Lyrical Laziness

I never start topics. I also don't give a toss about lyrics really, but I'm bored, so here we go.

I think it fair to say that Queen are/were not renowned for writing deep and meaningful lyrics. And the corollary of that is that they wrote some damn awful ones.

What's the worst lyric in the Queen (or related/solo) canon?

A couple that really grind my gears (for mainly linguistic reasons) are:

"Stole my heart, threw away the key" - [i]what[/i] key? You never mentioned any key up until now Roger.

"Why don't you twist it, and turn it, and cut it like a knife" - to me that sounds like you're cutting something that's like a knife. Usually people don't cut knives. They cut [i]with[/i] knives. (Let Me Live has mostly dreadful lyrics throughout, although this is the pick of the bunch for me).

Thoughts?

This has bothered me a bit. Sometimes I wish I had picked a band with more poetic lyrics to be my favorite, though I still love Queen all the same. I don't really understand your gripe with "...and cut it like a knife" from LML - it makes perfect sense to me; "you" cut "it" like a knife would cut something - although I do agree that the song is pretty bad lyrically. My least favorite bit from that song comes soon afterward: "Why can't we just be friends, stop living a lie." Both of those phrases are super cliche to the point of barely meaning anything at all. Come on, you can write something more meaningful than that.

Body Language is a pretty obvious choice for dreadful lyrics.

A lot of lines in Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon don't make much sense (you don't "go painting in the Louvre," and why are you proposing four days after your honeymoon?) although I kind of have the feeling that it's supposed to be that way.

I tend to find that The Show Must Go On has pretty lazy lyrics for the most part, which is kind of unfortunate. Jesus is even lazier, although I love both songs musically so they can be forgiven.

On the opposite end, I think We Will Rock You's lyrics are kind of underrated, or at least under-appreciated. They're really good.

"cut it like a knife" is a bad example to use
it's actually a very good lyric - it means "cut it like a knife would cut it"

worst by miles must be "call me sweet, like i'm some kind of cheese"

"Cars don't talk back, they're just four wheeled friends now" brought to you by Sesame Street and the letter 'C'. And the part in Too Much Love Will Kill You where anybody's lips are moving.

I totally get that the "cut it like a knife" lyric could mean that the [i]person[/i] is like a knife, i.e., the one doing the cutting, but the way it's written strongly suggests, to me at least, that the life, i.e. the thing being cut, is like a knife. It's really clunky. Grammatically and lyrically.

I knew the Sweet Lady 'cheese' line would come up, as it so obviously stands out within that song. But that has to be intentional. Same with 'people with guns' in POTF. They may not be pretty lyrics, but I'm pretty sure Bri and Fred knew what they were doing with those lines. They were deliberately hammed-up, in ironic, sarcastic kind of way.

Friends will be friends,
When you're in need of love they give you care and attention,
Friends will be friends,
When you're through with life and all hope is lost,
Hold out your hand cos friends will be friends right till the end

After hearing this I would kill myself if Freddie hadn't pleaded that I:
Don't try suicide
Just gonna hate it(I like the music though)

And any part of "Pain Is So Close To Pleasure" - shameful, embarrassing, nauseating...

I agree that the verses of WWRY are great, even more so thanks to Freddie's delivery.

In only seven days is awful

Sorry Mooghead... I kinda like the feeling I got while listening to 'In only seven days'... I can see the whole story happening...

Musically and lyrically it isn't that great, I admit.... But awful.... no, not for me :-)

One Year Of Love has repetitive verses, which is against the band's tradition to keep the various sections of the song different either lyrically or musically.

How could I not mention Don't Lose Your Head?

Awful doesn't even come close.

Aside from the absolute dearth of content, and saying Don't Lose Your Head about 18,000 times, what the fuck was Roger thinking of when he added "Don't drink and drive my car, don't get breathalised"?

Ugh.

I think I've said this before - In Only Seven Days, with its absurdly simplistic lyrics, actually tells a pretty vivid story to me, probably because of it. But yeah, the lyrics are bad.

I think 'cut it like a knife' is still pretty bad. For me, it always brought to mind trying to cut a knife, and I'm clearly not the only one. Ideally I wouldn't want to be going over a lyric in my head just so it can make any sense.

Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon is wonderful in my opinion. The lyrics are ridiculous and eccentric, but so is the music. It's clearly not them taking themselves seriously, and it comes across fantastically because of it. This is in stark contrast with something like Let Me Live - trying their hardest to be poignant, and being horribly undercut by what's probably their most cringe-worthy set of lyrics ever.

WWRY has excellent lyrics in my opinion. We Are The Champions also manages to almost avoid sounding cliche'd, too (apart from the choruses, but even then, it's tongue in cheek so it doesn't bother me much).

Sorry, but Headlong for me is terrible, love the musicality of it, but the lyrics drive me nuts, but not as much as the mess that was Still Burnin:-

Still burnin
Still turnin
Still yearnin
Still jivin
Still drivin
Sky divin

WTF????

[QUOTE] [b]Bohardy wrote:[/b]

I think it fair to say that Queen are/were not renowned for writing deep and meaningful lyrics. And the corollary of that is that they wrote some damn awful ones.[/QUOTE]

I've never really thought about this a whole lot. A lot of their songs have a lot of meaning to me personally and I've enoyed thinking about their meanings and reading other people's takes on the songs. Songs like Liar, White Queen, In The Lap Of The God's... Revisited, Bohemian Rhapsody, and Teo Torriate, just to name a song off of a few albums. I guess their lyrics aren't aesthetically pleasing like a lot of pop music's lryics are, but they hold a lot of value. They definitely do have some bad lyrics, though...

I think Brian wrote the best lyrics. And the worst ones. I guess it's a mood thing.

Not lazy lyrics - but a nice example of a transferred epithet: "Thunder bolts and lightning..." There is no such thing as a thunderbolt, a lightening bolt however is a natural electrical phenomenon!

You can get lightening, and bolts of lightening, and even lightening bolts. You can even get lightening without the thunder.
Likewise the thunder is the rain which sometimes accompanies the lightening.

You can even get thunder on it's own without the lightening.

But thunderbolts - no!