The 1980s had some amazing music and some brilliant songs but some of the worst lyrics of all time. Here's a guide to just a few of them:
I’m in the mood
for dancing – The Nolans (1980)
Are
you really in the mood for chancing and romancing or are you just saying
it because they both rhyme with dancing?
What is chancing anyway?
Oops up side
your head – The Gap Band (1980)
Oops
up side your head? What’s the follow up
called? Oops down front your shirt?
D.I.S.C.O. –
Ottowan (1980)
A
novel idea for a song this, describing an awe inspiring disco dancer using the
letters that make up the word disco.
That and the fact she doesn’t just disco dance, she actually personifies
the entire genre – she is disco!
They begin by saying she is ‘D – delirious’, fair enough but is she
really ‘S – Superficial’? Well that’s
not very nice!
They
go on to say, ‘She is C – complicated’.
Well, I hardly think she needs a session with Sigmund Freud; she’s just
having a bit of a jive in the corner to the Bee Gees. The other things they describe her as include
impossible and disastrous. I hope I
never meet this woman. She never gets
described by anything beginning with O however. They get to that bit of the
spelling and just sing ‘oooooohhhhhhh’.
Maybe they should have used adjectives such as obstreperous and
overbearing? Just a suggestion.
Special Brew –
Bad Manners (1980)
Kingsley
Amis said of Carlsberg’s Special Brew that it had the ability to create
goodwill like no other drink.
Those
who have sampled its delicate bouquet can testify that they’ve probably lost
many an hour of their lives to bits of completely blank memories and confusion
about how and where certain tattoos happened.
Bad Manners decided to immortalise this dicey liquid in song with words
like ‘I love you, yes I do, ‘cos I know that you love me too’. The fact you think your can of beer loves you
right back is evidence enough that you really need to put the can down and have
a nap.
Ant Music – Adam
and the Ants (1980)
Who
knew that insects could play tiny drum kits and teeny-weeny guitars? Not really! The Ants I assume are Adam Ant’s
backing band. It was odd that he was
called Adam Ant, and his backing band were called The Ants so it was really Adam
Ant and The Ants; he was also an ant so they were all ants? It should have
just been ‘The Ants’ shouldn’t it?
Anyhoo, ‘Don’t tread on an ant’, Adam warns us, ‘he’s done nothing to
you’. Well, I had ants in my house once
and they were all over the carpet and I couldn’t help treading on a couple of
them because there were so many, see? If
only I’d listened to Adam because he then goes on to tell us ‘Don’t tread on an
ant, you’ll end up black and blue, you cut off his head, legs come looking for
you’. Do ants have eyes in their
legs? Can Ants come looking for you with
their legs? Google doesn’t think so. Phew, I might be alright.
Do the
Hucklebuck – Coast to Coast (1981)
There
are a lot of songs that tell us how to do specific dances. There’s ‘The Twist’, ‘The Locomotion’, ‘Fashion’,
‘The Clapping Song’, ‘The Time Warp’ and ‘The Hippy Hippy Shake’ to name but a
few. However, ‘The Hucklebuck’ is still
a mystery to most people on the planet despite the singers claim that ‘Here’s a
dance you should know!’. The most
bizarre part of the song comes when the singer gets all uppity and tells us
that if we don’t know how to do it than that’s our hard luck! Then proceeds to
tell us how to do it anyway! ‘If you don’t
know how to do it, then you’re out of luck!’ (there should have been some kind
of evil cackle in there somewhere).
Now,
there are several dances out there which are quite easy and fun to do like the Macarena
or The Birdie song or that one they do when ‘Saturday night’ by
Whigfield comes on. They’re harmless and
they pass the time between sundown and bed time when you’re on a resort holiday
in Spain. However, I defy anyone to show
me someone who has ever done, heard of or enjoyed doing the ‘Hucklebuck’.
If
you’ve never seen, heard or smelled anyone doing this inexplicable dance
yourself, here’s how it’s done (not that it has actually ever been done even by
Coast to Coast on Top of the Pops):
1.
Start twisting mad
2.
Move all around
3.
Wiggle like a snake
4.
Waddle like a duck
5.
A little bit of this
6.
A little bit of that
7.
Shove your baby in (as long as
social services don’t find out)
8.
Twist her all around
9.
Start shaking in
Pretty
sure that made up most of a chapter of Fifty Shades of Grey.
