CRACKED.com picked "The 20 Worst Rhymes In Pop Music History (and Stereogum pointed out the list to us), so we started thinking of our least faves. Turns out there are TONS of horrible lyrics out there. Who knew?! Everyone, as you can see from EW.com staffers’ picks below.
Gary Susman picked his right away: A hustle here and a hustle there/New York City’s the place where from Lou Reed’s "Walk on the Wild Side." We do not end sentences with where! Even though I just did. He also can’t stand But she never lost her head/Even when she was giving head, and neither can I, but I always thought that was because I’m an angry feminist. NOT SO! Or maybe Gary is an angry feminist.
Sophia Asare hates when lines end in the same word or grunt, like Juvenile’s "Back That Thing Up" (Girl you workin with some back yeah, you bad yeah/Make a brotha spend his cash yeah, his last yeah/Girls frown when you pass yeah, they mad yeah/You gon’ ride in the Jag yeah). Which reminds me, I hate hate HATE product placement in songs. It’s rampant today, but I’m remembering some particularly lame rhymes from "Baby Got Back": She’s sweat, wet/Got it goin’ like a turbo ‘Vette, and So your girlfriend rolls a Honda, playin’ workout tapes by Fonda/But Fonda ain’t got a motor in the back of her Honda. What?
Mike Slezak has beef with "London Bridge"’s VIP ’cause you know I gotta shine/I’m Fergie-Ferg and me love you long time. Duh. He’d like to specify here that he’s still really obsessed with Fergie.
I’ve always hated the part in "Straight Up" when Paula Abdul sings, Are you more than hot for me/Or am I a page in your history — book? I was a little brat back when that came out and occasionally plugged my ears for the word book; other times I clenched my teeth and thought, If I will it to happen hard enough, maybe this time she won’t say book. Who was I kidding?
What do you guys think? And did I ever mention that I don’t like cities, but I like New York/Other places make me feel like a dork?
Comments (1-30) of 96 Add your comment
Ricky Martin’s Livin La Vida Loca..
She’s into superstitions black cats and voodoo dolls.
I feel a premonition that girl’s gonna make me fall.
…She’ll push and pull you down, livin la vida loca
Her lips are devil red and her skin’s the color mocha
…Woke up in New York City in a funky cheap hotel
She took my heart and she took my money
she must’ve slipped me a sleeping pill
doll rhymes with fall?!?! hotel with pill!?! come on! this is one loco lyrics if i may say so.
Steve Miller Band’s “Take The Money and Run.” I cannot believe this verse didn’t make the top 20:
Billy mack is a detective down in texas
You know he knows just exactly what the facts is
He aint gonna let those two escape justice
He makes his livin off of the peoples taxes
Ladies and gentlemen, the immortal Rick Springfield:
You know, I feel so dirty
when they start talking cute
I wanna tell her that I love her,
but the point is probably moot
While I have nothing against the Barenaked Ladies I’ve always wondered what the hell this means from “One Week”:
“Chickity china the chinese chicken
You have a drumstick and your brain stops tickin”
Is it a commentary on msg in Chinese food?
ABC – That Was Then But This Is Now:
“Can’t complain, musn’t grumble
Help yourself to another peace of apple crumble”
LFO – Summer Girls. Best. Lyrics. Ever.
Hip Hop Marmalade spic And span,
Met you one summer and it all began
You’re the best girl that I ever did see,
The great Larry Bird Jersey 33
When you take a sip you buzz like a hornet
Billy Shakespeare wrote a whole bunch of sonnets
Call me Willy Whistle cause I can’t speak baby
Something in your eyes went and drove me crazy
Now I can’t forget you and it makes me mad,
Left one day and never came back
Stayed all summer then went back home,
Macauly Culkin wasn’t Home Alone
Fell deep in love,but now we ain’t speaking
Michael J Fox was Alex P Keaton
When I met you I said my name was Rich
You look like a girl from Abercrombie and Fitch
Easy..
DEAD OR ALIVE – “LOVER COME BACK TO ME”
“I’ve been lying here so lonely
I’ve been wishing you would telephone me”
Case closed.
The lyrical rhyme that i absolutely hate: (and by absolutely hate i mean absolutely LOVE!):
What’s wrong with the world, mama?/
People acting like they don’t have no mamas.
But nothing is worst than the song in Dreamgirls, that went something like: “We are a family, our love is like a tree, hovering over me….” That’s not exactly how it goes, but i did try to block most of it out…
I’ve always loved/hated the Jimmy Buffett Boat Drinks rhyme:
I know I should be leaving this climate.
I got a verse but can’t rhyme it.
Of course, the rest of the chorus has an interesting mix of rhymes:
Twenty degress and the hockey games on.
Nobody cares; they are way too far gone,
screamin’ “Boat drinks,” somethin’
to keep them all warm.
This morning I shot six holes in my freezer.
I think I got cabin fever.
Somebody sound the alarm.
