If You're A True Classic Rock Fan, These 5 Lyrics Absolutely Make You Wince

Chunky guitar riffs, swaggering vocals and enough cowbell to put Wisconsin (aka "America's Dairyland") to shame. These sounds go straight to classic rock fans' pleasure centers. In fact, the only thing that can harsh our buzz is the genre's penchant for the occasional wince-inducing lyric. For every evocative gem like Led Zeppelin's "And as we wind on down the road, our shadows taller than our soul," there's Sammy Hagar's "Hot, sweet cherries on the vine." Sorry Sammy, but cherries grow on trees.

Corny lyrics sound even worse when they come from a solid artist. We expect so much better from Alice Cooper than, "And we got no principals; And we got no intelligence; We can't even think of a word that rhymes" — particularly on a classic like "School's Out." Everybody has an off day, but did Prince really have to stick with, "Brother Maurice will be 'round in a minute; With a bucket, filled in it, squirrel meat," without writing a second draft?

In choosing these regrettable lapses of judgement we're passing by dumb yet subversively smart lyrics like The Ramones' "I Wanna Be Sedated." We're also overlooking often misheard lyrics — "Scuse me while I kiss this guy," instead of "Scuse me while I kiss the sky," on Jimi Hendrix's "Purple Haze." Instead, these are lyrics we hope we've heard wrong — but were instead delivered with intent by established artists. Somebody smart and creative thought they were a good idea at the time, which is why they're so mortifying now.

One of the more poignant grace notes in the tragic real-life story of The Doors is the band's final session to complete its sixth studio album "L.A. Woman" in January 1971. Jim Morrison overdubbed his vocals on "Riders On The Storm" in a faint whisper, adding a spectral quality to the vocals. It was the last song recorded by all four members of the band, and the final song recorded by Morrison that was released while he was alive. The song marks a change of pace from The Door's punchy psychedelic rockers and horn-driven soul tunes like "Touch Me." 

Here, Ray Manzarek's Fender Rhodes piano traces a cascading progression bolstered by Robby Krieger's tremolo guitar. An air of mystery pervades the jazzy, moody track, making space for Morrison's cryptic lyrics, which mimic the simplicity of nursery rhymes. But in this case, that simplicity sounds lazy. The ridiculous lyrics, "There's a killer on the road/ His brain is squirming like a toad," almost break the song's carefully woven spell. 

Manzarek says (via YouTube) the words refer to 1950s hitchhiking mass murderer William "Cockeyed" Cook, but instead, the squirming toad sounds like a refugee from Lewis Carroll's nonsense poem "Jabberwocky," which employs invented words: "'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves/ Did gyre and gimble in the wabe." It's cool to have a song conjure classic poetry, but not a deliberately absurdist poem. Fortunately those wince-inducing lyrics can't derail the Door's final masterpiece.

The lyrics penned by singer Jon Anderson for English progressive rock band Yes rarely tell a linear story about what's happening in any given song. Instead, Anderson excels at blending words as much for their simpatico sounds as their meaning. But what are we to make of "Roundabout," a multiple-time signature suite — 4/4, 14/4 and 7/4 if anyone is counting — from the band's fourth studio album "Fragile." 

Amid Steve Howe's plangent guitar, Rick Wakeman's swirling keyboards and Chris Squire's punched-forward bass, Anderson, accompanied by what sounds like all the assembled elves of Rivendell, sings, "In and around the lake/ Mountains come out of the sky and they stand there."  What is the meaning of this beautifully-sung gibberish? When do mountains descend from the sky? Plate tectonics tells us that they tend to push up from the earth's crust, and of course they stand still. Do you expect them to slink away? 

There are many untold truths of Yes. To them, we'd like to add the story behind "Roundabout." Anderson told Ultimate Classic Rock that the band was traveling on tour through misty Scottish mountains where they encountered several roundabouts. "There were all of these clouds around, and you couldn't see the mountains," Anderson told SomethingElse! "They seemed to come right out of the sky." That solves that. Now, can Anderson explain these lyrics from "And You And I": "Sad preacher nailed upon the colored door of time/ Insane teacher be there, reminded of the rhyme."

