What are some “sore thumb” lyrics for you?
I’m calling a “sore thumb” lyric a bad line (or lines) in an otherwise good, well-written song. Something that sticks out like, well, a sore thumb.
It’s something that’s bad enough to be noteworthy, potentially even bad enough to ruin the entire song if it’s really potent. It is, of course, also entirely a matter of personal taste and preference. One person’s “sore thumb” lyric might be another person’s highlight.
Of note: it’s not a sore thumb lyric if you don’t like the song or think it’s poorly written in the first place. The point of the topic isn’t to highlight bad songwriting but to highlight misfires in otherwise good songwriting.
What are some examples of these lines in songs you like?
Explain why they stick out like a sore thumb for you personally.
Down with the Sickness - Disturbed
I normally prefer to listen to an entire album with Interludes and silences all. But when this song plays and I hear the "No mommy, I won't do it again".... Im skipping to the next song. That's a No from me bruv.
I forget who I stole this from, but I've taken to calling that the domestic abuse solo out of mockery.
I have always hated "Take The Money And Run" simply because of the last verse.
Bobbie Sue, whoa, whoa, she slipped away
Billy Joe caught up to her the very next day
They got the money, hey, you know they got away
They headed down south and they're still running today
Two of the four lines completely ruin the flow of the song by not even having the right number of syllables after already being stuffed with filler. Plus, look at the rhymes: they rhyme "away" with "away" and "day" with "today". It makes me irrationally angry.
At least it's not rhyming "things" with "things" like Kid Rock in the not even trying to be clever rip off song that is "All Summer Long."
(I know this isn't the point of the thread but I couldn't help myself.)
Emerson Lake and Palmer's "Still... You Turn Me On" :
I love that song, but that ladder line makes me cringe every single time. Just hits me like a something written by a 13 year old stretching too hard for a rhyme.
That's a good one, lol. It reads like a temp lyrics that got left in because they couldn't come up with anything better.
I love Janelle Monae. Bisexual Queen that they/she is.
But in Wondaland's song, "Yoga," which features her and Jidenna, she sings the following lines:
The first time I heard it, and honestly anytime I listen to this song, it sounds like she's saying, "Scratching on my gash." Which is like, wtf did she just say :o She's doing what to her lady parts? And I know I'm not the only one who's perceived it that way. Doesn't help that the lyrics surrounding the line are intentionally vulgar. Which she even says she can be.
I don't know if that's intentional, where the line sounds ambiguous and even more vulgar, or what. Either way, that line throws me every time. But I still like the song. So not the biggest sore thumb.
America — A Horse With No Name
First off, huge respect to the band, they’re one of the legends of classic rock. I like the vibe of this song and it’s catchy as heck. But those verses are the pinnacle of r/im14andthisisdeep energy. Lazy and cringe.
Not exactly a lyric, as it's part of the song's intro.
On Jay-Z's The Blueprint2 album, the title track samples Ennio Morricone's Ecstasy of Gold. The track was his highly anticipated comeback in the aftermath of a very damaging loss to Nas in their battle the previous year (pretty much the same way Drake lost to Kendrick in 2024) and he tried to use it to criticize public perception of their spat, repair his swagger, and re-establish himself as the top dog (pretty much exactly what Drake is trying to do right now).
In the intro, he sets the scene by referring to how much the media and other rappers have been grumbling about him. As the music begins to swell, Jay yells,
Firstly, it just sounds corny in his voice. Jay's voice is probably his main weakness as a rapper; he generally gets around it by sticking to his effortless cool persona, but whenever he doesn't it doesn't land well and this is no exception. Secondly and more importantly, though, there are no flutes at all anywhere in the song. He was talking about the iconic melody from the original song, which was originally performed by an opera singer, horns, and strings but is included solely as a vocal sample in Jay's version. It's pretty notorious as a bad lapse on his part, and I can't help but shake my head every time I hear it.
Apart from that, the song's up there among his best!
Dance Gavin Dance - Nothing Shameful
Most of the song is pretty straightforward relationship-y stuff. Lamenting that the person they love(d) doesn't return their feelings, or at least not with anywhere near the same intensity. 2 of the 3 harsh vocal verses are pretty much unrelated and utter nonsense. Honestly I like the music and the other lyrics enough that it's still my favourite song by them. I just have to turn off my language parser when the screaming starts.
This is pretty standard fare for Jon Mess lol seriously, go back and look at the lyrics from Downtown Battle Mountain. He's been doing this forever.
Maybe that one line speaks to it - they "tried out comedy" and that's the result.
Eve 6 - Inside Out
Find nothing but faith in nothing
I think if they knew how big of a hit that song was gonna be they’d have tried a little harder with this.
