{"id":196854,"date":"2025-10-08T06:22:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-08T06:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/196854\/"},"modified":"2025-10-08T06:22:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T06:22:08","slug":"taylor-swifts-ode-to-travis-kelce-is-cringe-but-is-it-worse-than-these-other-terrible-lyrics-arwa-mahdawi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/196854\/","title":{"rendered":"Taylor Swift\u2019s ode to Travis Kelce is cringe \u2013 but is it worse than these other terrible lyrics? | Arwa Mahdawi"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shall I compare thee to a redwood tree? Thou art more sappy and more decadent. Rough winds do shake \u2026 OK, enough of that. I apologise for the cod Shakespeare but I just couldn\u2019t help myself. Taylor Swift mania is at fever pitch and I have found myself swept up in the chatter about the lyrics from her new album, The Life of a Showgirl<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Swift has routinely been described as a lyrical genius, and not just by 11-year-olds. Sir Jonathan Bate, a Shakespeare scholar, once called her a \u201cliterary giant<\/a>\u201d and used her work as a teaching aid. On her latest album the billionaire liberally sprinkles in plenty of Shakespeare references, but what\u2019s really got people talking are the (supposed) allusions to fiance Travis Kelce\u2019s \u201cmagic wand\u201d. If you\u2019re not interested in a blow-by-blow account of the magic, I\u2019d advise you to do a vanishing act because I\u2019m about to quote from Swift\u2019s song Wood.<\/p>\n

\u201cForgive me, it sounds cocky,\u201d the modern-day Shagspeare writes. \u201cRedwood tree, it ain\u2019t hard to see \/ His love was the key that opened my thighs.\u201d Swift then references Kelce\u2019s podcast, which is called New Heights, singing: \u201cNew Heights of manhood, I ain\u2019t gotta knock on wood.\u201d In case you weren\u2019t quite catching her drift, there\u2019s also a reference to a \u201chard rock\u201d.<\/p>\n

None of this is remotely risque in the grand scheme of things, but there\u2019s something about Swift\u2019s squeaky-clean brand that makes it all feel a bit ick. I\u2019m not being prejudiced, OK? I don\u2019t care what a consenting adult does with another consenting adult in private. Love is love! But, my God, I wish some of these heterosexuals would stop shoving their lifestyles in our faces.<\/p>\n

To be fair, while Wood may not be Swift\u2019s strongest work (she has some very strong work!) there is stiff competition when it comes to cringe lyrics. Forgive me, it sounds cocky, but I\u2019m going to take it upon myself to rate some of the most embarrassing lyrics of all time right here<\/a>, right now.<\/p>\n

The first category is songs with factual errors that even a slightly stupid child could spot. Top prize here goes to Jake Paul, an American YouTube personality who also dabbles in boxing and rap. In 2017 he came out with a song called It\u2019s Everyday Bro<\/a>, which featured the memorable line: \u201cEngland is my city.\u201d The weirdest thing about this is that even though Paul has admitted he wrote the line<\/a>, Nick Crompton, a British influencer who presumably has a passing understanding of his country\u2019s geography, is the one who sang it. Crompton then rhymed city with \u201clitty\u201d and was never heard from<\/a> again.<\/p>\n

Category two: lyrics that sound as if they were hallucinated by ChatGPT. The Killers obviously get a mention, with their famous line: \u201cAre we human, or are we dancer?\u201d But the winner is Des\u2019ree\u2019s Life<\/a> (1998), which contains the immortal lines: \u201cI don\u2019t want to see a ghost, It\u2019s the sight that I fear most, I\u2019d rather have a piece of toast, and watch the evening news.\u201d This segment has been widely panned but \u2013 like all great art \u2013 it makes you think, right? With the news the way it is, I think I\u2019d take the ghost sighting myself right now.<\/p>\n

Next up we have budget brags. I\u2019ve invented this category entirely for Tinie Tempah<\/a> and his 2010 hit Pass Out, where he sings: \u201cI live a very, very, very wild lifestyle \u2026 I\u2019ve got so many clothes I keep some in my aunt\u2019s house.\u201d So bathetic, it\u2019s beautiful. That song also includes the line: \u201cI\u2019ve been Southampton, but I\u2019ve never been to Scunthorpe.\u201d It\u2019s hard to explain the splendour of that to an American, but I\u2019ve tried.<\/p>\n

Last up: unnecessary mentions of cancer in otherwise upbeat techno bops. Yep, it\u2019s Snap!\u2019s classic song Rhythm Is a Dancer coming in top here, with the line: \u201cI\u2019m serious as cancer when I say, \u2018Rhythm is a dancer.\u2019\u201d Surely it wasn\u2019t that hard to find another rhyme, was it? Anyway, time to wrap this up with a line from my forthcoming studio album, The Life of a Freelance Writer: \u201cI\u2019m as urgent as a rash when I say I have to dash.\u201d<\/p>\n

Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist<\/p>\n

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters<\/a> section, please click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shall I compare thee to a redwood tree? Thou art more sappy and more decadent. Rough winds do…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":196855,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[49,48,75,341],"class_list":["post-196854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196854"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196854\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}