What's your favorite song with grammatically incorrect lyrics?

[red dog 1]

(From the great Gene Chandler song, Duke of Earl)

"We'll walk through my dukedom"


(It's still a great song, imo)

[Glorfindel]

1. Well, I guess "duchy" wouldn't fit the meter...but it is a great song!

Mine, from roughly the same era: "Don't Say Nothing Bad about My Baby."

[John1956PA]

2. Harry Chapin's "Taxi" which goes, "Through the too many miles and the too little smiles . . ."

It just would not be the same if he had sung "too few smiles."

[unblock]

3. how many songs have entirely, grammatically correct lyrics? complete sentences and everything?

[Mike Nelson]

4. Take it away, Elvis...

[link:

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[Motley13]

5. 'I ain't got no satisfaction"

[red dog 1]

13. You mean "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" by the Rolling Stones?

written by Mick Jagger & Keith Richards - released in 1965 - was the Rolling Stones' first hit song in the U.S.


I love the "Satisfaction" parody song written by Phil Alexander:

I ain't got no inspiration
I ain't got no inspiration
'Cause it's trite
What I write
And it might
Just be shite
I ain't got no..
I ain't got no..

When I'm tryin' to rhyme a word
And I'm searchin' on the internet
And it tells me "bird" or "turd"
But it's useless information
's gone and fried my imagination
I ain't got no.. no, no, no
Eh? Eh? Eh? What that you say?

I ain't got no inspiration
Hope it's just an aberration
Though I try
And imply
Maybe I
Gonna' die
I ain't got no..
I ain't got no..

See complete lyrics at "Am I Right.com" - (Making fun of music, one song at a time)

[Motley13]

20. right, dawned on me later

[whathehell]

6. Yah-mo be there

Michael MacDonald and James Ingram.

[LuckyLib]

24. Great song -- two amazing voices!

[whathehell]

25. Agreed!

on both counts.

[left-of-center2012]

7. "Ain't no sunshine when she's gone"

[whathehell]

26. Love this song..

Thanks for posting.

[NNadir]

8. Ain't nobody.

No disrespect to Chaka Khan, but I really like this Kelly Price version.

[Skittles]

9. "I Can't See Nobody" - Bee Gees

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

10. Ain't Too Proud To Beg.

[Squinch]

11. I love your topics.

[LonePirate]

12. Timbaland - "The Way I Are"

[red dog 1]

14. Hilarious!

Wasn't that the original title of the movie "The Way We Were"?

[DFW]

15. Touch me--The Doors

Now, I'm gonna love you
Till the heavens stop the rain
I'm gonna love you
Till the stars fall from the sky for you and I
Come on, come on, come on, come on
Now touch me, baby


In English, it's "for you and me," even if that doesn't rhyme with "sky." Of course, if you were Jim Morrison, you could sing in Morrisonian, and no one would care.

Some 25 years later, Mark Knopfler made exactly the same mistake in "Darling Pretty" on the Golden Heart album:

There will come a day, darling pretty
There will come a day when hearts can fly
Love will find a way, my darling pretty
Find a heaven for you and I
Love will find a way, my darling pretty
Find a heaven for you and I

You'd think an Englishman (OK, a Scot, but even so) would know that "for you and I" is incorrect, but again, if you're Mark Knopfler and can play guitar like he does and write songs like he does, who is going to tell HIM what lyrics to put in his songs?

[red dog 1]

17. I saw The Doors once at the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco

and they blew me away!

As far as Mark Knopfler, I consider him to be one of the greatest rock guitarists of all time, and Dire Straits' "Walk of Life" music video is absolutely outstanding!
(possibly the best I've ever seen)

Good picks!

[DFW]

19. Yeah, who knows what he was on when he recorded it!

I never got to see the Doors--never in the right place at the right time. It didn't help that I lived in Spain for part of the late sixties. The only ones that played there were already there: Los Bravos! (Well, and Los Andors, whom I briefly joined at the tender age of 16!)

[red dog 1]

22. Who knows what he was on when he wrote it?

Morrison liked to do Peyote.

Or he could have been on acid, who knows?

(I've probably seen The Doors movie 25 times).

I just read a Rolling Stone article from May of 2013 about Doors drummer John Densmore, promoting his book "The Doors Unhinged:The Jim Morrison Legacy Goes On Trial"

You should check it out....I'm too tired right now to post the link, but you can get to it via
Google
"The Doors' John Densmore Talks About the Band's Ugly, Six-Year Feud"

[mahatmakanejeeves]

16. "'Til the stars fall from the sky ... for you and I."

Eeeeeeeek..

"… But each day when she walks to the sea
She looks straight ahead not at he "

That's sort of excusable, as it's translated from Portuguese:

The lyrics have been revised to say

"… But each day when she walks to the sea
She looks straight ahead not at me "

But: what a great tune.

ETA: DFW got the Doors already. I have known an attorney to make the "for you and I" mistake.

[red dog 1]

18. "Til the stars fall from the sky...for you and I"

is totally excusable, because Jim Morrison wrote those lyrics.

Good pick!

[Doc_Technical]

21. Steve Miller- Take The Money and Run

"Billy Mack is a detective down in Texas
You know he knows just exactly what the facts is"

[SethH]

23. i'll give him a pass

because the rhyme is so fabulous!

[FM123]

27. Ah the good old days, when someone said Steve Miller

and you DIDN'T think of that Statue of Liberty hating trump advisor at the White House.

[DFW]

31. He should have waited for technology to catch up with him

Ten years later, he could have been grammatically correct AND rhyme:

"You know he knows just exactly where the fax is"

[rock]

28. In what way is "We'll walk through my dukedom" ungrammatical?

[nocoincidences]

29. Duchy, not Dukedom, technically.

[malchickiwick]

30. Not necessarily the favorite, but: Beatles, If I Fell

The lyric bugged me the first time I heard it as a kid:

If I give my heart to you
I must be sure
From the very start
That you would love me more than her

Even as a seven year old I knew that "her" should be "she" grammar-wise.

[eppur_se_muova]

32. If by "favorite" you mean "favorite example" ... A Horse With No Name

… I've been through the desert on a horse with no name
It felt good to be out of the rain
In the desert you can remember your name
'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain…

[Coventina]

33. Where It's At by Beck

Should be: Where it is.

[Bayard]

34. Anything by Springsteen

But a master lyricist.

[lame54]

35. We don't need no education

[Still Blue in PDX]

36. "It Don't Matter to Me" by Bread.

If by "favorite" you mean the one song that drives me the most batshit crazy.

[rusty fender]

37. These boots are made for walking

You keep lyin' when you oughta be truthin'

You keep samin' when you oughta be changin'