Here is a beau­ti­ful line:

Above the car spends an air­plane, and instead of throw­ing pesti­cides in the fields, it throws a mul­ti­tude of butterflies.

Nice, right? It’s from the Wiki­pe­dia entry for the song ‘Life’ by Des’ree. It describes, I think, the clos­ing scene of the song’s pro­mo­tional video. I don’t know.

It’s a beau­ti­ful line, though. I think it’s really won­der­ful. It stopped me in my tracks. This art­icle could just as eas­ily be about unex­pec­ted beauty found on Wiki­pe­dia. For example, Jill­ian Clark turned Wiki­pe­dia photo cap­tions into some pretty incred­ible poetry. But it is not about Wiki­pe­dia: it’s about lyr­ics; it’s about ‘Life’. In 2007, ‘Life’ won a BBC poll to find the ‘Worst Lyric in Pop’. That’s quite an award to win.

I like lyr­ics a lot, though I am not always able to dis­tin­guish why I like a cer­tain lyric: whether it’s because it is so sur­pris­ing, or unself­con­sciously bad, or apt, or funny. A good lyric is just some­thing I want to sing.

I can’t think of a more agile lyr­i­cist than Tom Lehrer. I like him so very much. My web­site is named in hon­our of a Lehrer lyric, from his apo­ca­lyptic hoedown ‘We Will All Go Together When We Go’. The song, about a nuc­lear event res­ult­ing in the extinc­tion of man­kind, includes the lyric:

You will all go dir­ectly to your respect­ive Val­hal­las
Go dir­ectly do not pass go, do not col­lect $200.

It’s very funny, the song. You should listen to it if you haven’t.

I feel like there are some inter­est­ing lyr­ics in the world. The Back­street Boys song ‘The Shape of My Heart’ con­tains the pretty breath­tak­ing lyric: “Sad­ness is beau­ti­ful / Loneli­ness is tra­gical”. I think that lyric is prob­ably my favour­ite bit of the song.

This is com­plic­ated. Tak­ing pop music at all ser­i­ously is com­plic­ated. I don’t like pop music in an ‘ironic’ way. People get very ser­i­ous about pop music. I like pop music. I think pop music is fine. Lighten up.

There are plenty other examples of excel­lent lyr­ics, of course. In ‘Fly Away’, Lenny Krav­itz sings:

I wish that I could fly
Into the sky
So very high
Just like a dragonfly.

There are plenty of things like that: happy, lin­guistic sim­pli­cit­ies: ‘~together/~forever/~never/~ever’, ‘~love/~thinking of/~stars above’, ‘~heart/~start/~apart’ etc. In French, people prob­ably rhyme ‘coeur’ with ‘fleur’, or ‘j’adore’ with ‘d’amour’ all the time. I am guess­ing here. Who knows? I just mean that people never take chances, the goofs.

Any­way. Des’ree doesn’t use any of these hack lyr­ical clichés, and what does she get for it? She gets stuck with a bloody igno­mini­ous award.

I am furi­ous, as you can tell. I have been fum­ing for two long years.

[Play ‘Life’ by Des’ree]

So let’s look at the song. ‘Life’, released 2 June 1998. It starts strongly, with the chorus. Des’ree is serious:

Life, oh life, oh life, oh life,
doo, doot doot dooo.
Life, oh life, oh life, oh life,
doo, doot dooo.

Life. You know? Des’ree means busi­ness. She’s not mess­ing about. Oh! Oh my! Life! You know what the song is going to be about. Prob­ably it will be about ‘life’. It will be about ‘being alive’ and all life’s little dif­fi­culties and vagar­ies. Some­thing along those lines. I, for one, am hooked.

I’m afraid of the dark,
’spe­cially when I’m in a park
And there’s no-one else around,
Ooh, I get the shivers.

Plenty of people are afraid of the dark actu­ally, all you crit­ics. There are vari­ous rapers and mug­gists who may hide in a dark park, every­one knows that. It’s not an uncom­mon pho­bia, that one. In fact, it’s so com­mon that there are three sep­ar­ate names for it: nycto­pho­bia, scoto­pho­bia and lygophobia.

I don’t want to see a ghost,
It’s a sight that I fear most
I’d rather have a piece of toast
And watch the even­ing news.

So. This is prob­ably the most fam­ous lyric of the song. The ‘ghost/most/toast’ rhyme. It is most likely this one line that got her the award. And why? Plenty of people are afraid of ghosts. For some, it is the single thing they would ‘least like to see’. Ima­gine see­ing a ghost! It would be fright­en­ing. Like­wise, people do like toast. Toast is an excel­lent snack. In fact, toast­ers are an excel­lent inven­tion — did you ever think about that? This song is a paean to toast­ers. That, to me, is more valid than another per­son singing about how much they don’t want their girl­friend to break up with them.

