In America's A Horse with No Name, the singer feels the need to point out that "The heat was hot."
Daniel Amos's "Autographs for the Sick" (from Doppelgänger) starts off with several voices speaking foreign-sounding gibberish and an interpreter translating into English. At the end, one of the voices just sings a line in English, and the interpreter helpfully translates that, too. And then:
Speaker #4: Hahaha... Interpreter: Ha ha ha. [three drum beats] Interpreter: Dit dit doo.
For some reason, The Beach Boys make a point of mentioning in the chorus of Little Saint Nick that "Christmas comes this time each year."
The Beatles, in "Come Together", gave us such enlightening information as "He's got feet down below his knees" and "One and one and one is three". You don't say.
They gained the grand prize for this trope in "All You Need Is Love", in which everything except the "all you need is love" sentiment is basically saying "anything that humans are able to do, humans can do."
Nothing you can do that can't be done, nothing you can sing that can't be sung
"Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band": "Well I don't really want to stop the show / But we thought you'd all like to know / That the singer's going to sing a song." (The show in question is a concert. That's right. He interrupted a concert to let everyone know that the singer would be singing. Even if it was done for a rhyme - "And he wants you all to sing along" and the supposed lead singer of Sgt. Pepper's band was playing drums up to that point, it's a pretty obvious line).
The viral YouTube video of Rebecca Black's song Friday withholds any traces of instinct to take the song seriously.
Yesterday was Thursday/ Today it is Friday/ Tomorrow is Saturday/ And Sunday comes afterwards...
David Bowie's 2013 single "Where Are We Now?" features the line "the moment you know, you know you know". It makes sense, given the tone of the overall song, but still sounds remarkably obvious when its actually said aloud.
Forever Young from the second Care Bears movie includes the line, "You'll be with me until/The sun shines through the night./It never will."
In concerts, to introduce the song "I Cum Blood," Corpsegrinder says "this song is about shooting blood out of your cock."
Jonathan Coulton in "Betty and Me", on the subject of genetically engineered children:
And although it was expensive, it was legal in the states where it wasn't banned.
He also does this at least once in "Madelaine":
If it doesn't kill you, it'll make you stronger But if it kills you, you'll be dead
So Yesterday by Hilary Duff states that "If the light is off, then it isn't on" and "You can change your clothes (if you wanna)". No, really?
In Flanders and Swann's parody of avant garde home decor, "Design for Living" they suggest "Why not collect little metal bottle tops and nail them upside down to the floor? This will give the sensation of walking on little metal bottle tops, turned upside down."
In the chatter at the beginning of Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On", it sounds like someone is saying "this is a new recording". (It's actually "this is a groovy party")
The classic '60s love song Baby I'm Yours (first recorded by Barbara Lewis) has the narrator say that he/she is "yours" until a number of impossible events happen (until the stars fall from the sky, until 2+2 is 3), then helpfully elaborate "In other words, until I die/the end of time/eternity."
Lil Wayne seems to like being Captain Obvious. For example, in I Can Transform Ya he says, "I Can Transform Ya/ Like a Transformer". In Mrs. Officer the guy singing the chorus sings, "I can make you say, Wee-ooh-wee-ooh-wee, Wee-ooh-wee-ooh-wee" and Lil Wayne chimes in with, "Like a cop car".
Los Bravos helpfully informs us, "Black is Black".
The background singers in Manfred Mann's "The Mighty Quinn" at one point carol, "We're singin' a song!"
Martin Pearson's parody of "The Gambler" presents the gambler's advice as this:
He said every hand's a winner, and every hand's a loser, And every card's a good card, except when it is not. Some of them got pictures, and some got little dots on, Some have got a couple, and some have got a lot.
And cards are made of cardboard, with slightly rounded edges, There's fifty-two plus jokers and a spare one in each pack. And if you think about it, you can see I'm talking bullshit, But I spat on your cigarettes and you can't have them back!
The Postal Service's "We Will Become Silhouettes:"
"Until our shells simply cannot hold / All our insides in, and that's when we'll explode... / And it won't be a pretty sight."
In Radiohead's "The Numbers", Thom Yorke tells us "the future is inside us/it's not somewhere else".
The Simon & Garfunkel song "The Boxer", when performed in concert, usually includes an extra verse that contains the line: "I'm older than I once was and younger than I'll be. That's not unusual." Is this a lampshade or an intensifier?
Johnny Standley's 1952 novelty record "It's In The Book" takes the story of Little Bo Peep and lampshades the hell out of the poem's obviousness:
It says here "Little Bo Peep," who was a little girl, "has lost her sheep and doesn't know where to find them." Now that's reasonable, isn't it? It's reasonable to assume that if Little Bo Peep had lost her sheep, it's only natural that she wouldn't know where to find them.
So, "Leave them alone." Now, that overwhelms me. Completely overwhelms me. The man said she lost her sheep, turns right around and boldly states that she doesn't know where to find them, and then has the stupid audacity to say "Leave them alone." Now, think for a moment. Think. If the sheep were lost and you couldn't find them, you'd have to leave them alone, wouldn't you?
"They will come home wagging their tails." Pray tell me, what else could they wag?!
They will come home wagging their tails. "Behind them." "Behind them." Did we think they'd wag them in front?!
In "Total Trash," Thurston Moore from Sonic Youth insists "it's a natural fact that I'm not no cow."
The chorus of Bowling Ball by Superchic[k]: "You need that boy like a bowling ball dropped on your head, which means not at all."
Tiiiime! [Boom! Boom!] Is marching on! [Boom! Boom!] And tiiiime! [Boom!] [Beat] Is still marching on!
Turisas's "To Holmgard and Beyond" gives us this enormously helpful elaboration in the spoken-word bridge:
Threads of different lengths. Some longer, some shorter.
In "Bad" by U2, Bono sings at the top of his lungs, "I'M WIDE AWAKE! I'M WIDE AWAKE! I'M WIDE AWAKE!" then softly croons the brilliant corollary, "I'm not sleeping."
The song "All or Nothing'' by Whitesnake includes the line "My heart is burning/And the fire is hot".
Lee Ann Womack's song "Liars Lie", after catching her lover trying to lie, the narrator sings:
Likewise, his song "You Don't Love Me Anymore", in which he expresses that he gets the impression his significant other, well, doesn't love him anymore, citing reasons for his suspicions such as poisoning him, holding up a knife, putting piranhas in his bath again, etc.
withholds any traces of instinct to take the song seriously.Yesterday was Thursday/ Today it is Friday/ Tomorrow is Saturday/ And Sunday comes afterwards...