Hands up –
Ottowan (1981)
There
are only two times when you need to put your hand up. One, when you want to go to the toilet and
two, when you just don’t care. Ottowan
want us to put our hands up for this reason : ‘Don’t think twice or count to
ten, don’t take advice, don’t ask me when, just come my way, simply kiss me and
say: Hands up, baby, hands up! No use playing hide and seek for a week.’ English isn’t their first language so I’ll
let them off for that. However, when
they start the bit with the chat-up lines in it, I’m a little less lenient as I’m
pretty sure they know what they’re saying when they utter, ‘Let me be your
Romeo’ (famous classical character associated with love) ‘your wonder boy’
(famous classical character from Sega) ‘and your super champ’ (do they mean
super tramp?).
‘Let
me take you to the milky way, on a holiday.’
As space travel hasn’t yet been approved for civilians, and as we’re
already technically at the Milky Way, that’s not the best promise
to make someone. Might as well just put
our ‘hands up, baby, hands up, give me your heart’. Just make sure you’ve signed your donor card.
Favourite Shirts
- Haircut 100 (1981)
These
lyrics sum up the reason this blog exists perfectly. A decent little guitar riff and a jaunty
smile goes a long way because I can guarantee 98% of the people who heard this
on the radio in 1981 didn’t bother trying to work out what Nick Hayward was
saying, let alone what he was on about.
I think the lyrics will speak for themselves so here’s a small sample
and if you think they’re anything other than random words that had just the
right amount of syllables to fit the melody then you’re probably one of those
people who come up with elaborate explanations when your psychiatrist does the
ink blot test. You can’t fail to love
the amazing, ‘Never mind, someday Terry, feel the pain, hit, feel, rap, sweat’. And what about the amazing, ‘Why feel the
floor? Sweets for my way’ and the unforgettable, ‘Your favourite shirt is on
the bed, do a somersault on your head.’
Waiting for a
girl like you - Foreigner (1981)
Foreigner
: ‘I’ve been waiting for a girl like you’
Girl
: So, you haven’t been waiting for me, just a girl like me?
Foreigner
: ‘I’ve been waiting for someone new’
Girl
: So in other words, I’m like the girl you’ve been waiting for but all
you’ve been waiting for is someone who isn’t your old girlfriend?
Foreigner
: ‘You’re as cold as ice!’
Girl
: That’s not helping is it?
Foreigner
: ‘I want to know what love is’
Girl
: Well, you’re not going to find out from me. Bye!
The Lion sleeps
tonight - Tight Fit (1982)
‘In
the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight’, they tell us. Lions don’t sleep in jungles. They sleep on a Savannah surrounded by Giraffes, Antelope and other Lions. Also, Lions spend 20 hours a day snoozing,
two hours walking around looking busy and an hour eating. They generally hunt at night so there’s no
sleeping going on at all. Also, ‘in the
jungle, the quiet jungle’?? 57% of Planet Earth’s species live there so I doubt
it’s quiet.
I ran - Flock of
Seagulls (1982)
Now,
I might be missing something so I apologise in advance, but normally, when you
run away from something it’s because your fight, flight or fright mechanism has
just kicked in to try and protect you from immediate danger. The Seagulls tell us after each verse that
they ‘ran, ran so far away, I just ran, I ran all night and day, I couldn’t get
away.’ I think the ‘running’ is a
metaphor, or something, and the ‘couldn’t get away’ is because the thing that’s
scary is inside the poor man’s head but just listen to the thing he’s trying to
‘run so far away’ from :
‘I
never thought I’d meet a girl like you … with auburn hair and tawny eyes … the
kind of eyes that hypnotise me through’.
All this while walking ‘along the avenue’. Terrifying I must say; you’re not even in a
darkened alleyway nor does she resemble the Bride of Frankenstein. If you run when you’re faced with that
scenario, what are you going to be like in the queue for the teacups at the
local amusement park?
Hungry like the
Wolf - Duran Duran (1982)
Simon
le Bon is the king of using nonsensical phrases to fit the little melody he’s
just come up with. In the album track ‘To
the shore’ from Duran Duran’s first album, he tells us that ‘diamond stars
shine glitter bright, gorging your sanhedralites’. He goes on to tell us
that ‘glad stand pouring fruit trees and now they glisten on the
waterline. I’m moving Chrissie pretty
flowers in the shuttermaze.’ Well, now
you know what a random poet he is, you’re well prepared for the lyrics of this
1982 smash hit.
