What the Lyric! episode 1 - Pop music 2016 to present What the Lyric

 
 Episode #1 Description
 
Welcome to “What the Lyric?!?” In this episode, we bring our favorite bad lyrics from Pop Music (c. 2016-2019). One song from an artist who desperately wants to fix her “Reputation” with some cringe-y spoken-word lyrics. And another from a Brit whose time would best be spent learning to “let go” of the booze.
 
Transcript of Episode #1
 
Becky: Welcome to What the Lyric?!? -- the podcast that confirms...yeah, that actually made it to radio.
 
Matt: Is it recording?
 
Becky: Oh now we’re recording. Oh fun!
 
Matt: Oh yay!
 
Becky: Hello everybody and welcome to What the Lyric?!? where we talk about how much we love awful, awful lyrics. A little bit about me: I’m Becky. I will listen to anything once, and over and over again if it’s really bad. And then there’s Matthew over here, my partner in crime…
 
Matt: You know, honestly, if you had to summarize my musical tastes, the best way to look at it would be to say that my go-to karaoke song is “Promiscuous” by Nelly Furtado ft. Timbaland.
 
Becky: So you know we have good taste. That goes without saying. How this whole podcast is going to work is...We have one song each that {...} we get to pick off the theme of the episode. Today’s theme is Pop Music from 2016 to 2019. We get to do a dramatic reading, and after the dramatic reading, we talk about why the lyrics are SO bad and why we had to call it out. All right, so starting first is...Matthew.
 
Matt: Okay.
 
Becky: Get ready.
 
Matt: Definitely get ready for this. So I chose a song...just to give you a little context for this: it comes from, I believe, August of 2017. So put yourself in that state of mind. It’s a year after the election; things are terrible...still.
 
Becky: I was probably high.
 
Matt: I mean, weren’t we all?
 
Becky: Yeah.
 
Matt: It is Seattle.
 
Becky: You’d have to be.
 
Matt: And so this person has decided to reshape their image and, you know, I’ll just let the lyrics speak for themselves:
 
“I don’t like your little games
Don’t like your tilted stage
The role you made me play
Of the fool, no, I don’t like you
I don’t like your perfect crime
How you laugh when you lie
You said the gun was mine
Isn’t cool, no, I don’t like you (oh!)”
 
Matt: And that’s the first stanza.
 
Becky: Okay, so I’m guessing… Who’d be packing heat in 2017, you said? August?
 
Matt: Uh huh. Changing the image!
 
Becky: Could be… Oh! Changing the image? Only because of the changing image thing, that would be Taylor Swift?
 
Matt: Correct.
 
Becky: Oh the Swifties.
 
Matt: But do you...do you know the song?
 
Becky: Oh Jesus! Is it that...It’s the one where she then breaks it down and says, “Oh, Taylor Swift isn’t here right now. Because she’s dead!” Something along those lines? *Laughs*
 
Matt: This would be “Look What You Made Me Do” by Taylor Swift.
 
Becky: Oh yes. *Repeats the phrase “Look What You Made Me Do” twice.* Or however the rest goes.
 
Matt: Exactly. And really, my choice for all of the songs in this podcast are based on what I like to call “Cringecore.”
 
Becky: I love that. We are going to copyright that.
 
Matt: *Laughs* Really any songs that have lyrics that [make you go] “Oh!” You’ve heard of cringe comedy; that’s kind of how I view these lyrics.
 
Becky: I like it.
 
Matt: And specifically the -- what makes this so cringey is what you already mentioned, the, let’s find it…”I’m sorry the old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now” set to the background music of, “Ooh, look what you made me do.” “Why?” “Oh ‘cause she’s dead!
Becky: The old Taylor is, like, what? 23? 24? I mean, she’s not old.
 
Matt: She’s got a guitar. I mean, her…
 
Becky: She’s country. Country Taylor.
 
Matt: She’s Country-Pop.
 
Becky: Yeah.
 
Matt: