Best Lyrics

Theresalwaysone · 25-08-2009 3:22pm #1

I'm sucker for well crafted lyrics in a song and generally love bands/songwriters with the talent to write as such. So what/who are your favourite song lyrics/lyricists?

I like Paul Noonan from Bellx1, think he has a genius and colloquial style of writing and its brilliant:

Some Gems: "Id say you'd like some Children, but you couldnt eat a whole one"-Alphabet soup

"A boy racer,Fine young men with their spoilers spoiled"- Reacharound

Then Conor Oberst, who I personally think is brilliant, eveything he writes is genius.

The whole of "at the bottom of everything" is quality. Similarly "Road to Joy", my favourite line being

"So when you’re asked to fight a war that’s over nothing
It’s best to join the side that’s gonna win
And no one’s sure how all of this got started
But we’re gonna make them goddam certain how its gonna end"

I could go on for a while but what are everyone here's favourites?

Oh and Editors Tom Smith with "you fall from grace, you fall with such grace" is another.

Theres loads really.

quarryman · 25-08-2009 3:45pm

"I am the walrus, goo goo g'joob g'goo goo g'joob.
Goo goo g'joob g'goo goo g'joob g'goo."

It works on so many levels.

quarryman · 26-08-2009 9:54am

did i kill the thread?

thorbarry · 26-08-2009 9:57am

Ya cant beat Bob Dylans lyrics

You raise up your head
And you ask, "Is this where it is?"
And somebody points to you and says
"It's his"
And you say, "What's mine?"
And somebody else says, "Where what is?"
And you say, "Oh my God
Am I here all alone?"

longshanks · 26-08-2009 11:45am

we took our first pill
when the music was shite
said fuck dancing all night
then thats just what we did

Chewabacca · 26-08-2009 6:15pm

Theresalwaysone wrote: »

I'm sucker for well crafted lyrics in a song and generally love bands/songwriters with the talent to write as such. So what/who are your favourite song lyrics/lyricists?

I like Paul Noonan from Bellx1, think he has a genius and colloquial style of writing and its brilliant:

Some Gems: "Id say you'd like some Children, but you couldnt eat a whole one"-Alphabet soup

"A boy racer,Fine young men with their spoilers spoiled"- Reacharound

Then Conor Oberst, who I personally think is brilliant, eveything he writes is genius.

The whole of "at the bottom of everything" is quality. Similarly "Road to Joy", my favourite line being

"So when you’re asked to fight a war that’s over nothing
It’s best to join the side that’s gonna win
And no one’s sure how all of this got started
But we’re gonna make them goddam certain how its gonna end"

I could go on for a while but what are everyone here's favourites?

Oh and Editors Tom Smith with "you fall from grace, you fall with such grace" is another.

Theres loads really.

Cant really go wrong with bright eyes.

I find Nas' lyrics are excellent and far ahead of any rapper I know.

Also I love the ;rics of White Lines by grandmaster flash

"A street kid gets arrested, gonna do some time
He got out three years from now just to commit more crime
A businessman is caught with 24 kilos
He’s out on bail and out of jail
And that’s the way it goes"

"Little Jack Horner sitting on the corner
With no shoes and clothes
This aint funny, but he took his money
And sniffed it up his nose"

Obviously those lyrics arent very powerful to people living in our society but I imagine that they meant alot to people living in rough parts of America.

What about Tom Green?
"My bum is on the rail, my bum is on the rail, look at me my bum is on the rail"
Sheer genius.

AdMMM · 26-08-2009 8:47pm

I actually struggle to catch lyrics in songs. Despite listening to more music than you can shake a fist at, I barely know any songs. I don't just have an ear for vocals

.

However, at the moment Of Montreal's Past is a Grotesque Animal sticks out.
"I'm flunking out, flunking out;
I'm gone, I'm just gone;
But at least I author my own disaster"

Perhaps only because I can entirely relate to that verse given how my college repeats went.

sock puppet · 26-08-2009 9:53pm

Kritin Hersh's lyrics are excellent.

deisedude · 26-08-2009 10:19pm

I'm only paraphrasing offhand but the Clash have one great line in The Magnificent Seven. Goes something along the lines of
"What have we got for entertainment, cops kicking gypsies on the pavement"

Another favourite of mine would be from Whipping Boy in Twinkle which goes "Turning tricks just like your mother". In fairness every Whipping Boy song has fantastic lyrics

JerryHandbag · 26-08-2009 10:44pm

Neil Young "Why do I keep f***in up!"