‘Darken
the city, night is a wire.’ How can that
even be a metaphor? Wire is a thin piece
of metal. How can the night be a thin
piece of metal? He then tells us that he
‘smells’ like he ‘sounds’. Well, you
sound like an 80s pop singer so I’m guessing you smell like one too? Next he tells us that because he is hungry
like a canid native to the wilderness and remote areas of North America and
North Africa, his mouth is ‘alive with juices like wine.’ What other juices are like wine? Port perhaps? Shloer? Grape juice? Your mouth
is alive with grape juice? Do you see
how ridiculous you’re being Simon? Stop it.
Iko Iko -
Natasha (1982)
Whether
the song comes from France, Italy, West Africa or down in the Bayou, it’s not
clear if the chorus is about gold, paying attention, love causing a king to be
born or God watching us. My issue is
with Natasha’s story about her grandmother and ‘your’ grandmother sitting by
the fire. Usually in such situations,
they’ll discuss ‘that lovely man who does the weather’ or how the weather was
cold that morning but warmed up in the afternoon and how late the bus to the
bingo was. However, the conversation in
the song quickly escalates and her Grandmother threatens to set ‘your’
Grandmother’s flag on fire. I bet you
didn’t even know she had a flag!
Fame - Irene
Cara (1982)
‘I’m
gonna live forever’, Irene warbles but then tell us ‘I’m gonna make it to
heaven’. How are you going to make it to
heaven if you’re going to live forever?
Also, ‘I’m gonna learn how to fly’?
The first thing you’re going to do when you find ‘fame’ is to get your
pilot’s licence? Very strange.
Don’t go - Yazoo
(1982)
‘Came
in from the city, walked into the door’.
Now you know it’s there, maybe try opening it next time?
Just what I
always wanted - Mari Wilson (1982)
If
you were to make a list of all the things you’ve ever wanted, then it might
include things that have just been invented (in which case, that can’t be
something you’ve always wanted) or things you could never hope to own that
would make your life decadent, luxurious or full of excitement. Mari tells us that she’s always wanted a mink
from Paris (I assume it’s a coat and not an actual mink as they don’t live wild
in France), a ring from Rome (famous of course for its rings!?), a tune from
Tenney (not so famous for his ‘tunes’ that bloke - not what you’d call a writer
of catchy jingles) and an Ashworth Snap (you could just take a selfie; it’ll be
very similar).
She
also tells us that she wants ‘a Picasso’ and that she wants to be ‘a
millionaire’. All fair enough I suppose
but the one thing she always wanted that baffles me is the very first thing she
mentions, the one thing that if someone asked you what you’ve always ever
wanted since you were old enough to realise you didn’t just want a plastic toy
from a rack in the Post Office, that there were bigger better things out there,
the things that you work all your life to be able to afford and now you’ve got
a record contract and a top ten hit, might just become a reality! What is that
thing? A taffeta dress! £6.99 on e-bay; what’s the matter with you?
Should I stay or
should I go? - The Clash (1982)
Some
questions just answer themselves. Like ‘should
I have a cup of tea or coffee. I don’t
like tea, but I like coffee’. It’s
simple. ‘Should I wear a spangly crop
top or a tailored suit to my job interview?
The job is in a solicitor’s office.’
See, you’ve answered your own question.
The Clash ask, ‘Should I stay or should I go? If I go there will be
trouble, if I stay there will be double’.
Sounds pretty obvious to me.
Electric Avenue
- Eddy Grant (1983)
Eddy
Grant’s to do list :
1.
Rock on to Electric Avenue
2.
Take it higher
1999 - Prince
(1983)
Not
sure what there was to celebrate in 1999 to make Prince want to party like he
was sixteen years older. Surely it was
more the advent of the millennium that was the reason for the party of all
parties? Also, when exactly is ‘Two
thousand zero zero?’ That’s not until
200000, in 198000 years time? Not sure
the planet will be here then let alone Prince records still being on the
playlist of Radio Zarg (or whatever the aliens that have taken over by then
will call Radio 1). The lyrics should
really have said ‘They say two thousand, midnight January 1st, party
over, oops out of time. Tonight I’m going to party like it’s December 31st
1999’. Shouldn’t it? And we haven’t even mentioned the fact he’s
got a lion in his pocket in verse three.
You can get arrested for that you know.
As for the next line where everybody’s got a bomb so he’s going to dance
his life away. Hope that works out for
you Mr. Nelson, I really do.
Is there
something I should know? - Duran Duran (1983)
If
you try to turn the lyrics for this song into a story, you’ve got one of the
lost episodes of Twin Peaks.
