This song is comprised of about three full sentences and the rest is just scatting and saying the word bird. The band had, just prior to releasing this song, success with a song called “Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow,” so they doubled down and made another song that leaned heavily on sounds rather than words. This technique clearly made an impact, though, as this song has come up in several TV shows and movies since its release.
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This crazy, seemingly nonsensical song has quite a simple explanation: drugs. The lyrics are, by admission, the result of several acid trips. It’s also said to be a jab at--or an homage to--Bob Dylan, whose songs often featured nonsensical phrases. Lennon also learned before writing the song that a teacher at his old school was having students analyze Beatles lyrics. He certainly gave them a lot to analyze.
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So, this song’s about how in the desert you don’t remember your name, but also horses don’t have names there either? Okay. Catchy tune, but it doesn’t make perfect sense. Like of the rest of these songs, it’s a much more enjoyable song if you don’t think about it too hard.
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There are more efficient ways to let someone know you love them than having their baby. Unless that someone is Paul Anka—he’s totally into that. Need proof? Listen to this song, which goes into great detail describing how his “seed” is “growin’” inside his lover. The song is actually pretty catchy, but when you stop and think about it, it’s quite strange.
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You’d be forgiven for thinking that the song surely can’t be exactly what the title makes it sound like, but no, it is. It’s not that a tale about two dancing muskrats isn’t heartwarming, it’s just not something you’d expect to hear a soft-rock love song about.
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Plenty of songs have been made about two people in love who are just soul mates. Deep Blue Something decided to take the path less traveled with this song and talk about a couple that’s “falling apart” and has nothing in common. Oh, except they both “kinda liked” the movie Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
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This song is strange by today's standards for how mundane and harmless it is. It was strange by late 50s standards for how bold and risqué it was. Bikinis were considered too racy for mainstream media in those days, so to make a song about one, not to mention an itsy bitsy one, really riled up the masses.
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If you want to hear a song where the singer weirdly objectifies herself (quite literally) by saying she is a Barbie, then look no further. It’s odd because it’s unclear whether the song is meant to be a critique on perceptions of women or if it’s actually about a promiscuous Barbie. Regardless, it’s safe to say that in the height of this song's popularity, it was taken at face value, which makes it all the stranger.
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This song has two short verses and the rest is just the band saying “Movin’ to the country, gonna eat a lot of peaches.” The first verse is just a short bit about the life cycle of a peach, and the second verse is about… poking a hole in a peach so an ant can hide in it? It’s probably best not to analyze this song, but instead just laugh at its strangeness and enjoy it.
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This song has a strange and catchy chorus, mixing old folky sounding lyrics and violins with the bass and beat of a club song. The song itself is much older than this rendition, predating the civil war. That’s what makes its emergence as a popular dance song in the mid-90s a bit odd.
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Since this song is an old folk song, it doesn’t belong to any one artist, but Clannad popularized it in 1976. The murder ballad follows to young sisters, though it’s no children’s song. It’s about one sister pushing the other into a creek and watching her drown. After the sister perishes, her body floats ashore and someone makes an instrument out of it (usually a harp or fiddle). The instrument then plays itself and tells the tale of the sister's murder.
Everyone knows this one. This tragic ballad follows a man who is just too sexy. Too sexy for his shirt, for his love, his car (by far), for Milan, for Japan—for everything. Poor guy.
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Today, it’d be hard to make a song about a popular video game and have it sell records. But during the early 80s video game craze it worked all too well. The album this song is on has the same name, showing just how well this association worked. Buckner and Garcia followed it up with the release of “Do the Donkey Kong” in 1982.
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Now, the original "Faith" by George Michael is not a weird song. It’s very pleasant sounding, which is what made Limp Bizkit’s choice to cover it so strange. It’s just not a combination you’d expect. This cover starts much in line with the original, but by the first chorus it completely transitions to a metal version of the song. The whole thing works surprisingly well.
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Talk about an easy song to learn. Not only is half of this song chorus, it’s all super repetitive nonsense words. The other half is actual words, but it’s unceasingly repetitive and also pretty nonsensical. It even weakly tries switch gears and use Mmmbop as an actual word in a sentence and not just a sound to sing. This is done by using it as a synonym for a very short period of time: “In an Mmmbop it’s gone.” Weird.
