Dumb Lyrics

[dmaze]

Discussion over breakfast yesterday revealed that I do have the capacity to like some pretty dumb songs. REM's "Fireplace" was the example that came to mind:

Crazy, crazy world,
Crazy, crazy times.
Crazy, crazy world,
Crazy, crazy times.
Hang up your chairs to better sweep,
Clear the floor to dance
Shake the rug into the fireplace.

...and repeat, several times, each time throwing more furniture into the fireplace. I really like the music, so it doesn't bother me that the words are so incredibly dumb.

But this brings up the question: are there other songs that are reasonable songs, but their lyrics have almost no content? Degenerate cases like "Tequila" or "Oh Yeah" don't really count.

Comments

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

Information Society's bizarre "A Knife and a Fork" springs to mind. As, really, does a lot of REM ;). I suspect Daft Punk's lyrics are dumb, but I've never bothered to listen closely.

Um. Yeah. I think this is a common phenomenon... I tend to consider it unusual, noticeable, when a band's lyrics are part of my reason for liking them (Rush, Indigo Girls, Cheryl Wheeler, Boingo...alright, maybe not as unusual as I'd thought, but still notable).

[exponentialdk.livejournal.com]

I listen to most music in iTunes. (That which is not via iTunes is mostly radio broadcast/netcast.) In iTunes, you can rate the songs from 0-5 stars, and I do. (It lets me restrict playing to the songs that I like.) On that scale, I find that the lyrics can easily have a +/- 1 star impact on my rating of a song.

*sigh*

[rjpb.livejournal.com]

are there other songs that are reasonable songs, but their lyrics have almost no content?

How much trouble would I get for saying the following: almost every song written since, oh, Frank Sinatra? Right, that does not go back far enough. I do not mean to be cynical, but I think finding a good composer who is also a good poet or writer is exceptionally rare.

Re: *sigh*

[fyfer.livejournal.com]

Interesting example - I'm totally unfamiliar with Sinatra, since what I've heard of his music is not my style, so I found a page of his lyrics. A random look at 20 or so of his songs didn't find any written by him, and many had lyrics and music by different people.