You're browsing all posts tagged Unlikely Lyrics

The Rainbow Connection

It took me a long time to notice this lyric, from Depeche Mode’s “Just Can’t Get Enough”:
Just like a rainbow, you know you set me free
Now, Vince Clarke has always been a goofy guy, but this is extra-silly. This is not one of the things that rainbows are traditionally good for! “Just like a rainbow, […]

posted 19 October 2009 in Tasty Bits. 1 comment

Moving Violation

Nobody ever accused Sammy Hagar of being a genius. But I would have guessed that he passed driver’s ed.
Unfortunately, the opening line of “I Can’t Drive 55” is as follows:
One foot on the brake and and one on the gas
Not only can you not drive 55 with that technique, you can’t drive 5. If Hagar […]

posted 28 September 2009 in Tasty Bits. no comments yet

The Nylon Metaphor

I hadn’t heard Billy Joel’s “Pressure” in a long time: it hit #20 in 1982, but it doesn’t seem to have entered Joel’s canon of hits. So thank you, Sirius-XM ’80s channel. I thoroughly enjoyed the song this time around, even the throbbing synth sound (which sounds more dated than Joel’s ’50s pastiches on An […]

posted 14 September 2009 in Tasty Bits. 4 comments

High Technology

I don’t hear Dire Straits’ “Money for Nothing” as much as I used to, which is for the best, really. But it came up last week on the Sirius-XM ’80s station, and I thought of something that I never noticed twenty-four years ago–you don’t need to “install” microwave ovens. You put them on the counter […]

posted 11 August 2009 in Tasty Bits. 2 comments

Nonergonomic Choices

Consider, if you will, the opening lines to Air Supply’s #2 hit from 1980, “All Out of Love”:
I’m lying alone, with my head on the phone / Thinking of you ’til it hurts
Dude, that pain isn’t from a broken heart–it’s because you’re trying to use a telephone as a pillow.

posted 5 May 2009 in Tasty Bits. no comments yet

Recourse to the Law

I recently wondered what album had the highest differential between the times I listened to before my high school graduation to times I listened to it after that. The answer, I decided, was Pink Floyd’s The Final Cut. It was one of the first three albums I ever owned, and was in heavy rotation in […]

posted 7 April 2009 in Tasty Bits. 2 comments

Life Is a Former Portugese Colony

Of all the songs likely to name-check the African country of Mozambique, I would have put Tom Cochrane’s catchy but lunkheaded 1991 hit “Life Is a Highway” fairly low on the list.
But last week I actually paid attention to the verses, for the first time ever, and there it is:
From Mozambique to those Memphis nights
I […]

posted 16 March 2009 in Tasty Bits. no comments yet

Another Unlikely Lyric

I’ve been listening to U2’s “I Will Follow” for over 25 years (not continuously). But only recently did I pay attention to this lyric:
Your eyes make a circle
Two eyes, of course, make a line.
So I am forced to conclude that the person whom Bono is addressing has more than two eyes. Actually, since three eyes […]

posted 7 July 2008 in Tasty Bits. 1 comment

Unlikely Lyrics

The first installment in an irregular series of posts, highlighting some of the more improbable lyrics I run across.
Writing about “Always on My Mind” got me listening to my old Pet Shop Boys albums. Generally, they hold up really well, but Introspective does have a few clunkers. Neil Tennant mispronounces “Debussy.” He fails to use […]

posted 23 June 2008 in Tasty Bits. 3 comments