W hat is your favourite song lyric, and why?

biko

She ran away from home on her mother's best coat
She was married before she was even entitled to vote
And her husband was one of those blokes
The sort that only laughs at his own jokes
The sort a war takes away
And when there wasn't a war he left anyway
- Billy Bragg "Levi Stubbs' Tears"

anncoates

biko wrote: »

She ran away from home on her mother's best coat
She was married before she was even entitled to vote
And her husband was one of those blokes
The sort that only laughs at his own jokes
The sort a war takes away
And when there wasn't a war he left anyway
- Billy Bragg "Levi Stubbs' Tears"

Great choice.

You could pick so many from him.


Between the Wars

Theirs is a land of hope and glory
Mine is the green field and the factory floor

Theirs are the skies all dark with bombers
And mine is the peace we knew between the wars

Call up the craftsmen, bring me the draftsmen
Build me a path from cradle to grave

And I'll give my consent to any government
That does not deny a man a living wage

Go find the young men never to fight again
Bring up the banners from the days gone by

Sweet moderation, heart of this nation
Desert us not, we are between the wars

bodice ripper

Had to do another

Ohh, what are they gonna do when the lights go down
Without you to guide them all to Zion?
What are they gonna do when the rivers overrun
Other than tremble incessantly?

High is the wave
But our eyes are upon the ground.
You are the light and the way
They'll only read about
I only pray heaven knows when to lift you out

10000 days in the fire is long enough.
You're going home...

You're the only one who can hold your head up high,
Shake your fist at the gates saying,
"I have come home now!"

Fetch me the spirit, the son and the father,
Tell them their pillar of faith has ascended.

It's time now!
My time now!
Give me my
Give me my wings!".

10,000 Days by Tool

Reoil

fussyonion wrote: »

"And that's a good line to take it to
The bridge"

- Strong by Robbie Williams

Deep... :rolleyes:

Reoil

"So dear friends your love has gone
Only tears to dwell upon
I dare not say as the wind must blow
So a love is lost, a love is won

Go to sleep and dream again
Soon your hopes will rise and then
From all this gloom life can start anew
And there'll be no crying soon"

Queen - Dear Friends

Yeboah

You don't know peace till you've had suffering - Solitaire Unraveling

I've got soul but I'm not a soldier - all these things that I've done

The Backwards Man

Remember what the dormouse said

Anti-draft message or drug addled kid's story, the jury is out.

FunLover18

podgemonster wrote:

Well, I woke up Sunday morning With no way to hold my head that didn't hurt. And the beer I had for breakfast wasn't bad, So I had one more for dessert. Then I fumbled in my closet through my clothes And found my cleanest dirty shirt. Then I washed my face and combed my hair And stumbled down the stairs to meet the day.

Kris Kristofferson is one of the world's greatest lyricists. So much if his work I could post in here.

Sleepy

Two beautiful lyrics from the same song:

"Red Wine and Sleeping Pills help me get back to your arms.
Cheap sex and sad films help me get where I belong..."

"It's not like the movies. They fed us on little white lies..."

Motion Picture Soundtrack by Radiohead

walkingshadow

"Take your panties off..."

Sir Snoopus Dogus.

The Backwards Man

Melancholic lyrics are best lyrics

Let him sing me back home with the song I used to hear
And make my old memories come alive
Take me away, and turn back the years,
Sing me back home before I die

SuperGrover

Almost everyday you fall
Upon my waking eyes,
Inviting and inciting me
To rise.
And through the window in the wall
Come streaming in on sunlight wings
A million bright ambassadors of morning.

Chancer3001

Better wear that latex
Cos you don't want that late text
Them " I think I'm late" text


Lil wayne absolute genius lyrics in fairness.

Keyzer

"There ain't nothing like regret to remind you you're alive"

Sheryl Crow, The Difficult Kind

Great song about a relationship falling apart.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jiu2IfCCTJQ

Turtyturd

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8BiDN5B8ck

Duggy747

I don't want to see a ghost
It's the sight that I fear most
I'd rather have a piece of toast
Watch the evening news

Life - Des'ree

Wellyd

Told me you loved me,
That I'd never die alone,
Hand over your heart,
Let's go home.

Cold Desert- KOL
It reminds me of falling in love with someone all over again.

cianf123

Down the lane way sniffin’ petrol
I thought pebbledash was snow
As I stumbled in a blizzard
The pain inside me disappeared
Cross the city down the alleys
A thousand kids like me
They are watching through red eyes
The flock of little birds gracefully gliding by

Damien Dempsey

Mesrine65

Zac Brown Band - Toes

"I got my toes in the water, ass in the sand
Not a worry in the world, a cold beer in my hand
Life is good today. Life is good today."

