Illogical Lyrics

[Robert]

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.

[Limehouse]

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?

[Ben]

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.

[KatBradshaw]

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

[Phil Carter]

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

[DVV]

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

Tom Waits

[Graham]

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

[johns]

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.

[Graham]

Perfectly logical to me, John....

Who are The Cult, by the way?

Graham

[kensei]

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.

[kensei]

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"

[Limehouse]

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!

[Stephen Thomas]

How to write a song

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

And rhyming lyrics.

[Robert]

"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."

[Robert]

"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.