August 21, 2004
A Little Incentive for Entries
A Little Incentive for Entries to “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly” First Annual Stupidest Lyric in Rock Music History Contest, or What Rhymes with Zen?
In a recent post, dear reader, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” introduced our First Annual Stupidest Lyric in Rock Music History Contest. And, more quickly—and more painlessly—than you can say “Bono,” we were flooded by a veritable cornucopia of entries. (How’s that for a mixed metaphor?)Indeed, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” have received so many entries to our humble contest that we almost felt no need to beg for more. But then it struck us: We’re talking about horrible lyrics to rock songs—they must be more plentiful than hairs on Chewbacca.
As such, we have decided to offer our manifold readers a rare weekend post, and present a couple of rock lyrics that our Official Research Division found particularly noxious. This, we suppose, shall encourage you to drudge up a few choice exempla of rancid lyrics, and send them our way.
The first example comes from the oeuvre of—who else?—Neil Diamond. In his deleterious tune “I Am I Said,” Mr. Diamond croons:
"I am," I said
To no one there
And no one heard at all
Not even the chair.
“Not even the chair”? Oh, come on, Neil: Even a third-grader could come up with a better rhyme than that. And how, pray tell, would this chair acknowledge that it had heard you in the first place? This is flagrantly sub-par balladry.
And we need not point to Mr. Diamond as the only source of atrocious rock lyrics. Savor, dear reader, the following line from a ditty entitled “Brave New World” by the group Styx:
See the now, see the Zen
There is no division.
Uh, guys, that doesn’t even rhyme. And it ain’t a clever off-rhyme, either. We have a collective hunch that, sometime around 1979, an excessive use of hair-styling products left the members of Styx mentally impaired.
So, dear reader, there you have it: A couple of miserable lyrics sure to inspire even the boldest rock-n-roll enthusiast. All you must do to enter is click the “Contact Us” link at the top right-hand corner of your computer screen. There’s so much Peter Cetera, and so little time.