Funny, I actually love the way this lyric sounds and it's one of my favorite lines to sing along to. Something about the rhythm of those words and even the repetition itself just feels satisfying to my ears.
Huh, I actually like that lyric a lot. Not because it means anything, it's just really pleasing to the ear the way it's sung. Actually a lot of that song is like that - the lyrics don't mean anything particularly deep but they feel really nice to sing and they scan really well.
I agree with the other commenters and like this line a lot too.
This song falls in the "alternative rock" genre, and a lot of alt music (especially as it has progressed through the early 2000s to now) is tied to getting emotions out. Inside Out is almost a series of stammering words one would write in a journal if they didn't overthink it and wrote down a flow of consciousness. But of course, this is has been transformed into the clever and somewhat cliche lyrics I know and love Eve 6 for.
Another Eve 6 song from their next album, Enemy, reinforces this stream of consciousness idea - he talks through part of his day in excessive detail and then admits to where his current emotional state is:
I like the first few albums by The Mars Volta, particularly the first two. But there's one part in Tetragrammaton that I have never been able to take seriously:
Just... huh?
Rush - Countdown
I used to listen to a lot of Rush as a teenager. This is a song about watching the first launch of the space shuttle, which I quite liked at the time, except:
"Excitement so thick you could cut it with a knife."
Been a while since I listened to this song. Is it the performance of the line? Cause that is an idiom that gets some use.
It seemed like a corny metaphor and not one that young people would use unless you’re trying to sound old-fashioned. It’s an abrupt transition from enthusiasm about an awesome experience they had to dinner at grandma’s.
Honestly Rush is a good band but they've always struck me as pretty corny in general, lyrically speaking. Also I have a hard time listening to Geddy Lee's vocals but that's a me thing.
That's definitely not just a you thing. I find them mildly interesting musically but the vocals are just nope.
Invisible by D-Side. The lyrics in general read like a stalker's anthem, and it's a bit weird that Clay Aiken did a cover of this song for the US crowd after being the runner-up of American Idol.
Two examples of what I mean, one from the very first verse
And the chorus...
Do I even need to spell out how that's creepy as fuck? I mean I get what the songwriters were trying to go for here, the song is basically about falling for someone who doesn't even notice you. But I don't think there's a context where you could tell a lady that you want to be a fly on her wall or to watch her in her bedroom unnoticed without being labelled a creep.
Maybe the early 2000s were a different time? Or... these lyrics hit different when the guy singing them is actually physically attractive and a genuine chick magnet?
Besides, Radiohead did the whole unrequited love song better with Creep, and theirs was intentionally meant to have obsessive stalker vibes.
Unrequited love is sort of inherently creepy. You have feelings for someone that you know they don't share, and you know you think about them far more than they ever think about you.
It feels creepy being in that situation and I think most people can identify with having to consciously think about whether something you want to do would be perceived as creepy or not if you've been in that situation.
I don't think there's really anything wrong with writing a song about it.
I'd disagree. Unrequited love in no way excuses creepy non-consensual behaviour or fantasies about non-consensual acts. Even more so when "not having consequences" is implied.
It's one thing to feel unrequited love and a completely different thing to fantasise about such things.
I think there's maybe a fundemtal value mismatch with me on that. Personally I don't think thoughts are wrong; they're natural, and they're difficult if not impossible to control in many cases. Actions, however, are controllable, and are what have actual consequences in the world.
I think that if you're in love with someone that doesn't love you back, you are going to have thoughts and fantasies about them no matter what. You can try to control them, but that is probably only possible to an extent. It's also very normal and natural, and I don't think there's anything wrong with it. Is it creepy? Yeah, kind of, and I think that's what so many of these songs are trying to explore. I don't think creepy = wrong though, necessary.
When you start actually doing creepy things, that's when it becomes wrong. If you're a dorky frumpy girl who is in love with the most popular guy in school who doesn't even know you exist, you're probably going to wonder what it's like to kiss him or lie in bed with him. Having those thoughts isn't wrong. Sneaking into his house and actually lying in his bed? Yeah, that's wrong.
Don't get me wrong; not saying having thoughts or fantasies is inherently wrong. It's the fantasising of explicitly non-consensual acts that I find problematic; there's a difference in my mind between, say, fantasising about kissing someone consensually vs fantasising about, say, being invisible so you can stalk them in their private moments without consent or consequences.
