Michael Bérubé - American Airspace

Pop lyrics written by space aliens

Veteran readers of this blog, from way back when it began in 1983, will know that I haven’t yet taken any of those “Which Paradise Lost Character Are You?” quizzes or surveys that ask one to express one’s preferences for Thomas Mann or James Joyce, boiling oil or the cat o’ nine tails, that sort of thing. But maybe it’s finally time for a little fun around here.

I’m asking readers to submit examples of pop lyrics so strange, so opaque, that they could not possibly have been written by members of our species. By my reckoning, fully one-quarter of the BeeGees’ oeuvre is eligible, which is no surprise, because everyone knows that the brothers Gibb are originally from the planet Zantok 6. Hence their famous line, “we can try to understand the New York Times’ effect on Man” from the quasi-autobiographical “Stayin’ Alive,” which many listeners have interpreted as a wry commentary on the Gibbs’ struggles to cope with the hostile gravity and atmosphere of Earth. And then, of course, as Janet has often pointed out, there’s the all-too-obvious

I looked at the skies, running my hands over my eyes
And I fell out of bed, hurting my head from things that I’d said
‘Till I finally died, which started the whole world living
Oh, If I’d only seen that the joke was on me.

But to start things off, I’m going to suggest the first verse and chorus of America’s “Tin Man”:

Sometimes late when things are real
And people share the gift of gab between themselves
Some are quick to take the bait
And catch the perfect prize that waits among the shelves

But Oz never did give nothing to the Tin Man
That he didn’t, didn’t already have
And Cause never was the reason for the evening
Or the tropic of Sir Galahad.

OK, so these are the rules: the lyrics have to be written by actual or suspected space aliens. They can’t be about space aliens, so all those early Bowie songs don’t count. They can’t be merely stupid, like “mountains come out of the sky and they stand there,” because if we opened the field to stupid lyrics we’d be dealing with 80 to 90 percent of all songs ever written. And they can’t simply make no sense, like Aretha’s immortal, “let’s go back, let’s go back, let’s go way on way back when/ I didn’t even know you, you couldn’ta been too much more than ten (just a child),” which, after all, bears no discernable relation to whatever events have led her to demand that her addressee “think, think about what you’re tryin’ to do to me” (because, after all, she didn’t know him then, right?). The lyrics have to be so utterly bizarre that they elude (or exceed) human understanding altogether; they have to sound like real words in real phrases, but there must be something really wrong with them, something that gives them away as the product of advanced hominid life forms from other star systems.

Or from the tropic of Sir Galahad. Have fun--

Posted by on 07/15 at 07:14 PM

My nominee would be the song “Station” by the Meat Puppets in its entirety:

Every thought’s a game
A pack of chimps I cannot tame
You’re wondering who to blame
Now your ride has come up lame
Fortress full of hate
Fears and hopes all pound the gate
To early, it’s too late
What is evil, which is great?
Pigs are sheep and cats are dogs
And thoughts are made of Lincoln Logs
To tend to the mice and wood
Where black is blue and bad is good
Thoughts that I keep my money in
Melting wax and chunks of tin
Forget your name, how to walk and ignore
The light shining in from under the door
Thoughts like a thread through a foam device
Liquid bread and rubber ice
Make a promise, grow teeth, go to bed
Wake up when you’re dead

Posted by norbizness on 07/16 at 04:15 AM
There are many a Tom Wait’s songs ripe for the pickin’, but I nominate “Telephone Call from Istanbul”

All night long on the broken glass
livin in a medicine chest
mediteromanian hotel back
sprawled across a roll top desk
the monkey rode the blade on an
overhead fan
they paint the donkey blue if you pay
I got a telephone call from Istanbul
my baby’s coming home today
will you sell me one of those if I shave my head
get me out of town is what fireball said
never trust a man in a blue trench coat
never drive a car when you’re dead
Saturday’s a festival
Friday’s a gem
dye your hair yellow
and raise your hem
follow me to Beulah’s on
dry creek road
I got to wear the hat that my baby done sewed
take me down to buy a tux
on red rose bear
got to cut a hole in the day
I got a telephone call from Istanbul
my baby’s coming home today

