Risible rhymes

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Heard Police's less than memorable final album (the one with 'Every Breath You Take') again a couple of nights ago at a friend's house and once again cringed at the empty pretentiousness of Mr Sumner's lyrics, and his awful rhyming couplets, the worst of which was possibly, from 'Wrapped Around Your Finger':

'I will turn your heart to alabaster When you find your servant is your master.'

This was from the same bloke who, when he possibly took himself a tad less seriously (ie he was still prepared to admit to the theoretical possibility of the sun shining from somewhere else besides his own nether orifice), inflicted this doozy on an unprepared world:

'You'll be sorry when I'm dead And all this guilt will be on your head...'

('Can't Stand Losing You)

A couple to start the ball rolling. What other rhymes in well-known (or obscure) songs make you reach for the 'skip' button?

― Karen, Thursday, 27 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Queen used the same couple at the start of Bohemian Rhapsody:

Baba just killed a man/put a gun against his head (sorry Freddie, that should read 'is 'ead)/ pulled my trigger now he's dead...

Fortunately that song had about 8 minutes to get better, and it did.

― Karen, Thursday, 27 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Split Enz were the precursor to NZ late 80s-early 90s band Crowded House, including both Finns, and their 1980 hit 'I Hope I Never' was the follow-up to 'I Got You' and it had some absolute rippers:

'It should be possible I know/ To see you without stress/ But I can see I'll have to go/ I'm changing my ad-dress...'

'I've been a fool more than once, more than twice/ I'm gonna move to a new town where people are nice...'

All with full orchestration and chorus, strings, brass, sax, the whole catastrophe. YIKES!!!!! Enuff!!! Tim & Neil could well sing instead, 'I hope I never/I hope I never have to sing such crap again...'

― BJ, Friday, 28 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Here come loves / tastes like honey / you can't buy / it with money. Stand up and take a bow, Barney Sumner from New Order (perhaps it's something tho do with the surname?)

― Matt, Friday, 28 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

My theory is that Barney lives next to a really crap supermarket. Or a beekeeper who insists on New Order bootlegs in trade.

― Martin Skidmore, Friday, 28 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

New Ordure always seemed to try too hard, though the track you mention is not familiar to me. Nobody ever told them that it was possible to be moody and obscure without necessarily being interesting. A bit like Lou Reed.

Another couple of personal favorites, from the much-critically-raved about Rust Never Sleeps (Neil Young's feeble but appreciated attempt to suck up to the Punks and their various vacuous cheerleaders three years too late):

'The king is gone but he's not forgotten/ This is the story of Johnny Rotten' (here the studio's canned applause machine is turned up full, ahem, bore)

'Hey hey my my, Rock and roll will never die, my my hey hey, rock and roll...' I reckon you can all probably guess the rest.

Young laid that rallying call on his audience with all the passion and urgency of a wet dishrag. Rock and roll may indeed never die, Neil, but never has the hypothesis been more brutally tested.

― BJ, Friday, 28 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

four years pass...

Much of Rust Never Sleeps actually was recorded live.

― I am not afraid of you and you can spank my ass, Friday, 27 April 2007 07:03 (nineteen years ago)

http://i17.tinypic.com/2f085dz.gif

― StanM, Friday, 27 April 2007 07:08 (nineteen years ago)

Hah this thread reminds me of the line from "Japanese to English" by the Red House Painters, in which he clumsily sings "You know I can't translate/Japanese to English/Or English to Japan ... eeeze"

Maybe he was doing it on purpose, I'unno. Thats more of a clumsy scan than a bad rhyme tho.

― Trayce, Friday, 27 April 2007 07:12 (nineteen years ago)

My favourite one of these in in Photo Jenny by Belle and Sebastian:

"la la la what's on the box, Man About The House with Paula Wilcox". (It's the "la la la" that bothers me most though)

― ailsa, Friday, 27 April 2007 07:21 (nineteen years ago)

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