Stupid and contagious

OH DEAR. THE BEST SONG lyric ever written, according to a poll of 13,000 British music lovers by the channel VH1, is ''One life, with each other, sisters, brothers." According to the London Times, ''top names in the music industry" chose 100 songs from which favorite lyrics could be selected, and that was the result: ''One life, with each other, sisters, brothers." Barely even a lyric at all, when you look at it-more of a refrain, something for the backing vocalists to chug along to while the lead singer goes down on one knee, hollering passionate syncopations. It comes, as you may know, from U2's 1992 hit ''One," a new and even more bloatedly heartfelt version of which (featuring Mary J. Blige) was recently at the top of the UK charts.

The next-best song lyric ever, the poll says, was written by Morrissey of The Smiths. What could it be? Something fleet, fey, acerbic, typically Morrissey? ''I decree today that life is simply taking and not giving/ England is mine and it owes me a living"? No. British popsters have homed in on a less-than-Wildean moment from the most galumphingly maudlin song The Smiths ever released: ''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..." (''How Soon Is Now?")

There seems to be a pattern here. The number three choice is Nirvana, and it's not ''She eyes me like a Pisces when I am weak"-it's ''I feel stupid and contagious/ Here we are now, entertain us." The kids like their pop lyrics obvious, luminous, nonparticular. And although Bob Marley is at number four, with lines that appear to be anomalously meaningful-"Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds"-the song from which they are taken, ''Redemption Song," was long ago degraded to the condition of hippie muzak by the attentions of buskers and half-baked minstrels worldwide. And number five, from Coldplay's ''Yellow," is a triumph of vacancy: ''Look at the stars, look how they shine for you." Yes, look at them, young person. See how they shine. Up above the world so high, resembling-one might even say-a collection of diamonds in the sky...

James Parker's column appears biweekly in Ideas. E-mail cultural.studies@globe.com