Serious lyrics that you find funny

[Brundle-Fly]

Deep Dark Truthful Mirror - Elvis Costello

A stripping puppet on a liquid stick
Gets into it pretty thick
And butterfly drinks a turtle's tears
But how do you know he really needs it?
'Cos a butterfly feeds on a dead monkey's hand
Jesus wept, he felt abandoned
You spell-bound baby, there's no doubt in that
Did you ever see her stare like a Persian cat?

NURSE! He's off again.

[spaghetamine]

I've had relations with girls from many nations
I've made passes at women of all classes
And just because you're gay I won't turn you away
If you stick around I'm sure that we can find some common ground
Sexuality
Strong and warm and wild and free
Sexuality
Your laws do not apply to me
A nuclear submarine sinks off the coast of Sweden
Headlines give me headaches when I read them
I had an uncle who once played for Red Star Belgrade
He said some things are really left best unspoken
But I prefer it all to be out in the open
Sexuality
Strong and warm and wild and free
Sexuality
Your laws do not apply to me
Sexuality
Don't threaten me with misery
Sexuality
I demand equality
I'm sure that everybody knows how much my body hates me
It lets me down most every time and makes me rash and hasty
I feel a total jerk before your naked body of work
I'm getting weighed down with all this information
Safe sex doesn't mean no sex it just means use your imagination
Stop playing with yourselves in hard currency hotels
I look like Robert De Niro, I drive a Mitsubishi Zero
Sexuality
Strong and warm and wild and free
Sexuality
Your laws do not apply to me
Sexuality
Come eat and drink and sleep with me
Sexuality
We can be what we want to be

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

I'm awfully fond of Eve of Destruction by P.F. Sloan, it's a heartfelt protest song, but the gauche, earnest righteousness of its lyrics never fail to make me smile.

The eastern world it is explodin'
Violence flarin', bullets loadin'
You're old enough to kill but not for votin'
You don't believe in war, so what's that gun you're totin'
And even the Jordan river has bodies floatin'

But you tell me over and over and over again my friend
Ah, you don't believe we're on the eve of destruction

Don't you understand, what I'm trying to say?
Can't you see the fears that I'm feeling today?
If the button is pushed, there's no running away
There'll be no one to save with the world in a grave
Take a look around you, boy, it's bound to scare you, boy

Yeah, my blood's so mad, feels like coagulatin'
I'm sittin' here, just contemplatin'
I can't twist the truth, it knows no regulation
Handful of Senators don't pass legislation,
And marches alone can't bring integration
When human respect is disintegratin'
This whole crazy world is just too frustratin'

Think of all the hate there is in Red China
Then take a look around to Selma, Alabama
Ah, you may leave here, for four days in space
But when you return, it's the same old place
The poundin' of the drums, the pride and disgrace
You can bury your dead, but don't leave a trace
Hate your next-door-neighbour, but don't forget to say grace

[Bernice]

I still express, yo, I don't smoke weed or sess
Cause it's known to give a brother brain damage

Okay Dre, you fucking nerd.

If you had the luck of the Irish,
You'd be sorry and wish you were dead
You should have the luck of the Irish
And you'd wish you was English instead

A thousand years of torture and hunger
Drove the people away from their land
A land full of beauty and wonder
Was raped by the British brigands
Goddamned
Goddamned

If you could keep voices like flowers
There's be shamrock all over the world
If you could drink dreams like Irish streams
Then the world would be as high as the mountain of morn

In the 'pool they told us the story
How the English divided the land
Of the pain and the death and the glory
And the poets of auld Eireland

If we could make chains with the morning dew
The world would be like Galway Bay
Let's walk over rainbows like leprechauns
The world would be one big Blarney stone

Nice one, John and Yoko. Really makes you think.

[AllisonSays]

Bob Dylan's commitment to rhyming couplets in Hurricane results in some funny lines, not least because of the slightly po-faced sentimentality he adopts for the whole song (and also in Joey on the same album, but I genuinely can't even listen to that one).

Particularly good on this one: "You'll be doing society a favor
                                             That sonofabitch is brave and gettin' braver
                                             We want to put his ass in stir
                                             We want to pin this triple murder
                                             On him
                                             He ain't no Gentleman Jim"

Where he sings murrrrderrr in a hilarious way, for some reason. It's a strange album. I love the way it sounds but I think the writing is mostly terrible.

