The Crack Young Staff at Hatemongers' Quarterly have posted a challenge to their readers to submit the worst rock song lyrics of all time.

I have submitted the lyrics to Touch and Go by Emerson, Lake and Powell and Neil Diamond's I Am I Said.

Funny thing is, I like both of those songs.

For me lyrics are usually incidental: just a means of carrying a melody and maybe some harmony. Rarely do bad lyrics mess up good music for me, but I cannot abide good lyrics accompanied by bad (or boring) music (cases in point: Country and Rap).

The one group whose lyrics I really tune into is Rush, because they are reliably intelligent and often libertarian. Ironically, since one of the biggest turn-offs to non-Rush fans is the singer's (Geddy Lee's) voice.

Ah, well, I can't wait to see the results of the lyric contest.

Posted by: JohnL at 11:31 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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I'm not ashamed to admit that, despite early exposure to classical music by my parents, I didn't really get into it until I got heavily into progressive rock music, particularly Emerson, Lake, and Palmer. Many of my first classical recordings were the originals covered by ELP (Ginastera, Copland, Janacek, Bartok, Bach, and Holst, to name a few).

So it's really fun to see the tribute flowing in the opposite direction thanks to this Australian Physics Professor, who has arranged, recorded, and posted mp3 samples of Led Zeppelin's classic Stairway to Heaven as it would have been authored by Schubert, Holst, Glenn Miller, Mahler, Bizet, Beethoven, and then a grand finale mish-mash of the styles.

A loud and obnoxious "bravo" to BoingBoing for unearthing this gem.

Posted by: JohnL at 11:15 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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1 That is so cool. I especially loved the Glenn Miller snippet, but then I'm partial to Big Band.

Posted by: Ted at August 13, 2004 08:20 PM (ZjSa7)

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