There’s
a man who has a hideaway in the mountains but he can’t remember where it is,
having ‘run out’ yesterday, needing somewhere to lay low. Unable to locate it,
he decides that maybe he’ll try again next year or maybe he won’t go at all, he
hasn’t decided yet.
‘There’s
a dream that strings the road’, sings Mr Le Bon not even sure himself what that
means before asking, ‘can you see in the snow’.
It’s not clear from the lyrics why it’s necessary to find out whether
vision in a snow flurry is a pre-requisite but it’s the next analogy which
probably goes a little bit further than it needs to.
We’ve
all met people who are a bit stubborn or a bit overbearing. It seems Simon has met someone who not only
provides music for malevolent spirits but is also so demanding a person, he
needs to build an underground bunker and stay there for six months. ‘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.’
Might have overcooked the analogy a bit there Simon.
Love is a
stranger - The Eurythmics (1983)
‘Love
is a stranger in an open car, to tempt you in and drive you far away’. Annie Lennox there demonstrating why you
should never take sweets off strangers and you should never ever go and see
anybody’s puppies.
Wanna be startin’
something - Michael Jackson (1983)
‘Too
high to get over’, sings the King of pop.
Could this be a wall he’s singing about? A world record attempt at the
pole vault? No, because it’s also ‘too low to get under’. So, it’s too high and too low? Ok, so you’ve riddled me this... put me out
of my misery, what is it? ‘You’re stuck
in the middle and the pain is thunder’, he continues, cryptically. Is the answer on the back of the record
sleeve? Is it said in a spooky voice when you play the record backwards?
Not
content with making me wonder for over thirty years what is too high to get
over and too low to get under, he starts insulting us all. ‘You’re a vegetable,
you’re a vegetable’, he sings. Alright
Michael, we’re not all Sherlock Holmes.
Hang on, what’s that? You’re going to tell us the answer? But you’re going to sing it in Duala, a
dialect cluster spoken by the Duala and Mungo peoples of Cameroon?
‘Ma
ma se, ma ma sa, ma ma coo sa’.
What?
Doesn’t matter, I give up.
Come live with
me - Heaven 17 (1983)
‘I
was thirty seven, you were seventeen, you were half my age...’ Granted, it’s been a while since you were at
school doing maths but surely you don’t think seventeen is half of thirty
seven?
Who’s that girl?
- Eurythmics (1983)
Science
has explained why hot things can sometimes feel cold, not that I want to bore
you with that here. Things can’t actually be hot and cold at the same time
however, despite Annie Lennox telling us that the language of love that falls
from her lover’s tongue is ‘cooler than ice cream and warmer than the sun’. Maybe it’s also too high to get over and too
low to get under?
Right by your
side -Eurythmics (1983)
Annie
Lennox is back again for a third time in
the same year telling us that if you ever find yourself in a mess that one of
the ways to sort yourself out is to ‘swing from limb to limb’. Is she on the monkey bars at her local park?
Maybe doing an assault course releases endorphins or something? She then tells
us that she starts to feel a little bit fruity when the person she needs to be ‘right
by the side’ of, sets light to her orange
crew cut. ‘I’m so full of desire when
you set my head on fire’, she yells.
Whatever floats your boat I suppose.
This charming
man - The Smiths (1983)
‘Punctured
bicycle on a hillside’. Inflatable
bicycle is it Morrissey? Even when it’s inflated it’s not going to get you very
far is it unless you fill it with helium and float off across the rooftops, but
then, you haven’t got a stitch to wear so you can’t.
That Was Then –
ABC (1983)
‘All
fall down, can’t complain, mustn’t grumble – help yourself to another piece of
apple crumble.’ The first part is taken
from ‘ring-a-ring-a-roses’ where we all fall down through losing our balance
because we’ve sneezed too much. Can’t
complain indeed, mustn’t grumble.
However, who knew you could forget all your worries with a subsequent
portion of a crumbly topped citrus pud?
The Reflex -
Duran Duran (1984)
Mr.
Le Bon is back with more nonsense in this number one smash hit from 1984. A reflex is
an involuntary and nearly instantaneous movement in response to a
stimulus. So I think it’s impossible to ‘bruise’
it which is what we’re warned not to do by the song. Pavlov’s research with dogs told us that once
a reflex has been established, we can’t ever ‘lose it’, so whyayayayayay don’t
you use it? Probably because we have no
idea what you’re talking about Simon.