I’d like to go where the pace or life’s slow.
Could you beam me somewhere, Mister Scott?
Any old place here on Earth or in space.
You pick the century and I’ll pick the spot.
Arts, in any form, are supposed to shock or derange people. The more you attack or do critics on them, the more they are worth existing. For example, the statue of Liberty is a great work of art, it describes desire of justice and freedom but the joke is: it was put down in a land that survived on Natives genocides. Any other questions?
My sister went thru a Staind faze, and
I hope you’re not intending
To be so condescending
From “Right Here”
drives me insane for some reason.
Canonfodder stole my thunder. Take the Money & Run has the worst rhyme ever.
I’ve always laughed how Nickelback is able to rhyme “sorry” with “story” in “How you remind Me.” Those wacky Canucks and their ridiculous Canadian accents!
Speaking of Canucks, Sarah, that Barenaked Ladies’ lyric in “One Week” referred to a chicken scare in China during the late 90’s. I think a bunch of people over there died from eating contaminated fowl – don’t really remember all the details.
I think putting Mariah Carey on the list is pretty ridiculous. yeah, the line is lame, she didn’t even write or sing the lyric (it’s Mystical rapping it). It seems like a pretty cheap shot to me.
Oooh, I was gonna say LFO’s “Summer Girls” also!
The entire song has awful, awful lyrics. I hated that song.
Rico y Suave by Gerardo. You may want to take a shower after listening to this song:
“I’m used to good ol’ fashioned
Homestyle Spanish cooking
If i try that I’ll be puking”
Hands down – “Whatta Man,” Salt ‘N’ Pepa.
“And yes, it’s me that he’s always
choosin’
With him I’m never losin’,
And he knows that my name is not Susan…”
Um…what? Susan?
Hands down… Patrick Swayze’s “She’s Like the Wind” from Dirty Dancing:
“Am I just fooling myself
That she’ll stop the pain
Living without her
I’d go insane”
Yikes.
“When the dogs begin to smell her. Will she smell alone?”
Stone Temple Pilots, Plush
Eminem, “When I’m Gone”:
“Have you ever loved someone so much, you’d give an arm for?
Not the expression, no, literally give an arm for?”
Wait – what?
“He also can’t stand But she never lost her head/Even when she was giving head, and neither can I, but I always thought that was because I’m an angry feminist.” Feminism? HE WAS A SHE! HAVE YOU NOT LISTENED TO THE SONG?!!! Maybe you’re an angry chauvinist.
Juvenile’s “Back That Thang Up,” has already been mentioned. That reminded me of Juvenile’s first hit “Huh.” The entire song consists of each verse ending in “Huh.”
Juvenile and Diddy are the two worst rappers ever. That’s right, even worse than Vanilla Ice (and I can’t stand that sucka!).
For utter weirdness, it’s hard to top “Just like Kathie Lee needed Regis/That’s the way I need Jesus.” Breaks the mood just a little bit.
Another rhyme that deserves mention for being astronomically illiterate is this one from Lenny Kravitz’s “Fly”: “Let’s go and see the stars/The Milky Way, or even Mars.” Right Lenny, because Mars is SO much harder to get to than the stars.
I love this song, but these lines in Teenage Fanclub’s “The Concept” have always bugged me:
“When she’s at the gig, she takes her car
And she drives us home if it is in a bar”
If she’s at the gig, where’s she taking her car? And that “if it is in a bar” is about as clunky as Wesley Willis.
I always thought that the line in “You’ll Think of Me” was “take your CAT…”
Am having 80’s flashbacks…
She used to be a diplomat/But now she’s down the laundromat – the immortal Spandau Ballet, Highly Strung
In the back of my head I heard distant feet/Che Guevara and Debussy to a disco beat – Pet Shop Boys Left to My Own Devices – true classics
I love Walk on the Wildside…leave Lou alone heh!
Regarding the salt-n-pepa lyric from ‘what a man’… whitney houston sang a song about a boyfriend stuck on an ex called ‘my name is not susan’
Most aggregious use of a product in a pop song would be J.Lo’s Cadillac shout-out in “Love Don’t Cost a Thing”. In the 80’s the worst lyric seemed to be in Van Halen’s “Why Can’t This Be Love”: “Hey I know / Only fools rush in / only time will tell / if we stand the test of time”, for it’s use of time twice… incredibly jarring. I cring over the attempts to fit ‘Fergilicious’ into rhymes. (Except the ‘repeat it’ line– I thought that was witty.)
I know it’s not pop, and I may not have it quite right, and he is known for his simplicity, but here, ladies and gentlemen, is a real howler from Johnathan Richman:
Here come the Martian Martians
They’re baking up a Martian pie
I hope the Martians like me
And give some to I
Cracks me up every time…
Hands down winner — the lamest opening 2 lines ever. (The rest of the song is not great either.) Anyway, I give you Angel by The Dave Matthews Band:
I call you up
You pick up