+1 to Paul Noonan from Bellx1 too, hes a really funny guy in person as well.

Taz86 · 27-08-2009 3:17pm

Some good uns mentioned there, folks. I’m a sucker for great lyrics too. I’ll try keep this brief with a few lines from each. I'm not sure the brief lines I've included do justice to 'em but sure check them out if you like! My favourites would be Cocker, Wire and Edwards, Morrissey, Bowie, Reed, and Turner.

Jarvis - “Without you my life has become a hangover without end”
“Oh children of the future/ conceived in the toilets at Meadowhall”
“Take your year in Provence and shove it up your arse” - think this tune, 'I Spy', is great stuff.

“Why live in the world when you can live in your head?”

Wire and Edwards.“I am stronger than Mensa, Miller and Mailer/ I spat out Plath and Pinter”
“My mind is dead, everybody loves me/Hopelessly passive and compatible/Need to belong, though the roads are scary”

Morrissey - “I am moving house/A half-life disappears today/ Every hag waves me on/ Secretly wishing me gone”
“I love you more than life”
“never seeing further than the cold dark streets that trap them”
“Underact - express depression” “I was *tired* again, I *tried* again”.
“It’s so easy to laugh, it’s so easy to hate/ It takes guts to be gentle and kind”

Bowie – “It’s not the side effects of the cocaine/I’m thinking that it must be love”
“I look at my watch it says 9.25 and I think “Oh God, I’m still alive”
“All that speed jive/Who wants to be alive when they’re 25”

Reed – all of the album Berlin and Street Hassle.
Turner – I particularly like Fluorescent Adolescent. “Nothing seems so pretty as the past though/That Bloody Mary’s lacking a Tabasco”

RHunce · 27-08-2009 3:26pm

she said i dont believe in any old jesus if there was a god then why is my arse, the perfect height for kicking

you all know what band im talking about

bluto63 · 27-08-2009 4:42pm

Theresalwaysone wrote: »

The whole of "at the bottom of everything" is quality. Similarly "Road to Joy", my favourite line being

"So when you’re asked to fight a war that’s over nothing
It’s best to join the side that’s gonna win
And no one’s sure how all of this got started
But we’re gonna make them goddam certain how its gonna end"

That's what I was gonna say, or from the same song 'No one ever plans to sleep out in the gutter, sometimes that's just the most comfortable place'

PrivateEye · 27-08-2009 11:24pm

Jones/Strummer (The Clash)

The Clash- Spanish Bombs
They sang the red flag,
they wore the black one -
but after they died, it was Mockingbird Hill.
Back home, the buses went up in flashes,
the Irish tomb was drenched in blood.
Spanish bombs shatter the hotels.
My señorita’s rose was nipped in the bud.

Ben Gibbard (Postal Service, DCFC)

The Postal Service-Clark Gable
I greased the lens
and framed the shot using a friend as my stand-in
The script it called for rain
but it was clear that day so we faked it
The marker snapped and I yelled "quiet on the set"
and then called "action!"
And I kissed you in a style
that Clark Gable would have admired
I thought it classic

Philip Chevron (The Pogues, The Radiators)

The Radiators- Faithful Departed
I dont care if you heros have wings
Your terrible beauty has been torn

Matt Skiba(Alkaline Trio)

I played every Alkaline Trio album inside out growing up.

D0nners · 28-08-2009 12:06am

"Please allow me to introduce myself
I'm a man of wealth and taste
I've been around for a long, long year
Stole many a man's soul and fate"

Aridstarling · 28-08-2009 12:11am

Too many to name. Cocker, Edwards, Oberst as already mentioned. Love Matt Berninger in The National, so distinctive and responsible for my favourite line in a long time;

"Another uninnocent, elegant fall into the unmagnificent lives of adults."

and "You say you wouldn't want an angel watching over you but suprise, suprise, they wouldn't want to watch."