According to the Durans, a
reflex is an only child in a park, in charge of finding treasure in the dark
and every little thing the reflex does leaves you answered with a question
mark. Fair enough Simon, you absolute
weirdo.
Once you’ve stopped reading
Lewis Carroll novels, I’ll let you get on with the second verse. ‘I’m on a ride and I want to get off but they won’t slow
down the roundabout’ That’ll teach you to go to an unlicensed fairground
on a patch of wasteland at the back of your council estate.
What’s love got
to do with it? - Tina Turner (1984)
‘Who
needs a heart when a heart can be broken?’, Tina asks. Well, if you’re going to use that logic, you’d
never own anything would you? Who needs
an I-Phone when an I-Phone can be broken? Even with an extended warranty?
Seven Seas -
Echo and the Bunnymen (1984)
The
Bunnymen? Is that a band of vigilantes with the powers of a radioactive rabbit? Hope so.
Anyway, Ian McCulloch, lead singer of said Bunnymen was once described
by someone I can’t remember the name of, as a vocalist
who could sing the phone book. If he
had, it would have been more coherent than this little ditty from 1984. ‘Stab a sorry heart with your favourite finger’,
he chirrups. We’ve all got a favourite
finger haven’t we? Mine is the first one
after my thumb on my right hand. What’s
yours? I bet you don’t want to go
stabbing hearts with it though, even if you are a surgeon trying to see
if it’s still working, however apologetic.
‘Paint the whole world blue’, he continues. I painted a radiator once, took ages it
did. The whole world? Where would you
get the paint? Where would you get a brush big enough? Finally though, Ian
tells us that he is glad to see his face among the seven seas kissing the
tortoise shell. What even does that
actually even mean actually?
Agadoo - Black
Lace (1984)
No,
I don’t have an issue with shaking trees and grinding
coffee, my beef is with the girl in the first verse. It’s entirely realistic to expect someone to
jump up and down and ‘to the knees’ but I draw the line at someone ‘selling
Pineapple, playing ukulele’. Playing a
tiny guitar requires the use of both hands and have you seen the size of a
Pineapple? They’re massive! She couldn’t be carrying them around with her, even
on a kind of utility belt. Never mind
that for now however because the singer goes up to said girl and asks her ‘Come
on and teach me to sway’. She replies, ‘Yes,
come tonight to the bay’. Swaying
lessons on the bay at night? Seriously?
Smooth Operator
– Sade (1984)
Sade,
pronounced ‘Sharday’ and not ‘Sadie’ as I insist on calling her, shows here
that her grasp of Geography is as weak as a puppet’s handshake, ‘.. coast to
coast, L.A. to Chicago’. Chicago is
nowhere near the coast. I understand she
needed a place name with three syllables to make the lyrics scan but what’s
wrong with ‘Rhode Island’ or ‘New Jersey’ or ‘Miami’ or ‘Key Largo’? They’re all on the East Coast. Chicago isn’t!!
Do they know it’s
Christmas – Band Aid (1984)
Yes,
it was hastily scribbled on the back of a cigarette packet in the back of a
taxi, but that’s no excuse for all the inaccuracies in this song, no matter how
much good it has done in the world. Boy
George claims that there ‘won’t be snow in Africa this Christmas time’. Clearly he’s never been to the top of Mount
Kilimanjaro. ‘Where nothing ever grows’,
he claims, apart from that massive Rain Forest in the middle, and ‘No rain or
rivers flow’. Isn’t the longest river in the world, The Nile in Africa? I rest
my case.
Kiss me – Steven
‘Tin Tin’ Duffy (1985)
Imagine
a world where a fermented grape based beverage is the pinnacle of all you’ve
ever dreamed about. When you wake in the
morning feeling a bit glum, you know that all you require is a sip of that
fruity hooch and all will be well with the world. Welcome to Steven Duffy’s world.
In
trying to let us all know how much a certain girl means to him, he needed to
let us know that her love was better than something, something that in itself
is pretty damn great and if something is going to be better than it, then it
must be pretty damn good. To most of us
it would be, ‘Your love is better than getting the top off a jar you’ve been
struggling with for fifteen minutes’ or ‘Your love is better than finding a
fiver in an old coat pocket’. To Mr.
Duffy he thinks ‘your love is better than wine’. Sorry, not possible. Nothing is better than
wine. Why else would people use phrases
like ‘wine o’clock’ and have those comedy selfies where the wine glass is
really close to the camera lens while they’re in the background looking like
they’re holding a glass fourteen times the size of normal? Why Steven, Why?
