#4: Bad Lyrics

-The history of popular music is absolutely heaving with lyrical shockers.

-Some bad lyrics are offensively poor, some just mildly comical. For instance, though I’m certain it’s unintentional, I’ve always felt that verse three of Jailhouse Rock is slightly - or rather, screamingly - gay. I’m talking about the bit where Number 47 tells Number 3 “you the cutest jailbird I ever did see”. If we’re assuming that this is an all-male prison (which we are, because mixed-gender prisons only exist in exploitation films), then I presume you catch my drift. It might also be the only potential reference to the very serious and totally neglected issue of male prison rape ever made in a US Billboard Number 1 single.

"I'm gonna stick around - I wanna get my kicks!"

This is a fairly sinister line, given the men-in-a-Southern-States-prison context.

Say it to yourself in a Deliverance-style 'squeal piggy!' accent and feel the shudders.

-But pop music is made for, and appreciated by the masses, and to pick apart all its lyrical content would be unfair, pointless and time consuming. I’m not going to start wading through ‘oh oh oh baby’ type stuff trying to make wittily scathing remarks about it, because the results would be similar to that of getting impaled falling out of a pear tree: unamusing, and ultimately fruitless.

-Independent and underground music is where the truly bad lyrics are at.

-Musicians and performers who self-impose exemption from the mainstream are inherently attaching themselves to a notion of artistry, as opposed to popular appeal and record sales. So when their lyrics are bad, it’s far more painful than when Lil’ Wayne tells us that his Maybach is ‘all black’, and thus sitting in it is like ‘sitting in an asshole’. 

I get a real kick out of Weezy, but his verse here, like the rest of 

his ouvre, reminds me why we no longer buy CDs.

Almost as good as the Rick Ross joint in which the 'big boss' compares himself to John Lennon,

whilst boasting about his gun collection, from a wheelchair with spinning rims.

-It would be nice if the music and lyrical output of underground and independent artists could act as an antidote to such uninspired numskullery. Also, it should really constitute a decent grounds for justifying the fact that they don’t get paid a lot for making it, and should probably have a proper job, like oral hygienist or haberdasher’s assistant. When the lyrical output is out of wack, I get irritated. 

I have some examples:

-I (like everybody else who writes a blog) am a massive fan of J-Dilla (though I can’t stand people who over-egg the pudding on this topic – he was a wonderful producer, but he didn’t change my life, and I’m not convinced he changed yours, so take that t-shirt off). And I love both Slum Village albums as though they were my own well-behaved children. But some of the lyrics are a pretty suspect.* This one is arguably the most feeble attempt I have ever heard at trying to get a woman to sleep with you;

You’re sexy, girl - and also quite confident. /

You could sell goods and probably market it.

Tell Me – Slum Village

Not only is the lucky girl told that she’s sexy, but also that she’s ‘quite confident’. Pretty raunchy stuff. And the second line, which I sadly interpret as MC Baatin really going in for the kill, sounds like the way Rainman would try to seduce a woman if he’d been unable to get out much in the last few months due to studying for his degree in Business Management. I reckon there are very few men who could get laid by informing a woman that, if she was interested, it’s likely she might be able to scrape some career selling unspecified ‘goods’.

*Despite what’s said here, I am genuinely a great SV fan, 

and acknowledge that the untimely deaths of two of the group’s 

members is a real tragedy for modern music. The production here is,

as ever, tremendous. The lyrics are just slightly less than tremendous.

-Next;

When the cactus are in full bloom /

I’m gonna ask you to be my wife.

Fortune Teller – Forest Fire

Aesthetically, this band subscribe to a particular hipster template, which will be familiar to those who have ever spent 5 minutes in Santa Cruz. Something along the lines of ‘we look like earthy, tinker-ish, wandering poet types who live an anachronistic lifestyle which is part Chekhov play, part 1970s commune – but we do all have subscriptions to Wallpaper’. 
-The plural of ‘cactus’ is ‘cacti’, as most people are aware. Thus, unfortunately, in attempt to sound esoteric and kooky, they have made the massive gaffe of totally fucking up their grammar. Unless it was an attempt at Jamaican patois - in which case it's still phrased incorrectly. 
-Also, the line, unsubtly wrapped up in creaky allusion to Pueblo Indian culture, renders itself totally redundant anyway. Telling a woman up front that you have plans to ask her to be your wife, not right now, but at a more significant and romantic point in the future, sort of shits on the romantic element you were holding out for in waiting for the CACTI to reach full bloom.

There's no excuse for this absolutely dismal performance.

If you have to try your hand at twee 'nordic-woolly-sweater' indie pop,

then lock yourself in an icy cabin in the middle of nowhere and do it

properly, like Bon Iver (who also happens to have a dodgy lyric somewhere about 

parking tickets, embedded in an otherwise heart-wrenching 

love song about the futility of romantic expectations and the pain of loss). 

-I could dig out a lot more examples, but I’ve had enough of this now. 

In general, bad lyrics are bad. But worse from artists whose ‘cool’ factor tricks us into believing that they might know better.