Both from "Mistaken For Strangers" on Boxer.

Also Ryan Adams at his best is a genius. Too many examples really to mention but anything off Heartbreaker is close to perfection.

Par example;

"Up here in the city, things are closing in,
sunset's just my light bulb burning out.
I miss Kentucky and I miss my family,
Oh the sweetest winds they blow across the south"

Doesn't sound so sweet out of musical context but it just nails the mood of the whole song. Also there's the classic chorus to "Come Pick Me Up"

"I wish you would
Come pick me up
Take me out
**** me up
Steal my records
Screw all my friends
Theyre all full of ****
With a smile on your face
And then do it again"

Feel the anger...

rcaz · 28-08-2009 12:21am

Wayne Coyne, Thom Yorke. Thom's lyrics are strange - he can sing some really irrelevant stuff and it doesn't seem too out-of-place, and some really really corny stuff and make it sound sincere and acceptable.

But we could have closed the thread at Bob Dylan - the master.

Aridstarling · 28-08-2009 12:34am

El Pr0n wrote: »

But we could have closed the thread at Bob Dylan - the master.

Some things are so obvious it hurts. Everybody owes the man something.

The Hustler · 28-08-2009 12:44am

Richey Edwards (Manics again) I think we have a winner as far as an individual lyricist is concerned

Lyrics to a song called Patrick Bateman (Brett Easton Ellis' Novel/Film)

He's a real cool guy and he's a hero of mine
Travis, Rhinehart rolled into one cute son
Less than zero, a grotesque nightmare
Subtly disturbing like normal behaviour

I understand nothing and I cannot speak
I'd walk in the park but the trees are diseased
No sweetheart and I am too confused
I only love my watch and my snake skin shoes

I feel so small in the supermarket queue
People seem to laugh at my choice of food
My personality is held together with sellotape
A loose fit just like a numb junkie's hate

I pretty my face with all this cream and stuff
Ugliness inside much harder to cover up
I lack the thought to care about politics
Just do what I like, ain't that democratic

Genesis, Huey Lewis, Filofax, CD5
A backdrop to discuss over expensive wine
Didn't even know when or why I should stop
I feel so stupid like a joke that belongs

I guess all psychos are made out of money
I cannot be saved as liberals keep telling me
I don't want to be understood I just wanna kill
Out of blandness I am your everyday thrill

Patrick Bateman
We are babies crippled in Christ
Patrick Bateman
Therefore I must be God
I must, I must be God

I touched your lips but now I just paint
Surface reflection all I desired, babe
I am melancholy, flower cutting through stone
I'm a crime everybody has at home

Papers hate me but they need my behaviour
The dignity amongst Hollywood trivia
Escape is so cheap of alcohol and whores
Mine's the sanity of exclusive gun laws

Art critics say porno's easily obscene
Late Show retards, Dice Clay is true poetry
They've never tried living underneath the water
That's real end of the century nausea

Patrick Bateman
We are babies crippled in Christ
Patrick Bateman
Therefore I must be God
I must, I must be God

Patrick Bateman
We are babies crippled in Christ
Patrick Bateman
I ****ed God up the ass
I ****ed God up the ass

Patrick Bateman
Patrick Bateman
Patrick Bateman
Patrick Bateman

pistonsvox · 28-08-2009 1:36am

Poke at my iris, why can't I cry about this?
Maybe there is something that you know that I don't?

We adopt a brand new language, communicate through pursed lips,
You try not to put on any sexy clothes or graces.

I might never catch a mouse and present it in my mouth
And make you feel you're with someone who deserves to be with you.

But there's one thing we've got going and it's the only thing worth knowing.
It's got lots to do with magnets and the pull of the moon.

Why won't our love keel over as it chokes on a bone?
We can mourn its passing and then bury it in snow.

Or should we kick its c8nt in and watch as it dies from bleeding.
If you don't want to be with me just say and I will go.

--

Well we can change our partners this is a progressive dance,
But remember it was me who dragged you up to the sweaty floor.

Well this has been a reel
I've got shin-splints and a stitch from weed(?)
But like a drunken night it's the best bits that are coloured in

Should look through some old photos I adored you in every one of those.
If someone took a picture of us now they'd need to be told that we had ever clung and tied a navy knot with arms at night
I'd say she was his sister but she doesn't have his nose.

