State Of The Nation - Worst NO Lyrics ever?

I'll second that....

[quote"You can walk/and you can run/you don't have to be someone"

It may sound stupid, but, To me it works perfectly: You don't have to take everything so seriously all the time. You are allowed to be yourself. You don't have to think so competitive all the time. You don't have to be perfect to dance to it.

I'll suppose you can dance to more intellectual stuff as well, but are dance tracks meant to be all that intellectual?

It just amazes me that New Order "fans" still bitch about Barney's lyricism this late in the day. What exactly did you fall in love with the band for??!!??!!? Of course the lyrics are dodgy, but in a loveably surreal and invariably touching way - they're all about the inexpressibility of emotion, right? RIGHT????????

FACT: "Oh you've got green eyes...." is the best pop lyric in the world EVER. Its banal, meaningless, ridiculous trite on the one hand; on the other, its just the most wonderfully druggy and stunningly emotive few words (when put in context) I've ever heard. It's the sound of falling in love, and you just can't beat it.

And, personally, I love that "I don't kiss when you're around" line from SOTN: it's bitter as fuck, and bitterness is one thing the Order excell at.

Lurve,

M.

Originally posted by martin fradley It just amazes me that New Order "fans" still bitch about Barney's lyricism this late in the day. What exactly did you fall in love with the band for??!!??!!? Of course the lyrics are dodgy, but in a loveably surreal and invariably touching way - they're all about the inexpressibility of emotion, right? RIGHT????????FACT: "Oh you've got green eyes...." is the best pop lyric in the world EVER. Its banal, meaningless, ridiculous trite on the one hand; on the other, its just the most wonderfully druggy and stunningly emotive few words (when put in context) I've ever heard. It's the sound of falling in love, and you just can't beat it.And, personally, I love that "I don't kiss when you're around" line from SOTN: it's bitter as fuck, and bitterness is one thing the Order excell at.Lurve,M.

Definitely agree about "Oh, you've got green eyes." One reason I don't like the original version is the line comes too soon.

Originally posted by martin fradley It just amazes me that New Order "fans" still bitch about Barney's lyricism this late in the day. What exactly did you fall in love with the band for??!!??!!? Of course the lyrics are dodgy, but in a loveably surreal and invariably touching way - they're all about the inexpressibility of emotion, right? RIGHT????????FACT: "Oh you've got green eyes...." is the best pop lyric in the world EVER. Its banal, meaningless, ridiculous trite on the one hand; on the other, its just the most wonderfully druggy and stunningly emotive few words (when put in context) I've ever heard. It's the sound of falling in love, and you just can't beat it.And, personally, I love that "I don't kiss when you're around" line from SOTN: it's bitter as fuck, and bitterness is one thing the Order excell at.Lurve,M.

Absolutely. The trouble is though that the banal can be excused to a certain extent, then he ruins it with something absolutely shite that detracts from the song as a whole and becomes the focus of the song, not the music. Take Every Little Counts for example. It is only seen as a joke because of that one line !

Slow Jam is ... err ... well, you know. ;)

As for Behind Closed Doors, I love this line:

"Please don't take my drugs away, I'm gonna give them up someday"

Great line, you have to admit that.

Oh and "Ooh you've got green eyes etc etc" is fantastic, I like the part in Trainspotting when Renton is going through Heroin withdrawal and Debbie(?) sings it to him. ;)

In my opinion, New Ordre's lyrics may be the weakest thing about their songs but then again, when you get songs as fantastic as "true Faith", "Perfect Kiss", "1963" , "All The Way" and "Loveless" for instance, I tend to shut off and forget about such slight shortcomings and just concentrate on wallowing in the great music....that to me makes perfect sense anyway. Nigel earlier mentioned the daft line in "Every little counts" ("....think you are a pig...... should be in a zoo") - and he has a point - the song is pretty enough by NO standarsd but then all the attention is diverted to that throwaway line which then detracts from the rest of the song. Likewise in "Your Silent Face" too, only difference here is Barney isn't giggling afterwards at the absurdity of his words as he did in "ELC".

Todd

Who cares about the lyrics? I listen to New Order because of the brilliant trombone playing and the quite excellent washboard solo's.

good one keeper. i for one have always been taken with gillian`s unrivalled kazoo playing skills...

The song is the weakest thing New Order have done. Not at all keen on the lyrics eithere!

It's funny how we differ over which lyrics are bad and which are good. It's all a matter of perception. I remember listening to "Age of Consent" with a friend, and when Barney sang, "You're not the kind that needs to tell me about the birds and the bees," my friend broke out laughing. He thought the words were ridiculous. I kinda liked them. I interpreted them to be intentionally tongue-in-cheek. I feel the same way about Slow Jam's lyrics.

every little counts is worse