Round and Round
– Jaki Graham (1985)
All
I need do here is give you the lyric, let you make of it what you want and move
on.
‘Have
you ever wondered why you sometimes see me smile? It’s to tell you that I care.
And the best thing you can do is come and follow through.’
Take on me –
A-ha (1985)
Not
many people know this but A-ha’s version was a cover of a song by Yoda.
Lipstick, powder
and paint – Shakin’ Stevens (1985)
The
title not only sounds like an advert for the Make-up counter at Boots, but
could equally be misconstrued as a weird aisle at B&Q. Shakin’ sings it in such a good mood you can’t
help but be swept along by his enthusiasm; that is until you listen to what he’s
actually saying. None of it actually has
anything to do with Lipstick, powder or
paint.
‘There
goes my baby up a tree’, he warbles.
That’s an issue for social services if ever I heard one. ‘Let me put my glasses on, haven’t had such
fun since she’s been gone.’ If putting
your glasses on was the height of your enjoyment when she was here then you’re
best off rid of her if you ask me. ‘Taller
than a barnyard’, he sings next. How
tall is a barnyard? I thought it was an
area of open ground around a barn, in essence making it two dimensional. So yes Shakin’, ‘ten feet high’ is
taller than a barnyard.
We built this
city – Starship (1985)
We’ve
all gotten a little too
involved in the tombola at some point in our lives haven’t we, if we’re
honest? We’ve all gotten far too immersed
in the hook-a-duck or the ‘stand-the-coke-bottle-up-with-a-stick-and-a-hook’
too haven’t we? But for Starship to be ‘knee-deep
in the hoop-la’? They’ve taken that fete
they went to far too seriously.
The
walk of life – Dire Straits (1986)
‘Here
comes Johnny singing ‘I gotta woman, down in the tunnels trying to make it pay’’. Well that’s no way to treat your wife is
it?
Dktr Faustus –
The Fall (1986)
‘Horseshoes
splacking swallows hay-cart, cart-horse of the peasant blocking his path.’
Eh?
Nasty – Janet
Jackson (1986)
If
you’ve ever wondered what Janet Jackson’s real name is, then wait no
longer. She reveals all in this ditty
from 1986 when she tells us firstly that she wants you to ‘close the door if
you want me to respond’.
Ok,
the door is closed… why am I closing the door again?
‘Cause privacy
is my middle name’
Ah,
I see. So if ‘privacy’ is your middle name, what is your last name?
‘My last name is
Control’. She then clears up the last bit of lingering
confusion by telling us, ‘No, my first name ain’t baby’. And here’s me thinking that Michael Jackson’s
little sister was called ‘Baby Privacy Control’ all this time!
Word Up – Cameo
(1986)
‘Yo,
pretty ladies around the world’, sings Larry Blackmon of Cameo whilst sporting
a fetching red codpiece. I’m going to
assume he’s talking to the ladies that in his opinion, are pretty,
rather than those who are conventionally pretty or think themselves to
be pretty.
‘Tell
your brother, you sister and your momma too’.
Bit rude that don’t you think.
Basically Larry is saying my sister and momma aren’t part of the
original ‘pretty ladies’ he was calling out in the first line. Thanks Larry, you awful man.
Why can’t this
be love – Van Halen (1986)
‘Only
time will tell if we stand the test of time.’
Deep,
man.
Rain or Shine –
Five Star (1986)
Jackson
5 wannabes, Five Star were using some very strange syntax and odd analogies in
this 1986 hit to say that the subject of their affection would be the one for
them come ‘rain or shine’. The sentiment
is there but unfortunately, the execution is not. ‘From mañana to mañana’, they sing, which
actually means from tomorrow to tomorrow (not as I’m sure they mean ‘from
tomorrow to forever’ or ‘from tomorrow to every day after that’)? That’s only one day and it’s not even a
proper timescale. I wouldn’t be
particularly enamoured with someone who told me they wanted to be with me from
Tuesday to the exact same
Tuesday. They follow this up with the
sentence, ‘Do I am love you? Yes I do, do.’
Now, we all hate question talkers don’t we? Do we? Yes we do. But ‘Do I am love you?’ Well, was I am went
to find out, then we will been to finding were answers.
‘Robin
Hood and Major Tom’, they add, ‘all the super heroes rolled into one.’ Firstly, neither Robin Hood or Major Tom have
super powers and if you rolled all the super heroes into one, you’d have
someone who could go invisible, have laser vision and fly. That never ends well in my experience.
