[Marion Shore]

Bob, sorry, butt I'm afraid your latest version doesn't come anywhere near scraping the bottom. Maybe if you'd started earlier you could have learned to write bad--but that's just hindsight. Tush, old man! Better make an end of it!

[Wendy Sloan]

Yeah, Bob, you're too good -- give up.
Janice is my only really bad competition around here ...

[Janice D. Soderling]

Thank you, Wendy, I can be bad without half trying.

[Roger Slater]

All right, guys, quit showing off. I'm convinced if I just keep adding stanzas, eventually the cumulative effect will be bad beyond your wildest expectations. So here's two more, to be added to the three I posted above:

Why should I care how fine the chair,
   how elegant or beauteous?
What good is that, if once I've sat,
   there's no rest for my gluteous?

When pillows soften chairs I often
   sit, but it's uncanny:
whenever there's no pillow there
   I stand up for my fanny.

[Terese Coe]

There's only one solution, Bob.
Get a 24/7 desk job.
Not only will your gluteus
grow soft, but also maximus.

[Rose Kelleher]

There's a wonderful episode of the Dick Van Dyke show where he (a TV comedy writer) gets invited to a literary party, and there's a pretentious poet there pedding his latest book, "Lavender Lollipops." I keep thinking if I ever publish another collection I'd like to use that title.

(That was relevant to this thread, but I forget why.)

[Holly Martins]

If you're seriously looking for bad verse, rock lyrics are the only place to go. I present the immortal Champagne Supernova by Oasis:


How many special people change?
How many lives are living strange?
Where were you while we were getting high?
Slowly walking down the hall
Faster than a cannonball
Where were you while we were getting high?
Someday you will find me
Caught beneath the landslide
In a champagne supernova in the sky
Someday you will find me
Caught beneath the landslide
In a champagne supernova
A champagne supernova in the sky
Wake up the dawn and ask her why
A dreamer dreams, she never dies
Wipe that tear away now from your eye
Slowly walking down the hall
Faster than a cannonball
Where were you while we were getting high?
Someday you will find me
Caught beneath the landslide
In a champagne supernova in the sky
Someday you will find me
Caught beneath the landslide
In a champagne supernova
A champagne supernova
'Cuz we don't believe
That they're gonna get away from the summer
But you and I will never die
The world's still spinning around we don't know why
Why-why-why-why-i-i
(guitar solo)
How many special people change?
How many lives are living strange?
Where were you while we were getting high?
Slowly walking down the hall
Faster than a cannonball
Where were you while we were getting high?
Someday you will find me
Caught beneath the landslide
In a champagne supernova in the sky
Someday you will find me
Caught beneath the landslide
In a champagne supernova
A champagne supernova
'Cuz we don't believe
That they're gonna get away from the summer
But you and I will never die
The world's still spinning around we don't know why
Why-why-why-why-i-i
(a really long guitar solo)
(background - sounds like a bunch of "No"'s)
(birds chirping)
(more guitar)
How many special people change?
How many lives are living strange?
Where were you while we were getting high?
We were getting high <-- 9 times, background "Oooh-oooh"
(Fades out 7th-9th times to just one "Oooh-oooh")
(Song gets really quiet, fades to a peaceful guitar solo.)

[John Whitworth]

And while we're about it, does anyone know the lyric to 'A Whiter Shade of Pale'? Is it surreal? Or just crap?

[Roger Slater]

In your quest for answers, John, try starting here:

http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=1131

[Janice D. Soderling]

Come on, you guys, let's have some more bad verse, or Wendy and I are going to declare ourselves winners by default. (Should that be "de faults in de verse dat was worse").

Marion gets a dishonorable mention for her apologetic retort to Bob.

What's our prize?