3 Rock Lyrics From the 1990s That Leave You Scratching Your Head

Many rock lyrics don’t do well under the light of the page. They are meant to be sung, and when tucked inside a great melody, emotion often outweighs literal meaning. As a matter of practice, songwriting routinely breaks the basic rules of English due to the limited number of syllables the melody allows. This limitation is also a kind of freedom.

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Fellow songwriters reading this will know that occasionally, the gibberish we sing when writing ends up on the final track. Because nothing else sings as well. Plenty of timeless songs exist with nonsensical lyrics, or what John Lennon called “gobbledygook.” Still, these rock lyrics from the 1990s may leave you scratching your head. But I wouldn’t want to hear them any other way.

“Backwater” by Meat Puppets

More than a decade into their career, Meat Puppets finally achieved commercial success from the alternative rock scene they helped pioneer. The Phoenix band released “Backwater” in 1994, and it became their biggest hit. Though, thanks to Nirvana, perhaps not their most popular tune. At the time, bassist Cris Kirkwood was addicted to heroin, and the lyrics seem to hint at his life (or someone’s life) spiraling out of control. His brother Curt wrote “Backwater” and opens the song with the following bleary-eyed verse:

And when I wake up in the morning,
To feel the daybreak on my face.
There’s a blood that’s flowin’ through the ceiling,
With a knife to open up the sky’s veins.

“Pepper” by Butthole Surfers

“Pepper” finds singer Gibby Haynes delivering a spoken-word account of various people dying horrible deaths in Texas. He calls them by first names only, and each faces a dark fate. We don’t know if they knew each other or were simply bonded by the state of Texas and terribly bad luck. Butthole Surfers’ rap-rock track also features a reverse guitar solo, which echoes the psychedelia of Jimi Hendrix. It doesn’t matter what the hallucinatory chorus means. Following Haynes’s noir verses, this summery hook feels like a welcome relief from all the death.

I don’t mind the sun sometimes,
The images it shows.
I can taste you on my lips,
And smell you in my clothes.

“Get On Top” by Red Hot Chili Peppers

Anthony Kiedis is no stranger to head-scratching lyrics. Red Hot Chili Peppers’ frontman remains in a league of his own when it comes to bending grammar. And you probably don’t need me to explain what Kiedis means when he says, “Get on top!” But apart from his “a*s-killer” accumulations, “Get On Top” also finds Kiedis doing petty crime. As I type this, it’s hard to choose which verse to throw at you. But I’ve settled on this canto:

Speed baller, Rhodes scholar,
A bottom b*tch and a bottom dollar (Get on top).
Come with me ’cause I’m a free faller,
You hoot, but I holler (Get on top).

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