Since before Shakespeare asked if he should "compare thee to a summer's day," songsmiths have endeavored to paint the perfect picture of their lovers. But with the advent of the modern-day rock groupie, it's apparently become too damn easy for musicians to get laid. Just look at the following love song lyrics that span from insulting and lazy to downright creepy.
"One mile to every inch of
Your skin like porcelain
One pair of candy lips and
Your bubblegum tongue."
Oh Jesus Christ, John! You almost had it, too. The cliches sort of worked for a little while, but then you decide to venture out into the land of uncharted metaphors, and the best you can come up with is bubblegum tongue?
"Grab you by your coat tail take you to the motel, ho sale,
don't tell, won't tell ...
if you pick me then ima pick on you,
d-o-double g and I'm here to put this dick on you."
Certainly not a conventional love song, but the goal is the same, Snoop just happens to be a little more direct about what he wants to do to his lover. Unfortunately, Snoop's strategy for accomplishing that goal involves telling her that he's going to kidnap her and take her to a ho sale, which sounds less like romantic braggadocio, and more like a human rights crisis worthy of an international tribunal. From there he immediately tells the girl not to tell on him, giving off a creepy Kevin-Bacon-in-Sleepers vibe good for scaring off any non-hearing impaired woman within earshot.
And finally, Snoop, we're pretty sure it's meant to go "in" and not "on," unless we've been doing things wrong all these years (It should be noted that this is entirely possible).
"When you're buried in disguise
By the dark glass on your eyes
Though your flesh has crystallized;
Still ... you turn me on.
Every day a little sadder,
A little madder,
Someone get me a ladder."
We're not sure if it's the talk of rage that grows inside him each day, or the necrophiliac imagery of crystallized flesh, but by the time he gets to that last line, we can't help but wonder if the ladder is for the girl he keeps in the hole in his basement.
"As we followed in the dance,
Between the parted pages and were pressed,
In love's hot, fevered iron,
Like a striped pair of pants."
Women have been compared to many things. Roses, honey and now a pair of striped pants. Not just any striped pants however, but a pair that is wrinkled, and thus needs to be ironed.
"Won't need too much pursuadin,'
I don't mean to sound degradin,'
But with a face like that you got nothin' to laugh about."
Rod Stewart making comments on someone else's looks? That's pretty rich, Roderick.
It's a good rule of thumb that anything you could possibly say to a woman following the phrase, "I don't mean to sound degradin,' but ... " is good for a trip directly to dry-penis-ville.
"She's just 16 years old
Leave her alone, they say ...
As far as opening lines go, this one certainly qualifies as an attention grabber, especially when the guy singing it was 36 years old at the time it was released. Take out the 16 year old business and you've got one of the all-time great wedding songs. As it is, the song ends up feeling like a beautifully sung deposition, and Mardones is cursed to a lifetime of interviews explaining how he wrote his only hit about this guy he knew ...
"You should've known by the tone of my voice, maybe
But you didn't listen
You played dead, but you never bled,
Instead you lay still in the grass, all coiled up and hissing"
The chorus, with its promise to "keep on loving you," made this song a staple of those "As Seen on TV" love song compilation CDs. This verse however reads like bad poetry by a rageaholic husband from a Lifetime Channel movie. First he gets mad at her for not reading the tone of his voice correctly. Then the woman in question plays dead, presumably so he'll stop hitting her. But, as he points out, she wasn't bleeding. So, you know, he did her a favor. Then he calls her a snake, making this one of the most hate-fueled lyrical barrages this side of "Bulls on Parade."
But it's not REO Speedwagon's fault. He puts up with so much. Besides, REO Speedwagon only does it because he loves us so much.
"Havin' my baby
What a lovely way of sayin'
What you're thinkin' of me ...
You're a woman in love,
and I love what's goin' through you.
The need inside you, I see it showin'. Do you feel it growin'?"
But enough about me, let's talk about me.
Paul Anka finds out he knocked up his lady friend, and takes the opportunity to write a love song to himself. If this was really Paul's first reaction to finding out he was going to be a baby daddy, we'd imagine there's an unreleased follow up floating around in the Paul Anka catalog entitled, "You've Made an Appointment With an Abortionist."
"Your looks intoxicate me,
Even though your folks hate me,
There's no one like you Elenore really,
Elenore gee I think you're swell,
And you really do me well,
You're my pride and joy, etcetera."
While certainly not the most offensive of the lyrics we've listed here, it is the laziest, and thus the most symptomatic of the way men fail at the whole romance thing. Etcetera may well be the least romantic word in the English language, as well as the least poetic. We'd venture a guess that Elenore wants a divorce, etc.
"Remind me of something James used to say,
'I like 'em fat,
I like 'em proud,
Ya gotta have a mother for me,'
Now move your big ass 'round this way so I can work on that zipper, baby
Cus, tonight you're a star--and I'm the big dipper"
This was bound to happen. Prince writes so many songs about sexing the ladies, that one of them was bound to cross a line into the land of ball-kneeing idiocy. This verse violates one of the oldest laws of seduction: never comment on a girl's weight. Oh, and never refer to yourself as the big dipper.
Find out other reasons musicians should be ashamed of themselves in our rundown of Six Musicians With Pasts They Hope You'll Forget.
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