Thursday, May 06, 2010

The worst rhymes in music

For some reason, I found myself singing the chorus of Train's "Hey, Soul Sister" today - I think the elevator was showing the top songs in adult contemporary. Anyway, it made me think of just how rancid a rhyme that song's chorus turns on. "Hey, soul sister / Ain't that Mr. Mister on the radio, stereo / The way you move ain't fair, you know." Mr. Mister? Really? Tell you what - if that's the best you can do for rhyming "sister," maybe don't call your song "Hey, Soul Sister."

But is that the worst rhyme ever? Probably not. Below, some others that came right to mind:

The Beatles, "Rocky Raccoon"

As you know, I love the Beatles more than I have or will love the music of any other band. And Paul is almost certainly my favorite Beatle. But what was he thinking with this one?

"His rival, it seems / Had broken his dreams / By stealing the girl of his fancy / Her name was McGill / And she called herself Lil / But everyone knew her as Nancy"

Drives me up the fucking wall. Come on. How far can you possibly go for a rhyme? Weren't there like 85 other ways to describe that the girl was the object of Rocky's affection? You had to go with the one that was nearly impossible to rhyme?

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, "Into the Great Wide Open"

"The paper said Ed always played from the heart / He got an agent and a roadie named Bart"

*facepalm*

LFO, "Summer Girls"

I'm almost not sure whether to count this one because I'm not convinced that a lot of these rhymes were supposed to be good. Also, many of them are not even actual rhymes.

"New Kids on the Block had a bunch of hits / Chinese food makes me sick"

"Fell deep in love but now we ain't speakin' / Michael J. Fox was Alex P. Keaton"

What? Also, not actual rhymes, aside from the vowels, which is lazy as all hell.

I'm sure, however, that there are many other examples of awful rhymes. What's your pick for the worst rhyme you've heard in a song?