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I happened to catch a few minutes of Fox News this morning. They had conducted a poll of their viewers of the “top 5 worst lyricists”. I love the idea that the general public is in any way qualified to judge the writing capabilities of anyone, but hey. So, I was a little surprised when I saw the results of this poll, not only were most of the lyricists on the list decent lyricists, but Sting was number 1 on the list. To those of you who aren’t familiar with Sting’s lyric writing capabilities, this is tantamount to having a poll question of “Is the sky sometimes blue” and the results coming back as “NO”. It’s just ludicrous.

I’m not sure whether the poll was multiple choice or freeform or what. My guess is that if it was multiple choice Sting was placed there as an option merely for a control, so the overall accuracy of the poll could be judged later. They would know, if a majority of the polls came back with Sting as the number 1 answer, that the poll results are not accurate and therefore shouldn’t even be published.

There are only a couple of reasons why it would make sense for Sting to have “won” this poll:

1. The Fox News viewers who took the poll weren’t familiar with who Sting was, thus putting him at the top of the list because “he must not be that good if I don’t know who he is”.
2. The Fox News viewers who took the poll wouldn’t know talent if it slapped them in the face.
3. Both 1 and 2

There were other surprising lyricist in the top 5 such as Creed frontman Scott Stapp, who is by know means a wordsmith but still doesn’t deserve to be on this list. I just don’t understand why there weren’t any obvious choices in the top 5. There are so many carbon copy groups that are popular right now that should have all been sitting pretty at the top of this list, but nary a name was found.
So, to those of you Fox viewers who took that poll (and chose Sting as the worst lyricist), I’ll gladly spotlight your ignorance:

Children’s Crusade (Sting)
Young men, soldiers, nineteen fourteen
Marching through countries they’d never seen
Virgins with rifles, a game of charades
All for a children’s crusade
Pawns in the game are not victims of chance
Strewn on the fields of Belgium and France
Poppies for young men, death’s bitter trade
All of these young lives betrayed
The children of England would never be slaves
They’re trapped on the wire and dying in waves
The flower of England face down in the mud
And stained in the blood of a whole generation
Corpulent generals safe behind lines
History’s lessons drowned in red wine
Poppies for young men, death’s bitter trade
All of those young lives betrayed
All for a children’s crusade
The children of England would never be slaves
They’re trapped on the wire and dying in waves
The flower of England face down in the mud
And stained in the blood of a whole generation
Midnight in Soho nineteen eighty four
Fixing in doorways, opium slaves
Poppies for young men, such bitter trade
All of those young lives betrayed
All for a children’s crusade
Copyright (c) Sting