As for watch­ing the even­ing news, I have it on good author­ity that the even­ing news broad­casts get the best rat­ings. There are a lot of people watch­ing the even­ing news! Des’ree is con­nect­ing with her listen­ers here. “I am just like you,” she says. And they give her a bloody igno­mini­ous award. It’s ter­rible behaviour.

What’s more, Des’ree has used a poetic device known as ‘chain rhym­ing’. It’s not usual to see three lines rhyme in a row, is it? A ‘triplet’ they call it, I think. Des’ree takes a laud­able, lyr­ical chance here and what does she get? Yes. A bloody igno­mini­ous award.

(Repeat Chorus)

Good. Really though. Des’ree has taken us on a tour thus far through the daily wor­ries of walk­ing home through the park after an even­ing at the gym­nas­ium, on to the mat­ter of unwanted encoun­ters with the super­nat­ural, and back to as quo­tidian a scene as there is: eat­ing toast in front of the telly. It’s almost mas­ter­ful thus far.

I’m a super­sti­tious girl,
I’m the worst in the world
Never walk under lad­ders,
I keep a rabbit’s tail.

I mean. Come on. Not walk­ing under a lad­der is sens­ible enough: if you’ve seen those legal com­pens­a­tion adverts you’ll know how often people fall off the things. There are plenty of ‘very mad’ and ‘even mad­der’ super­sti­tions out there. “Step on a crack, break your mother’s back”. Do I have to? “If you shiver, someone just walked over your grave.” What does that one even mean? I’ve never under­stood. How is it pos­sible? Time travel? Also, good … so I’m not going to die in a plane crash, then. Why can’t people just leave Des’ree alone!?

I’ll take you up on a dare,
Any­time, any­where
Name the place, I’ll be there,
Bun­gee jump­ing, I don’t care!

Did you hear that? Des’ree seems like a fun lov­ing lady. Up for any­thing. My friend Jason got given a bun­gee jump­ing voucher for Christ­mas and he chickened out and then the voucher expired. Sure, you may poke fun at Des’ree for being fear­ful of a late night park rape, but I’ve never seen you bun­gee jump­ing, scaredycats. Takes one to know one.

Also, all four of these words are full rhymes, the lyr­ics scan neatly, the phras­ing is nat­ural … and you give her a bloody igno­mini­ous award.

(Repeat Chorus)

Life, doo, doot dooo
Doo, doot dooo.

OK. So, that last verse was packed with action. A little rest is what we need, Des’ree. Thank you. A little reminder of why we’re here. Ah. This is per­fect. “Doo, doot dooo” indeed.

So after all is said and done
I know I’m not the only one
Life indeed can be fun,
if you really want to.

Some­times liv­ing out your dreams,
Ain’t as easy as it seems
You wanna fly around the world,
In a beau­ti­ful balloon.

Des’ree is wrap­ping things up here, bring­ing things to a con­clu­sion nicely: ‘After all is said and done’ etc, let­ting us know we’re near­ing the end of the coaster. The bal­loon ref­er­ence makes me won­der if Des’ree isn’t still influ­en­cing writers, most not­ably con­tem­por­ary, inter­net writers. For example, Shane Jones’ phe­nom­enal novella ‘Light Boxes’ fea­tures hot air bal­loons most prom­in­ently. Kath­ryn Regina’s recent beau­ti­ful col­lec­tion of poetry ‘I Am In The Air Right Now’ relates the story of “a float­ist who, while rid­ing alone in a hot-air bal­loon, finds she is able to re-imagine the pieces of the world from which she has fled”. Regina’s book so moved Mat­thew Savoca that he too wrote a col­lec­tion of poetry, mostly hot-air bal­loon themed, entitled There Is Air In Me Right Now. Des’ree’s leg­acy is felt still in these works.

(Repeat Chorus)

Of course. There would be no other way to end the song.

And even 11 years after its release, the song is still speak­ing to people now, still touch­ing their souls. Here are some quotes from the web­site at which I copied the lyrics:

by nqaba on 4/26/2009 9:02am
No doubt ‘life’ is a kul song. To under­stand the lyr­ics you gotta know that some people believe in super­sti­tion and what Des’ree has done is mag­ni­fi­cent! kip it up.

by Vita­lik on 2/26/2009 4:59am
I can see this song has inspired plenty of people. The same it has done with me. When my mood is not very high, I’m just listen­ing to it. Loudly!

by Phil Reid on 2/15/2009 4:38am
I thought this song was by Alanis Morrisette?

‘Life’ speaks to us all. It says “Work hard, play hard, don’t be a douche, stay in school”. It says “Life is alright, it can be fun, cheer up, do a bun­gee jump, don’t get mugged, eat some toast”. It says “Life is not always simple, but you can do it! You can achieve your dreams!”

And we gave it a bloody igno­mini­ous award.

Crispin Best writes at We Will All Go Sim­ul­tan­eous and many other places.