When acoustic folk rock trio America released its first single "Horse With No Name" in January 1972, it became so popular that the song was placed on the reissue of the band's 1971 debut album. With cantering bongos, a loping, frailing bassline, and cascading waterfall guitar, the tune seems to trace a kind of mystic journey into the desert. It's hard to say, because the lyrics seem so stripped-down and fractured. "There were plants and birds and rocks and things/ There was sand and hills and rings," sings songwriter Dewey Bunnell, giving a less-than-gripping description of the landscape. 

Later in the verse he also notes that "The heat was hot." Did we really need to be told this? The chorus gets better with a mention of the evocative unnamed horse, but that's followed by this string of tortured syntax, "In the desert, you can remember your name/ 'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain." It would all seem mythic, if it weren't so garbled. 

Rolling Stone, via Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, criticized the song for its "militantly nauseating" lyrics and for its Neil Young-imitative sound. Quoted in the America boxset "Highway Highlight," via Access Backstage, Bunnell explained the song's meaning. "This anonymous horse was a vehicle to get me away from all the confusion and chaos of life to a peaceful, quiet place," he said. Unfortunately, the lyrics sound like he's succumbing to heat stroke as he struggles to convey that thought.

Guitarist and band leader Steve Miller had released seven albums of psychedelic blues-rock in as many years before hitting the jackpot with "The Joker." When the loose-limbed tune topped the Billboard Hot 100 in January 1974, listeners arguably had no idea who Miller was, and what he was talking about. The song kicks off with a string of unlikely aliases: The space cowboy, the gangster of love and Maurice, before Miller delivers the most cringe pick-up line ever: "I really love your peaches; Wanna shake your tree." Then comes the wince-inducing head-scratcher, "I speak the pompatus of love," dropped like pearls of wisdom. What is this nonsense?

Miller "borrowed" the word "pompatus" from the Medallions' 1954 R&B tune "The Letter." Medallions songwriter Vernon Green coined the term "puppetutes" — misspelled by Miller — to describe a paper-doll fantasy woman, which ties in with the non-PC jive Miller's confident, incompetent yet strangely charming ladies man spins throughout the tune. Any doubts that Miller is playing a joker in "The Joker," are dispelled with a wah-wah wolf's whistle that punctuates the song after the word "Maurice."

What about those nicknames Miller's dirtbag persona drops? The "Space Cowboy" comes from Miller's "Brave New World" album, the "Gangster Of Love" from "Sailor" and "Enter Maurice" graces "Recall the beginning...A Journey From Eden." We're not expected to know or care, because it's all braggadocio from Miller's Dunning-Kruger lover-boy. "The Joker," nonsensical lyrics and all, is a joke, and Miller invites us all in on it. 

Thin Lizzy justifiably makes the cut when we consider five rock songs from 1976 that sound even cooler today. The question is, however, which song by the swaggering Irish rock band is their most enduring? We believe "Jailbreak," the title track and second single off the band's sixth studio album, deserves consideration — despite delivering Thin Lizzy's most wince-inducing lyric.

If "The Boys Are Back In Town," arguably Thin Lizzy's best known song, trades on the often disputed stereotype of the hard-partying-and-fighting Hibernian lad, "Jailbreak" can be seen as the morning after the blowout that landed the boys in borstal. Here, your mates must plan a breakout — that could make matters worse. "Jailbreak" is theatrically tough to the point of parody, but when strutting, storytelling band leader and the song's writer Phil Lynott offers ominous assurance that "Tonight there's gonna be a jailbreak; Somewhere in the town," it makes us wonder about his planning abilities. Surely the jailbreak will be at the jail. Is there another jail in this town?

Amid the band's trademark harmonized guitar riffs and Lynott's muscular bass and hard-hitting vocals, it's easy to miss that the tune's titular master plan seems a bit undeveloped, with the boys "Gettin' up and goin' down; Hidin' low, lookin' right to left." Sure enough, when the incarcerated lads break out all hell breaks loose. On the other hand, the pulsing tune sets up unbearable tension before an onslaught of dueling, entwining guitars and wailing sirens signals the undeniably exhilarating jailbreak.