[shagatha crustie]

When they let him out in '71 he'd lost a little weight
But he dressed like Jimmy Cagney and I SWEAR HE DID LOOK GREAT!!!!!!!!!

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Nice one, John and Yoko. Really makes you think.

Shocking. It makes Macca's Give Ireland Back to the Irish sound like early protest-era Dylan at his most acute. Speaking of whom...

Where he sings murrrrderrr in a hilarious way, for some reason.

It's the sheer, brazen laziness of it. 'Murder' doesn't scan, so he has to elongate it. He could've come up with another, better rhyme, but he clearly wasn't arsed. Fuck it, that'll do. Solidarity, brother.

[I.D. Smith]

The subject matter of this song is more earnest, heart-on-sleeve stuff than actually serious, but these lines from Real To Me by Brian McFadden:

https://youtu.be/ipMPJ42vyYs?t=145

"And we'll invite the family round and drink some English tea
Then I raise up my finger, and watch football on TV"

I'm assuming the raising of the finger is referring to him using the remote control, but it also sounds like he's giving the entire family the middle finger before sodding off to watch the TV. That it's then followed by a big rock guitar solo makes it sound like we're supposed to find his giving the piss-off to his family as a big triumphant moment. Unless I've read it wrong and that's actually what he meant, in which case fair enough for being honest about what's "real" to him in a rock ballad. Refreshing.

Also "watch football on TV" makes me think of the football fan from The Fast Show.

[grainger]

Nice one, John and Yoko. Really makes you think.

Extraordinary. Despite being told about it "in the pool" (and by this, I presume he means Liverpool, not the Lido), their knowledge seems based on any Hollywood scene involving Irish people. The only thing that's missing from the song is people dancing amid chickens and straw flying everywhere.

[grainger]

"Then I raise up my finger, and watch football on TV"
[guitar solo]

To be honest, all this thread confirms is that most people - rock/pop stars included - have entirely banal inner lives. Very few are actual poets.

What's sad is the shite from people who've written great stuff in the past.

[holyzombiejesus]

I've had relations with girls from many nations
I've made passes at women of all classes
And just because you're gay I won't turn you away
If you stick around I'm sure that we can find some common ground
Sexuality
Strong and warm and wild and free
Sexuality
Your laws do not apply to me
A nuclear submarine sinks off the coast of Sweden
Headlines give me headaches when I read them
I had an uncle who once played for Red Star Belgrade
He said some things are really left best unspoken
But I prefer it all to be out in the open
Sexuality
Strong and warm and wild and free
Sexuality
Your laws do not apply to me
Sexuality
Don't threaten me with misery
Sexuality
I demand equality
I'm sure that everybody knows how much my body hates me
It lets me down most every time and makes me rash and hasty
I feel a total jerk before your naked body of work
I'm getting weighed down with all this information
Safe sex doesn't mean no sex it just means use your imagination
Stop playing with yourselves in hard currency hotels
I look like Robert De Niro, I drive a Mitsubishi Zero
Sexuality
Strong and warm and wild and free
Sexuality
Your laws do not apply to me
Sexuality
Come eat and drink and sleep with me
Sexuality
We can be what we want to be

Think they're supposed to be quite lighthearted if not funny.

[holyzombiejesus]

My name is Dave
I killed my brother
I whacked an axe through his head
On the hottest day of the year
My blood was boiling
I said, "You're dying"
And so the blood flowed

I'm in jail
The press were eager to question me
"How could you do such a thing?"

My father hated me
He always took my brother's side
For Christmas he would get a car
And I'd be given 50p

Should the Bible Be Banned  - McCarthy

[famethrowa]

I'm the kind of guy who laughs at a funeral.

I can't understand what you mean?

[SteveDave]

I can't understand what you mean?

You soon will

[DistressedArea]

Tra la la tra la tra-ah la
La
Tra la la tra la tra-ah la
La
Tra la la tra la tra-ah la
La
Tra la la tra la tra-ah
In your snatch fitzpleasure

[Menu]

Nice one, John and Yoko. Really makes you think.

