The Beach Boys in 1979. What atrocities have been committed in the name of writing lyrics? Photograph: AP
Driving into London over the weekend, trawling the airwaves for traffic reports, I had the misfortune to tune into my least favourite five words in the history of pop lyrics, from Feeder's single Buck Rogers: "It's got a CD player". Actually, it's eight if you count the "(player, player, player)" bit.
"It's got a CD player"? Is that really the best they could come up with? Pop is full of "Will this do?" moments - most famously, Paul McCartney's "The movement you need is on your shoulder".
But where Macca's subconscious came up with a line of inspiration, most holding lyrics are glaringly obvious. So while I was sitting in the slow lane, I came up with my top ten crimes of lyrical filler. I could hardly leave Feeder out, so here are the other nine. Anyone care to take issue with them?
1. "She's giving me excitations" - and to think Mike Love thinks this line is so great he'll tell anyone with a microphone he came up with it. 2. "Parasites and literasites"- and who? Are they the people who use long words then? 3. "Sip a glass of cool champagne wine"- smooth. 4. "Did it hurt too much? More than a lot?" - is that all you've got? 5. "Slowly walking down the hall / faster than a cannonball" - tip: if you secretly think you're rubbish at lyrics, don't tell everyone. They'll only look out for howlers like this. 6. "Or I will attack/ and you don't want that" - most people quote the "I'm as serious as cancer" bit, but at least they put some effort into that one. 7. "You're about as easy as a nuclear war" - I still don't get it. Does that mean she's not easy? But nuclear war is just pushing a button isn't it? And anyway I thought not being easy was a good thing? 8. "There are nine million bicycles in Beijing" - amazing. Five seconds in and I'm bored already. 9. "You're taking me up / When I don't want to go up any more" - if in doubt, just add "any more" to the last line.