Speaks for itself :cool:

nathang20

Very apt for the upcoming referendum:

"It's the terror of knowing
What this world is about
Watching some good friends
Screaming, "Let me out!"
Tomorrow gets me higher
Pressure on people - people on streets"

(Under pressure: Queen)

Mam of 4

When my time comes
Forget the wrong that I've done,
Help me leave behind some
Reasons to be missed..


Linkin Park Leave Out All The Rest.

brummytom

The song might be mostly nonsense, but I've always liked the last line of the last version of Mr Tambourine Man,

'Let me forget about today until tomorrow.'

GerB40

"They collected the crippled, the wounded the maimed, and they shipped us back home to Australia.
The armless the legless, the blind the insane. Those proud wounded heroes of Suvla (sp?)
And when the ship pulled in to circular Quay, I looked at the place where my legs used to be and thank christ there was no one there waiting for me. To grieve and to mourn and to pity.

Also

"And now every April I sit on me porch, and watch the parade pass before me.
I see me ould comrades, how proudly they march, renewing their dreams of past glory.
I see the old men, all tired stiff and sore. The weary old heroes of a forgotten war. And the young people ask, "what are they marching for?"
And I ask myself the same question.
And the band played waltzing Mathilda.
And the old men still answer the call.
But year after year, the numbers get fewer.
Someday no one will March there at all.

From "And the Band Played Waltzing Mathilda", written by Eric Bogle, performed by countless trad bands. One of the few songs that can make me cry.

GerB40

sbsquarepants wrote: »

Barefoot girl, sitting on the hood of a dodge,
Drinking warm beer in the soft summer rain.

From Jungleland by Bruce Springsteen

It's a town full of losers, I'm pulling out of here to win.

Thunder Road, also the boss.
Particularly apt now considering young people who don't want to emigrate and aren't tied down are looked on suspiciously by some people..

ofcork

Have you come here to play jesus to the lepers in your head, One by U2 such a great line.

Magenta

Princess Laika wrote: »

"It's OK to eat fish cos they don't have any feelings."

-Barry White.

Don't you mean Nirvana?

The Pheasant2

"She had the face of an angel smiling with sin; the body of Venus with arms"

From "Touch too much" by AC/DC

To Elland Back

You'll know heartache
Still more crying
When you're thinking of your mother's only son

Joan Armatrading - Down To Zero

strobe

"a simple prop, to occupy my time" REM - The One I Love.

It's just such a good dig to take at someone. Cold as fvck. But you've got to admire the craftmanship. If you ever happen to find yourself in the unfortunate situation of breaking up with someone, and they choose to pull the gloves off and get nasty, and you feel the need to retaliate, you could do a lot worse than paraphrasing that line, "ah here, look, you're just something I do when I'm bored, so don't go running away with yourself". Ouch...

"you do it to yourself, you do, and that's what really hurts" Radiohead - Just.

It just encapsulates that realisation that it's not everyone else, or external factors, or anything like that that has you in the situation you keep finding yourself in, it's your own doing. It's not poetically imaginative or anything, just straight down the line and quite plain, but there's a sort of dull honesty to it that's right up my street.

"and if it makes you happy, then why are you so sad" Sheryl Crowe - If It Makes You Happy.

Again it's just a sort of a 'a bit too on the nose' kind of line, that almost seems lazy, in song writing terms. But I dunno, I think if there was a little more to it it'd lose something.

"please don't take him even though you can" Jolene - Dolly Parton

I seem to be on a bit of a theme, with the honesty thing, but how and ever. It's just such a heartbreakingly honest sentiment. That someone could be so aware that if this other person wanted it, the one they love would leave them for them, but they love them so much that they are reduced to pleading with the other person not to take them. White Stripes do an awesome live version of that song btw, go youtube that.

"face down, ass up, that's the way we like to fvck" 2 Live Crew - Face Down, Ass Up.

Again, honesty I guess. But also it holds a special place in my heart for the fact that when I was in first year in school all the girls in my year developed a spontaneous liking for running around and singing the song. Which being a 13 year old lad was awesome for obvious reasons, but it was also awesome due to the reactions that passerbys had from witnessing the occurence. Shock and awe, is probably the best description.

GerB40

The Backwards Man wrote: »

Remember what the dormouse said

Anti-draft message or drug addled kid's story, the jury is out.

Well the next line is "Feed your head" so I'm fairly certain it's the drug addled kids story.

Junkyard Tom

'Slowly walking down the hall - faster than a cannonball'.

Oasis.

I think it succinctly captures the Zeitgeist of the weeks leading up to The Bloshevik Revolution in early 19th Century Russia.