Posted by on 07/16 at 04:31 AM
Thinking that one can feel and call out to other minds suggests an alien consciousness. From Hootie & the Blowfish’s appropriately titled “So Strange”:

It’s so hard to breathe right now
Living things without a friend of mine
Air just filling every bit, of every end, of every mind
You thought you could feel
And it’s maybe 6 a.m.
And no one wants to be with me
So I’m calling out to someone and something that I don’t know so well
Oh, I’m free

Posted by on 07/16 at 04:37 AM
We head downhill, my hands fly back
Our fingers freeze, our hair falls out, our hair falls out
Our fingers freeze, our hair falls out
The iron piston pumps and spouts
The steaming air as hot as sprouts
All aboard, Brenda’s iron sledge
No one’s on top, they’re comfortable
They’re sitting on a human chain, a human chain
They’re sitting on a human chain
Their limbs compressed in icy slush
Of freezing in a raw meat groove
All aboard, Brenda’s iron sledge
Please don’t call me Reg, it’s not my name
The body’s rear, a bucking sled
Which hits a tree and falls asleep, and falls asleep
Which hits a tree and that is that
The grasshoppers curl up and burst
And Brenda shovels on the wurst
All aboard, Brenda’s iron sledge
Please don’t call me Reg, it’s not my name

-- “Brenda’s Iron Sledge”, Robyn Hitchcock

-or-

Trip to heave and ho, up down, to and fro’
you have no word
trip, trip to a dream dragon
hide your wings in a ghost tower
sails cackling at every plate we break
cracked by scattered needles
the little minute gong
coughs and clears his throat
madam you see before you stand
hey ho, never be still
the old original favorite grand
grasshoppers green Herbarian band
and the tune they play is “In Us Confide”
so trip to heave and ho, up down, to and fro’
you have no word
Please leave us here
close our eyes to the octopus ride!
Isn’t it good to be lost in the wood
isn’t it bad so quiet there, in the wood
meant even less to me than I thought
with a honey plough of yellow prickly seeds
clover honey pots and mystic shining feed…
well, the madcap laughed at the man on the border
hey ho, huff the Talbot
“Cheat” he cried shouting kangaroo
it’s true in their tree they cried
Please leave us here
close our eyes to the octopus ride!
The madcap laughed at the man on the border
hey ho, huff the Talbot
the winds they blew and the leaves did wag
they’ll never put me in their bag
the seas will reach and always seep
so high you go, so low you creep
the wind it blows in tropical heat
the drones they throng on mossy seats
the squeaking door will always squeak
two up, two down we’ll never meet
so merrily trip forgo my side
Please leave us here
close our eyes to the octopus ride!

-- “Octopus”, Syd Barrett

Posted by Jeremy Osner on 07/16 at 05:35 AM
Well and naturally Dylan’s “Tombstone Blues”—this is too obvious a choice and I feel like it probably doesn’t qualify because most if not all of the lyrics can be read as allegory to real-world and historical situations. But I nominate:
<blockquote>The ghost of Belle Starr she hands down her wits
To Jezebel the nun she violently knits
A bald wig for Jack the Ripper who sits
At the head of the chamber of commerce
</blockquote>
for weirdest stanza around.

Posted by Jeremy Osner on 07/16 at 05:43 AM
Sorry, didn’t realize there was no html permitted. Just strip out the tags with your eyes.

Posted by Jeremy Osner on 07/16 at 05:44 AM
Michael, you must understand that Yes lyrics from that period weren’t supposed to make sense. They viewed the vocals as just another set of sounds in the mix, exactly as if they had been another set of instruments. The words were selected to give the singers something to sing besides “ooh-ooh-ooh”. They aren’t attempting to make sense, or conjure up images, or anything else. They are just sounds.

Posted by on 07/16 at 06:10 AM
This one, involuntarily inflicted on me as a child, has always left me stumped - the chorus to Neil Diamond’s “I am I said.” It obviously comes from a universe with sentient furniture.

