posted
Listening to a Clifford T Ward album this morning (I am *so* down with The Kids, I know) and it struck me that the song "Wherewithall" may be the only pop song ever writen that includes the word "nonpareil"* in its lyrics. (I bet there aren't millions that include the word wherewithall either but one thing at a time...)
So A) you get to make Faith eat her words if you can find nonpareil* in another pop song but also:
B) What other words have only been included in one song? A few groundrules are necessary:
1) Made up words don't count. 2) Names don't count.
Or, to put it another way, it's scrabble rules!
(*nonpareil means without equal or flaws, peerless. Just in case you were wondering...)
-------------------- "You watched it. You can't UNWATCH it." Posts: 1646 | From: UK | Registered: Dec 2003
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posted
"Adrenoleukodystrophy" is in the song "Lorenzo" that Phil Collins performed. It was written by the mother of Lorenzo, of Lorenzo's Oil fame.
-------------------- Me: "He's 19? Uh oh, I bought him a beer." A: "You contributed to the deliquency of a minor in drag!" "Sweet spell check: keeping drunks off the radar since 1995."- IND GodRe-AnimateGreenPorkBush Posts: 3986 | From: Illinois, jealous? | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
The song "Nemesis" contains the word "parthenogenesis". Not that "Nemesis" is really a "pop" song ... more a sort of growly demi-techno.
I have to love any song that can use "parthenogenesis". The end.
ETA "Nemesis" is by Shriekback, I meant to put that in the first sentence.
-------------------- "He feeds the sparrows of the field, but He doesn't sit there and cram worms into their mouths." -- Mouse Posts: 396 | From: Pasadena, CA | Registered: Jan 2006
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posted
In the genre of grindcore (and its subgenres e.g. goregrind) you can have a field day. They've raided medical dictionaries and most songs in that genre will contain unique words. They may even have covered "adrenoleukodystrophy"!
"I believe Warren Zevon is the only man in the history of human communication to use the word ‘brucellosis’ in a song.” —David Letterman
-------------------- "There is no constitutional right to sleep with endangered reptiles." -- Carl Hiaasen Won't somebody please think of the adults! Posts: 8254 | From: Florida | Registered: Oct 2002
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posted
How you get so rude and reckless Don't you be so crude and feckless You've been drinking brew for breakfast Rudy Can't Fail
Bet you can't find "feckless" in any other song. And that a shame, really, 'cause it rhymes with so many words.
Posts: 1651 | From: Columbus, Ohio | Registered: Aug 2004
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posted
Of course the classic use of the word "moot" in Rick Springfield's Jessie's Girl must be mentioned.
-------------------- Me: "He's 19? Uh oh, I bought him a beer." A: "You contributed to the deliquency of a minor in drag!" "Sweet spell check: keeping drunks off the radar since 1995."- IND GodRe-AnimateGreenPorkBush Posts: 3986 | From: Illinois, jealous? | Registered: Nov 2005
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-------------------- "The Potato Festival will never be the same without Evelena." (from an obituary in the Charleston, WV, Gazette) Posts: 215 | From: living here in Allentown, PA | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
If any pop song other than No Doubt's "Hey Baby Hey" has included "Chamomile"... I'd be very surprised.
-------------------- You fool! That's not a warrior, that's a banana! - a surreal moment in a role-playing game Posts: 2480 | From: Australia | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
I always liked "Silent Lucidity" by Queensryche and I remember mentioning to my husband at the time it was out that it was probably the only song ever (to be a hit) that used the word "lucidity". I always wondered how many people even knew what the word meant.
-------------------- I'm an excellent speller, but a lousy typist. "Just so you know, the words 'just' and 'cramps' - they don't go together." - Ginger Snaps Posts: 323 | From: Chandler, AZ | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
Although not famous on a world scale, Australian band TISM sprinkle their songs with some jems:
From "Would The Last Person To Leave Please Turn Out The Enlightenment?"
I'm lacto-enzyme-oxy intolerant! I use breathatarian-based emollient Meditation makes me ebullient! I've never earned a day's emolument.
I can honestly say that I've never seen those words in any other song!
And more from TISM
From "Five Yards" - You're only one Tim Tam away from cellulite
From "Mourningtown Ride" - Don't get off the train at Eltham The yodel yobs want lederhosen
From "The History Of Western Civilisation" - You can never have heard of the proletariat
From "They Shoot Herion, Don't They?" - After running 800 furlongs, he just wants to score
From "We Are The Champignons" - Possibly then, we could get Sting admitting to his "pissant thing"
And from "BFW" - Redefining the very idiom that is modern music.
