They write the (bad) songs

I am a huge music fan, and I have toyed with the idea of starting a separate blog totally dedicated to it, but I’m too lazy for that. I can barely crank out one entry a week for this one.

Well, you get what you pay for.

I have decided instead to just occasionally post some of my musings about music here. Sometimes I will write about things I really enjoy, and about music that uplifts me and gives me chills and hope for humanity. Today is not one of those times.

I don’t have satellite radio or a CD player in my car, so when I listen to music these days, a lot of the time it’s via some “classic rock” station out of Atlanta, which plays the same Boston and Styx songs five times a day. And it’s made me realize that there are some really bad songwriters out there, so I decide to compile a list of what I consider to be the very worst.

I am aware that a lot of people don’t pay any attention at all to the lyrics in songs. I’m afraid I am a slave to them. My number-one complaint with what they play on country radio stations today is the lyrics are almost 100 percent asinine and stupid.

When I’m talking bad songwriters, I mean bad lyricists. And listen, I understand that not all songs have to be Dylanesque pieces of literature or great poetry. I like “You Shook Me All Night Long” and “Rock And Roll All Night” as much as the next guy. But those are just feel-good party songs that touch on the two parts of the trinity – sex and drugs. It’s OK to be silly when writing about those things.

I had a few qualifications in making my list. I am limiting it to what are considered rock-and-roll artists. Trust me there, there are plenty of bad country songwriters (Kenny Chesney, anybody?), and I can’t claim to understand rap and hip-hip to know what’s good or bad.

Also, I am picking from people who have been successful and have thousands of times more money than me. Yes, I am jealous. But that doesn’t make me wrong.

So here is my partial list of what I consider to be the worst songwriters, and some of the worst examples of their crap – er, craft. I am listing them in alphabetical order, which works out, because the one I consider the worst is at the very end. Here we go.


Jon Bon Jovi
Most egregious example:

We’ve got to hold on to what we’ve got
It doesn’t make a difference if we make it or not
We’ve got each other and that’s a lot
For love, we’ll give it a shot
- Living on a Prayer



This guy has made a living between adopting a wannabe-tough guy stance and breaking out the sensitive, love-has-wounded-me pose that still makes soccer moms across America weak in the khoulats.

His piece de resistance has to be “Dead or Alive,” in which he envisions himself as a cowboy, if cowboys wore eye makeup and teased their hair and rode groupies instead of buses. He sings, “Sometimes you tell the day by the bottle that you drink (If this is Hennessy, it must be Tuesday?), and sometimes when you’re alone, all you do is think.” I find it hard to believe that this song was the product of any actual thinking. Dead or Alive? Well, I think you know which way I’d vote.

Phil Collins
Most egregious example:

We had a life, we had a love, But you don't know what you've got 'til you lose it
Well that was then and this is now, And I want you back
You can run, and you can hide, But I'm not leaving less you come with me
We've had our problems but I'm on your side
You're all I need, please believe in me
- Something Happened On the Way to Heaven


First of all, this guy’s a drummer. Need I say more? He is the all-time king of clichés. I believe the song above sets a modern-day rock-and-roll cliché record.

Phil’s most famous song, and one of his worst (and that’s saying something), is “In The Air Tonight.” It features one of my favorite clichés, “I saw it with my own two eyes.” Really? Who else’s eyes could you possibly see something with?

Apparently an urban legend sprouted up that the song was about some tragic or sinister event Phil witnessed, perhaps even done by or to some unnamed prominent person. If only it was that interesting. Phil said himself, in a BBC interview, “I don't know what this song is about.” I know what it’s about. It’s about four minutes of drivel. (rimshot).

Michael McDonald
Most egregious example:

She had a place in his life
He never made her think twice
As he rises to her apology
Anybody else would surely know
He’s watching her go
- What a Fool Believes

A running joke in the movie The 40-Year-Old Virgin is that there’s always a Michael McDonald concert playing on the TVs in the appliance store where many of the characters work, and it’s starting to drive them crazy. I feel that way every time I hear one of his Doobie Brothers’ songs.

“What A Fool Believes” sounds like somebody wrote down a bunch a short sentences, put them on strips of paper and put them in a hat, then pulled them out and sang them in that order. It’s easier to follow James Joyce after taking an Ambien than it is to ferret out what he’s talking about. To be fair, he co-wrote that song with Kenny Loggins. Maybe Kenny’s responsible for all the really stupid lines. How do you rise to one’s apology, anyway?