Listening to rap/hip-hop songs from like 1990-2014 is a minefield. You'll be listening to a song and just out of nowhere, and seemingly out-of-place in the song, you'll just hear someone drop the f-slur. The one that hurts the most is "Favorite Song" by Chance the Rapper ft. Childish Gambino. I need to find a version of the song that censors just that one line and leaves the rest unchanged. It has been a staple of all my summer playlists since I was in high school, but I always have to be mindful of audience when I go to put it on so I don't unintentionally harm or upset anyone. The song fills me with so many happy, chill summer vibes of hanging out with my friends...... minus one line.
Sadly, that is kinda par for the course with music from that time period, especially rap.
If you're playing it around friends who know your stance on the subject well, they would hopefully know that listening to this one song doesn't demonstrate your views. Obviously, as you said, audience matters.
Something that makes me feel similar is the movie Idiocracy. While everyone continually jokes about how it is unfolding in real life, those who have not watched it recently may forget how many times the characters throw around the word "retarded." It was tolerated much more when the movie came out, but now it has climbed up the yikes scale. Perhaps the best justification for it is that the characters have been dumbed down enough that this is their primary insult and the best they can come up with. But if you recommend it to someone who hasn't seen it, it's worth telling them about this to let them know that specific word isn't the funniest part of the movie.
One that immediately comes to mind is that song by Kanye where the line is:
“I keep it 300, like the Romans”
300…Spartans…they were Greek. TBF it ruins the whole song for me.
I never watched that movie, but according to Wikipedia, it refers to the number of soldiers in a fantasy army? What would it mean if the reference were corrected?
You're reading that quite incorrectly. The battle of the Thermopylae was a real battle, but of course the Persians weren't Orcs, the Spartans weren't gigachads or whatnot, and the movie itself contains many historical inaccuracies or creative liberties.
That said, Greeks did eventually start calling themselves "Romans" around a millenium later, but by then, "national" and "regional" identities were significantly different compared to the time of the battle of the Thermopylae, so it doesn't excuse the mistake in the song.
I'm trivialising a few things in this comment, but yeah
The Romans in 300 BC were conquering central Italy, so I suppose you could imagine it as referring to them? What is the song actually about?
The song is, as I understand¹, pretty much referring to the film "300", which is a retelling of the battle of the Thermopylae, albeit with several inaccuracies.
The song is referring to the 300 Spartans that fought the Persians to their own demise, alongside some of the remaining Greek forces:
The battle of the Thermopylae itself was a big Persian victory.
1: Do note I have never listened to a kanye song and do not intend to
I got that already but I was asking about the song.
This section of chorus from Eminem's White America just irks me.
It just feels like such a repeat to use Eric and then Erica. He is such a good wordsmith that I kind of expect better, but I may just be a little overly critical on the Eric/Erica thing. Either way, it irks the heck out of me when I hear the rhyme.
If something explains it - is it supposed to be a reference to Erika?
I think in interviews he has mentioned just using names that fit the rhymes, so I am unsure if Eric or Erica/Erika are a direct reference to anything. If the name or names are indeed references though, I am not sure it would help me get over how repetitive I find the rhyme unfortunately.
Sunflower by Swae Lee and Post Malone. Honestly one of the most catchy songs I've ever heard and it was my first introduction to Post Malone (even though he's not the primary vocals on it). The lyrics aren't amazing, but even still I can't help but laugh at how profoundly stupid "ride me like a cruise" is.
And a less serious one that doesn't really bother me, but I find amusing is the nonsensical route taken in Wagon Wheel by Old Crow Medicine Show. He goes west through the Cumberland Gap to get to Johnson City, TN, which is east of the Cumberland Gap. All the while this massive detour is insanely out of his way, given how relatively close Roanoke, VA and Raleigh, NC are.
Obviously lyrical flow matters more than efficient route-taking or geographic accuracy, so I give it a pass. Plus the guy's hitchhiking his ass all the from New England to N Carolina to get laid, so he can do w/e he wants.
To pick at something massively popular, I find Toto's Africa to be, from a songwriting/musical angle, a well-crafted song, I think it has some great melodies and songwriting, but the lyrics definitely are a massive flaw of the track.
They're overall a problem but particular lines like the clueless one about Kilimanjaro really stand out
It's as "clueless American white man writing about Africa" as one would expect. Its video didn't help things either. Also even some of the instrument/synth choices could be seen as really on-the-nose/overwrought but I think without considering the lyrics it's a decent track.
I am having a hard time thinking of songs with good lyrics where a single line really stands out. It's an interesting thing to consider though. I am positive I have encountered some and just can't think of them. Most of the ones I can think of, when I reflect on them, I just realize all the lines are bad, not just one.
I adore the song Wooly by Breathe Carolina, but the line
"Come back to me,
Your heart's not breathing"
takes me out of the song every time. Just say beating, dang it!