Cracked has put together a list of the worst rhyme offenders in pop music history. A lot like looking for sand in the desert, but it’s a fun game. (And its taken all our power not to rhyme so far. You’re welcome.) Here are some highlights. (Thanks, Ray!):
19. Jadakiss and Kanye West, “Gettin’ It In”
Don’t try to treat me like I ain’t famous,
My apologies, are you into astrology?
Cause I’m, I’m tryin to make it to Uranus18. Styx, “Mr. Roboto”
Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto,
Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto17. The Police, “Walking on the Moon”
Giant steps are what you take,
Walking on the moon,
I hope my legs don’t break,
Walking on the moon16. Foreigner, “Hot Blooded”
That’s why I’m hot blooded, check it and see,
I got a fever of a hundred and three15. Rod Stewart, “Every Picture Tells a Story”
On the Peking ferry I was feeling merry,
Sailing on my way back here
I fell in love with a slit eyed lady,
By the light of an eastern moon,
Shangai Lil never used the pill11. Michael Bolton, “Love is a Wonderful Thing”
The only thing a river knows,
Is runnin’ to the sea,
And every spring when a flower grows,
It happens naturally7. Red Hot Chili Peppers, “Snow”
Hey oh… listen what I say oh
I got your hey oh, now listen what I say oh1. Bob Dylan, “Ballad of a Thin Man”
You have many contacts
Among the lumberjacks
To get you facts
When someone attacks your imagination
But nobody has any respect
Anyway they already expect you
To just give a check
To tax-deductible charity organizations
“Ballad Of A Thin Man” at # 1?! That’s like our favorite Dylan song! Sorry Cracked, but that is whack. Yeah, we rhymed. Head over for the rest. Phish ain’t pop, otherwise “The tires are the things on your car that make contact with the road/The car is the thing on the road that takes you back to your abode” is a shoe-in. But it’s not like indie rock’s without blame. Any offenders come to mind? Un deux trois du mirror noir?
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Oh Keller oh oh oh
She gave us mirror she gave us a map
Oh Canner Row, oh oh oh
If seeing is right then look where you’re at (map and at don’t rhyme Jacksonville- sufjan stevens
Shes a waitress and shes got style
Sunday bathtime could take a while (what’s sunday bathtime) the boy with the arab strap- belle and sebastian
worst rock lyric ever, hands down:
You need coolin, baby, Im not foolin,
Im gonna send you back to schoolin,
-whole lotta love, led zeppelin
Everybody’s rapping like it’s a commercial
Actin’ like life is a big commercial
So this is what I’ve got to say to y’all
Be true to yourself and you will never fall
Beastie Boys: Pass The Mic
ian-
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assonance
2. it’s rather easy to go through every song ever and pull out couplets and ask what certain seemingly nonsensical phrases mean.
I think they missed one of the worst of all time…
Give a dog a bone, leave a dog alone
let a dog roam and he’ll find his way home
Home of the brave, my home is a cage
and yo I’ma slave til’ my home is a grave
DMX “Ruff Ryderz Anthem”
Really, the entire verse (and arguably everything DMX has ever done) could be eligible for submission, but that’s the worst part right there.
Ian, it’s called slant rhyme. No, “map” and “at” don’t rhyme, but the both have a pretty compatible consonant sound to them. Plus, slant rhyme can add meaning to a phrase. Because “map” and “at” don’t rhyme there might be something more to how those words relate. Does the image of the map and the image of your person looking at “where you’re at” really fit together? I don’t think that they do. Therefore, Sufjan is saying that we’ve must have lost our way on Keller’s map. (Whatever that is…) Read closely. Some pop music is more intelligent and readable than you think.
They choose the wrong Steve Miller song, they should have chosen this gem from “Take the Money and Run”
“They headed down to, ooh, old El Paso
That’s where they ran into a great big hassle”
Even better, same song
“Billy Mack is a detective down in Texas
You know he knows just exactly what the facts is
He ain’t gonna let those two escape justice
He makes his livin’ off of the people’s taxes”
Oh, Steve miller, you rogue.
Haha. We were just laughing about #7 last night. “Listen what I say oh”. Fucking please. I didn’t think RHCP could get any more ridiculous, and then they come out with shit like that.
#8 Ram Jam – Black Betty is a cover, originally by Leadbelly.
This isn’t a rhyme, but potentially the worst lyric in all of music history.
