Heck Of A Guy

Are The Worst Lyrics Also The Dumbest, Most Inane, Stupidest, Most Meaningless, Lousiest, Most Egregiously Loathsome, … Lyrics?

Jefito and BBC6′s Dumbest Lyrics Contest

BBC6 garnered some buzz with its “Worst Lyric In Pop History” competition, but as Jefito, the guy behind JefitoBlog, an insightful and thought-provoking pop music blog, notes in his post, A Persuasive Argument for Instrumentals, Part One, the choices in BBC6′s competition were limited to ten songs that were presented to listeners who voted for the worst of the ten, a mechanism which is, in Jefito’s word, “lame.”

This criticism of the process does not, however, extend to a judgment that the BBC6 slate of ten pre-selected lyrics is undeserving:

• ABC, “That Was Then But This Is Now” — “More Sacrifices than an Aztec priest/ Standing here straining at that leash/ All fall down, Can’t complain, mustn’t grumble/ Help yourself to another piece of apple crumble”
• Snap, “Rhythm Is A Dancer” — “I’m as serious as cancer/ When I say Rhythm is a Dancer”
• Human League, “The Lebanon” — “Before he leaves the camp he stops/ He scans the world outside/ And where there used to be some shops/ Is where the snipers sometimes hide”
• Razorlight, “Somewhere Else” — “And I met a girl/ she asked me my name, I told her what it was”
• Duran Duran, “Is There Something I Should Know?” — “And fiery demons all dance when you walk through that door/ Don’t say you’re easy on me you’re about as easy as a nuclear war”
• Oasis, “Champagne Supernova” — “Slowly walking down the hall/ Faster than a cannonball/ Where were you when we were getting high?”
• Des’ree, “Life” — “I don’t want to see a ghost/ It’s the sight that I fear most/ I’d rather have a piece of toast/ Watch the evening news”
• Black Sabbath, “War Pigs” — “Generals gathered in their masses/ Just like witches at black masses”
• Toto, “Africa” — “The wild dogs cry out in the night/ As they grow restless longing for some solitary company/ I know that I must do what’s right/ Sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti”
• U2, “Elevation” — “I’ve got no self control, Been living like a mole now/ Going down, excavation/ High and high in the sky/ You make me feel like I can fly/ So high, Elevation

DrHGuy agrees with the astute Jefito that

There are definitely some crappy lines in there — and of these ten, I have no problem saying Des’ree’s deserved to “win” — but if this was really the best they could do, I suspect they haven’t listened to much music. Given an afternoon, I could easily come up with a better/worse list.

And, in fact, he does just that, presenting an exponentially better/worse list of dumb lyrics plus comments on the singers, that is well worth reviewing in full. A couple of examples follow:

• “I don’t like cities, but I like New York/Other places make me feel like a dork,” Madonna, “I Love New York.” This idiot’s not even trying anymore.
• Loverboy, “Notorious” (download) — “Well there’s a lone wolf out on the prowl tonight / Lurkin’ in the shadows, always out of sight / I said, little girl, don’t you hesitate, cause you’re usin’ live bait” This is one of those lines you really need to listen to in order to fully appreciate it — you can really hear the miserable self-awareness in each of the multitracked Mike Renos shouting “live bait.”

DrHGuy’s Variation On Jefito’s Variation on BB6′s Dumbest Lyrics Contest

OK, the lyrics of the original set of 10 songs recommended by BBC6, however musically limiting and politically fascist that concept might be, qualify as pretty darn bad, and Jefito’s new and improved list is jaw-droppingly impressive.

Yet, DrHGuy cannot help feeling that compiling such lists is akin to shooting fish in a barrel. Pop songs, after all, are rarely three minutes of crystallized profundity set to music. And, like the cosmos itself, the unimaginably vast universe of idiotic song lyrics is, after all, ever-expanding. Without some boundaries, the game is just too easy.

Most importantly, when the only criterion is “song lyrics that are bad,” the risk is borne exclusively by the song’s writers and singers. Sporting contests, on the other hand, are more exciting when everyone, as the cliche goes, has some skin in the game.¹ Football players on both teams are vulnerable, the bull can gore the matador just as the matador can kill the bull, poker players can lose bets as well as win chips. Heck, even shooting fish in barrel would surely put fellow barrel-fish shooters at risk.

There’s A New Game In Town

Return readers may not be surprised to learn that DrHGuy has devised a solution.

In this case, only two changes are required.

First, The Worst Pop Song Lyrics becomes The Most Unsuccessful Pop Song Lyrics where “unsuccessful” means “does not produce the intended or desired results.”

Second, a qualifier is added such that the original instruction, Select The Worst Pop Song Lyrics, becomes Select The Most Unsuccessful Lyrics Of A Pop Song You Like, a transformation that makes the game altogether more interesting – and revealing.

An example might be helpful in explaining the notion of “most unsuccessful” Vs “worst” as applied to song lyrics. One of Jefito’s collaborators suggests this addition to the pantheon of worst/dumbest lyrics:

“Come back, come back, back to Jamaica/Don’t you know, we made a big Mistaica,” Jimmy Buffett, “Jamaica Mistaica”. Buffett set to music an actual experience of being shot at while flying into a Jamaican airport (on a plane with, um, Bono and Chris Blackwell). But this six-minute retelling is not only the worst rhyme in a catalog full of rough ones, but the de facto summer concert bathroom break.

DrHGuy admits to having included this particular track on his “Fun In The Sun” playlist² and, further, to a failure to wince when that tune proceeded from the iPod’s hard drive through the earphones into DrHGuy’s auditory perception so it qualifies as a song one likes. Yet, one must ask if these lyrics are unsuccessful or only dumb in the ear of the beholder.

DrHGuy’s contention is that these lyrics are not so much bad as silly, and it seems intuitively clear that to ridicule song lyrics that are intentionally silly is to miss the point. As to whether or not these lyrics are intentionally silly, DrHGuy introduces into evidence this photo of Mr Buffett, who wrote and sings Jamaica Mistaica, that his representatives use in his promotional material:

DrHGuy rests his case for silliness by design.

If a lyric accomplishes what the writers, performers, and audience intend or desire it to do (e.g., evoke the heartbreak of unrequited love, create a sense of togetherness among those working for a common cause, express the desolation of anomie), it can hardly be called unsuccessful.

DrHGuy holds that Mr. Buffett has made an excellent living for himself by promoting silliness and members of his audience (AKA Parrotheads, pictured below) appear downright insistent on receiving their money’s worth of silliness.

Ergo, the lyrics of Jamaica Mistaica may be dumb but they are certainly silly – and thus successful. Under the Heck Of A Guy criteria, the song doesn’t qualify for the list of inept lyrics.

What kind of song would make it onto the Heck Of A Guy disreputable lyrics list? Stay tuned.

Part II Soon Come: The Most Unsuccessful Lyrics Of A Song Beloved By DrHGuy

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1. The Duke Of Derm might demur, but some variation of “skin in the game” would be a fabulous slogan for a dermatology clinic or department; perhaps something on the lines of “Get some game in your skin to get some skin in your game.” [↩]
2. DrHGuy makes a distinction between the acceptable practice of placing “fun” in the sun and the detestable expectation that he place his body in the sun. [↩]