NO SHOWING FOR "MY LOVELY LADY LUMPS"?

To pad out the bank holiday weekend, VH1 has been revealing the results of a poll designed to discover just how empty a nation we are. Or, more accurately, the nation's favourite lyric ever.

This, apparently:

One life, with each other, sisters, brothers

Eh? Really? That's the nation's favourite line from a song? But it's so bland and empty and meaningless it would struggle to be a fair question in a pub quiz lyric round let alone the greatest couplet ever forged.

Mind you, this is top five:

1. U2 - One. "One life, with each other, sisters, brothers."

2. The Smiths - How Soon is Now? "So you go, and you stand on your own, and you leave on your own, and you go home, and you cry, and you want to die."

3. Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit. "I feel stupid and contagious, here we are now, entertain us."

4. Bob Marley - Redemption Song. "Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds, have no fear for atomic energy, 'cause none of them can stop the time."

5. Coldplay - Yellow. "Look at the stars, look how they shine for you."

Now, we can see The Smiths line being included - although "when you say it's going to happen now, when exactly do you mean" is a far better line from the same song - and we can understand the appearance of Teen Spirit even although we don't think it's Kurt's best work.

Redemption Song is probably the only line that deserves to be there, although in much the same way that Morrissey got used in the interests of advancing the Bible story on Good Friday, we can picture Tony Blair using the bit about atomic energy in his bid to sell us a future of kettles being powered purely by pumping undecayed carciogens into the Irish sea.

One, though. This worries us. Are we to assume that Bono's advancement to a kind of secular saint for the well-meaning lazy has reached the point now where no matter how Chauncey Gardiner his statements, they're elevated to being worthy of the Synoptic Gospels?

And Yellow? They're taking the piss, aren't they?

music u2 bono chris martin bob marley