And now we're unrelated and rid of all the **** we hated,
But I hate when I feel like this and I never hated you.

deisedude · 28-08-2009 1:43am

Aridstarling wrote: »

Too many to name. Cocker, Edwards, Oberst as already mentioned. Love Matt Berninger in The National, so distinctive and responsible for my favourite line in a long time;

"Another uninnocent, elegant fall into the unmagnificent lives of adults."

and "You say you wouldn't want an angel watching over you but suprise, suprise, they wouldn't want to watch."

Both from "Mistaken For Strangers" on Boxer.

Also Ryan Adams at his best is a genius. Too many examples really to mention but anything off Heartbreaker is close to perfection.

Par example;

"Up here in the city, things are closing in,
sunset's just my light bulb burning out.
I miss Kentucky and I miss my family,
Oh the sweetest winds they blow across the south"

Doesn't sound so sweet out of musical context but it just nails the mood of the whole song. Also there's the classic chorus to "Come Pick Me Up"

"I wish you would
Come pick me up
Take me out
**** me up
Steal my records
Screw all my friends
Theyre all full of ****
With a smile on your face
And then do it again"

Feel the anger...

+ 1 for Matt Berninger of the National. My personal favourite comes from the song City Middle

"I have weird memories of you
Pissing in a sink, I think
I have weird memories of you":D

loveissucide · 28-08-2009 2:02am

+1 on Beringer
"I'm put together beautifully
Big wet bottle in my fist, big wet rose in my teeth
I'm perfect piece of ass
Like every Californian"
from All The Wine

Also a shout for Jeff Tweedy
"The cash machine is blue and green
For a bundle of twenties and a small service fee
I could spend three dollars and sixty-three cents
On Diet Coca-Cola and unlit cigarettes
I wonder why we listen to poets when nobody gives a ****
How hot and sorrowful, the machine begs for luck"
from Ashes of American Flags.

Aridstarling · 28-08-2009 2:21am

Christ I love Jeff Tweedy, to anyone going to see them tomorrow, enjoy yourselves you lucky sons of bitches! My memories of last year will have to get me through the weekend.

Really getting into Frightened Rabbit lately, heard them on an NPR podcast from a couple of months ago and been giving them a listen every now and then. Well worth it each time, love his voice.

lordgoat · 28-08-2009 10:28am

Over and over and over again, you said that we're just friends.

Your skin makes me cry.

It's a lyric but the trumpet solo in the Saturday Boy by Billy Bragg is as good as pretty much any lyric i've heard.

Anything Elliott Smith has written.

homerun_homer · 28-08-2009 11:09am

Richey Edwards (Let's not forget Nicky's contribution) for the Manic's lyrics are amazing. 4st 7lbs is possibly the height of his genius for an insight into anorexia.

I love this quote from 'Die in the Summertime'

Scratch my leg with a rusty nail, sadly it heals
Colour my hair but the dye grows out
I can't seem to stay a fixed ideal

Elliott Smith as mentioned before is another amazing lyricist and favourite of mine.

eoinmaclove · 28-08-2009 2:34pm

Best lyrics of all time (we all know people this song could be about

)

They’ve got the whole world in their house
They’ve got the whole wide world in their house
They’ve got the whole world in their house
To see the new conservatory

They go ten pin bowling after work
They go ten pin bowling after work
They go ten pin bowling after work
And they’re getting married on a Caribbean beach

They’ve got a German shepherd dog called Prince
They’ve got a German shepherd dog called Prince
They’ve got a German shepherd dog called Prince
The one called Sheba died

They know where things are in B&Q
They know where things are in B&Q
They know where things are in B&Q
And they’ve got The Joy Of Sex video

If I were a linesman
I would execute defenders who applauded my offsides

They were due on the Crystal Maze
Yeah, they were due to go on the Crystal Maze
Yeah, they were due on the Crystal Maze
But they got mugged in Florida

They went up in a hot air balloon
They declared their love in a hot air balloon
Yeah, they drank champagne in a hot air balloon
And had a row on New Year’s Eve

They’ve got nothing but total respect for
They’ve got nothing but total respect for
They’ve got nothing but total respect for
Annie Lennox

And if I’d known they were coming, I’d have slashed me wrists

lynamhairycake · 28-08-2009 4:50pm

+1 for Smith, fantastic music and lyricist:

Baby Britain feels the best
floating over a sea of vodka
separated from the rest
fights problems with bigger problems
sees the ocean fall and rise
counts the waves that somehow didn't hit her
water pouring from her eyes
alcoholic and very bitter

But a thread without a mention of Mr Lyrics himself - Tom Waits - is kind of incomplete.

From - Who are You

Do you cry. Do you pray
Do you wish them away
Do you still leave nothing
But bones in the way
Did you bury the carnival
Lions and all
Excuse me while I sharpen my nails
And just who are you this time?
You look rather tired
(Who drinks from your shoe)
Are you pretending to love
Well I hear that it pays well
How do your pistol and your Bible and your
Sleeping pills go?
Are you still jumping out of windows in expensive clothes?

From Filipino Box Spring Hog

Spider rolled in from Hollister Burn
with a one-eyed stolen mare
Donned himself with chicken fat
Sawin' on a jaw bone violin there
Kathleen was sittin' down in Little Red's Recovery Room
in her criminal underwear bra
I was naked to the waist with my fierce black hound
And I'm cookin' up a Filipino Box Spring Hog
Cookin' up a Filipino Box Spring Hog
Cookin' up a Filipino Box Spring Hog

And countless others...

Amazotheamazing · 28-08-2009 5:15pm

Some of the lyrics from Craig Finn of the Hold Steady are incredible, pretty much anything from their album Boys and Girls in America is great, even some of the throw away lines like

"lost in fog and love and faithless fear. I've had kisses that make Judas seem sincere."

and

"there are nights when i think that sal paradise was right. boys and girls in america have such a sad time together. sucking off each other at the demonstrations. making sure their makeup's straight. crushing one another with collossal expectations. dependent, undisciplined, sleeping late."

Not sure the lyricist in the band Okkervil River is but they've got incredible lyrics. From Singer Songwriter

"I heard cuts by The Kinks on your speakers
I saw Poe and Artaud on your shelves
While The Last Laugh's first scene on your flat panel screen
Lit Chanel that you've wrapped around yourself
You've got outsider art by an artist you arguably kidnapped a kid on the wall
Your designers have slyly directed the eye down clean lines here in your well lit pawn
You've got taste, you've got taste
What a waste that that's all that you have."

Amazotheamazing · 28-08-2009 5:21pm

Actually, thinking more about it, Stuart Murdoch from Belle and Sebastian should be highly rated on this thread, great lyrics, and honourable mentions to Hank Williams, Chuck Berry and Jimmy Rodgers, who went a long way to inventing modern pop/rock lyrics. So many greats though, Steve Earle, Shane MacGowan, Cohen, impossible to pick.

lordgoat · 28-08-2009 5:52pm

Amazotheamazing wrote: »

Actually, thinking more about it, Stuart Murdoch from Belle and Sebastian should be highly rated on this thread, great lyrics, and honourable mentions to Hank Williams, Chuck Berry and Jimmy Rodgers, who went a long way to inventing modern pop/rock lyrics. So many greats though, Steve Earle, Shane MacGowan, Cohen, impossible to pick.

See i'd agree with nearly all of these in here. Especially Stuart Murdoc and Williams. But can't stand the hold steady, think they are one gimmick after another. Shock lyrics and alot of musical repetition in my opinion. The joys of differencing opinions eh?

Amazotheamazing · 28-08-2009 6:11pm

lordgoat wrote: »

See i'd agree with nearly all of these in here. Especially Stuart Murdoc and Williams. But can't stand the hold steady, think they are one gimmick after another. Shock lyrics and alot of musical repetition in my opinion. The joys of differencing opinions eh?

Nah, the Hold Steady are one of the best bands of the last 10 years, not just for Finn's lyrics. There just a good time rock band, some people (not saying you) need more from music than that i guess, but great riffs and great lyrics are enough for me. I don't think their last album was as good as their others though, some of the bsides would have improved it.

Best Lyrics

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