Dozen Wicked Words

I saw two shooting stars last night
I wished on them, but they were only satellites
It's wrong to wish on space hardware
I wish, I wish, I wish you'd care.

Billy Bragg - New England.


Couldn't give a damn about
The friends of mine she'll scare
Some people just can't see past studs
And bleached blond spiky hair
I say 'a' for Abba
She says 'a' for Anarchy
In the morning she says "Never mind the bollocks,
Here's your cup of tea"

Darren Hanlon - Punks not dead.

Andy - The Front Lawn (won't list lyrics but whole song is very poignant)


I bought a toothbrush, some toothpaste
A flannel for my face
Pyjamas, a hairbrush
New shoes and a case
I said to my reflection
Let's get out of this place

Squeeze - Tempted


All have great, clever lyrics and Andy is just moving.

blackcard

You come home late
And you come home early
You come home straight
And you come home curly
Sometimes you don't come home at all

'The Sound of Loneliness'

Valentina

"But the soft words,
They are spoke so gentle,
It makes it easier, easier to bear..."

Otis Redding, Try A Little Tenderness

The Backwards Man

GerB40 wrote: »

Well the next line is "Feed your head" so I'm fairly certain it's the drug added kids story.

Feed your head > inform/educate yourself?

strobe, that was Patrick Batemanesque I have to say.

Slicemeister

Arms raised in a V,
the dead lay in pools of maroon below.

Jeremy, Pearl Jam.

Why? Shows the monster he may become if he's kept constantly being bullied.

GalwayGrrrrrl

"Even through her tears, I never saw her come undone. What's so good about goodbye, when the best is yet to come". Bryan Adams, best is yet to come. Hope I've remembered the lyrics correctly.

GalwayGrrrrrl

Sorry, forgot to say why. Played it all the time through a difficult break-up. Think it cured me of my heartbreak.

'If I was my heart
I'd rather be restless
The second I stop the sleep catches up and I'm breathless
This ache in my chest
As my day is done now
The dark covers me and I cannot run now
My blood running cold
I stand before him
It's all I can do to assure him
When he comes to me
I drip for him tonight
Drowning in me we bathe under blue light'

From 'Wake Up Alone', though I always thought the last line was 'Drowning in need we bathe in the blue light' until I looked it up just there.

Aidric

Gordon Lightfoot 'If You Could Read My Mind'. This lyric sums up the heartbreak of a dying relationship.

I never thought I could act this way
And I've got to say that I just don't get it.
I don't know where we went wrong
But the feelings gone and I just can't get it back.

cruiser178

Fat bottomed girls you make the rocking world go round








They sure do

Elvis was a hero to most
But he never meant sh1t to me...

Public Enemy tell it as it is. It was high time someone said it.

Say Your Number

"Stick around, yeah, like Elastoplast"

Example - Stay awake

What a true poet the man is.

retro:electro

"I wish I had a river I could skate away on, I wish I had a river so long I would teach my feet to fly"
Joni Mitchell

cianf123

In Celtic times, it wasn't seen as wrong
Til the Roman Empire with the shame came along
They called this love evil and they done much harm
But if you're hurting no one, you'll be in God's arms.
Well, Chris and Stevie, I miss you both
Two more people cut down from a rope
It breaks my heart that you went so far
To all young people, be proud of who you are.

Damien Dempsey

Candie

Some of my favourites that have stuck in my mind, for one reason or other:

"When there is nothing left to burn
You have to set yourself on fire" - Your Ex-Love is Dead by Stars.

"I would rather be alone
Than pretend I feel alright" - Ready to Start by Arcade Fire

"We talk about love,
We talk about dishwasher tablets, illness,
And we dream about Heaven" - Seven by Fever Ray

"I don’t believe in an interventionist God,
But I know, darling, that you do.
But if I did, I would kneel down and ask him
Not to intervene when it came to you." - Into My Arms by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds (that whole song is worthy of being posted here!)

"If you're in Heaven you'll forgive me dear,
'Cause that's what they do up there.
If you're in Hell, what can I say?
You probably deserved it anyway." - Idiot Prayer by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

"If you forget my name you will go astray
Like a killer whale trapped in a bay." - Bachelorette by Björk

"If I knew where I was going
I would already be there." - The Aeroplane Flies High (Turns Left, Looks Right) by The Smashing Pumpkins

"Like a soul without a mind
In a body without a heart
I'm missing every part." - Unfinished Sympathy by Massive Attack

"It's like living in the middle of the ocean with no future, no past.
And everything that's good right now, well, I don't wish for it to last.
I'll step through brilliant shades, every colour you bring.
'Cause this time is fine just as it is.
And today is whatever I want it to mean." - Central Reservation by Beth Orton

"It's getting hard to keep pretending I'm worth your time." - Madder Red by Yeasayer

"If I'm lost, please don't find me.
If I drown, let me sink." - Celestica by Crystal Castles

"Everything good, I deem too good to be true.
Everything else is just a bore.
Everything I have to look forward to,
Has a pretty painful and very imposing before." - O Sailor by Fiona Apple

"Would you really have a stranger in your bed
Rather than let someone like me take care of you?
It's no-one's problem but my own,
I think I've always cared too much.
I'm suffocating you, I know,
It's just the only way I know to love." - Jealousy and I by Torres (the singer, not the footballer!)

