I’ve been listening to a lot of indie pop recently, and it seems to me that some songwriters ought to be gently taken aside and told that no amount of jangly guitar and LOUDquietLOUD dynamic can hide a really bad lyric line. To be fair to indie pop, I’ve pulled some of the very worst lyrics ever in a range of musical genres.

Richard Berry, “Louie Louie”: Louie Louie / Oh no, me gotta go, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah / Louie Louie / Oh baby me gotta go.

One of the great anthemic rock songs also has lyrics of such intense banality that every singer who ever recorded it has subconsciously gone for an ursine growl of a voice that makes it virtually unintelligible. I know, “intense banality” should be a contradiction. But have you listened to the words? The song is about a Jamaican man complaining to a bartender called Louie about his strong desire to go back home to his girlfriend. Seriously. When the Kingsmen released their famous version in 1963, a rumour sprang up that the lyrics were sexually filthy, thereby pushing sales even higher as curious folk put it on their turntables and listened v-e-r-y carefully. For their crimes, the Kinsmen were once forced by an audience to play “Louie Louie” for an entire 45-minute set. True story.

America, “Horse With No Name”: There were plants and birds and rocks and things.

Things? There were things in the desert? In America’s defence, perhaps this is meant to be characterisation. He’s been through the desert and baked his brain to a vulcanised rubber walnut on the journey, so no wonder he can’t put names to objects. Poor guy can’t even remember his horse’s name. It’s almost believable. But no, on further inspection not only were there things in the desert, but the heat was hot.

Whysall Lane, “The Way Back”: I’ve got a secret / That I can’t tell.

That’s what makes it a secret.

Helen Reddy, “I Am Woman” (by Reddy and Ray Burton): But I’m still an embryo / With a long long way to go / Until I make my brother understand.

(Suggested by Deb Biancotti.) Look! A singing embryo! No wait! It’s a metaphor. It means women, sorry, Woman, are…I mean is…an embryo. With a long long way to go. That’s it. Woman is a mindless cluster of cells looking down a thousand mile birth canal. And her brother doesn’t understand. Does anyone?

Scissors for Lefty, “More Than the Summer”: When mockingbirds fly with parakeets / There’s a good chance you’ll be singing solo.

What the hell?

Relient K, “Who I Am Hates Who I’ve Been”: I watched the proverbial sunrise / Coming up over the Pacific / And you might think I’m losing my mind / But I will shy away from specifics.

Making fun of a song with that title is shooting fish in a barrel. Goddamn whiny emo fish at that. But you know, sometimes those fish gotta be shot. Q: What sort of idiot sings about how much he’s changed and now that he’s a better man and his girl is offering him a second chance, he’s got to turn her down, presumably to make life more miserable and whiny for both of them? A: The same sort of idiot who thinks the sun rising over the Pacific is proverbial.

Richard Harris, “Macarthur Park” (written by Jimmy Webb): Someone left the cake out in the rain / I don’t think that I can take it / ‘Cause it took so long to bake it / And I’ll never have that recipe again / Oh, no!

(Suggested by Martin Livings.) The tune to “Macarthur Park” is wonderful, but oh, those words! They Might Be Giants could get away with this by making the song upbeat and a little bit silly, but Richard Harris piles on the misery thick and heavy and hits the peak of his emotional crackup on “Oh no!” after just the right beat. The timing is so sublime that it would require a heart of stone to bear to hear of Richard Harris’s broken heart without laughing.* Although the song is most infamous for its chorus, the first verse contains another terrifying lapse in musical judgement: “As we followed in the dance / Between the parted pages and were pressed / In love’s hot, fevered iron / Like a striped pair of pants.”

Vanilla Ice, “Ice Ice Baby”: Take heed because I’m a lyrical poet.

Bwa ha ha ha! Excuse me. No. Can’t hold it in. Will burst lung. Bwa ha ha ha! Oh, dear. Sorry. The real payoff comes a line later when Mr Ice rhymes “I’m a lyrical poet” with “as if you didn’t know it.” Bwa ha ha ha! Damn. Wet keyboard. This spent four weeks at number one.

Des’ree, “Life”: 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.

Des’ree declares herself “a superstitious girl” who “keep[s] a rabbit’s tail.” And that line doesn’t even fall on a forced rhyme. The song reads like Dr Seuss on a deadline the day after an alcoholic binge.

Extreme, “More Than Words”: Saying “I love you” / Is not the words I want to hear from you / It’s not that I want you / Not to say, but if you only knew / How easy it would be to show me how you feel.

