Lyridiculous?

Dear Lord, is the quality of songwriting going downhill lately?

At this point a crack opens in the clouds, a giant hand similar to the National Lottery pointer descends, casting a shaft of light upon my pasty malnourished face as a squat in front of my laptop, and a booming voice tolls, "Yes, my child. Yes it is."

So with the Good Lord's blessing, I continue. I've compiled a list to test my theory, and where better to look than the official Hit40UK charts. That's right kiddies - I'm not just scraping the bottom of the barrel, I'm transferring the resulting mulch onto my toast and eating it for breakfast. Here's a selection from the top ten singles of the week then, with a snippet of lyrics from each song (Ha!)

Take That - Greatest Day
"Today this could be / The greatest day of our lives ..."
(Or, it could be shit-awful. You just never know!)

Britney Spears - Womaniser
"Womaniser woma-womaniser you're a womaniser / Oh womaniser oh you're a womaniser baby / You you you are you you you are / Womaniser womaniser womaniser womaniser ..."
(WomaniserwomaniserwomaniserwomanisEXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!!!!!)

Alesha Dixon - The Boy Does Nothing
"Does he wash up / He never wash up / Does he clean up, no he never cleans up / Does he brush up / He never brushed up / He does nothing, the boy does nothing ..."
(....No comment.)

Mmm. Scrapy Goodness!!!

Needless to say it goes on. I didn't feel the need to include Akon's Right Now (Na Na Na) which includes the highly articulate phrase "I wanna make love right nah nah nah" and Katy Perry's Hot and Cold, the premise of which seems to be looking into the Thesaurus to find as many opposites as you can and shoving them together in a bid to describe a man.

Now I don't expect everyone to be as clever with their wit and piety as Elvis Costello or Chrissie Hynde (to name but two of my favorite lyricists), but come on. You may as well write a song entitled "Love" which includes only the lyrics "Love, love, lovey-woo, love-ity love-ity diddly doo" and someone somewhere will become brainwashed into believing that your song has touched their soul in a place where only surgical tools and Jack Daniels has done before.

So kiddies: please remember. Every time you use the word "baby" in a song, God gives Paris Hilton a new recording contract.