"To create a universe
You must taste the forbidden fruit" - Deus by The Sugarcubes

"Your love's a spider web.
When I shut it out of my mind,
You get spinning again." - Look of Love by The Jezabels

Candie wrote: »

Now here you go again
You say you want your freedom
Well who am I to keep you down
It's only right that you should
Play the way you feel it
But listen carefully to the sound
Of your loneliness
Like a heartbeat .. drives you mad
In the stillness of remembering what you had
And what you lost ...


Dreams, Stevie Nicks.

^ Love that song, and it's one of the most deceptively nasty songs ever written. The melody is beautiful, the vocals are gorgeous but the lyrics are pure poison. Think I read somewhere that when she wrote that song about Lindsey Buckingham, he wrote "Go Your Own Way" in response.

micar

Radiohead paranoid android

Kicking squealing gucci little piggy

Birneybau

Almost everything that Morrissey wrote with the Smiths and some of his solo stuff. Most people don't see the humour.

"I want to live, and I want to love, I want to catch something that I might be ashamed of".

"And if you want to live, where'd you start, where'd you go, who'd you need to know".

"So I broke into the palace, with a sponge and a rusty spanner, she said I know you and you cannot sing, I said you should hear me play piaaanor"

I also be think, Flight of the Conchords, for a comedy band, have some of the best lyrics I've ever heard.

Masterpiece:

Cold War Kid

Brilliantly evocative depiction of having to live in squalor:

We didn't have no where to live, / we didn't have nowhere to go
'til someone said / "I know this place off Burditt Road."
It was on the fifteenth floor, / it had a board across the door.
It took an hour / to prise it off and get inside. / It smelt as if someone had died;
the living-room was full of flies, / the kitchen sink was blocked,
the bathroom sink not there at all. / Ooh, / it's a mess alright, / yes it's
Mile End.
And now we're living in the sky! / I'd never thought I'd live so
high, / just like Heaven / (if it didn't look like Hell.)
The lift is always full of piss, / the fifth floor landing smells of fish
(not just on Friday, / every single other day.)
Below the kids come out tonight, / they kick a ball and have a fight
and maybe shoot somebody if they lose at pool.
Ooh, / it's a mess alright, / yes it's / Mile End.

Nobody wants to be your friend
'cause you're not from round here, / ooh / as if that was
something to be proud about. / The pearly king of the Isle of Dogs
feels up children in the bogs. / Down by the playing fields,
someone sets a car on fire.
I guess you have to go right down
before you understand just how, / how low,
how low a human being can go. / Ooh, / it's a mess alright, / yes it's
Mile End...

Pulp - Mile End

xhoundx

Spring it came upon us,
Every insect filled the air
Dropped their wings upon my brother,
Cast their shadows on his hair

If we follow where they're leading,
We will surely come before
Some unseen and wondrous magic
Made of visions to explore

Near the town where we were living
Lay an old abandoned farm
Every year we'd plant an orchid
In the shelter of its arm
To protect us from the madness
Of the future still to come
It will be like this forever
It will keep us safe from harm

Then they caught us in the summer
Dressed in father's finest clothes
You the hat he wore to market
I the jacket filled with holes

I've been searching all these hours
For a hand as pale as bone
That would keep the strongest sunlight
And reflect the brightest stone

Near the town where we were living
Was a warm and fragrant smell
Of that orchid we had planted
Now a forest tall and well
What a statue to our greatness
What a story all will tell
They'll remember us forever
They'll remember where we fell

This old dark machine, it shakes and it shudders
Pulls to the left, then dies near the gutter
But still in the road, the traffic is silent
The people they stare, and then they turn violent
If they should touch, the hem of your dress
I would rise like a lion, strike out again
The faithful they wait, the faithful they wait
By the sign

Near the town where we were living
Came a loud and joyous sound
As the earth and all her beauty
Picked us up from off the ground
Carried far across the mountain
To a kingdom never bound
We will live like this forever
I will love you
I will love you



Too hard to pick just a few lines from this lyrical masterpiece