It’s Friday night. You just spent another arduous week at the education factory, and you need to unwind. Soothing music always helps, so you pop in your earbuds and commence chillaxing to Ne-Yo’s powerful ballad, “So You Can Cry.” You’re getting pretty into it, snapping to the beat, humming the gentle acoustic guitar lines, and then you start singing along. Your voice intertwines with Ne-Yo’s and your stress level finally begins to drop. Everything is going beautifully when you take a deep breath and deliver this heartfelt line:
“I won’t attend your pity party / I’d rather go have calamari.”
Um, excuse me? Suddenly this bittersweet R&B jam has morphed into an expression of love for a fancy appetizer. Fried squid with a side of marinara sauce is delicious, but is it more delicious than salvaging a relationship gone awry? Song = ruined. But before you skip to the next track, keep in mind that it too could suffer from a lack of lyrical inspiration. In fact, most songs are chockablock with clunkers, but it’s the convincing delivery and catchy synth hooks that make them tolerable.
Our advice is to enjoy your music exclusively as music. No matter how intriguing a song's lyrics seem, resist the urge to look them up online. You’ll enter a world of truly horrific faux-poetry and re-emerge with a new-found appreciation for classical music (but not opera—it’s Cliché City). Of course, Ne-Yo’s not the only purveyor of bizarrely bad lyrics. Here are some other recent utterances that make us cringe:
“Therapy” by T-Pain
Lyrics: “I don’t need your [redacted] / I’ll [redacted].”
It's hard to imagine anyone not wanting to give Mr. Pain their [redacted], but it's good to know that T has a Plan B.
"Human" by the Killers
Lyrics: “Are we human? / Or are we dancer?”
Well, you’re definitely not grammatically correct. How about we make “human” and “dancer” plural and then try to solve this identity crisis.
“Boys Boys Boys” by Lady GaGa
Lyrics: “Love it when you call me ‘Legs’ / In the morning buy me eggs”
Apparently Lady GagGa also went to the Ne-Yo School of Culinary Songwriting. She didn’t graduate, though.
“Feedback” by Janet Jackson
Lyrics: “My swag is serious / Something heavy like a first-day period”
After scandalizing America by baring her breast at the Super Bowl, we assumed there was nothing Janet could do to shock us. Then she wrote these lyrics, which are far more offensive than any nip slip.
“Dr. Carter” by Lil Wayne
Lyrics: “Swagger tighter than a yeast infection / Fly go hard like geese erection.”
Ok, we get it, people like to sing about the quirks of female anatomy. But you can’t just throw “geese” and “erection” together and expect anyone to let it slide. First of all, it’s the gander, or male goose, that gets the erections. That would have been one syllable too many, however, and you’ve got to keep your rhymes tighter than a... nevermind.
Do you care about song lyrics? Does it bug you when they stink?
Topics: Music, Celebs & Stuff
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