Lyrics you wish you had written

F

Freddy

New member
So many great lyrics, so little time.

When I hear a great lyric I find myself wanting to write, so how about a thread containing some great examples?

Just take one song (it doesn't have to be the greatest song you ever heard) that gives you that tingle factor and tell us the lyric.

I'll go with Blackbird..

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to be free.

Blackbird fly, Blackbird fly
Into the light of a dark black night.

Blackbird fly, Blackbird fly
Into the light of a dark black night.

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
 
aree the beatles still a big thing in the uk? seems like everyone from there is saying this or that about them.....not that i mind....i love the beats....just curious, why they are always in the topic of conversation when it comes to music, even though they're many other bands to choose from?

relly...i mean no disrespect

edit-----i will think of a song to post too:)
 
turtlishous said:
aree the beatles still a big thing in the uk? seems like everyone from there is saying this or that about them.....not that i mind....i love the beats....just curious, why they are always in the topic of conversation when it comes to music, even though they're many other bands to choose from?

relly...i mean no disrespect

edit-----i will think of a song to post too:)
Click to expand...

Not really. I'm just old :o
 
Lots of Counting Crows ones:

from "Mrs. Potter's Lullaby":

If you've never stared off into the distance then your life is a shame



from "Round Here"

She walks along the edge of where the ocean meets the sand just like she's walking on a wire in a circus



from "Long December"

All at once you look across a crowded room to see the way that light attaches to a girl



from Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah":

Well maybe there's a God above
but all I've ever learned from love
was how to shoot somebody who outdrew ya
And it's not a cry that you hear at night
It's not somebody who's seen the light
It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah



from Cobain's "Teen Spirit":

I find it hard, it's hard to find
oh well, whatever, nevermind


There are too many. I could be at this all day.
 
From Visions of Johanna, by Bob Dylan:

Ain't it just like the night to play
Tricks when you're trying to be so quiet.
We sit here stranded, though
We all do our best to deny it.

From Tom Traubert's Blues, by Tom Waits:

Wasted and wounded,
It ain't what the moon did,
I've got what I payed for tonight.

From Raglan Road, by the poet Patrick Kavanagh, sung by Luke Kelly:
(And this one is as close to perfect as a song gets, forget Hallelujah and Cohen for the moment)

On Raglan Road on an autumn day I met her first and knew
That her dark hair would weave a snare that I might one day rue;
I saw the danger, yet I walked along the enchanted way,
And I said, let grief be a fallen leaf at the dawning of the day.

On Grafton Street in November we tripped lightly along the ledge
Of the deep ravine where can be seen the worth of passion's pledge,
The Queen of Hearts still making tarts and I not making hay -
O I loved too much and by such and such is happiness thrown away.

I gave her gifts of the mind I gave her the secret sign that's known
To the artists who have known the true gods of sound and stone
And word and tint. I did not stint for I gave her poems to say.
With her own name there and her own dark hair like clouds over fields of May

On a quiet street where old ghosts meet I see her walking now
Away from me so hurriedly my reason must allow
That I had wooed not as I should a creature made of clay -
When the angel woos the clay he'd lose his wings at the dawn of day.

If I could write anything ever approaching that in terms of elegance, simplicity, grace and beauty I would die a happy man,
 
famous beagle said:
right on ... there are too many good ones in that one to list
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Fuckin A! Though... ''You aint a beauty but hey you're alright'' is pretty much beyond equal.
 
One of my favorite lyricists is Jim Webb, who wrote MacArthur Park and a lot of other great songs. Up-Up and Away for example. One of my favorite of his many great lines, from Macarthur Park:

"Someone left the cake out in the rain
I don't think that I can take it
'Cause it took so long to bake it
And I'll never have that recipe again...
Oh No......."