Nelly, “Pimp Juice”….
“You ain’t from russia girl, why you rushin?”
where is “he was a sk8r boi, he said see you later boy”?
thanks for telling me how wrong I was.
here is the actual worsr rhyme ever in a song, albeit an obvious one :
to the extreme I rock a mic like a vandal
light up a stage and wax a chump like a candle
dance bum rush the speakers that boom
I’m killing your brain like a poisonous mushroom
deadly when I play a dope melody
anything less than the best is a felony
ice ice baby by vanilla ice (I know it’s more than one rhyme but robert van winkle earned it, )
Def Leppard – Pour Some Sugar On Me
“Red Light, Yellow Light, Green Light, Go”
no rhyme, but the smiths’ hand in glove opening lyrics are pure poetry:
Hand in glove
the sun shines out of our behinds
Speaking of Steve Miller:
“Abracadabra–
I want to reach out and grab ya.”
Also, anyone who rhymes “baby” with “maybe”.
Can’t believe they missed this one: Styx – Come Sail Away
“On board, I’m the captain, so climb aboard
Well search for tomorrow on every shore”
First they rhyme on board with aboard, then they rhyme aboard with shore. good song though…
New worst Dylan lyric, from ‘I Want You’:
“Now your dancing child with his Chinese suit,
He spoke to me, I took his flute
No, I wasn’t very cute
to him, was I?”
Makes me cringe every time. Specially with the over-enunciated ooooot sounds
Well this an obvious one, of course.
Look at this photograph
Every time I do it makes me laugh
How did our eyes get so red
And what the hell is on Joey’s head…
-Nickelback, “Photograph”
I still can’t understand how this song was a hit.
Now I know ya’ll be lovin’ this shit right here
L.. I.. M.. P… Bizkit is right here
People in the house put them hands in the air
‘Cause if you don’t care, then we don’t care (yeah)
1.. 2.. 3.. times 2 to the 6, Jonesin’ for your fix ’cause the Limp Bizkit mix
So where the fuck you at?
Punk shut the fuck up
And back the fuck up
Before we fuck this track up
if you be the nympho
i’ll be the nympho
50 cent – candy shop
the anti dylan people just aren’t getting his style, I love that line from I Want You about taking the flute and I wasn’t very cute, it’s always been a favorite of mine
Hinder. Pick any song. Pick any line(s).
“Fresh like, unhh; Impala, unnh”
The Game – this is how we do
I think that the rhyming grunts say it all…
It seems unfair to include anything from Dylan’s surrealist period, considering nothing he said during that point made a lot of sense within a specific context (or in this case, eight lines.) When you view the entire lyric to “Ballad of Thin Man” or “I Want You,” it makes more sense.
Argue on
Oasis – She’s Electric has gotta be up there:
She’s got a brother
We don’t get on with one another
But I quite fancy her mother
And I think that she likes me
She’s got a cousin
In fact she’s got ’bout a dozen
She’s got one in the oven
But it’s nothing to do with me
Oh and pretty much any song by Coldplay is guilty of rhyme crimes too.
Anything on the new Killer’s album is up there, as well.
http://musicoldandnew.blogspot.com/
Recent, but bad:
“Gifted like Christmas so I love to rap,
We gonna give it to the world peace, love, and Gap.”
-Common
Hey everybody take a look at me,
I’ve got street credibility,
I may not have a job,
But I have a good time,
With the boys that I meet “down on the line”
Wham Rap! — Wham! (how come everyone forgets about this travesty?)
Thanks, Nick, for describing slant rhyme elegantly so i didn’t have to.
My offering, and believe me, i love nick drake so much it pains me to blast him, but for some reason the chorus of poor boy just kills me… not his most inventive work i suppose
“Oh poor boy
So sorry for himself
Oh poor boy
So worried for his health.”
Ah, i shouldn’t have…
de mortuis nil nisi bonum
“i’m serious as cancer
when i say
rhythm is a dancer”
(worst.lyric.ever.)
snap – rhythm is a dancer
While it pains me to even bring it up, I still think pops #1 reigning rhyme atrocity – LFO Summer Girl
“New Kids On The block,had a bunch of hits
Chinese food makes me sick.
And I think it’s fly when girls stop by for the summer,for the summer
I like girls that wear Abercrombie and Fitch,
I’d take her if I had one wish,
But she’s been gone since that summer..”
