You can’t rhyme “night” with “night”: 8 unintentionally funny lyrics

Look, there’s nothing explicitly wrong with rhyming the words “solitary company” and “Serengeti.” Sure, it’s an imperfect rhyme, but that’s a mere road bump for Toto’s “Africa,” one of the most purely “shut off your brain and groove” pop songs ever written. The real issue is that second line, which as rendered in full, goes “Sure as Kilimanjaro rising like Olympus above the Serengeti.” We’re not professional songwriters, admittedly. But we’re pretty sure 20 syllables—more than half of which are devoted to naming geographical features, not all of which are in Africa—is a long, distracting way to go for a pretty simple metaphor about doing what’s right. Admit it, Toto: You got greedy trying to jam Mt. Olympus in there, and unprepared karaoke singers have been paying the price ever since. [William Hughes]

I’m not going to lie: My first thought for this was motivated directly by . But now that I’ve seen said tweet, it makes me laugh every time that I so much as think about this song. And that would be Sublime’s “What I Got,” in which singer Bradley Nowell sings the line, “I can play the guitar like a motherfuckin’ riot,” and then proceeds to lay out the saddest, most pitiful guitar sounds ever made in human history. It sounds like the dying gasps of an acoustic guitar, or possibly just what happens when you let an extremely stoned person noodle around with the instrument for a few seconds. Either way, it’s ridiculous, and the best possible counterpoint to the braggadocio of the lyric that precedes it. [Alex McLevy]

I am a total sucker for The Killers’ idolization of ’70s rock opera, the desire to turn every song into a life-changing showstopper. My all-time favorite Killers track is the epic, almost five-minute “All These Things That I’ve Done” from the band’s 2004 debut, Hot Fuss—but as much as I love it, I can’t help but cringe at the pummeled-into-your-brain line, “I’ve got soul but I’m not a soldier.” It’s the kind of almost-pun that may occur to you during the writing process, but hopefully one that you quickly toss away. The fact that the cheesy, unintentionally humorous line doesn’t ruin the song for me is only a testament to “All These Things”’ greatness. [Gwen Ihnat]

I don’t remember much about Mest, a pop-punk band I listened to when I had blue hair and an eyebrow ring. What I do remember, however, I’ll never forget: These motherfuckers rhymed the word “night” twice in a single verse. “It’s Friday night / What’s going on tonight / I’ll see her later on tonight,” sings frontman Tony Lovato on “Cadillac,” a 2001 song that not only contains this lyrical abomination but leads with it. I have to admire the boldness, the casual implication that verses don’t matter in a track defined by its dunderheaded chorus. I also have to laugh, though, because that shit is hilarious. [Randall Colburn]

Long before the superstardom, the multiple Grammy wins, and the critical acclaim, Donald Glover’s musical alter-ego, Childish Gambino, was mostly hit or miss. Occasionally, he’d show off flashes of brilliance with his inventive, out-of-the-box approach to hip-hop. All too often, however, he was dishing out corny, bordering on lazy one-liners, like on “3005,” the lead single for his 2013 LP, Because The Internet. Less than 40 seconds in, he threatens to derail the whole song with the laughable couplet, “Got no patience, ’cause I’m not a doctor / Girl why is you lying? Girl why you Mufasa?” That is some real Rap 101, bottom-of-the-barrel, basic word association, made more embarrassing by the fact that “3005” was his first charting song on the Billboard Hot 100, effectively acting as his introduction to mainstream listeners. Thankfully, the song mostly recovers from that lyrical gaffe, propelled by its lush, colorful production, Gambino’s vocals, and the infectious hook. [Baraka Kaseko]