Don't ask me to explain it to you 'cause it's like...if you have to ask, you wouldn't understand .
You had to be there...on purple owsley.

chazba
 
chazba said:
One of my favorite lyricists is Jim Webb, who wrote MacArthur Park and a lot of other great songs. Up-Up and Away for example. One of my favorite of his many great lines, from Macarthur Park:

"Someone left the cake out in the rain
I don't think that I can take it
'Cause it took so long to bake it
And I'll never have that recipe again...
Oh No......."

Don't ask me to explain it to you 'cause it's like...if you have to ask, you wouldn't understand .
You had to be there...on purple owsley.

chazba
Click to expand...

Yep, one of my favourites, although I also can't explain it. Have you heard the version Waylon Jennings does of it? For some strange reason, it's the most incredible thing I have ever heard.
 
Also, from Van Morrisson, although I don't know why I find these five words so appealing:

"Freud, Fitzroy and Madam George"
 
32-20-Blues said:
Also, from Van Morrisson, although I don't know why I find these five words so appealing:

"Freud, Fitzroy and Madam George"
Click to expand...

Sweet Thing by Van, best song ever.
 
Idiot Wind - Bob Dylan. Though i could of probably picked many others.

Someone's got it in for me, they're planting stories in the press
Whoever it is I wish they'd cut it out but when they will I can only guess.
They say I shot a man named Gray and took his wife to Italy,
She inherited a million bucks and when she died it came to me.
I can't help it if I'm lucky.

People see me all the time and they just can't remember how to act
Their minds are filled with big ideas, images and distorted facts.
Even you, yesterday you had to ask me where it was at,
I couldn't believe after all these years, you didn't know me better than that
Sweet lady.

Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your mouth,
Blowing down the backroads headin' south.
Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your teeth,
You're an idiot, babe.
It's a wonder that you still know how to breathe.

I ran into the fortune-teller, who said beware of lightning that might strike
I haven't known peace and quiet for so long I can't remember what it's like.
There's a lone soldier on the cross, smoke pourin' out of a boxcar door,
You didn't know it, you didn't think it could be done, in the final end he won the wars
After losin' every battle.

I woke up on the roadside, daydreamin' 'bout the way things sometimes are
Visions of your chestnut mare shoot through my head and are makin' me see stars.
You hurt the ones that I love best and cover up the truth with lies.
One day you'll be in the ditch, flies buzzin' around your eyes,
Blood on your saddle.

Idiot wind, blowing through the flowers on your tomb,
Blowing through the curtains in your room.
Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your teeth,
You're an idiot, babe.
It's a wonder that you still know how to breathe.

It was gravity which pulled us down and destiny which broke us apart
You tamed the lion in my cage but it just wasn't enough to change my heart.
Now everything's a little upside down, as a matter of fact the wheels have stopped,
What's good is bad, what's bad is good, you'll find out when you reach the top
You're on the bottom.

I noticed at the ceremony, your corrupt ways had finally made you blind
I can't remember your face anymore, your mouth has changed, your eyes
don't look into mine.
The priest wore black on the seventh day and sat stone-faced while the building
burned.
I waited for you on the running boards, near the cypress trees, while the springtime
turned Slowly into autumn.

Idiot wind, blowing like a circle around my skull,
From the Grand Coulee Dam to the Capitol.
Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your teeth,
You're an idiot, babe.
It's a wonder that you still know how to breathe.

I can't feel you anymore, I can't even touch the books you've read
Every time I crawl past your door, I been wishin' I was somebody else instead.
Down the highway, down the tracks, down the road to ecstasy,
I followed you beneath the stars, hounded by your memory
And all your ragin' glory.

I been double-crossed now for the very last time and now I'm finally free,
I kissed goodbye the howling beast on the borderline which separated you from me.
You'll never know the hurt I suffered nor the pain I rise above,
And I'll never know the same about you, your holiness or your kind of love,
And it makes me feel so sorry.

Idiot wind, blowing through the buttons of our coats,
Blowing through the letters that we wrote.
Idiot wind, blowing through the dust upon our shelves,
We're idiots, babe.
It's a wonder we can even feed ourselves.
 
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