“I am,” I said
To no one there
And no one heard at all
Not even the chair

Posted by on 07/16 at 06:15 AM
I believe that Jeremy Osner’s strange and beautiful apology a few comments back trumps all the song lyrics. He wrote:

Sorry, didn’t realize there was no html permitted. Just strip out the tags with your eyes.

Posted by on 07/16 at 06:39 AM
If we’re talking Dylan as Alien, i think i have to go with Ballad of a Thin Man:

Now you see this one-eyed midget
Shouting the word “NOW”
And you say, “For what reason ?”
And he says, “How ?”
And you say, “What does this mean ?”
And he screams back, “You’re a cow
Give me some milk
Or else go home”.

Posted by Zach Schwartz-Weinstein on 07/16 at 07:21 AM
I was also going to play until I saw that Yes lyrics characterized as “merely stupid.” That’s okay, a lot of people think the same thing about Ulysses. Okay, I’ll play anyway:

Yesterday a morning came, a smile upon your face
Caesar’s palace, morning glory, silly human race
On a sailing ship to nowhere, leaving any place
If the summer change to winter, yours is no disgrace

Battleships confide in me and tell me where you are
Shining, flying, purple wolfhound, show me where you are
Lost in summer, morning, winter, travel very far
Lost in musing circumstances, that’s just where you are

-- from “Yours is No Disgrace”

Posted by Sean on 07/16 at 08:09 AM
Capt. Beefheart may be alien in the best sense of the word—from Ashtray Heart:
You used me like an ashtray heart
Case of the punks
Right from the start
I feel like a glass shrimp in a pink panty
With a saccharine chaperone
Make invalids out of supermen
Call in a “shrink”
And pick you up in a girdle
You used me like an ashtray heart

Posted by on 07/16 at 10:08 AM
Just about anything from Bj�rk. Let’s pick one, how about Human Behavour:

If you ever get close to a human
And human behaviour
Be ready to get confused
There’s definitely, definitely, definitely no logic
To human behaviour
But yet so, yet so irresistible
And there’s no map
They’re terribly, terribly, terribly moody
And human behaviour
Then all of a sudden turn happy

Bit of a giveaway that one, how about Hyper-Ballad?:

We live on a mountain
Right at the top
There’s a beautiful view
From the top of the mountain
Every morning I walk towards the edge
And throw little things off
Like car-parts, bottles and cutlery
Or whatever I find lying around
It’s become a habit
A way to start the day

Or the one that started her fame, Birthday, which lulls you into thinking she’s normal before striking:

Today is her birthday
They’re smoking cigars
He’s got a chain of flowers
And sows a bird in her knickers

Posted by Paul on 07/16 at 10:48 AM
Thanks Ken—“Jeremy Osner’s Strange and Beautiful Apology” is going to be the title of my memoir. Zach—yes that would be a good contender for weirdest Dylan lyric. Are you familiar with his book of poetry, “Tarantula”? That has some doozies in it too.

Posted by Jeremy Osner on 07/16 at 10:58 AM
Well, I think anything from Leonard Cohen’s “Songs of L.C.” or “Songs of Love and Hate” would qualify, but “The Dress Rehearsal Rag” on “Love and Hate” may win:

Four o’clock in the afternoon
and I didn’t feel like very much.
I said to myself, “Where are you golden boy,
where is your famous golden touch?”
I thought you knew where
all of the elephants lie down,
I thought you were the crown prince
of all the wheels in Ivory Town.
Just take a look at your body now,
there’s nothing much to save
and a bitter voice in the mirror cries,
“Hey, Prince, you need a shave.”
Now if you can manage to get
your trembling fingers to behave,
why don’t you try unwrapping
a stainless steel razor blade?
That’s right, it’s come to this,
yes it’s come to this,
and wasn’t it a long way down,
wasn’t it a strange way down?

...

That’s not the electric light, my friend,
that is your vision growing dim.
Cover up your face with soap, there,
now you’re Santa Claus.

...

