"I received an erotic letter, but it didn't turn me on." So goes the opening line to Erotic Letter, the final song on Johnny Borrell's magnum opus, Borrell 1, which sold 594 copies in its first week. The song titles alone – including Ladder To Your Bed and Pan-European Supermodel Song (Oh! Gina) – prove that this is certainly a man who doesn't like to make things easy for himself. A man, indeed, who tried to break America by calling a song America and who actually wrote the lines "And I met a girl / She asked me my name / I told her what it was." The spoken word vignette that begins Erotic Letter, however, is truly the pinnacle of this man's ridiculousness.

The first line of a song can be a glorious, life-affirming moment. But the bad ones can destroy your faith in an artist, your belief in their artistry plummeting as you wince in disbelief, wondering how someone you held in such high-regard could put pen to paper and think: 'Yes, this is exactly how I'd like to start my song'.

Borrell may be an easy target, but he's in very good company. Popular music is riddled with dreadful intro lines; even the most eloquent lyricists falling victim to a botched phrase or poetic blunder. Here's five of the very worst:

Michael Jackson – Bad



Bad is one of the best songs ever written, but it's also guilty of containing possibly the worst opening line in music history. What was he thinking when he announced, apropos of nothing, that "Your butt is mine / gonna take you right"? Hold up MJ, we haven't even gotten to know each other yet.

Pitbull – Give Me Everything



Armando Cristian Pérez, better known as Pitbull, may top the charts but he's not the world's most eloquent wordsmith, surpassing expectations on Give Me Everything: "Me not working hard? / Yeah, right! Picture that with a Kodak / Or, better yet, go to Times Square / Take a picture of me with a Kodak." From a man who describes his semen as "egg whites" we should be thankful that not making sense is his biggest crime here.

Black Eyed Peas – My Humps



No article on terrible lyrics would be complete without mentioning the Black Eyed Peas, whose members appear to be in constant competition with one another to see how many terrible lyrics they can pack into one song. They're a band who are not afraid to ask the big questions in life, so when Will.i.am puts his mind to it, you know you're in for something special: "What you gon' do with all that junk? /All that junk inside your trunk?" he ponders. Bit of a cheat this one, as the lyrics do remain consistently awful throughout the song.

Madonna – I Love New York

Reading on mobile? Watch the video here

"Hey, what rhymes with New York?" you can imagine Madonna ask in the studio floor, her brain frazzled after a vigorous Ashtanga yoga session. "Cork?" someone suggests, thinking maybe she's after another city. "No, no, no." "Dork, then?" Yes! Of course, and thus the opening to I Love New York - "I don't like cities/ But I like New York / Other places / Make me feel like a dork" - was born.

Culture Club – The War Song

Reading on mobile? Watch the video here

Boy George is livid. Bloody war – it's stupid isn't it? And people, they're stupid too… hang on a moment hand me my pen. He has the answer in song-form. Who can forget the profundity of The War Song's opening couplet: "War is stupid / And people are stupid"? What it lacks in complexity in made up for in its directness. Perhaps.

Got any more to add to our list? Let us know below.