'At Seventeen' is definitely the only hit song to contain the word 'debentures'

Who else used the word "thong" in a hit song but Sisqo?

"Timber" by Pitbull has thong in it "I have 'em like Miley Cyrus, clothes off twerking in their bras and thongs", I'm sure others too.

too bad this wasn't a bigger hit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RPtqzE1Bi8

Your user name just reminded me: has "Neanderthal" been used in any other hit besides "Neanderthal Man" by Hotlegs (No. 2 in the UK on 15 August 1970)?

Cool video btw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0e0qYP_PTlY

Jimmy Castor Bunch's wild "Troglodyte" mentions Neanderthals. Gotta be more. Hmmm.

Is "I Want You" by Savage Garden the only hit song to use "likened" in the lyrics? A quick search revealed a couple of non-hits but was not conclusive.

White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane is surely the only hit song to feature the word 'dormouse'

Just looking up the thread and Jay Z's verse on Mr Carter by Lil Wayne features the word Molotov. Not sure if it counts as a hit song though

[Verse 3 ‒ Jay-Z]
Shyea
I'm right here, in my chair
With my crown and my dear
Queen B, as I share
Mic time with my heir
Young Carter, go farther
Go further, go harder
Is that not why we came?
And if not, then why bother?
Show no mercy in Murciélaga's
Far from being the bastard that Marcy had fathered
Now my name's been mentioned with the Martyrs
The Biggie's and the Pac's, and the Marley's and the Marcus'
Garvey, got me a Molotov cocktail
Flow, even if you box well, can't stop the blows
Kaboom! The Roc Boy in the room
The Dopebwoyy just came off the spoon
Also, I'm so fly I'm on auto-
Pilot, where guys just, stare at my wardrobe
I see euros, that's right, plural
I took so much change from this rap game it's your go
Young!