Lyric That Most Makes You Cringe in a Song You Otherwise Love

There's probably a thread--I searched a bit, but who knows what combination of words it's under.

Anyway, I might not be alone in this #1 (from Rod Stewart's "Every Picture Tells a Story," which also has two or three of the greatest lines ever written): "My body stunk, but I kept my funk."

The cat sex bit in "Looks Like Rain" by Bob Weir/Grateful Dead

Did you ever waken to the sound of street cats making love?
You guess from the cries you were listening to a fight.
Well you know, oh know, haste is the last thing they're thinking of.
You know they're only tryin' to make it thru the night

'I've never looked at you in a sexual way in my life before' - New Order, Touched By The Hand Of God (mostly due to Barney's v creepy over-pronunciation of the word 'sexual')

He points at Gillian when he sings that line in the video

Lol at "The cat sex bit"

Kurt Vile, "Snowflakes Are Dancing." The line "chilling on a pillowy cloud"

hate the words, hate the way he sings them. otherwise a perfect album!

Take off your band-aid cuz I don't believe in touchdowns.

The first example that I thought of was Dylan’s « You’re a big girl now » and the « time is a jet plane, it moves too fast »…. Wonderful song, unfortunate lyrics !

Love the beginning and the end of that Rod Stewart song.
A few lines in the middle seem awkward or forced.
Never liked
"The women I've known I wouldn't let tie my shoe
They wouldn't give you the time of day"

I guess that was at a point where he got over "feeling inferior"

I too love that Rod song but yeah that "women I've known" line makes me cringe, as does "slit eyed lady".

Honest to god, I was going to mention that "Every Picture" had other lyrics that wouldn't go over so well today, and those were the exact two I had in mind. (The latter is a companion to lines in the Faces' "Stay with Me.")

Brilliant: "I combed my hair in a thousand ways/and it came out lookin' just the same."

Ditto: "And if they have the words I can tell to you/To help you on the way down the road
I couldn't quote you no Dickens, Shelley or Keats/'Cause it's all been said before
Make the best out of the bad, just laugh it off/You didn't have to come here anyway"

It's "The women I've known I wouldn't let tie my shoe" that matches up with "Stay with Me."

There's probably a thread

There's this one, but its more about cringey voices than bad lyrics per se:

Lines Delivered in Goofy Voices That Almost Ruin Otherwise Perfectly Good Songs for You

i don't think anything will ever top the pleasure zone line from New Order's "The Perfect Kiss"

lol i never knew that was the lyric! (i heard it as "precious one" or something like that.)

lol also wtf

Then a fight breaks out on your street
You lose another broken heart in a land of meat

luna 'chinatown'

you're out all night
chasing girlies
you're late to work
and you go home earlies

ugh c'mon dean

I listened to "Chestnut Mare" by The Byrds recently. A song I really loved when I was younger but I winced at these lines

I'm going to catch that horse if I can
And when I do I'll give her my brand
And we'll be friends for life
She'll be just like a wife

Just like a wife, eh?

Every other song on the Manics’ Holy Bible

Haha, was 100.00% sure there was going to be New Order content in this thread. I loved them but at 12 y/o the lyrics had me to treating them as a guilty pleasure before I learned to embrace the cringe.

I heart those Luna and Byrds songs too but can't argue against these allegations lol.

"Kashmir" - Oh, baby, I been flying / No, yeah, mama, there ain't no denying!

So, Plant dreams up this epic tale of trans-dimensional travel and communion with aliens, but then deflates the whole thing halfway through by admitting, "lol, sorry love, I'm just high".

They may have had one or two candidates.

On a "Chestnut Mare" tip, this throwaway line from "Let Me Go" by Ray Parker Jr. has always stuck in my craw:

You know your stuff's so good, I want my name on it

There’s a long list of songs sung by guys about “little girls” Rosalita comes to mind.

And when Van notes the girl he’s pining for in Cyprus Avenue is 14 years old - even if he’s remembering a time when he was younger, it still is cringe. I think he stopped saying the age during is live performances

Songs in which the entire lyric makes you cringe have become a Van speciality in the last few years.

Lol

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1 contributor
In this song, Iggy Pop talks about his pedophilia.

I love New Order for their awful and often ridiculous lyrics, it’s like it adds a layer of sincerity that should be cringe, but comes off as almost camp.

Mungo Jerry - In The Summertime

"If her daddy's rich, take her out for a meal
If her daddy's poor, just do what you feel"

I was just listening to the Stranglers' "Curfew" and, as ever, the last line...

"Maybe I'll find love when there's nothing to do"

... jumped out at me as being especially stupid, not only because it's got 'nothing to do' with the rest of the lyric but also because Jean-Jacques Burnel sings it in such a stupid voice. But, hey, it's the Stranglers and, worse, it's Jean-Jacques Burnel lyric, goes with the territory.

Just like a wife, eh?

I like this line because it's where they tip their hand that the mare is actually a woman, which I guess could make the whole song (rather than just one line) distasteful to some.

please let me sleep / as I slip down the window / freshly squashed fly

lol at "freshly squashed fly" ... that's a good one.

So many later-period Dexys songs have a sense of 'it was going so well', up to a point