Best lyrics you've ever read (written)?

Oh, and I liked the part in the film Imagine where John tells the guy camping in his garden "they're just songs" that they really don't mean anything and he just "makes them up" - yeah, right. :)
 
Slipknot - Surfacing

Fuck it all
Fuck this world
Fuck everything that you stand for

Don't belong
Don't exist
Don't give a shit
Don't ever judge me

Don't you fucking judge me
 
I kind of like Don McLean on the American Pie album: Empty Chairs, Vincent, and American Pie. (Not that anyone knows what the lyrics in AP mean after the first part :) )
 
Some good names floating around here.

Bob Dylan-of course.

Leonard Cohen-great suggestion-did you know he lives in a monestary now.

The beatles-Lennon-the better songwriter, Paul the more melodic.

What about Neil Young.

What about Lou Reed-well he does speak his mind.

Tom Waits?-I think so.

What about Van Morrison?
 
I think Paul Simon is definitely tops when it comes to lyrics. (ditto Prawn - I know what Paul Simon's talking about with those words. I wonder how many pop singers even know what mediocrity means.)

I am just a poor boy though my story's seldom told

I have squandered my resistance for a pocketful of marbles(mumbles) such are promises

All lies and jest, still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.

John Lennon too. I like the way he plays with words and switches them around so they are all funky like in Strawberry Fields. John Hiatt has some excellent lyrics:

I broke your heart with the back of my mind.

From the tip of my tongue to the end of the line.


Paul McCartney and George Harrison(While My Guitar Gently Weeps) also had some good lyrics and if you're combining lyrics and music Paul McCartney is tops(I think so anyway).

Will you still need me
will you still feed me
When I'm sixty four? - Doesn't get any better than that.

Tucci
 
I'd heard somewhere that Hendrix was a solid writer. Something we tend to forget because of his guitar prowess. This is all I needed to convince me that he was, indeed, godsent:

The Wind Cries Mary (Jimi Hendrix)

After all the jacks are in their boxes
And the clowns have all gone to bed
You can hear happiness staggering on down the street
Footsteps dressed in red
And the wind whispers Mary

A broom is drearily sweeping
Up the broken pieces of yesterdays life
Somewhere a queen is weeping
Somewhere a king has no wife
And the wind it cries Mary

The traffic-lights, they turn blue tomorrow
And shine their emptiness down on my bed
The tiny island sags downstream
'Cause the life that lived is, is dead
And the wind screams Mary

Will the wind ever remember
The names it has blown in the past?
And with this crutch, its old age, and its wisdom
It whispers no, this will be the last
And the wind cries mary
 
Not the best, but the first.



Run For the Sun

The biggest churches here
are mostly empty space
Maybe that's the failing
of half the human race

People try to hide their thoughts
with a happy face
But the devil's on the loose
and he owns this crazy place

All the people I know
are all walking through the snow
Don't know where their heads are at
Don't know where to go

Life could be so easy
Comes so naturally
Have some fun, run for the sun
Set your feelings free

words and music by MLB, 1968.
 
Oh, Yeah. The WInd Cries Mary is a good one alright. My fav is still Bend me, Shake me, Any way you want me. hehe.
 
I think that's the thing that I hate MOST about the new kiddy-band craze. They lyrics are SO awful. Just as trite and obvious as they could be. There is actually a Bacstreet or N'Sync (who can tell 'em apart?) song that says... literally:

"Girl, I'm never gonna treat you bad
Cuz I never wanna see you sad
I'm never gonna say goodbye
Cuz I never wanna see you cry"

Can someone please give me a big break?

CT
 
As for lyrics I've written... that's tough. I happen to write really personal stuff, so what's meaningful to me may not connect with someone else. But I suppose that's true of any lyric.

Here are a few lines I'm proud of:

"You're holding yourself out as an example
Of how you think everyone should be.
Because of who I fuck with...
You think that you can fuck with me.

But all the fire threatening my soul
And all the riteous stones that you can throw
Won't make me believe in your superiority"

If for no other reason than - it ain't easy to make a six syllable word fit into a rock song! ;)

A friend of mine wrote some lyrics once that I thought were a great combination of unique poetic imagery and subject matter:

"I saw the face of your child
She's fiery just like you
She shines a difficult light
Hot orange and cold blue"

Good stuff.

CT
 
How about Will Oldham? These are from memory, so I may have mis represented him on a word here or there:

"Come little dog, love a little dog, come a little dog...
Where did the little dog come from?
Little dog came from you.
Little brown spot on his little black head,
little dead dog, I love you"

Or

"If I could fuck a mountain
then I would fuck a mountain."

Or

"Just coming in to where
I store my hair
Just in the rift
of gold and brown."
 
Fave lyricists: . . . .

Andy Partridge of XTC
Witness "1000 Umbrellas"

"And one million teacups I bet
Couldn't hold all the wet
That fell out of my eyes
When you fell out with me
Now I'm crawling the wallpaper
That's looking more like a roadmap
To misery"

John Linnell of They Might Be Giants
Witness "Metal Detector"

"Every seashell has a story to tell
If you're listening
But underneath every shell there's a story as well
If you've heard enough of the sea"


Quirky. Witty. Qwirky. Witty. Me likey. . .
Wish I could write that sh*t.

Chepney
 
And by the way . . . Fave lyrics of my own scribbling:

From "Carla"
"Carla, in hands like works of art
Clutches the torn and bleeding pieces of my heart"

From "You Beautiful"
"And if you choose to waste my time, I won't be mad
I'll walk you home, I'l walk your dog, I'll meet your dad"

Pathetic, I know (or at least I won't disagree openly.)


Chepney
 
NAH! You guys are WAAAAAY Off base!!!
The ALL time best, deepest, philosophical, etc, etc, etc, lyric is by John Sebastian from his "Lovin' Spoonful" days;

I was down in Savannah
Eatin' cream and bananas
When the heat just made me faint.
I began to get crosseyed
I thought I was lost
I begun to see things as they ain't.

Then my relatives gathered
To see what's the matter,
The doctor came to see if I's dyin',
Then the doctor said, "Give him jug band music, it seems to make 'em feel just fine."

Now - that makes me proud to be a lyriologist. :D

mutt
 
"

"

[This message has been edited by DNiles (edited 06-30-2000).]

[This message has been edited by DNiles (edited 06-30-2000).]

[This message has been edited by DNiles (edited 06-30-2000).]
 
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