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This is another folk song that really warms the heart. Not really. It’s about a woman who’s about to be hanged and is pleading for someone to buy her release. Her own parents are among the crowd, and they refuse to intervene. Though the end isn’t explicitly stated, her true love does show up at the end with gold and silver, and it’s assumed that his bribe will work. With a folk song, though, you never know.
Who knew Bruce Willis could sing? Turns out he’s not half bad and had an entire album of songs (of which he only wrote one). What’s sad about this is that his cover version actually got higher on the Billboard Hot 100 than the original by The Staple Singers did.
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The songwriter has said that “'Turning Japanese' is all the clichés about angst and youth and turning into something you didn't expect to.” It’s safe to say, however, that most people missed that point and thought this song was actually just about turning Japanese. Other interpretations of the lyrics are slightly less wholesome (look it up).
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The date of origin for this classic murder ballad is unknown, but it’s been put to record dozens of times since the late 50s by artists like Joan Baez and Peggy Seeger. This ballad is rather dark, following a woman who gives birth to one or more illegitimate children (it varies in different versions), murders them, and then is haunted their ghosts. Not exactly something you’d want to sing along to on a road trip, but interesting nonetheless.
This is a song about a blue man—a “little guy,” as he’s called—living in a blue world with a blue car and a blue girlfriend and literally everything is just blue. Even watching the music video, it’s unclear whether this band takes itself and this song very seriously. Regardless, it’s hilarious and strange like the song and both are certainly worth viewing. Fair warning, though: it will get stuck in your head.
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Even die hard folk fans have to admit how odd some folk songs can be. Case in point: "I Love Onions" by Susan Christie. This song is exactly what it sounds like: a song about a woman’s love for onions. It also mentions things she doesn’t like just for contrast. Riveting stuff.
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This song was as odd as it was popular back when it was released. It’s still a song that anyone would recognize, for better or worse. This song is essentially an ode to large posteriors, and it was more popular than any such ode should ever be, probably because of its memorable sketch-style intro and the song’s iconic first line of lyrics. You know the one.
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This dance song is ironically about the perils of dancing and the danger one faces when dancing “too close” to someone they are attracted to. From the opening line, it’s clear that the artist is extremely excited to be dancing with the woman he’s singing about. At first, he seems cool with it but later he tells her that being so close is “not a good idea” because he “wants [her] so bad sexually.”
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This late 19th century ballad has many names: "Young Beichan", "Lord Bateman", and "Young Bekie". It’s a story about a prisoner who promises to marry any unmarried woman that saves him. He doesn’t return, and after seven years, she finds him as he is about to marry another woman. He decides to honor his old promise and marry the woman who saved him instead. It’s a pretty unique love story to be sure, but very strange.
It’s probably a testament to how smooth Johnny Cash was that he can get away with singing a song like this while making it sound cool. Though he didn’t write it, Cash made this song his own and released it on his album At Folsom Prison. It follows the format of many of the breakup songs of the time, only this one features an interesting euphemism in the chorus.
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Unlike most on this list, this song is intentionally funny. What makes it “strange” is just how funny it is, even today, given how old the song is. If you’re looking for a good laugh, check out Tom Lehrer’s work. This one is about one of the loveliest spring pastimes: poisoning pigeons in the park.
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How bizarre indeed. While the song isn’t really about much in particular, it’s infectiously catchy, so it was quite popular when it was released. The video is pretty straightforward, showing the singer doing standard music video stuff: riding around in a convertible, throwing money, oh, and breathing fire.
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The most famous iteration of this song was released in 1969 by the Fairport Convention on their Liege and Leif album. The dense lyrical story tells the tale of an adulterous wife, who is caught red-handed by her husband. The husband kills her lover, Matty Groves, and asks who she preferred, Matty or him. She says she’d rather kiss Matty’s dead lips than his, so he kills her too. Really heartwarming stuff.
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This old ballad has been recorded dozens of times by a variety of artists, like the other folk songs on this list. The basic premise is that a woman sends her children off to grammar school and they die while they’re gone. She gets visited by their ghosts on Christmas night and tries to offer them a warm bed and food, but they can’t stay in the world of the living. Another heartwarming folk song.
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This song is chock-full of seemingly nonsensical one liners. It seems that the desire to rhyme overrode the artist’s need to make a song that made any sort of sense. It gained quite a bit of popularity after its release due to its catchy nature, but that exposure has secured its place as one of the worst lyrical songs ever.
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