Cringeworthy lyrics par excellence are very rare I think with Rush.
I know there are some (particularly in the snobby world of Rolling Stone) who disagree - Neil was named 2nd worst lyricist in rock by them.
I think the problem is Neil's lyrics are too imaginative for them - they want lyrics about going out with chicks and riding motor bikes. Neil's intellectually thoughtful lyrics are a bit beyond them.
Generally, I find his lyrics cleverly constructed, thought-provoking, imaginative and inspiring. At certain points in my life, thay have had an incredibly strong resonance (Subdivisions, Secret Touch). I find Neil's lyrics often focus on how he sees himself as an outsider who never quite fits in with society. And that is how I frequently see myself too. So they really do hit home very powerfully in many ways.
However, I would agree that on the very rare occasions when he gets it wrong, he does so spectacularly.
People have mentioned one or two of those I do find cringeworthy - Tai Shan and Nobody's Hero are two. I've never understood why people like the latter of these two so much - I think it's one of the weakest tracks on that album. Open Secrets is also pretty cringeworthy - and also IMO one of the most boring songs they have ever written.
There are very few songs that Rush sing that I might fall asleep too - Open Secrets is definitely one of them.
I find Emotion Detector quite cringey in places. Whilst I generally love the lyrics on Vapor Trails ( some of Neil's best ever IMO), Freeze has some silly lyrics.
But the two worst albums (IMO) for lyrics are two that many people on here seem to like - Counterparts and Snakes and Arrows.
Cold Fire has also been mentioned - the lyrics make me cringe, cringe, cringe every single sentence. The tune is actually not bad but the lyrics are so cringemaking it is embarassing. It's like a 10-year old wrote it.
But I think for consistently poor lyrics it would be hard to beat Snakes and Arrows. One of the reasons why, against the grain of opinion amongst Rush fans, I dislike most of this album.
Listen to the ponderous pretentiousness on the verses of Armor and Sword, the repetitive silliness of Workin Them Angels (who who whooah all the time and the words " Workin them Angels" repeated a million times, the fact that The Larger Bowl seems only to have about 3 sentences endlessly repeated in different orders and with an even more repeated chorus, the verging on pretentious Spindrift (which is to me a song that could have been great but loses its way badly), the rather obviously anti-religious lyrics of The Way The Wind Blows - like a sledgehmmaer to crack a nut (where is the usual Peart subtlety?) and last but definitely not least We Hold On - like Cold Fire a great tune but truly terrible lyrics. Cringe, cringe, cringe almost every single verse - although the chorus isn't too bad.
However, then listen to Caravan and see how it should be done. I think that often Neil's best lyrics are where he keeps it simple and lets the listener use their imagination - ie Caravan, Closer to The Heart. The key thing is that the lyrics fit well with the song and make you feel that they are meant to be together - not "crammed in" artificially. S & A suffers very badly from this in my opinion.