“You love hip hop and rock n roll
Dad took off when you were 4 years old
There was a good man named Paul Revere
I feel much better baby when you’re near”
“Bugaloo shrimp and pogo sticks
My mind takes me back there oh so quick
Let you off the hook like my man Mr. Limpet
Think about that summer and I bug,cause I miss it
Like the color purple,macaroni and cheese,
Ruby red slippers and a bunch of trees
Call you up but whats the use
I like Kevin Bacon,but I hate Footloose”
“Summertime girls got it going on
Shake and wiggle to a hip hop song
Summertime girls are the kind I like
I’ll steal your honey like I stole your bike”
WTC- somebody please tell me this was all a big joke…
if someone can do better than this, I welcome the challenge..
When I think of bad RHCP lyrics, so many come to mind… however I always physically cringe every time I hear “around the world” on the part where he just starts spewing jibberish…
“I know I know for sure
ding, dang, dong, dong, deng, deng, dong, dong, ding, dang.
I know I know it’s you
ding, dang, dong, dong, deng, deng, dong, dong, ding, dang.”
I never knew if it was a bad attempt at an asian impersonation or what but that part always bugged me..
and also I am glad someone mentioned nickelback..
that has to be the most rediculous beginning to a song. EVER. HOW DID THAT MAKE MONEY?!
I am in the wrong business.
i always liked the poetry of TOO SHORT….
“when you see me rollin’
in my drop top caddy…
throw a peace sign
and say hey pimp daddy…”
from the album GET IN WHERE YOU FIT IN
biatch!
I’ll nominate my alltime favorite bad bad rhyme:
Come on everybody baby do the conga/ I know you can’t control yourself any…
…longa?
Miami Shite Machine
The doors. Light my fire. My problem with the song comes from a road trip it was on a mix disc i made. At about the 7th or so time we heard the song i realized fire does not ryhme with fire. I blame the drugs not morrison.
Funny, you always sang that song on Futurama.
I suggest the alltime classic by Burt Bacharach: “What do you get when you kiss a girl/You get enough germs to catch pneumonIA/After you do, she’ll never phone YA”
That Des’ree tune about “I’m afraid of ghosts / Expecially when I’m eating toast” or something to that effect. I remember getting really angry when I’d be in the car when I was younger and that song would come on. I’m actually feeling a colossal rant coming on at the memories of that tune so I better stop writing….
And as for that poxy chorus… No, don’t try to remember it, it’ll ruin your day.
At first when I see you cry,
yeah it makes me smile,
yeah it makes my smile
At worst I feel bad for a while,
but then I just smile
I go ahead and smile
-Armpit girl
This shitty lyric by U2 (from that Tomb Raider song):
“A mole!
Digging in a hole!
Digging in my soul
Going on an excavation
I and I
In the sky
you make me feel like I could fly
so high
ELEVATION!!”
AAAARRRGGGHHH!!!
here’s one from ‘the lady is a tramp’ which always gets my back up…
“she’s broke/ but it’s OK”
-the thing here is that “OK” is sung like the word “oak”, which really annoys me for some reason.
and there is of course “her ass is a spaceship i want to ride” from NERD’s ‘she wants to move’
There are some really awful U2 lyrics in “Beautiful Day,” I remember laughing about them in junior high because they were so ridiculous.
“See the bird with a leaf in her mouth
After the flood, all the colors came out.”
What? WHAT? Birds carrying leaves around? That’s cute Bono, really cute.
indie submission from rogue wave:
In this postage stamp world
You can all get in line
And lick my behind
i can’t take any list or person that would include dylan in a worst-lyrics type of countdown seriously. come on, people. he did more progressive and innovative things with lyrics during the 1960s than probably any other artist, and people are pointing out ‘bad rhymes’ of his? highly disappointing.
“if i could fall into the sky (what?)
do you think time would pass me by (what does that have to do with falling?)
cause you know i’d walk a thousand miles
if i could just see you tonight”
(again, what???)
This is small recompense for my father making me listen to Neil Diamond in the car together throughout my childhood.
From “I Am, I Said”
I am, I said.
To no one there.
And no one heard at all,
not even the chair.
I always put that in the same insipidly lazy lyric category as Elton John’s “Your Song,” when Bernie Taupin wedges in that whole, “then again, no” line in order to have something to rhyme with “travelin’ show.”