You can still find a job,
go out and talk to a friend.
On the back of every magazine
there are those coupons you can send.
Why don’t you join the Rosicrucians,
they can give you back your hope,
you can find your love with diagrams
on a plain brown envelope.
But you’ve used up all your coupons
except the one that seems
to be written on your wrist
along with several thousand dreams.
Now Santa Claus comes forward,
that’s a razor in his mit;
and he puts on his dark glasses
and he shows you where to hit;
and then the cameras pan,
the stand in stunt man,
dress rehearsal rag,
it’s just the dress rehearsal rag,
you know this dress rehearsal rag,
it’s just a dress rehearsal rag.

Posted by Goldberg on 07/16 at 11:04 AM
I first heard MacArthur Park on a shortwave broadcast on the BBC World Service over 35 years ago. After hearing the song I told a friend that aliens had taken over the BBC and sent out a secret message to the aliens living among us. Remember, Richard Harris was the first person to sing this song and then 15 years later Donna Summers gave it a try, OH NO!

Written by: Jimmy Webb

Spring was never waiting for us, girl
It ran one step ahead
As we followed in the dance
Between the parted pages and were pressed
In love’s hot, fevered iron
Like a striped pair of pants

MacArthur Park is melting in the dark
All the sweet, green icing flowing down
Someone left the cake out in the rain
I don’t think that I can take it
‘Cause it took so long to bake it
And I’ll never have that recipe again
Oh, no!

I recall the yellow cotton dress
Foaming like a wave
On the ground around your knees
The birds, like tender babies in your hands
And the old men playing checkers by the trees

MacArthur Park is melting in the dark
All the sweet, green icing flowing down
Someone left the cake out in the rain
I don’t think that I can take it
‘Cause it took so long to bake it
And I’ll never have that recipe again
Oh, no!

Posted by on 07/16 at 12:22 PM
Finally, a subject suited to my mental capacity and educational level… Michael, I’ve been laughing about those America lyrics for decades; any one of their songs could qualify as alien-penned; they’re ALL pure gibberish!

Also, “MacArthur Park” and “I Am I Said” were both cited by Dave Barry in a column on this subject two or three years ago.

Y’all have already pounced on a few of the examples that sprang immediately to my pea-brain. Now I’ve got to go dig a bit deeper into that rusty memory bank… hmmmm…

Posted by on 07/16 at 12:50 PM
Maybe Elton John is an easy target, but does “Levon” make sense to anybody? I realize the “Jesus, he wants to go to Venus” line may disqualify it as being about actual aliens, but there’s still:

He was born a pauper to a pawn on a Christmas day
When the New York Times said God is dead
And the war’s begun
Alvin Tostig has a son today

And, like Elton, the Barenaked Ladies could probably have a category unto themselves but I’m particularly baffled by this segment of “I Know”:

I’ve seen the facts of inter-race relations,
Of see-through slacks, of cyber-masturbation;
If a hundred monkeys each could get their own show,
Perhaps one day a chimp might say
You have faith, you just need to use it sayeth the Lord

I know why I like you
It’s ‘cause of your sandals and your supper
and ‘cause you’re Jesus
I have a match; your Dad, my dad has
Your picture right next to your mother’s
And one of Charo

Posted by on 07/16 at 02:14 PM
It’s hard to get more alien than almost anything by San Francisco band Caroliner ... take this ditty “Rainbows Made of Meat” from their album Strike them Hard, Drag Them to Church:

Flag of health unfurled
a plague of grit given to the world!
Throwing my six cents out of the wind
A shotgun blast from in my pants
An omen I’ll be a bedpan.

Ceramics made in head shapes
Sold by dozens and dozens
Fill the head up with your thoughts
And bleed less and less suffering.
How considerate to paint the woods
White invitation compass companies.

It’s not for you my lamb
it’s to pay respectiveness
to root and leaf.

Flag of health is unfurled
A plague of grit given to the world.
Waving first bites skinned around colors
shining flies acknowledge
So do the dogs filet
Rainbows made of meat

Posted by Jim Flannery on 07/16 at 02:34 PM
The toad road licked my wheels like a sabre
Winds of the marsh lightly blew
Stone jars stacked with stars on her shoulders
Hunters of pity she slew.

Chariots of silk she rode
Stallions of gold she owned.

A mad Mage with a maid on his eyebrows
Hunteth the realm for a God
Who could teach him the craft of decanting
The glassy entrails of a frog.

