Five Alex Turner lyrics that should be deleted from history
It’s no secret that the charismatic Arctic Monkeys frontman, Alex Turner, is one of the most talented songwriters in the modern music scene. In fact, he might well be one of the best lyricists ever, and that’s saying something, considering, well, everything.
Still, despite the countless Bob Dylans and Joni Mitchells who will always hold those crowns, Turner is no doubt up there, and it’s his intelligent and poetic wordplay that brought about the band’s rise to the top in the first place. And even though there’s a definite difference between his adolescent musings in the early days and his mature eloquence now, he still has the same wit and relatability that’ll always ensure his place as the voice of a generation.
One of his biggest skills is capturing everyday feelings and experiences and wording them in ways that’d never cross your mind. Like in ‘Cornerstone’, when instead of communicating the simple act of yearning, he details the experience of “elongating” his journey home, smelling the scent of his lover on the seatbelt, and keeping his shortcuts to himself, just to wallow in it a bit longer.
In other instances, it’s things we all know too well, like ‘Love Is A Laserquest’, when he captures the haunt of uncertainty and fear of rejection in one of the most poetic swipes ever placed in a song: “I’ve tried to ask you this in some daydreams that I’ve had / But you’re always busy being make-believe.” Or essentially the entirety of Humbug, when he unspooled a dark fantasy, invoking the complexities of life, growing up, love, and learning about yourself in entirely new ways.
That said, he’s come up with some absolute tosh, too. Turner is an amazing lyricist and an even better poet, but even he isn’t immune to some lines that should’ve stayed in the drafts pile. Across the band’s entire discography, there are moments of pure perfection, but there are also some truly terrible lines that didn’t quite land as the singer hoped they would.
Alex Turner lyrics that should be deleted from history:
‘Brick by Brick’
“I wanna build you up (brick by brick) / I wanna break you down (brick by brick)”
It’s a well-known fact among the Arctic Monkeys fan community that ‘Brick by Brick’ is one of their worst songs ever, if not the worst, and, to be honest, most of it comes down to its lyrics. What’s even more interesting is that it’s the third song on Suck It and See, meaning that, in some way, they obviously thought it was good enough to show it off a bit.
To its credit, anything sitting between ‘Black Treacle’ and ‘The Hellcat Spangled Shalalala’ would have likely struggled a bit, but it’s the fact that it’s such a terrible song anyway that it would’ve no doubt died a death anywhere on the album. And since the title is also its main lyric, it’s most certainly one of the most forgettable across their entire discography. It says ‘brick‘ so many times it’s like a copy-and-paste error has occurred.
‘Still Take You Home’
“I fancy you with a passion / Oh, you’re a Topshop princess, a rockstar, too / But you’re a fad and you’re a fashion / And I’m having a job trying to talk to you”
The tricky thing with ‘Still Take You Home’ is that, even today, it’s a certified banger. It’s catchy, fun, sweeps you up with its infectious groove, and leaves you wanting more, but somehow, it’s also one of the most problematic songs Turner has ever written.
When you look at the lyrics, really look at them, there’s something gnarly going on with the way Turner’s singing about a girl he’s spotted during his night out, a girl he doesn’t think is especially attractive or special, but who he’d still take home at the end of the night – it’s pretty shallow and degrading, in a way that makes the whole thing feel a little unsettling in the present age.
‘IDST’
“I wrote, ‘I was here, IDST‘”
Some of the Monkeys’ B-sides are better than their singles and album songs, like ‘Stop the World I Wanna Get Off With You’, ‘You’re So Dark’, ‘Despair in the Departure Lounge’, and the more recent ‘Anyways’. However, some of them are make you realise why B-sides once fell out of fashion, no matter how iconic they’ve become over time.
‘IDST’, for one, doesn’t half live up to the excellence of its A-side, ‘Don’t Sit Down ‘Cause I’ve Moved Your Chair’, providing another completely unforgettable listen that does no justice to what the band are actually about. Although it captures many themes they’re known for – memories of past relationships and the scars they leave, and school days nostalgia – it winds up feeling like nothing more than a discarded half-baked attempt at an indie classic.
‘Opening Night’
“Ten years later, it’s been a decade”
A more recent entry, ‘Opening Night’ was the Monkeys’ contribution to the spectacular second iteration of War Child’s charity record, The Help Album, aptly titled, HELP(2). The thing about ‘Opening Night’ is that, like the rest of the record, it’s mostly brilliant… but there’s one lyric that sticks out as particularly lazy.
At one point during the song, Turner sings, “Ten years later, it’s been a decade.” Now, this could be read as another example of his typically monotonous rumination on the mundane details that make you feel older and increasingly disconnected from the real world. It’s a style that usually works well, managing to feel both simple and surprisingly hard-hitting. Here, though, the line comes across as slightly silly, lacking any real weight or meaning when isolated as a standalone lyric. Yes, Alex, we know how long a decade is.
‘Anyways’
“You can call me Alexander / It’s nice to meet you all”
If we’re to ignore this lyric entirely, ‘Anyways’ is another magical B-side that deserves far more attention than it gets. After all, it’s filled with some of Turner’s best work, including the entire second verse: “Philanthropic toga party / What a place for both the opposite sides of my double life to finally collide / Sharing secrets I was taking to the grave / Nosebleeds from epiphanies I took full in the face / Oh, come all by the fire, babe, let’s all participate / In yet another race to anyways / Oh, how’s your Mum and Dad been doing with the generation gap?”
However, the following verse, in which Turner says, “I’ve got my megaphone / You can call me Alexander / It’s nice to meet you all”, almost ruins his entire poetic streak, shattering his creative flow with something that dislodges the entire pace of the song. It almost works, but ultimately falls flat. The digression in the rhythmic meter distracts from the otherwise perfect run he had going in the previous verse.
