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  • Illogical Lyrics

    I thought it might be fun for people to post examples of illogical lyrics. Here are a couple :

    The Sound of Silence :

    And in the naked light I saw
    Ten thousand people, maybe more

    Now, either
    1. The writer knew that there was a minimum of ten thousand people but thought it could be more. This seems unlikely.
    2. More likely : ten thousand people is itself an estimate. In which case, "maybe more" is unnecessary.


    Walking My Baby Back Home :

    She's scared of the dark so I have to park
    Outside of her door till it's light

    Hang on! He's walking his baby back home, "arm in arm over meadow and farm." So where does the car come from? The only solution seems to be that he means "park" as in "park himself" - but it seems a strange usage.

  • #2
    Great thread Robert!

    Any Dream Will Do from Joseph and his Amazing Technicoloured Dreamcoat

    I closed my eyes
    Drew back the curtian
    To [B]see[B] for certain
    What I thought I knew


    Well, obviously, if you close your eyes before you open the curtains you are going to see nothing so you obviously cannot therefore be certain of what you thought you knew. In any case, if was there to be seen all along, why would you only think you knew it?

    Comment


    • #3
      Hi Robert,

      I bought my brother a compendium of "Crap Lyrics" for Christmas, and highest on the crapometer was Life, by Des'ree.

      I don't want to see a ghost,
      It's a sight that I fear most.
      I'd rather have a piece of toast
      Watch the evening news.


      It is customary, when describing things that fill you with revulsion, to observe that you would "rather" do something even more outlandishly awful than the originally proposed "thing" as it serves to convey the full extent of your dislike for it. Blackadder's "I'd rather have my tongue beaten wafer thin with a steak tenderizer and then stapled to the floor with a croquet hoop" is a good example.

      Unless Des'ree has some terrible fear of toast, it follows that she misappropriated this literary construct somewhat in her quest to find rhymes for the word "ghost".

      Then there's Toto's Africa:

      I know that I must do what's right
      As sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti


      This utterly defeats the purpose of a simile, as it basically states that a mountain rises like...another mountain.

      Great.

      Comment


      • #4
        As much as I love them

        Queen's lyrics are mad at times!!
        I see a little silhouetto of a man
        Scaramouch, Scaramouch, will you do the Fandango
        Thunderbolt and lightning, very, very frightening me
        (Galileo) Galileo (Galileo) Galileo, Galileo Figaro
        Magnifico-o-o-o-o
        In order to know virtue, we must first aquaint ourselves with vice!

        Comment


        • #5
          Hello Kat, Ben, Rob. Limehouse,

          If one looks at some of the 60's stuff, the drug induced lyrics are "way out"..
          Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds is a mild example of them....even though it has been stated by at least two of the Beatles that the lyrics do NOT refer to the use of LSD.

          best wishes

          Phil
          Chelsea FC. TRUE BLUE. 💙


          Justice for the 96 = achieved
          Accountability? ....

          Comment


          • #6
            "Whistlin' past the graveyard
            Steppin' on a crack
            Mean mother hubbard
            Papa one eyed Jack...."


            Tom Waits

            Comment


            • #7
              You looking for illogical lyrics, then look no further than "I Want You" by Bob Dylan - one of his greatest-sounding songs especially when backed by The Band, but what the hell is it all about?

              Your dancing child with his Chinese suit,
              He spoke to me, I took his flute
              I wasn't very cute to him, was I?


              etc.

              Graham
              We are suffering from a plethora of surmise, conjecture and hypothesis. - Sherlock Holmes, The Adventure Of Silver Blaze

              Comment


              • #8
                The Cult song Aphrodisiac Jacket has these lines of nonsense

                Sittin on a mountain lookin at the sun
                Plastic fantastic lobster telephone

                Then later on we get....

                Aphrodisiac Jacket
                Napoleon machine gun


                Great song though all the same.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Perfectly logical to me, John....

                  Who are The Cult, by the way?

                  Graham
                  We are suffering from a plethora of surmise, conjecture and hypothesis. - Sherlock Holmes, The Adventure Of Silver Blaze

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Can I step in and answer this one? Who are The Cult? An English band first formed in the early 1980s with dynamic hits like "She Sells Sanctuary" and "Love Removal Machine" whose singer Ian Astbury was also chosen to replace Jim Morrison as singer in a revival of The Doors, billed as "The Doors of the 21st Century" along with original members Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger. Not that obscure.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Don't know if this qualifies as "illogical" but kind of wacky at least:
                      "Around Here" by Counting Crows-

                      "She parks her car outside my house
                      and takes her clothes off
                      Says she's close to understanding Jesus"

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by johns View Post
                        The Cult song Aphrodisiac Jacket has these lines of nonsense

                        Sittin on a mountain lookin at the sun
                        Plastic fantastic lobster telephone

                        Then later on we get....

                        Aphrodisiac Jacket
                        Napoleon machine gun


                        Great song though all the same.

                        "Plastic fantastic lobster telephone" sounds like a reference to Dali to me!

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          How to write a song

                          Intro, melody, chorus, middle eight, melody again, chorus again. Fadeout.

                          And rhyming lyrics.
                          allisvanityandvexationofspirit

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            "Suspicious Minds" is a song about a man whose partner is pathologically jealous. But "minds" is plural, and there is no evidence at all in the song that the man too harbours jealousies. The jealousy is all on the part of the woman. Therefore it should be "Suspicious Mind."

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              "Space Oddity" has some very strange lyrics. To start with, Ground Control seems to begin the countdown about 5 seconds after the astronaut does. Then, Major Tom steps through the door and leaves his capsule - and yet he is sitting in a tin can! I'm not too happy with the end, either. He's floating far above the moon, yet he says he's passed 100,000 miles - which isn't even half way to the moon. It would be more logical to say that he was still floating far above the world.

                              Comment

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