-------------------- All the way with Paulie Jay Posts: 476 | From: Sydney, NSW, Australia | Registered: Jun 2006
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Joe Bentley
Ding Dong! Merrily on High Definition TV
posted
Well there is always Pompatus from "The Joker" by the Steve Miller Band.
Pompatus is interesting because it sounds like it should be a word.
-------------------- "Existence has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it for too long." - Rorschach, The Watchmen Posts: 8929 | From: Norfolk, Virginia | Registered: Jun 2002
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Anyway, as for the OT, Tom Waits uses quite a few words in his lyrics that don't see the light of day in pop songs that often. "Chihuahua" in "Frank's Wild Years" "Thirty-ought-six" and "marimba" in "16 Shells From A 30-6" "Grazier" and "bilgewater" in "A Town With No Cheer" And those are all of just one album (Swordfishtrombones)
Max "leaned it up against the dandelion tree" Renn
-------------------- Sister Ann: DRIVE! DRIVE Crow T. Robot: Look, I'm already driving, there's no inherent quantity of driving that I can increase! If you want me to go faster, you should say so. Posts: 579 | From: Toronto, Canada | Registered: Apr 2006
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Ice-T used "antidisestablishmentarianism" in a track on his album O.G. - The Original Gangster, but unfortunately I think it has to be disqualified from this survey because a) it's used in a skit rather than a proper song and b) it's used wrong. The actress speaking the line should have dropped the "anti" for the line to make sense.
Max "yo, it's time for me to pump up the volume" Renn
-------------------- Sister Ann: DRIVE! DRIVE Crow T. Robot: Look, I'm already driving, there's no inherent quantity of driving that I can increase! If you want me to go faster, you should say so. Posts: 579 | From: Toronto, Canada | Registered: Apr 2006
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quote: Killing softly and serial, he lifts his head, handsome, horned, magisterial. He's the smell of the moonlight wisteria. He's the thrill of the abecedarian.
There's two from Okkervil River, in the same stanza no less.
Posts: 417 | From: Escondido, California | Registered: Jun 2004
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Though for all I know it's much more ubiquitous in Australian songs that we don't hear of on this side of the Pacific.
Max "she just laughed" Renn
-------------------- Sister Ann: DRIVE! DRIVE Crow T. Robot: Look, I'm already driving, there's no inherent quantity of driving that I can increase! If you want me to go faster, you should say so. Posts: 579 | From: Toronto, Canada | Registered: Apr 2006
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posted
On one of his albums, Lou Reed rhymes something with "hieroglyphic". I'm not sure if it's a unique word, but I'm sure rhyming it will get him a few points.
Sister "and john cale has a few unique words on words for the dying, but he didn't actually write those..." Ray
"There can't be a war on Christmas. Even Cambridge has decorations up!" - an observation I made Posts: 2719 | From: Chicago, IL | Registered: Jul 2000
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Killing softly and serial, he lifts his head, handsome, horned, magisterial. He's the smell of the moonlight wisteria. He's the thrill of the abecedarian.
-------------------- "The fact that "uvula" and "vulva" look and sound similar was just a happy coincidence." - Lainie Posts: 548 | From: England | Registered: Sep 2005
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-------------------- Leashes?! We don't need no stinking leashes!! Posts: 4771 | From: The Berkeley of the East Coast: Montgomery County MD | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
I don't know if this counts under ScrabbleTM rules since it is slang, but I don't know if any song other than "Golddigger" uses the word "pre-nup".
-------------------- IIRC, it wasn't the shoe bomber's loud prayers that sparked the takedown by the other passengers; it was that he was trying to light his shoe on fire. Very, very different. Canuckistan Posts: 3694 | From: Arizona | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
Rush uses the word "unobtrusive " in Spirit of Radio
"Begin the day with a friendly voice, A companion unobtrusive Plays the song that's so elusive And the magic music makes your morning mood."
Posts: 106 | From: Dumont, NJ | Registered: Jun 2006
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posted
Interventionist: from Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds "Into My Arms"
-------------------- I shall baffle you with cabbages and rhinoceroses in the kitchen and incessant quotations from "Now We Are Six" through the mouthpiece of Lord Snooty's giant poisoned electric head. So there! Posts: 802 | From: London, UK | Registered: Nov 2005
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-------------------- So many spankings! It feels so good! But at the same time, I don't care about meeting your family! - I'mNotDedalus: Posts: 3216 | From: Denver, CO | Registered: Dec 2005
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