The Bard of my birth with his ballet
Walked the wild worlds in the chase
For the black chested canary
Who as a moose can sing bass.

Chariots of Silk, Marc Bolan

Posted by on 07/17 at 02:29 AM
Soul Coughing’s entire “Rooby Vroom” album might qualify. How can “Janine, I’d drink you up, if you were the Baltic Sea and I were a cup” have been written by humans? I’ll just provide two complete examples.

“Uh, Zoom Zip”

Zoom zip and uh wake up, uh zoom zip

My eye like a noisegate, the number 8, frustrate, and I roll to the floor to the fruit
To the fruit to the core of a spheroid, embedded in my skull, the round, the
Zero, the symbol of null and void, and well I toyed with the concept of
Vitamin B-12, the synapse, the synapse, it feeds itself on a nutrient
Contained in sunlight, the blink, the lid, the fight to snap open.

Zoom zip and uh wake up, uh zoom zip

Moving up to the double m 2000, I eat up a decade like a flan, your turn of
The century, turn it up, turn it up, clock seconds to the hour, go and cash the
Millenium, um um, and it hums like a migraine to the brain, in time yet
Remaining, but uh ah melancholy nonsense and I crack nouns brotherfuck
The verb tense

Zoom zip and uh wake up, uh zoom zip

Recombination, then viacom, safeway

“Is Chicago, Is Not Chicago”

A man
drives a plane
into the
Chrystler building

Saskatoon is in the room
Poulsbo is in the room
Bennetsville is in the room
Palmyra is in the room

Is Chicago
Is not Chicago
Is Chicago
Is not Chicago

A man
cuts in half
just like he
snaps a pencil

Khartoum is in the room
Phnom Penh is in the room
Pyongyang is in the room
Cairo is in the room

Is Chicago
Is not Chicago
is Chicago
Is not Chicago

Posted by Hunt on 07/17 at 03:34 AM
By the way, I realize there’s a “nonsense” rule, but M. Daughty, the author of the above lyrics, had lengthy explanations of them on the old Soul Coughing website, so presumably they did make sense ("Is Chicago, Is Not Chicago” came from an hallucination episode on the “L,” in which he thought that everything either was, or was not, Chicago. “Uh, Zoom Zip” is a bit more difficult to explain, but I am pretty sure there’s some meaning in there, somewhere.

Posted by Hunt on 07/17 at 03:37 AM
’Dress Rehearsal Rag’ is about a washed-up ladies’ man standing in front of a mirror to shave and wondering if he should slit his wrists as he remembers his glory days. I’d say that it’s actually one of LC’s less obtuse efforts. Though admittedly, I don’t get the bit about the elephants.

Posted by GeoX on 07/17 at 02:13 PM
That’s ‘abstruse.’

Posted by GeoX on 07/17 at 02:18 PM
Greil Marcus loved their previous release, but the latest one—just came out last Tuesday—from the Fiery Furnaces (a brother and sister duo) defies easy categorization. But I’ll try ... sorta shambling psychedelic showtunes and, lyrically, what William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition would have read like if Dr. Seuss rewrote it. Any of the album’s song lyrics would work but here are the words to cut #10 entitled ‘1917’

Going down Morgan with Janko, Jerko, and Jerry
We down our Pils and over at the South Shore, they sipped their sherry
I opened my Kaiserized speller to learn what they know:
Nurse killers, annexers-executioners, wo!
Hey Slovanians, be ye mindful
that our ‘tis tongue dies never
The happy Hun Felsch sure likes his blond beer
and I like his doubles so much I might even cheer
Last year he had enough and got fixed on the cardinal who’d pardon all
the riff-raff and all their sinister ways and halfs and he laughs
Over on 56th and he’s got the arsenic in his left white sock
and he see the chicken stock in a big black pot
and he pours in the lot; but what ruined or saved the day
was that soup then turned gray, and a hundred higher-ups came back from the hospital to keep getting wafers from Mundelein:
but now the Gigantics are getting the tar taken out of their pine
by my hero Red Faber and I’m ready to get rapprochement with my neighbor
as part of the healthy back and forth --
but not if he’s from up north
So I ask Dad Why can’t we ever win, ever win, once?
Go ask Dad, why you can’t ever win, ever win, once

