{ Lick That Riff! }

Can I introduce you please to a lump of cheddar cheese? Knit one! Pearl one! Drop one! Curl one! Yes, these are in fact lyrics to a song that very nearly reached number one in the UK charts back in 1998. They are from the England World Cup song, Vindaloo by Fat Les. Granted, it was meant to be tongue-in-cheek, but when you look at some of the biggest songs ever written, you start to see some of the lyrics were extremely obscure and weird. And when you look deeper into it you can find that most of the obscurest lyrics were written around drug-fuelled times. So, without further ado I give you my list of the best obscure lyrics.

1) Bohemian Rhapsody

One of the biggest singles in UK history, well the third biggest to be correct, and yet one with such weird lyrics. Bohemian Rhapsody smashed into the charts in 1975 and stayed at the top of the UK charts for 9 weeks. It is a very hard song to describe musically as the chorus is vacant. The song has three main parts; a ballad for the start, an operatic passage, ending with a big rock solo. But it’s the lyrics that really stick out, as they are so obscure - “I see a little silhouetto of a man Scaramouch, Scaramouch, will you do the Fandango.” Nonetheless it has made for one of the greatest, if not the greatest song ever written. I bet you can’t help moshing to the big rock solo

2) Whiter Shade Of Pale

Again another massive song with obscure lyrics. In 2009 this song was awarded as being the most played song on British radio of all time. What a feat, with all The Beatles songs that could have been played more and even the UK’s biggest selling single, Elton Johns Candle In The Wind. To me Whiter Shade Of Pale is just an annoying reminder that I wasn’t alive in the 60′s. It is a truly amazing song on its own, but add the mysterious lyrics and acid-fuelled band and it makes for one of the best songs from the psychedelic era. It sums up the 60s in a way no other song did, has or ever will. With the opening Hammond Organ piece and use of mystical lyrics,  this song is undoubtedly one of the greatest songs of all time, which is probably why Rolling Stone placed it as the 57th best song of all time.

3) Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds

Now, there could have been many many Beatles songs on this list as there have been a few great ones with obscure lyrics, I am the Walrus and Octopus’s Garden to name a few. But I think Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds is the best song to pick from the fab fours collection of weird and wild lyrics. It again shows the brilliant summers in the 60s with the Sgt. Peppers album being released in the summer of 1967 which started the summer of love. The Beatles were obviously using drugs when writing this song and it is clear from the opening lyrics: “Picture yourself in a boat on a river, with tangerine tree’s and marmalde skies. Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly, the girl with kaleidoscope eyes…” Another give away that many people picked up on was that the nouns in the title each spelled LSD. The Beatles of course denied this, citing a drawing by Lennon’s son Julian as Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. Of course this song was always going to make it on the list, as it’s from the best decade ever, the best album ever and has the best obscure lyrics ever! Check the psychedelic video below.

4) Hotel California

Maybe not as weird or psychedelic as some of the other songs in this list, but it is still and obscure song. I wouldn’t say the lyrics are obscure, it’s more the story the song tells. The song is about a traveller coming across a hotel that is so appealing and welcoming (ok, all fine here then) but then as the song progresses the hotel unfolds into something it is not. I think this is more a creepy song and has a sort of Norman Bates feel to it with lines like: “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.” I guess for me this song has always had connotations to that Stephen King classic The Shining. It still happens to be one of my favourite songs because of the picture that develops when listening, and, in my opinion it has the best guitar solo ever constructed. Not bad for a song about the traps of the Southern Californian music industry.

5) Lola

Another great story-song written by Ray Davies in which what first appears to be a man and a woman chatting each other up in a bar in Soho. The great power chord intro sets this song up perfectly and in true Kinks fashion they add some very clever lyrics to the song. The story is actually about a young man meeting a transvestite in a bar and being confused because she “walks like a woman but talks like a man.” Davies says he got this story because his band manager had danced in a club with a transvestite without realising it. There are many other references in the song to the transvestite; “Girls will be boys and boys will be girls, It’s a mixed up muddled up, shook up world” and “Well, I’m not the world’s most masculine man, But I know what I am and I bet I’m a man, and so is Lola.” This is a classic Kinks song and one of my favourites as it doesn’t take itself too seriously.

6) Comfortably Numb

Again with the Beatles there were a few songs I could have picked for the most obscure lyrics from Pink Floyd, but I decided to choose this one for two reasons. The first being that is probably my favourite Floyd song, and the second being that as this is a guitar blog, it only seems perfect to have Floyds best guitar solo on here. This song was taken from their 1979 album, The Wall, and Rolling Stone ranked it as the 314th best song of all time in their 500 Greatest songs list. It was apparently written by Roger Waters about his experience with being injected with tranquillisers so that he could perform on stage. However there is often citations made by others, saying that it magnifies the extremities of heroin use. Either way, it’s such a brilliant song I could listen to it all day.

So there we have it, the best obscure songs ever written. There were some real gems in that list especially for us guitarists, with in my opinion three of the best solo’s ever written. I hope you enjoyed this list it took quite a lot of time and effort to make (and enjoyment) and if there was any songs I missed I would appreciate it if you could tell me them.

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