Possibly the worst lyrics of all time, especially when considered in the context of the music it accompanies. Could there be a more tortured, convoluted way of getting the point across? Dude, she’s not saying “I love you” to put a barrier between you. She doesn’t have a clue what you’re talking about, but she can see that whatever you’re trying to get across is very very important to you. “I love you” is all she thinks she can say to your knotty ramblings without causing an unintended upset. And now you’re ticking her off about it? Man, you are so about to be dumped.

Other suggestions welcome, but play by the rule: no deliberate nonsense or self-aware parody. On the flipside, bonus points for cluelessness and earnestness.

*Apologies to Oscar Wilde

Avril Lavigne covers “Chop Suey” by System of a Down

There are too many bad cover versions to even attempt a listing, so I’ve tried to avoid obvious cases where there is simply a talent gap between the original performers and the cover band. But this is something else. It’s so bad it’s actually painful to hear. “Chop Suey” is a gratingly pompous, prog-metal song to begin with. It has been covered many times, almost always as parody. Filipino band Parokya ni Edgar even recorded a version (“The Ordertaker”) about a man in a restaurant angrily demanding to be served his food. Ms Lavigne must have seen something in the song. Perhaps she was just having a spot of fun. But what comes out, quite simply, gives acoustic neuroma a good name. WARNING! Do not clean ear drums with a wire brush afterwards!

Billy Bragg covers “Waiting for the Great Leap Forward” by Billy Bragg

The original version is one of the great songs of the 20th century. On top of its strong melodic progression, it has some of the most potent lyrics ever penned for a political song. It’s about the difficulty of holding onto hope while the Thatchers and the Reagans are on the rise. Then something terrible happened. Bragg got what he wanted. Thatcher was thrown out of office and the Tories gutted themselves in the election that followed. You can’t blame a man for wanting to celebrate, but did Bragg really have to rewrite the lyrics and traipse from stage to stage with his guitar belting out a new version? The old message was “When you’re on the ropes, be strong.” The new message is, “When the enemy has self-destructed, be a smug, superior prick.”

Elton John covers “Candle in the Wind” by Elton John

Elton John could still crank out show tunes for Disney, but the spark of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road was gone. When he wanted a fitting tribute to his friend Lady Diana, he dusted off “Candle in the Wind”, renovated the arrangement a little, and painted over Bernie Taupin’s 24-year old lyrics with a thick layer of plaster of pap. To Elton John’s credit, he did so with Taupin’s blessing and he gave the profits to charity. His heartbreak was genuine, and apart from Diana’s funeral he has played only the 1973 version in concert. But how could he not see that he should have written a new tune for Diana? Even if it wasn’t his best work, even if there wasn’t time, at least it would be for her. “Candle in the Wind” was already taken, a melancholy love song to the memory of Marilyn Monroe. It used to be one of the touchstone tragedies in pop music. Now it’s a generic tearjerker. Goodbye, insert name.

William Shatner covers “Mr Tambourine Man” by Bob Dylan

I know it’s an obvious pick. But you can’t go past it. As Danny Oz once told me, there are many versions of Dylan’s timeless classic…and this is the stalker with the DTs version. The ending gets me every time.

Shannon Noll covers “What About Me?” by Moving Pictures

“What about me? It isn’t fair. Everything is like so unreasonable, you know? Why won’t anyone pay any attention to what I’m saying? I’m like the lead singer in this cool band, and I have a message for the world about the time I was a kid and I had a job serving in a corner shop and it was like boring and it wasn’t as much fun as playing guitar and the manager wanted me spend like hours behind the counter…” God, what a whinefest! The only thing more depressing than the original song is knowing that the Shannon Noll version spent four unforgiveable weeks at #1 in the Australian charts. Noll can sing, and that only makes the travesty worse. Forget the old stories about Aussie grit and the pioneer spirit. We’re a nation of spineless whingers.

Celine Dion covers “You Shook Me All Night Long” by AC/DC

Multipart vocal harmonies? A guitar break as flat as an overcooked souffle? A woman with curtain tassels flowing from her sleeves doing the Angus hop in high heels? There is no God.

Counting Crows cover “Big Yellow Taxi” by Joni Mitchell

Listen to Joni Mitchell live, just her and the microphone. Now listen to the Counting Crows and Vanessa Carlton massacre “Big Yellow Taxi” with all the resources of a modern studio behind them. Proof, if ever it was needed, that no amount of slick engineering, complex arrangement, and trying-too-hard-to-be-cool marketing can beat one person with a voice, a guitar, and a clue about how to work the song.

The rule: List three albums of great music that get almost no attention.

• Sixteen Haikus, Sigmatropic
• The Disconnection, Carina Round
• Bachelor No. 2, Aimee Mann