The latest news about the solution of the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle• made me remember Barry Manilow's hit Bermuda Triangle, which I felt when it came out to have had the sorriest song lyric I had heard. Listening to it now, there is a knowingness to the corn that my young cyncal mind missed, so it's not quite as bad as I remembered. However, Wired for Sound by Cliff Richard (written by I think BA Robertson) is unselfconsciously awful. To wit:

I like small speakers, I like tall speakers
If they've music, they're wired for sound

Walking about with a head full of music
Cassette in my pocket and I'm gonna use it
Stereo out on the street you know woh oh woh...

Into the car go to work I'm cruising
I never think that I'll blow all my fuses
Traffic flows into the breakfast show woh oh woh...

Power from the needle to the plastic
AM FM I feel so ecstatic
Now it's music I've found
And I'm wired for sound

What sets it apart, for me, is that it is consistently awful - every line managing to be awkward, pompous and trite. What other lyrics can, in your view, reach its magnificent depths?

•(cue post from a certain quarter telling me how there was no 'mystery', how it wasn't 'solved' and that it wasn't a 'triangle' in the first place... )

Wired For Sound is a masterpiece compared to any song ever recorded by Kylie Minogue.

For example....

In my imagination
There is no complication
I dream about you all the time
In my mind, a celebration
The sweetest of sensation
Thinking you could be mine
In my imagination
There is no hesitation
We walk together hand in hand

I'm dreaming
You fell in love with me
Like I'm in love with you
But dreaming's all I do
If only they'd come true

I should be so lucky
lucky, lucky, lucky
I should be so lucky in love
I should be so lucky
Lucky, lucky, lucky
I should be so lucky in love

She never got any better than that.....or the toothpaste jingle writers who supply her with 'songs' didn't, anyway.

Check out this Russian history lesson by the German pop/disco/reggae act Boney M:

"Rasputin"

There lived a certain man in Russia long ago
He was big and strong, in his eyes a flaming glow
Most people looked at him with terror and with fear
But to Moscow chicks he was such a lovely dear
He could preach the bible like a preacher
Full of ecstacy and fire
But he also was the kind of teacher
Women would desire

RA RA RASPUTIN
Lover of the Russian queen
There was a cat that really was gone
RA RA RASPUTIN
Russia's greatest love machine
It was a shame how he carried on

He ruled the Russian land and never mind the Czar
But the kasachok he danced really wunderbar
In all affairs of state he was the man to please
But he was real great when he had a girl to squeeze
For the queen he was no wheeler dealer
Though she'd heard the things he'd done
She believed he was a holy healer
Who would heal her son

RA RA RASPUTIN
Lover of the Russian queen
There was a cat that really was gone
RA RA RASPUTIN
Russia's greatest love machine
It was a shame how he carried on

[Spoken:]
But when his drinking and lusting and his hunger
for power became known to more and more people,
the demands to do something about this outrageous
man became louder and louder.

"This man's just got to go!" declared his enemies
But the ladies begged "Don't you try to do it, please"
No doubt this Rasputin had lots of hidden charms
Though he was a brute they just fell into his arms
Then one night some men of higher standing
Set a trap, they're not to blame
"Come to visit us" they kept demanding
And he really came

RA RA RASPUTIN
Lover of the Russian queen
They put some poison into his wine
RA RA RASPUTIN
Russia's greatest love machine
He drank it all and he said "I feel fine"

RA RA RASPUTIN
Lover of the Russian queen
They didn't quit, they wanted his head
RA RA RASPUTIN
Russia's greatest love machine
And so they shot him till he was dead

[Spoken:] Oh, those Russians...

.....is it wrong that I admire them for rhyming "Czar" with "Wunderbar" ?

Rasputin!
And here it's been going on 25 or so years since I last heard that song, and I end up reading about it twice in one week! My new favorite song!

Anyway...Maybe not WORST lyrics, but from Danny Wilson's Mary's Prayer:
I used to be so careless
As if I couldn't care less

Come on man, You can't rhyme 'careless' with 'care less'. That's cheap. That's as bad as rhyming 'pure imagination' with 'your imagination'. Yes, I'm looking at YOU Mr Wonka!

And fiery demons all dance when you walk through the door
Don't say you're easy on me
You're about as easy as a nuclear war

Duran Duran

Ah c'mon... You gotta love Kylie! Can't Get You Out Of My Head is a terrific pop song... but Stock Aitken and Waterman needed putting out of everyone's misery in the mid to late eighties...

Hugh speaking of Careless got me remembering that Careless Whisper, despite being catchy and with a nice sax bit, had a dreadful dreadful lyric...

I'm never going to dance again
Guilty feet have got no rhythm...

"My head is on fire / but my legs are fine / after all, they are mine"

Ah yes, a classic!

♫ Maybe it's the best thing
May-be it's the best thing for you ...
But it's the worst that could happen to me. ♪

"Believe me, you"

♫ If only you believe like I believe, baby (If only you believe like I believe)
We'd get by
If only you believe in miracles, baby (If only you believe in miracles)
So would I ♪

So let me get this straight - If only you believe like I believe in miracles, so would I?

I nominate KISS in general, and "Let's Put the X in Sex" in specific.

Well, Steve, y'see, the X they are referring to is the colloquial X-rating often given to pornographic movies. Therefore, by putting said X in sex, the couple in question would be spicing up their lovelife to such an intensity that it would resemble pornography.

See? It works on multiple levels.

"Piano Man" is a good song, but that "hes talkin with davy whos still in the navy. And probably will be for liiiiife" is always a little bit annoying.

"Jenny From the Block"

Or Gwen Stefani's "If I Were a Rich Girl" (to the tune of Fiddler on the Roof's "If I Were a Rich Man")

If I were a rich girl
I'd have all the money in the world
If I were a wealthy girl.

Wait ... so you're telling me that if you were rich, you'd have a lot of money? That seems like quite the leap in logic.

Well, it's like the last line of one of the Barenaked Ladies' first hits -

♫ If I had a million dollllllllllllllllllllllllllars...
I'd be rich ♪

Inspired by the show I saw last night, I give you Lita Ford's Kiss Me Deadly

I went to a party last Saturday night
I didn't get laid I got in a fight uh-huh
It ain't no big thing
Late for my job and the traffic was bad
Had to borrow 10 bucks from my old man uh-huh
It ain't no big thing
I went to a party last Saturday night
I told you that story would be alright uh-huh
It ain't no big thing
But I know what I like
I know I like dancing with you
And I know what you like
I know you like dancing with me oh yeah
Kiss me once
Kiss me twice
Come on pretty baby kiss me deadly
Had a few beers getting high
Sitting watching the time go by uh-huh
It ain't no big thing
Nothing to eat and no T.V.
Looking in the mirror don't get it for me uh-huh
It ain't no big thing
But I know what I like
I know I like dancing with you
And I know what you like
I know

My tag line at the bottom is the worst!