La Isla Bonita –
Madonna (1987)
‘Young
girl with eyes like the desert’, Madonna gurgles, allegorically. Are they full of sand? Do they have camels roaming
all over them, or are they just hot, like that ‘hot-eye’ you get when you know
you’re going to have flu really bad the next day? Whichever it is, I don’t think she’s going to
have a great time at the opticians later.
Pour Some Sugar
on Me – Def Leppard (1987)
‘Livin’
like a lover with a radar phone’, they claim.
How does a lover live and is it different to one that’s got a radar
phone? Why would you need a phone that sends out a radio wave to determine the
range, angle or velocity of objects in your vicinity?
Wishing Well –
Terence Trent D’arby (1987)
Among
life’s great questions about Butterflies (according to Google’s
predict-a-question-as-you-type-in-the-first-part feature) are ‘Can Butterflies
hear?’, ‘Can Butterflies bite?’, ‘Can Butterflies see?’ and my favourite, ‘Can Butterflies Cry?’.
I
was intrigued to find someone
had written a book all about the latter, then disappointed
when nothing in the book revealed whether in fact Butterflies have the power to
squirt water from their eyes or not.
Terence
postulated in 1987 that there was such a thing as a ‘wishing well of butterfly
tears’. I know they tend to gather on
those droopy purple bushes in autumn in their thousands, but even if they all
cried at the same time, would it be enough to fill a wishing well? Then I listen on and Terence continues to
tell me that such a thing as a ‘wishing well of crocodile tears’ exists too. Now, I’ve heard that crocodiles can’t cry, it’s
a metaphor which means someone’s crying but they aren’t really, or
something. So is the Butterfly tears
thing the same as the crocodile tears thing or can they both cry? Or can
neither cry? I just don’t know now. Thanks Terence.
Jive Talkin’ -
Boogie Box High (1987)
Not
entirely sure what Jive talkin’ is, with or without the ‘g’ on the end so I’ll
let that indiscretion pass. What I don’t
get is this : ‘With all your jive talkin’, you’re telling me lies, good lovin’
still gets in my eyes’. How can – erm –
how do you – erm – what gets in your eyes exactly??
‘If
there’s somebody you’ll love ‘til you die, then all that jive talkin’ just gets
in your eye’.
Seriously,
do you need a hanky and a mirror?
Valerie – Stevie
Winwood (1987)
According
to Stevie, the girl he’s singing about, ‘Valerie’ is either a photograph or
really really light because ‘she just blew away’. An unfortunate event one would think but
inevitable when Stevie explains to us that ‘she can’t be that warm with the
wind in her arms’. Chilly and
smelly I would have thought.
These Dreams –
Heart (1988)
‘I
walk without a cut, through a stained glass wall’. I think you’ll find a wall made of glass is
called a window.
The rhythm is
going to get you – Gloria Estefan (1988)
Gloria
paints a picture of a sinister and creepy, perhaps malevolent entity known to
all musicians as ‘the rhythm’. Now we
all know that Bootsy Collins has got the
funk, but who has got the rhythm? Not bass guitar players, that’s for sure. According to Gloria, ‘the rhythm’ is a
sentient being which will hunt you down.
She tells us that even if you ‘turn off all the lights … at night’ or ‘in
bed, throw the covers on your head’ and ‘pretend like you are dead’, the rhythm
will still ‘get you’. Helpfully, Mrs
Estefan puts a timescale on when this strange beast will conduct its hunting activities,
adding ‘rhythm is going to get ‘cha, rhythm is going to get ‘cha, rhythm is
going to get you, the rhythm is going to get you – TONIGHT!’ Well, I’ll be sure to sleep tight knowing
that, thanks!
The
only way is up – Yazz and the plastic population (1988)
‘The
only way is up’, claims Yazz. I’m pretty
sure there’s also sideways and back and forward but Yazz is a very wise pop
star so who are we to argue?
You are the everything
- REM (1988)
‘Late
spring and you’re drifting off to sleep, with your teeth in your mouth.’ If you wear false teeth, you really should
pop them in a glass of water by the side of your bed before you drift off to
sleep.
The Look –
Roxette (1989)
In
this late 80’s jingle, Per Gessle tries to take us on a journey through just
how ‘in vogue’ a certain lady is.