“Generals gather in their masses
Just like witches at black masses”
Black Sabbath – ‘War Pigs’
Depeche Mode are right up there for me, especially this, from “People are People”:
“People are people so why should it be
That you and I should get along so awfully.”
I’ve also long been fond of cringing to this line from Howard Jones’ “What is Love”:
“What is love anyway?
Does anybody love anybody anyway?”
I especially love the way he rhymes “anyway” with, um, “anyway.” Great use of the rhyming dictionary, Howard.
I vote any Home, alone, phone rhyme scheme.
and I say know no critical border cause we do what we want
got more funky styles than my laser jet got font
“Omaha Stylee” 311
Dylan is the master at paraphrasing and would make any one of those rhymes listed work perfectly.
I was going to vote for that rhyme from Dylan’s “I Want You,” too. I like him generally (and “Tangled Up In Blue” might be my all-time favorite), but those lines have always bothered me. My runner-up is “I will buy you a new car / perfect shiny and new” by Everclear. Urgh grrr ba-gurrrg.
“She used to be a diplomat / but now she’s down the laundromat”. Another reason to love Spandau Ballet.
Train’s Drops of Jupiter has the worst lyrics ever written..
selections:
Now that shes back from that soul vacation
Tracing her way through the constellation, hey, hey
She checks out mozart while she does tae-bo
Reminds me that theres time to grow, hey, hey
Can you imagine no love, pride, deep-fried chicken
Your best friend always sticking up for you even when I know youre wrong
Can you imagine no first dance, freeze dried romance five-hour phone
Conversation
The best soy latte that you ever had . . . and me
hi, my name is r. kelly, and i wrote this:
“He walks up to the closet
He comes up to the closet
Now he’s at the closet
Now he’s opening the closet…”
RHCP alone could be top 20
huge dylan fan here.. it’s just insane that those lyrics were number one, the man can make anything rhyme and sound good, as jayflyer said..
and the flute/cute rhyme is awesome.
So…no EVERYTHING EVER LOUIS XIV HAS EVER WRITTEN?
funny, i heard this the other day whilst driving and thought “jeezus, how dumb”
what I want you’ve got
And it might be hard to handle
Like the flame that burns the candle
The candle feeds the flame, yeah, yeah
other than that, i like me some Hall & Oates
Cracked is just a less funny mad magazine. LAME!
and the answer is: Anything the butthole surfers ever wrote. i.e. that bear went over the mountian song
hate to be the one to point out the obvious, but how about anything by future Depends spokesperson Fergie?
What about nearly everything spoken by Old Dirty Bastard?
From Wu Tang Clan’s “Shame on a Nigga”:
Hurry, I gettin it on, I let it out like diarrhea
Got burnt once, but that was only gonorrhea
Nobody calling on the phone,
except for the Pope maybe in Rome.
Like a Soldier by LIVE
“let’s go to ray’s, not to pizza hut, let’s go to the pig, not to starbucks, let’s vote for nader, what are we waitin for? i’m gonna live to be a hundred and sixty four to the crib then back to the studio to write a song so good make a midget grow from the north pole, down to mexico if you don’t know the words, fuck it!let’s go!”
Ed is a goddamn moron.
How could anyone forget Oasis classics like “Supersonic” or “Some Might Say?”
I know a girl called Elsa
She’s into Alka Seltzer
She sniffs it through a cane on a supersonic train
She made me laugh
I got her autograph
She done it with a doctor on a helicopter
She’s sniffin in her tissue
Sellin’ the Big Issue
or
Cos I’ve been standing at the station
In need of education in the rain
You made no preparation for my reputation once again
The sink is full of fishes
She’s got dirty dishes on the brain
It was overflowing gently but it’s all elementary my friend
Noel Gallagher has admitted to using a rhyming dictionary when writing lyrics. ‘Nuff said.
I like that they too a shot at Bob Dylan. Somebody had to knock him from his pedestal.
Here’s one for the indie kids:
Your house was very small,
With woodchip on the wall,
When I came round to call,
You didn’t notice me at all.
This egregious rhyme can be attributed to one Jarvis Cocker of Pulp, and the much loved song Disco 2000. It’s made worse by the fact that Cocker is known as on of the greatest lyricists of his generation.
we live in a wheel
where everyone steals
but when we rise
it’s like strawberry fields
bush–”glycerine”
even when i was 12 years old that lyric made me cringe. actually, that song is full of turds.