All of which makes Elvis Costello’s global fear & loathing in ‘Tokyo Storm Warning’ seem perfectly transparent, though maybe not the last verse of his ‘Deep Dark Truthful Mirror’—“A stripping puppet on a liquid stick gets into it pretty thick / A butterfly drink’s a turtle’s tears, but how do you know he really needs it? / ‘Cos a butterfly feeds on a dead monkey’s hand, Jesus wept he felt abandoned / You’re spellbound baby there’s no doubting that / Did you ever see a stare like a Persian cat?”

I can still hear my friend Stan muttering about this one.

Posted by on 07/17 at 06:24 PM
People have already mentioned Syd Barrett, Bjork, and Bob Dylan, and they are clear proof that the Aliens Are Among Us.

I think, though, you were too quick to dismiss the Truly Stupid Lyrics. I mean, really, if you completely dismiss vapid pop, you’re going to have to leave out Michael Jackson—and everyone knows what he is. He’s publicly sloughing off his humanoid prostheses, for cripes sake.

And think about these lyrics from Britney Spears in the right frame of mind. I mean, they’re utterly plastic and shallow, but when you interpret them in the light of her nefarious alien nature, they acquire a whole new ominous significance:

Oops!...I did it again
I played with your heart, got lost in the game
Oh baby, baby
Oops!...You think I’m in love
That I’m sent from above

Posted by PZ Myers on 07/18 at 03:22 AM
Edith Sitwell, FACADE, 1922:

“Hornpipe”
http://www.doubtfulpalace.com/Hornpipe.mp3

Sailors come
To the drum
Out of Babylon;
Hobby-horses
Foam, the dumb
Sky rhinoceros glum
Watched the courses of the breakers� rocking-horses and with Glaucis,
Lady Venus on the settee of the horsehair sea!
Where Lord Tennyson in laurels wrote a gloria free,
In a borealic iceberg came Victoria; she
Knew Prince Albert�s tall memorial took the colours of the floreal
And the borealic iceberg, floating on they see
New arisen Madam Venus for whose sake from far
Came the fat and zebra�d emperor from Zanzibar
Where like golden bouquets lay far Asia, Africa, Cathay,
All laid before that shady lady by the fibroid Shah.
Captain Fracasse stout as any water-butt came, stood
With Sir Bacchus both a-drinking the black tarr�d grapes� blood
Plucked among the tartan leafage
By the furry wind whose grief age
Could not wither--like a squirrel with a gold star-nut.
Queen Victoria sitting shocked upon the rocking horse
Of a wave said to the Laureate, �This minx of course
Is as sharp as any lynx and blacker, deeper than the drinks and quite as
Hot as any hotten-tot, without remorse!
For the minx,�
Said she,
�And the drinks
You can see
Are hot as any hottentot and not the goods for me!’

“Lullaby For Jumbo”
http://www.doubtfulpalace.com/LullabyForJumbo.mp3

Jumbo asleep!
Grey leaves thick-furred
As his ears, keep
Conversations blurred.
Thicker than hide
Is the trumpeting water;
Don Pasquito�s bride
And his youngest daughter
Watch the leaves
Elephantine grey:
What is it grieves
In the torrid day?
Is it the animal
World that snores
Harsh and inimical
In sleepy pores?--
And why should the spined flowers
Red as a soldier
Make Don Pasquito
Seem still mouldier?

Music by William Walton. Performed by Russell Oberlin and Hermione Gingold, respectively.

The aliens can have the Bee Gees, but I’d be very disappointed to find out that I couldn’t claim Sitwell, Beefheart or Cohen for the human race.

