Bad Song Lyrics – Sneak Preview

There are many songs with embarrassingly bad song lyrics. For example, I have always enjoyed the music of the Electric Light Orchestra, but Jeff Lynne’s lyrics sometimes are a bit middling to be kind. For example, one of my guilty pleasures is ELO’s song “All Over The World.” I love the catchiness of the tune, but those lyrics …

“Everybody walkin’ down the street
Everybody movin’ to the beat
They’re gonna get hot down in the U.S.A. (New York, Detroit, L.A.)
We’re gonna take a trip across the sea
Everybody come along with me
We’re gonna hit the night down in gay Paris (c’est la vie, having your cup of tea)”

They’re bad, but this new series of blog posts isn’t about making fun of the lyrics of successful musical artists. It’s about my song lyrics. Many decades ago, I was a teen full of angst (good name for an album or band), writing songs about the cruelty of a life I had barely started living. I had no clue how cruel life could actually be until I had 5 kids, 4 dogs, a mortgage, car payments, and a leaky basement.

Anyway, I was thrilled when I found my notebook of songs I had written starting when I was still a feckless youth. Thankfully, I eventually got some feck. Anyway, they are dated, unlike I was at the time, chronicling my lyrical atrocities beginning at age 16.

Now at age (number obscured to keep Jim from throwing up in his mouth while typing), I consider myself a halfway decent writer. I was in a songwriting mood a few years back, and I wrote some song lyrics I like. But my lyrics from decades ago? Bad. Very bad. For example, from the unrecorded potential hit single “Lady of the Island” comes these lyrics …

^G You’re my ^D lady of the ^G island

Be my ^D mistress of the ^F#m sea

Come now ^D lady of the ^Bm island

And ^C follow me

^G Wherever I roam

Come ^C follow me

And we’ll ^F find a new ^D home in the ^G sea

How about that simple guitar chording? Yes, now you can accompany yourself on guitar while singing my bad song lyrics at home. Notes on my original lyric sheet shows use of a capo on the second fret. You’re welcome!

What is very odd is at that age, I wasn’t a very good swimmer. Finding a new home in the sea would have been a very bad idea. What are we, a mermaid and merman couple? And I’m pretty sure I didn’t totally understand the concept of a mistress at that time or the potential cost of keeping a mistress on an island or in the sea. An expensive boat is probably needed for effective water mistressing.

And yes, I blatantly stole the song title from a Crosby, Stills, and Nash song. In my defense, the CSN tune features a lot fewer words and a whole lot of “do dos” and “da das.” Maybe they had writer’s block and needed some filler. Not me. My “Lady of the Island” went on for 4 painful verses and a chorus.

So, that’s a sneak preview of this new series of blog posts. As we delve further into my songs with terrible lyrics, I will try to bring you some audio or video recordings of my recitation of the song lyrics along with the guitar chording in case you want to record songs that should never be recorded. Never. By the way, I have no idea if the guitar chording makes any sense. If it doesn’t, at least it matches the lyrics.