6 most meaningless songs

 
Let’s face it, pop lyrics don’t need to make any sense at all

THANKS FOR THE nominations for title of worst song / lyrics ever in the comments columns and through emails yesterday.

An obvious top scorer is Benny Lava, a Bollywood YouTube hit from 2008, which might be the most random song ever.

It was created by accident. An English-speaker tried to write down the lyrics of a Bollywood song, interpreting the Hindi words as if they were English. The result was complete nonsense which seemed to have a chorus focused around the name “Benny Lava”. Below is the original classic video:

 

In terms of bad interpretations of nonsense lyrics, it’s hard to beat  William Shatner, nominated by TS and Paul Foxgrove, doing a classic John Lennon number.

Shatner, the actor who played Captain Kirk in the original TV series of Star Trek, tried out a different career as a pop singer. He couldn’t really sing, so he just sort of spoke the lyrics as an actor would.

But what is truly amazing is just how awful the delivery is. Check out the video below if you haven’t seen it.

 

Shatner also recorded Pulp’s rocker Common People, TS pointed out. I can’t bear to inflict two doses of Shatner on anyone in a single day, so I will just provide the link in case anyone can handle more of this awful man: Common People by William Shatner.

*

Still on the subject of  of nonsense lyrics, here are two examples of songs which have a lot of words, but in no known language—one good one and one bad one.

We’ll start with the bad one. Hubba Hubba Zoot Zoot sounds silly and it really is. It’s a Swedish hit with meaningless sounds assembled end to end.

 

In contrast, the composer Karl Jenkins wanted to do something vaguely Latinate, but did not know any Latin, so he made up his own nonsense words for the following piece.

Jenkins is a really good composer, and the nonsense words fitted the song so well that millions of people bought the CD, not realizing that the lyrics had no meaning whatsoever.

 

Now back to Asia for a song nominated by Christyn Rana. This hit by Nima Ruma partly in the Nepalese language and partly in English is sad on several counts.

Nima can sing and his band can play (Nepalese people are a very creative, attractive bunch in my experience), but one can’t help feel uncomfortable by the assumption that the right way to make a piece of artistic work is to copy the West.

The guitar solo at 0.47 in this  song is perfect—IF the song had been recorded in the UK in, say, 1966. For a song released in Nepal in 2009, it’s the wrong sound at the wrong time in the wrong place.

But perhaps the real challenge is that the chorus is built around the English word “Shoes” – a word which Nima unfortunately cannot pronounce. So the platform shoes in the chorus (at 1.07 onwards) becomes “block hill sooze”.

Finally, going back to where we started, here is a Bollywood classic: the Nipple Song. After reading the lyrics to this, it is impossible to listen to this song without hearing the English version of the words:

What do the above hits teach us? Why be clever, when you can just be silly instead? It’s a point well worth learning.

Comments

[Jason]

It's not just the songs, it's the subtitles that can often be hilarious. I was at my in-laws place in the Philippines, land of notorious karaokers, and as they were singing along I burst out laughing at the butchering of English lyrics as transcribed by some hack. I don't remember the exact song or the lyric, but it was completely opposite of what it was intended to be. If I recall it later, I will post it.

As to Jenkins and his video, sometimes made up songs can sound great. Take this song in a made up alien language, ala the Trekkie geeks who speak fluent Klingon, from the Sci-fi miniseries Children of Dune. Song by the heavenly voiced Azam Ali, this song is hauntingly beautiful.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHy-OxoT7zU&feature=related

[Poulla Dulay]

This post reminds me of a Korean Pop song "I Don't Care" by 2NE1. KPop is such a big deal here in the Philippines. Too bad, we don't really understand what they were singing about except for a few English lines.The funny thing was that, in an attempt to enjoy the song, some people tried to improvise it-making the gibberish song uhm more gibberish. they tried to fit words that rhyme with the Korean lyrics. the chorus goes like this:

Version 1:Korean (the real one)
"I don't care
gumanharle
niga ohdiehso mor hadon
eejeh jongmar sangguan a
hnharke bikyuhjoorleh
eejeh wah oorgoboorgo mehdarlijima
cause don't care e e e e e e
cause don't care e e e e e "

English meaning of Version 1:

"I don't care I want to stop whatever you're doing anywhere
I don't want to have interest anymore just move
Don't cry and hang on to me
Cause I don't care e e e e e e
Cause I don't care e e e e e e"

Version 2: Improvised (twisted)by Filipinos

"I dont care, umaarte
higa office someone
andun kiss ni tsong nung 'sang buwan ang arte, di pa tuesday
ang jowa mo'y baduy
ang hair ay lilima
Cause I don't care e e e e e e
Cause I don't care e e e e e e"

English translation of version 2:

I don't care, over reacting
lie down in the office
uncle's there kissing someone last month
over reacting, it's not yet Tuesday
Your boyfriend is tacky
his hair is only five
Cause I don't care e e e e e e
Cause I don't care e e e e e e

The song became so popular in youtube :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=My9SaNz09NQ

[Paul]

We live in an age of viral videos and language is no barrier to entertainment. I think the best example of this is a video by Daler Mehndi. His music video for the song Tunak Tunak Tun went viral and ultimately inspired game designers to copy his dance as a dance animation for one of the character races (Dranie) in the globally popular World of Warcraft game.

Tunak Tunak Tun by Daler Mehndi

Fans of the game then went on to record the dance animations from the game and mixed them back with the original song to try and recreate the video.
Remixed video from Warcraft

Throughout that process I doubt the many of those involved ever understood the lyrics of the song. Yet Mr. Mehndi is now somewhat globally known because of his unique moves.

And while I have no idea what most of the lyrics of the following video (from a movie from what I could research) are about...its contextually stimulating enough to keep your attention, for a few moments at least.
Athiradee

:-)

[farah]

does anyone remember the song mmm bop by hansons from around 2006-07? i couldnt ever find the meaning till date.

same happened with the song 'lady marmalade' from movie moulin rouge (i hope i have the spelling right)...didnt know the meaning until i learnt french to stop signing in front of people who understood the language.

[Ram]

@Paul...

The link you posted "Athiradee" is from a South Indian movie (Tamil). Not much to think about the meaning of the song because I cannot even make much from listening to the lyrics.

[Mike]

My vote for the most meaningless song has to be revolution #9 by the Beatles. Was it a creepy joke to see if they could put a pile of dung on an album and people still listen to it?

[Moon Starer]

The translations were very funny!

How can you take "Such a curse on me" and translate it into "You can't tell I've got a head"?

[TS]

Mike, that was Yoko Ono's influence on John Lennon.

[TS]

O Fortuna

[Christyn Rana]

Uncle Nury, what is it in the asian side of the globe that when a camera is rolling in the middle of the road the onlookers have to poke their face in. Watch old hindi music videos and you'll see people actually gathered around in folded arms and some smiling during a fight scene.

[TS]

test...

[kartini]

benny lava reminds me of gelimat which someone re-wrote the lyrics in Malay. haha!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ymz0CJfpeQ0

[fardel]

This music from Karl Jenkins is pure magic.
The lyrics do not make less sense than the most beautiful poem, sung in a foreign language.
That may be the reason why it had so much success.
It is beautifully universal.

[grandpa aka Faye Libad aka fardel]

What about this one
a sucess in the West , long time ago
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24TaTGljBAE

[Nik]

Funny, I thought any Justine Beaver song would be up here too.