Steve Miller
Most egregious example:

I feel the magic in your caress
I feel magic when I touch your dress
Silk and satin, leather and lace
Black panties with an angel’s face
Abra-abra-cadabra
I want to reach out and grab ya
- Abracadabra

Ok, dude. Please never use the word “panties” in a song. It makes you seem like a pervert and it makes me uncomfortable. And is he saying there’s a face on the panties? Now that really would creep me out.

This guy wrote so many bad songs it’s hard to list them all. How about “Take the Money and Run”, in which he paints a sympathetic picture of Billy Joe and Bobby Sue, whose redeeming qualities are as follows: they get high, they sit around the house, they watch the tube, they rob people, they shot a man. Hey, I know writers have to give their protagonists a flaw or two, but this goes too far.

Steve Perry
Most egregious example:

She loves to laugh, she loves to sing, she does everything
She loves to move, she loves to groove, she loves the lovin things
- Any Way You Want It

The lovin’ things? Please don’t tell me he means, you know, gadgets.

Steve’s powerhouse voice and those ridiculous videos (“Separate Ways”) sometimes obscured how bad his lyrics truly are. I defy you to explain to me what the hell is going on in “Don’t Stop Believin’”. Apparently, the small-town girl and the city boy happen to get on the same train, admit, heading anywhere. But then they wind up in a smoky room (is this on the train? Like a dining car?), smelling wine and cheap perfume, and for a smile, they can share the night. Sounds more like the kind of place where for $50, they can share the night.

Then we have some strangers on the boulevard, and something called “streetlight people” living just to find emotion. I just found an emotion – boredom. Then in the last verse Steve switches from the third-person, omniscient narrator storytelling style to the first person – he’s working hard to get his fill, everybody wants a thrill, paying anything to roll the dice just one more time. I’d pay anything to never hear this song again.

Sting
Most egregious example:

It’s no use, he sees her
He starts to shake and cough
Just like the old man in
That book by Nabakov

- Don’t Stand so Close to Me

Seriously? You just rhymed “cough” and “Nabakov?”

I don’t know what was worse – the creepy ham-fisted “love songs” like “Every Breath You Take” (Hello, he’s a stalker!) or “Message In A Bottle”, or the pretentious crapola mysticism of songs like “Wrapped Around Your Finger” (Caught between the scylla and charybdis???) or “King of Pain” (There’s a skeleton choking on a crust of bread – I swear that’s the actual lyric). I guess what always bothered me most about Gordon Sumner – er, Sting – was the phony Jamaican accent he used to sing with.

Bernie Taupin
Most egregious examples (he gets two):

Say you don't know me, or recognize my face
Say you don't care who goes to that kind of place
Knee deep in the hoopla, sinking in your fight
Too many runaways eating up the night

Marconi plays the Mamba,
Listen to the radio
Don't you remember?
We built this city
We built this city on rock and roll!

-We Built This City


Mars ain’t no kind of place to raise your kids
In fact, it’s cold as hell
And there’s no one there to raise them
If you did.

- Rocket Man


Taupin, of course, was the lyricist for most of Elton John’s biggest hits, and he also penned the single-worst song in the history of rock and roll, “We Built This City” as performed by Jefferson Starship.

What you have in any Taupin song is a jumble of insipid phrases. It kind of goes to show you how talented Elton John was, in that he was able to disguise the banality and scratch-your-head idiocy of Taupin’s words with his singing voice and beautiful melodies. I mean, have you ever read the words of “Your Song” without the music? “But the sun's been quite kind while I wrote this song, It's for people like you that keep it turned on.” Try diagramming that sentence.

And he just made up things that sort of sounded like they maybe were real, but they were just figments of his imagination. There was no Crocodile Rock. There was no band named Benny and the Jets. Levon and his father and Alvin Tostig are all made up. Ridiculous.

There are some others who should make the list – Huey Lewis, Geddy Lee, Chris Martin, Dennis DeYoung - but I’m too lazy to go any further at the moment. Paul McCartney has written more than a few stinkers himself, but he was a Beatle and he wrote “For No One” and “You Never Me Give Me Your Money” so he can pretty much do and write what he wants for the rest of his life.

If anybody actually made it this far in the post and has any additions, I’d love to hear. And I promise I’ll do a “best songwriters” list soon.