I don't have a candidate. I just want to say as a general principle that I don't think a lyric should count as a "worst" lyric for being cheesy, crass, or crummy, if it was deliberately written to evoke a character, situation, or environment that is meant to be cheesy, crass, or crummy, like some of those mentioned below. In such a case, the lyric is doing exactly what it was meant to do. We in the audience may find the character or the situation distasteful, but you can bet the lyricist does too, which is why s/he wrote the lyric that way--to evoke just that response.
Oh, well, now that I'm here, I'll quote a favorite cheesy lyric of mine. It's from Ervin Drake's What Makes Sammy Run? and Sammy--a cheesy, crass, and crummy character--is describing a scene from an archetypically clichéd Hollywood horror movie of the 1930s:
"It's the mad doctor's lab and this broad is on the slab--
What she's wearin' ain't no quilt! (Flickety-flick)
Man, she's got a crazy built! (Flickety-flick)
Doc's a fiend, wearing specs, kind of over-hipped on sex--
Figures he can make this Jane (Flickety-flick)
If he fiddles with her brain (Flickety-flick) . . . "
Lyrics don't get much more C, C, & C than that, but far from thinking it a bad lyric, I kind of love it, because it's so right for the character and his environment. |