I do actually like the line "If you had the luck of the Irish you'd be sorry and wish you were dead."  But the rest of it is just humiliating. I feel humiliated listening to it.

[Annie Labuntur]

Think they're supposed to be quite lighthearted if not funny.

But he still chickened out with "I'll dance with you in Magaluf even though you are a poof".

[Custard]

I love me some Oasis, but these always make me laugh

"I'm hung in a bad place, got the sun on my face"

"I can see a liar, sitting by the fire"

"Live for your toys, even though they make noise"

"You're my lover, I'm yer brother". Urgggh, no mate

All of the amazingly awful Magic Pie, except the opening line. It even nicks some of one of Tony Blair's speeches, as a final insult

[Tombola]

2000 onwards (especially) Bono is responsible for some real clumsy atrocities.

Electrical Storm:
"The air is heavy, heavy as a truck
We need the rain to wash away our bad luck."

Winter:
"It's hot as hell. We're like butter on toast.
But there's no army in this world. That can fight a ghost."

[Pauline Walnuts]

There's another song that rhymes 'Toast' with 'Ghost'?

[phantom_power]

2000 onwards (especially) Bono is responsible for some real clumsy atrocities.

Electrical Storm:
"The air is heavy, heavy as a truck
We need the rain to wash away our bad luck."

Winter:
"It's hot as hell. We're like butter on toast.
But there's no army in this world. That can fight a ghost."

A lot of his lyrics are just taking popular aphorism, like "a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle" or "I was drowning my sorrows and they learnt to swim"

[SteveDave]

There's another song that rhymes 'Toast' with 'Ghost'?

See also "Cornerstone" by Arctic Monkeys.

"She was close,
Close enough to be your ghost,
But my chances turned to toast,
When I asked her if,
I could call her your name"

[flotemysost]

Whenever I hear In Da Club I'm always childishly amused by 50 Cent trying to act like a right hard man, going on about he "doesn't give a fuck" and "ain't into making love", only to come out with

My flow, my show brought me the dough
That bought me all my fancy things

I don't know why but "fancy things" strikes me as an incongruously camp, "ooh matron" sort of phrase.

[Custard]

Heh, see also him saying he's gonna "sip Bacardi" on your birthday, cos he don't give a fuck

Hardcore, Fiddy

I always laugh at his naff contribution to Eminem's Spend Some Time (I think). "I can imagine her sucking my dick". It's also the half arsed, unimpressed way he says it, like that's all he can imagine a young lady is there to do

Romantic

[Cuellar]

Bob Dylan's commitment to rhyming couplets in Hurricane results in some funny lines, not least because of the slightly po-faced sentimentality he adopts for the whole song (and also in Joey on the same album, but I genuinely can't even listen to that one).

Particularly good on this one: "You'll be doing society a favor
                                             That sonofabitch is brave and gettin' braver
                                             We want to put his ass in stir
                                             We want to pin this triple murder
                                             On him
                                             He ain't no Gentleman Jim"

Where he sings murrrrderrr in a hilarious way, for some reason. It's a strange album. I love the way it sounds but I think the writing is mostly terrible.

Totally agree and now you've said it, I think I never wanted to admit this to myself because I like the album, as a whole. But yeah, honestly Bob:

Arthur Dexter Bradley said, "I'm really not sure"
The cops said, "A poor boy like you could use a break
We got you for the motel job
And we're talking to your friend Bello
Now you don't want to have to go back to jail
Be a nice fellow

[poodlefaker]

The "fish full of mercury" in Marvin Gaye's "Mercy Mercy Me" always get me for some reason.

[Menu]

Totally agree and now you've said it, I think I never wanted to admit this to myself because I like the album, as a whole. But yeah, honestly Bob:

Ha ha! I love this takedown of Hurricane even though I think its one of Bob's best songs. Love the drumming on it as well.

[Dr Rock]

'He starts to shake and cough. Just like the old man in that book by Nabokov'

Nice one Sting ya big prat.

[AllisonSays]

Apparently a lot of Desire was cowritten by some geezer called Jacques Levy, so maybe we can blame some of the clunkers on him. I agree with both of youse that it's a great record despite its lyrical obtuseness.

[Menu]

Definitely my favourite Dylan album. Great performances of it on that mad Netflix 'documentary' that Scorsese directed as well.