Unfortunately, he describes a woman who
would be more at home in a Salvador Dali painting than anything by Da
Vinci. Imagine if you will, a woman who
is ‘Walking like a man, hitting like a hammer, loving like a wild dog, naked to
the T-bone, banging on the head drum’ and my favourite, ‘shaking like a mad
bull’. Indeed, this woman certainly has ‘got
the look’, if that look is of someone you need to stay well clear of and ring
the authorities. No wonder she goes ‘na
na na na na’. Also, she is ‘tasty like a
raindrop’ too. Got flavoured rain in
Sweden have we Mr. Gessle?
Ride on Time –
Black Box (1989)
Heather
Small (who provided the vocals for this track) seems to be having one of those
moments when the alarm goes off at 6am and you’ve pressed the snooze button
several times. It soon becomes apparent
that it’s now half six and you’re going to be late for work. So she sings ‘Gonna get up, gonna get up,
gonna get up’. I wonder if she did get
to work ride on time.
The Best – Tina
Turner (1989)
Tina
wants to let the man she’s singing to know that she thinks he is absolutely and
unequivocally the best man of
all time. However, she either loses
confidence in her claims or
realises that she needs to hold something back because she adds a little caveat
on the end of her statement, just to make
sure her male friend doesn’t think he’s won the power battle in the
relationship before it’s even started.
‘You’re
simply the best’, Tina warbles, clearly affirming her stance on what she thinks
of him, ‘better than all the rest’. He
must be feeling a million dollars
right now, ‘better than all the rest?’, he thinks, ready to take on the world,
full of a renewed sense of self belief. ‘Better
than anyone’, she continues; ‘yes’ he thinks, ‘clearly better than anyone in the entire world
– I’m great me.’ Then she throws in the
caveat, ‘anyone I’ve ever met’. ‘Hang on’,
he thinks, ‘that’s narrowed it down to just the people you’ve encountered in
your life. So before, I was better than
billions of people, now I’m just the best of a couple of thousand? Great!’, he
thinks, as he slopes off to the interview for the job he now doesn’t get.
All around the
world – Lisa Stansfield (1989)
Lisa
has had a fight with her ‘baby’ (her boyfriend, presumably), he said things he
didn’t know and she was so bad that she doesn’t think he’s coming back. Now that things have settled down a bit, she
probably wants to go and see him, apologise, talk things through. He’s probably at his mate’s house, sleeping
on the sofa or he’s gone back to his mum’s for a few weeks until he can get
himself sorted. He’s probably waiting
for Lisa to text him to ask if they can meet up and talk things through. He’s probably not deleted her off his
Facebook yet so he keeps checking his messages to no avail. Why the non-contact? Because Lisa has set off round the
world looking for him. He’s about ten
minutes down the road from your
house
Lisa you complete idiot.
Hangin’ Tough –
New Kids on the Block (1989)
Bearing
in mind that these lyrics are being spoken at you by ‘men’ called Donnie, Joey,
Danny, Jonathan and Jordan (sounding more like Reindeer than gangsters), they
proceed to ‘threaten’ us all with various statements of violent intent.
‘Don’t
cross our paths ‘cause you’re gonna get stopped’, they talk. Well, only because it’s five against
one. ‘We ain’t gonna give anybody any
slack and if you try to keep us down we’re gonna come right back.’ These are some big words which I’m pretty
sure they can’t back up with actions. I’m
proven correct when they stop trying to act all belligerent and irascible then
start talking about doing some kind of jig whilst sending us all to sleep with
what they delusionally think is funk; ‘Just get on the floor and do the New
Kids dance … We’re gonna put you in a trance with the funky song’. Well, you got that bit right.
Get up – Technotronic
(1989)
Technotronic’s
to do list:
1.
Get up
2.
Get busy
3.
Do it
4.
Move that body
5.
Get down to it
6.
See you party
7.
Get my butt on the floor (or buy some worming tablets, one or the other)
The Power – Snap
I
might as well get it out of the way now because Turbo B came up with some awful
couplets in his rapping
life. ‘I’m as serious as cancer when I say rhythm is a dancer’ is one, which says more than I ever
could about terrible lyrics but in my opinion, his lyric from ‘The Power’ is
even worse. ‘Maniac’, he raps, ‘Brainiac’,
he continues, ‘winning the game. I’m the lyrical Jesse James.’ Really? He was an outlaw, guerrilla, gang
leader, bank robber, train robber and murderer.
Are you really the lyrical Jesse James? Really?
Read more terrible lyrics in 'The worst pop lyrics in the world EVER' available in paperback and on Kindle on Amazon here : https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01D0NLQBA/ref=x_gr_w_bb?ie=UTF8&tag=x_gr_w_bb_uk-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738
