How to Ruin a Song

photo courtesy by mustech.pbworks.com

It's pretty hard writing a catchy song. It's even harder if you're trying to write the next mega pop hit. But if the songwriter goes the easy way out and writes literally whatever comes to mind, it may turn out to be disastrous. If done wrong, the song will be less than enjoyable to listen to. Unfortunately there are some songs out there that have fallen into this writing misfortune. In fact these songs are great examples of how to ruin a song.



The Song's Topic Does Not Make Sense
Love, hate, betrayal and other topics are common among most hit songs. Even though there are a ton of songs with the same topic such as love, each of them are lyrically different in their own way. Of course if the writer has run out of things to write about, what happens next? Well in the case with Gwen Stefan's "Breaking Up", she decides to go on a free writing spree and write about having a bad cell phone connection.

"You know, you know, you wanna call me back.../Hold up I think you're cutting out.../Tell me, can you hear me now?../We're breakin' up, up, up, up..." The whole song deals with Stefani trying to get a hold of her caller after a failed cell phone connection. Throughout the song she sings about how her cell phone signal drops and she has a hard time reaching the person on the other line.

"We're breakin' up, up, up," says Stefani's solo career.

Horrible Metaphor
Using metaphors in a song can work out in two ways; it can help you out greatly when it comes to making a song more interesting or it can greatly backfire on you and make the song sound dumb. Lana Del Rey's song "Cola" is a perfect example of a metaphor gone wrong:

"My pussy tastes like Pepsi Cola/My eyes are wide like cherry pies/I gots a taste for men who are older/It's always been so it's no surprise." According to Lana Del Rey, her vagina has 150 calories plus 41 grams of sugar. Not to mention the fact that it also has high fructose corn syrup and citric acid. If Del Rey is trying to say that she's sweet and very pleasing, comparing herself to a soft drink is not the way to go.

"Mmm...Tastes like Lana Del  Rey" says no one ever.

Good Verses with Horrible Rap Verse 
In Ellie Goulding's "Hanging On", the song itself is very good to listen to. The vocals are perfect enough to bring out the emotion of any listener, the music sets up the tone for the mood perfectly and the lyrics that Goulding sings are deep. So what can go wrong? How about when adding the rap verse of Tinie Tempah?

"I barely even know this fucking woman in my bed/And if there's too much on my plate, then I ain't finishing my veg/And if anybody said the grass is greener on the other side/Well it ain't swear on my mother's life." This is just a little part of the verse Tempah rapped in "Hanging On". Of course for some reason in Goulding's US album version of Halcyon, the rap verse was omitted from the track.

Every song has a potential to be great and listenable. But of course, there is always an exception when it comes to songs that have whacked out lyrics. Because of this, there will always be songs that will be musically ruined.