Posted by Tim Walters on 07/18 at 10:52 AM
"Killer on the road
His brain is squirming like a toad"--Jim Morrison

Posted by Arthur D. Hlavaty on 07/18 at 11:59 AM
"On the road again
My brain is squirming like a toad again"--Willie Morrison

Posted by Tim Walters on 07/18 at 01:00 PM
Not sure if this counts, b/c it surely fits into the Stoopid Lyrics category, but Fleetwood Mac’s “Rhiannon"--that levitating woman reference is suspicious:

All your life you’ve never seen a woman
Taken by the wind
Would you stay if she promised you heaven
Will you ever win

Posted by on 07/18 at 03:58 PM
What about Michael Stipe, who might even be honored to be considered an alien? So many choices from the R.E.M. oeuvre, so many instances of so-freakin-good-it-must-be-brilliant.

How about these lines from “Orange Crush”?

“Hup, two, three, four.
We’d circle and we’d circle to stop and
Consider and
Centered on the pavement stacked up all the trucks
Jacked up and
Our wheels in slush and orange crush in pocket and all this
Here county
Hell any county it’s just like heaven here and I was
Remembering and I
Was just in a different county and all then this whirlybird
That I
Headed for I had my goggles pulled off I knew it all I knew
Every back
Road and every truck stop.

Follow me, don’t follow me
I’ve got my spine, I’ve got my orange crush.
Collar me, don’t collar me
I’ve got my spine, I’ve got my orange crush.

We are agents of the free
I’ve had my fun and now its time to
Serve your conscience overseas (over me, not over me)
Coming in fast, over me”

Posted by sian on 07/19 at 11:06 AM
Well, heaven knows I love Tori Amos, and I’ll sing along to any damn thing she puts out (including her laundry list), but please consider the following, from her song “Muhammed My Friend”:

. . .

muhammad my friend
i’m getting very scared
teach me how to love my brothers
who don’t know the law
and what about the deal on that flying
trapeze got a peanut butter hand
but honey do drop in at the
dew drop inn

sweet sweet
between the boys and the bees

and moses i know
i know you’ve seen fire
but you’ve never seen fire
until you’ve seen pele blow
and i’ve never seen light
but i sure have seen gold
and gladys save a place for me
on your grapevine
till i get my own tv show

ashre ashre ashre ashre
and if i lose my cracker jacks at the
tidal wave i got a place
in the pope’s rubber robe
muhammed my friend
it’s time to tell the world
we both know it was a girl
back in bethlehem

. . .

Truly, there is a fine line between “unintelligible to anyone in our star system” and “stupid.”

Posted by on 07/19 at 07:44 PM
My only two thoughts were Soul Coughing and Barenaked Ladies (who I mostly think are just on crack when they write), but my hubby came up with this one from Mars Volta:

Roulette Dares (The Haunt Of)

Transient jet lag ecto mimed bison
This is the haunt of roulette dares
Ruse of metacarpi
Caveat emptor....to all that enter here
Open wrist talks back again
In the wounds of its skin
They’ll pinprick the witness
In ritual contrition
The am trinity fell upon asphyxia-derailed
In the rattles of…
Made its way through the tracks
Of a snail slouching whisper
A half mass comute through umbilical blisters
Spector will lurk
Radar has gathered
Midnight neuces from boxcar cadavears
Exoskeletal junction at the railroad delayed
Exoskeletal junction at the railroad delayed
It’s because this is
Cranial bleeding
Leaches train the living
Cursed are they who speak its name
Ruse of metacarpi
Caveat emptor to all that enter here
Exoskeletal junction at the railroad delayed
Exoskeletal junction at the railroad delayed
It’s because this is
Ratteling the laughter
Hinges splintering inside
Bludgeoned to a saddle
Rang the cloister bell inside
inside
inside
exoskeletal junction at the railroad delayed
exoskeletal junction at the railroad delayed
it’s because this is

Posted by Heather on 07/19 at 08:23 PM
No discussion of this type can take place without mentioning The Residents.

Here, from The laughing Song:

An oily ole egg with a red peg leg
Thought a porquepine was his daughter
But he soon found out
That she had the gout
And often would wink underwater
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
HO HO HO HO HO HO HO
HE HE HE HE HE HE HE
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
A red red rose saw a big pig pose
On the edge of a silver dollar
The end of his tail
Was a long-necked nail
And in place of his face was a scholar

Or try this, from The Birthday Boy:

Bulging eyes abound about
The birthday boy today;
Screaming, “Creaming eyes!”
Screamed he,
His mother looked away.
“Creaming eyes explode upon
An apple pirate toad
And if an injun ate a plate
I’d laugh and live abode.”

