Worst Line in a Bowie Song

WHERE TO START!

The entirety of "Time."

Life is like a broken arrow
Memory a swinging door
I could be your great misfortune
I can make you happy every goddamn single day of your life

As I alluded to in the best Bowie line thread, most of his lyrics sound kind of awful on paper, but somehow the way he sings them makes almost all of them sound good.

and lots of times the way he sings them makes them sound even worse.

There's something about hearing a grown man sing the word "Oogie" ("Slip Away" off of "Heathen") that just grinds my gears. Not necessarily the worst Bowie lyric ever, but it pretty much ruins that song for me.

" I've never done good things, I've never done bad things, I've never done anything out of the blue'

being an example - the awful conceited fauz- regret of it all........

xpost to Alfred...

No, I like that line a lot! It's simple!

"I got eyes in my backside
That see electric tomatoes"

posting in belated defence of oogie

Oogieloves

Time, he flexes like a whore
Falls wanking to the floor
His trick is you and me, boy

re, "i've never done good things, i've never done bad things" above -- i am with alfred, i love that line.

i like most bowie lyrics.

what's up with the nazi references on "quicksand" though? i don't understand that song.

Lots of occult references in that song and Himmler was deep into the occult, I think that's the connection...

As for worst lyric, Bowie gives Bernard Sumner a run for his money here:

I could take you to heaven
I could spin you to hell
But I'll take you to New York
It's the place that I know well

His worst lyric actually is a 2013 song called "Valentine's Day."

Seven Years in Tibet has a lovely, slow and subtle (but swaggery!) intro, and the melody (when it finally arrives) matches the backing perfectly. Unfortunately the lyrics go

Are you OK?
You've been shot in the head
And I'm holding your brains
The old woman said

ha I don't mind it

Oh I still love it, and it makes me giggle

The melody is so great in Valentine’s Day, I wish it was… any other lyric

"They'll bury you in velvet and place you underground" - come on David, you can do better than that!

But I mostly love Bowie lyrics and "I've never done good things.." is one of his best!

xp there was some dumb "rule" for TM1 where Bowie didn't allow himself to refine lyrics, it was all first drafts - while there are some shit words (and sentiments) on that album, it's actually amazing that it's as good as it is!

They're just a bunch of assholes
With buttholes for their brains

best bowie lyrics would be a better thread i think

I'd post the same couplet there

I gazed a gazely stare

"I got eyes in my backside
That see electric tomatoes"

― Oh wouldn't it be rubbery? (Tom D.), Thursday, December 1, 2022 4:49 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

hey, Gruff Rhys's entire career is predicated on that line

That line's too stupid for even Robert Pollard.

Lets just say all the lyrics of 'The Supermen'.

(made worse by Bowie's vocal performance - Ozzy Osbourne might have been able to pull of those lyrics in a pinch, but not someone who sounds like they're channelling Rik from The Young Ones)

The acoustic BBC version is much better in every department.

It's not a bad line, but the way he pronounces "boogie" in Starman never fails to crack me up.

I hate hate hate the delivery and failed intensity of the “wham bam thank you ma’am” on “Suffragette City”, such a whiff

But I hate no lyric more than the entirety of “Baby Universal”— “I’m the baby now” is a garbage epiphany and a terrible delivery and just sounds like Bowie is gargling Frank Black’s pee

I hate the undeveloped monologue verses of “We Are The Dead”

I hate “the sun machine is coming down and we’re gonna have a party”

I hate “The Secret Life Of Arabia”

The problem with a bad Bowie lyric is that it kinda has a way of poisoning the well, like it makes everything sound bad for a while. I was steadily collecting Bowie discs until I got to TM2 and heard “A Big Hurt” and then I felt like I had gone too far and scaled down my collection to the essentials

'The Secret Life Of Arabia' - his phrasing on "you must see the movie / the sand in my eye / I walk through the desert sun / when the heroine diiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeee" is fucking ace. The repeated "secret secret" bit is annoying though.

xp I was sort of a Hendrix completist when I was 18-19 but so many of the posthumous releases available in the early 90s were garbage that I stopped searching for Hendrix records around 1993 and haven't even listened to the main albums since.

Having been around for the dimishing returns of the Let's Dance / Tonight / Never Let Me Down period I was very wary of picking up anything post Lodger. I bought Black Tie White Noise and the Buddha of Suburbia soundtrack albums when they were released but didn't play them much, also Earthling and that's so 1997 it's not really listenable as anything other than a time capsule.

And I remember when Hours was released that I was so off post-70s Bowie at that point that just seeing the billboard for Hours was off-putting.

The entirety of "'87 and Cry."

The entirety of "Chubby Little Loser."

I’ve been working my way through the last big box that covers the post Tin Machine years. Prior, the only one of these albums I spent much time with was Outside.

Black Tie White Noise is waaaay better than I expected. Not a great album but not bad at all. Buddha of Suburbia is excellent, it is nuts that it had such a subdued release. Easily the best thing after Scary Monsters besides Black Star.

Hours is boring, Outside and Earthling try to hard despite nice moments.

xp written by Gervais, wasn't it? the words at least.

The entirety of "'87 and Cry."

"It couldn't be done without dogs" is a nice intriguing/meaningless line that could have found a home elsewhere.

xp I dunno, I watched that episode and there was Bowie composing ON THE SPOT, conjuring those words out of fat air.

New York's in love
With the way she talks (t-t-talks, t-t-talks)
And the way she walks
New York's in love
Goo goo goo goo goo goo

The problem with a bad Bowie lyric is that it kinda has a way of poisoning the well

I hated "we can never be rid of these stars" so much it handicapped my appreciation of The Next Day. Bowie's appeal is built so much on knowingness that when he gets overblown in a witless way, you feel more embarrassed for him than you would for most singer/songwriters.

There are worse lines in that album

The entirety of "Boss of Me."

Yes I am a fan of BTWN and Buddha

It is kind of incredible that a lyricist like Bowie can turn out just the most surprising and wonderful lyrics one moment and then offer up some lukewarm vomit the next

Upthread somebody cited “I gazed a gazely stare” as a bad lyric and this is a wrong opinion; that line is the finest lyric that Kurt Cobain ever had the privilege of singing

Yes it's wonderful

So is the entirety of "Station to Station.:?"

I mean “it’s not the side effects of the cocaine / I’m thinking that it must be love” is one of the best lines in pop music

The thing I like about “gazely” is how effective a word substitute it is for “lazy”— instead of using a literal adjective to convey the sociopathic narrator’s sense of impassivity at “gazing at all the millions there”, Bowie uses a redundant (and invented) adjective to adroitly convey just how impassive and uncaring the narrator really is. Bowie hit the jackpot with that entire lyric

“The Width Of A Circle”‘a lyric didn’t appeal to me when I was younger— the “hooking up with a dude = hellfire” thesis was not-great-Bob. I’ve come to really appreciate that song now as a bridge between Bowie’s Flower Power pastiche and the surrealism to come. “He laughed and cried and quipped “Khalil Gibran”” would’ve been a “bad Bowie lyric” at one point but now I think it’s kinda awesome

The entirety of "Love You Til Tuesday", but specifically:

Who's that hiding in the apple tree, clinging to a branch
Don't be afraid it's only me, hoping for a little romance
If you lie beneath my shade, I'll keep you nice and cool

It's not so much the lyrics, more that Bowie is trying to sound like Peter Noone but coming across as a massive creep instead.