Lenny Kravitz, “Fly”
I wish that I could fly
Into the sky
So very high
Just like a dragonfly
I’d fly above the trees
Over the seas
In all degrees
To anywhere I please
…
“See the bird with a leaf in her mouth
After the flood, all the colors came out.”
Kelly, that U2 lyric is referring to Noah after the flood when a dove brought back an olive branch, and the colors refer to the rainbow as a sign of God’s covenant.
I will definitely second the Mike D bit from “Pass the Mic” as well as “all DMX stuff”– although I guess grunts do rhyme with grunts, and barks with barks, technically.
But, oh my god– I’m glad I’ve never heard that “LFO summer girl” song, that is awful in so many ways.
more from oasis:
Slowly walking down the hall
Faster than a cannonball.
Slowly? Faster? Which is it???
Oh, right, he was being “deep.” Ha!
what an idiotic list… how can they leave off abracadabra by steve miller? or everything by billy joel?
I submit Paula Cole’s “I Don’t Want To Wait” for your consideration.
“So open up your morning light
And say a little prayer for I”
Matt was close. The worst ever is certainly R Kelly from the “Trapped in the Closet” series, but I have to give it to:
He yells “freeze” dives over the table and lands on the midget…
while the midget is kickin real fast screamin out bridget,bridget
This line from Neko Case’s Hold On Hold On makes my skin crawl:
“In the end I was the mean girl
Or somebody’s in-between girl”
and the moon in June makes me swoon.
Interpol – Obstacle 1
“Her stories are boring and stuff
She’s always calling my bluff”
Any lyric that involves: A) “girl” and “world”; B) any word rhymed with itself.
no, the WORST rhyme of all time is this whiny piece of CRAP:
“don’t you remember you told me you loved me baby/
baby, baby, baby, baby, oh baby.”
THANK GOD they are over.
Adam was dead on with LFO. Every line is a joke. “I’ll steal your honey like i stole your bike.”
But theres some random Lillix song that always pissed me off “And I wake up, put on my makeup
Pick up the phone, nobody’s home
I need to break out, get me some takeout
Stand inside a crowd, I want to scream out loud”
Nobody recommended “I Smoke, I Drank” by Roy Jones, Jr?
Wow.
I enjoy the way the song sounds, but the lyrics (especially the lyrics of the chorus) are downright atrocious.
Here’s a sampling:
Say I’m a timer, diamonds all up in my watch piece
The whip painted chrome please make ‘em watch me
I smoke and drank wanna stop but I can’t
So I guess smoking and drankin all the way to the bank
I’m switchin lanes rollin up purple stank still
Sippin that purple stuff cause I’m addicted to drank
I smoke, I drank I’m supposed to stop but I can’t
I’m a dog
I love hoes
And I’m addicted to money, cars and clothes
How sad.
Whoever convinced him that “drank” and “can’t” actually rhyme…that person needs to be imprisoned for idiocy.
“My humps/my lovely lady lumps????”
What about Akon’s Smack that?
“Wanna jump up in my Lamborghini Gallardo
Maybe go to my place and just kick it like TaeBo”
How can you not want to blow chucks after listening to that! Painful, Painful, Painful!
The correct answer is:
“Even though you was a crack fiend, Momma;
You always was the black queen, Momma.”
Tupac Shakur
C’mon, that’s Tupac! The worst definitely goes to Snoop Dogg for “Drop It Like It’s Hot”:
So don’t change the dizzle,
Turn it up a little
I got a living room full of fine dime brizzles
Waiting on the Pizzle, the Dizzle and the Shizzle
G’s to the bizzack, now ladies here we gizzo
C’mon, that’s Tupac! The worst definitely goes to Snoop Dogg for “Drop It Like It’s Hot”:
So don’t change the dizzle,
Turn it up a little
I got a living room full of fine dime brizzles
Waiting on the Pizzle, the Dizzle and the Shizzle
G’s to the bizzack, now ladies here we gizzo
“Her name was Cheryl,
Black hair like electric space,
She would pretty paint my face.”
Sorry Chan. That song has always bothered me.
Gorilla/ cuntilla/ samonee and-uh samonilla
-RHCP
Maybe some of those are right but I know Ballad of a Thin Man has got to be a great song. That rhyming is part of Bob Dylan’s irreverancy