Nervousness itself was shifting
Guests against the door,
“Forgive us dear, but, uh, baking beer
It what we should be near.”
“Bye,” the bothered birthday boy said,
“Bye,” the bothered birthday boy said,
“Bye or sell or bye,
Bye or sell or bye.”

“Happy, happy birthday to me,
Happy birthday to me,
Happy birthday to me he-he-hee,
Happy birthday to me…
etc

Posted by on 07/20 at 12:39 AM
Posted on behalf of Jason Stuart:

Michael,

Your blog wouldn’t accept my comment. Please accept via email lyrics from Adam Ant that I’ve been trying to figure out for years:

Mohair Locker Room Pinup Boys

“Big C Big H Mash Mary name it
What a ride what a ride
You got me dizzy with that bullwhip
We clutched each other the walls closed in
Don’t bust my chops like Gunga Din [?!]

We’re coming home now diggety dig
The old Zippo bang is what it is
We got flip flop rubber, gung-ho toys
The Mohair Locker Room pin-up boys

Five years old, he loves the screen
Kissing in tongues and margarine”

Margarine? There is a space connection - on the album, “Apollo 9” shows AA is pretty conversant with NASAese: “Whoopsin a-whoopsin/ jan jan jammering/ yabba yabba ding ding/ Delta Hey Max Nine” - so whatever space aliens ruled pop from ‘70-’90, they a) had a pretty vibrant leatherboy subculture, and b) had clearance from our space agency to party, which may explain Key West: “Quick! Hide them!”

“Hey hey whaddya say
Choochalaben dollaley
You can run, you won’t get far
A-leyben in your capella.”

Posted by on 07/20 at 04:15 AM
Posted on behalf of Charles Pierce:

I have to throw in a shout for The Association. First, there was the remarkable “Requiem For The Masses.” (Sing along now, everyone! “Rex, tremendae majestatis!") But I still have to go with their big hit, Along Comes Mary.

And when the morning of the warning’s passed, the gassed
And flaccid kids are flung across the stars
The psychodramas and the traumas gone
The songs are left unsung and hung upon the scars

And then along comes Mary
Then along comes Mary

And does she want to see the stains, the dead remains of all the pains
She left the night before
Or will their waking eyes reflect the lies, and make them
Realize their urgent cry for sight no more
When we met I was sure out to lunch
Now my empty cup tastes as sweet as the punch
Sweet as the punch

I mean. Wow.

Posted by on 07/20 at 06:46 AM
And then there’s the Byrds version of “All I Really Want to Do”, which is ostensibly a cover of one of Dylan’s more lucid songs. But if you actually listen to it you find that they’ve translated the lyrics into their own space alien language (at least I can’t make out any English in there).

Posted by on 07/21 at 12:30 AM
I have no idea if anyone reads comments to a more-than-a-month-old post, but I wanted to throw in my 2 cents:

Springsteen’s “Blinded by The Light” might well qualify, although that might be more of a drug trip/stream of consciousness song.

A lot of stuff by They Might be Giants is just on the alien side of the border between alien and nonsense. I don’t know, maybe “The Statue Got Me High” or “Cowtown”?

“Animals” by Talking Heads is very far from nonsensical, and the syntax is fine, but it always gave me a sense of not-from-here: “I’m mad/ and that’s a fact/ I found out/ animals don’t help/ animals think/ they’re pretty smart/ shit on the ground/ see in the dark.”

The Cocteau Twins’ lyrics are probably written by space aliens, but they’re nearly incomprehensible, since they’re also sung by a space alien. Fan sites have done their best to decipher the lyrics, and they’re pretty space-alien.

Posted by on 09/01 at 05:47 AM
I am not really sure if best practices have emerged around things like that, but I am sure that your great job is clearly identified. I was wondering if you offer any subscription to your RSS feeds as I would be very interested and can’t find any link to subscribe here.
Personalised Canvas Prints

Posted by on 07/16 at 09:44 AM

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