Favourite Lyrics

[Hellion]

Inspired by a question earlier in the week....

Just wondering what your favourite lyrics of all time are - I mean the lyrics as pure poetry as opposed to because they mean something to you

I love these lines from Itchycoo Park

I feel inclined to blow my mind
Get hung up feed the ducks with a bun
They all come out to groove about
Be nice and have fun in the sun

I just get this lovely image of groovy ducks!

[soozmac]

I love the lyrics to "How Soon Is Now" by the Smiths.

I am the son and the heir
To a shyness that is criminally vulgar.

You might meet somebody who really loves you,
So you go and you stand on your own,
And you leave on your own,
And you go home and you cry and you want to die.

So simple and yet so emotive, we've all been there. The low note he hits on the word die is great too.

[jenky]

I'm not a huge fan of Billy Bragg but he does write some good lyrics. One I used to hear that stuck in my head was...
"between Marx and marzipan in the dictionary,
there was Mary..."

[ermintrude35]

F.E.A.R. - Ian Brown

For each a road
For everyman a religion
Find everybody and rule
For everything and rumble
Forget everything and remember
For everything a reason
Forgive everybody and remember

Final eternity arouses reactions
Freeing excellence affects reality
Fallen empires are ruling
Find earth and reef

Fantastic expectations
Amazing revelations
Final execution and resurrection
Free expression as revolution
Finding everything and realizing

[andy-hughes]

I also love a Billy Bragg lyric - from 'A New England' -

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

[ermintrude35]

..I also love Bragg's lyrics here is one particulare fave - Greetings to the new brunette...

How can you lie there and think of england

When you dont even know whos in the team

Your sexual politics have left me all of a muddle

We are joined in the ideological cuddle

Im celebrating my love for you

With a pint of beer and a new tattoo

And if you havent noticed yet

Im more impressionable when my cement is wet

Politics and pregnancy

Are debated as we empty our glasses

And how I love those evening classes

[andy-hughes]

My all time favorits is 'If You Could Read My Mind' by Gordon Lightfoot -

If you could read my mind love
What a tale my thoughts could tell
Just like an old time movie
'bout a ghost from a wishing well
In a castle dark or a fortress strong
With chains upon my feet
You know that ghost is me
And I will never be set free
As long as Im a ghost that you can't see.

If I could read your mind love
What a tale your thoughts could tell
Just like a paperback novel
The kind that drugstores sell
When you reach the part where the heartaches come
The hero would be me
But heroes often fail
And you won't read that book again
Because the ending's just too hard to take.

I'd walk away like a movie star
Who gets burned in a three way script
Enter number two
A movie queen to play the scene
Of bringing all the good things out in me
But for now love, let's be real
I never thought I could act this way
And I've got to say that I just dont get it
I don't know where we went wrong
But the feeling's gone
And I just can't get it back

If you could read my mind love
What a tale my thoughts could tell
Just like an old time movie
'bout a ghost from a wishing well
In a castle dark or a fortress strong
With chains upon my feet
But stories always end
And if you read between the lines
Youll know that Im just trying to understand
The feelings that you lack
I never thought I could feel 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 feeling's gone
And I just can't get it back.

[ermintrude35]

..oooh Hellion you've got me started now...

Youre a bum
Youre a punk
Youre an old **** on junk
Lying there almost dead on a drip in that bed
You scumbag, you maggot
You cheap lousy faggot
Happy christmas your arse
I pray God its our last

[China Doll]

'If you can't live without me then why aren't you dead?' is one of my favourite lines of a song.

'Rent a flat above a shop
Cut your hair and and get a job
Smoke some fags and play some pool
Pretend you never went to school.....
And then dance and drink and screw because there's nothing else to do' Pretty much most stuff by Pulp/Jarvis Cocker.

'If you got the money I think it might be funny to take your girl spend a bit of cash for free, then she might be happy, no longer lonely and I could take her out the next day for pretty much free.' Don't know who this is but been hearing it lately and makes me smile.

TBC...

[China Doll]

And of course the legend that is Bob Dylan...

Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to.
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
In the jingle jangle morning I'll come followin' you.

Though I know that evenin's empire has returned into sand,
Vanished from my hand,
Left me blindly here to stand but still not sleeping.
My weariness amazes me, I'm branded on my feet,
I have no one to meet
And the ancient empty street's too dead for dreaming.

Take me on a trip upon your magic swirlin' ship,
My senses have been stripped, my hands can't feel to grip,
My toes too numb to step, wait only for my boot heels
To be wanderin'.
I'm ready to go anywhere, I'm ready for to fade
Into my own parade, cast your dancing spell my way,
I promise to go under it.

Though you might hear laughin', spinnin', swingin' madly across the sun,
It's not aimed at anyone, it's just escapin' on the run
And but for the sky there are no fences facin'.
And if you hear vague traces of skippin' reels of rhyme
To your tambourine in time, it's just a ragged clown behind,
I wouldn't pay it any mind, it's just a shadow you're
Seein' that he's chasing.

Then take me disappearin' through the smoke rings of my mind,
Down the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen leaves,
The haunted, frightened trees, out to the windy beach,
Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow.
Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free,
Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands,
With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves,
Let me forget about today until tomorrow.

Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to.

[mushroom25]

# when the sun beats down
and I'm lying on the bench
I can always hear them talk
Me? I'm just a lawnmower
You can tell by the way I walk #

[OBonio]

I've always like Jim Bob's lyrics from Carter USM for sheer cutting observation and word play :

Ground floor Shoppers' Paradise
Habit-dashery, needles, spoons and knives
Knuckle-dusters, glass jaws and wooden hearts
Spend your money girls on sprays and lipsticks
Tested on bunnies, girls, strays and misfits
Ozone friendly rape alarms
For those blinding dates
Another summer of hate

[The Big Gill]

Intro to 'Sweet Gene Vincent' by Ian Dury:
Skinny white sailor /
the chances were slender /
the beauties were brief /
Shall I mourn your decline /
with some Thunderbird wine /
and a black handkerchief /
I miss your sad Virginia whisper /
I miss the voice that called my heart /
Sweet Gene Vincent /
Young, and old, and gone /
Sweet Gene Vincent...

[The Big Gill]

From 'Body Of An American', by The Pogues:
...
But fifteen minutes later /
We had our first taste of whiskey /
There was uncles giving lectures /
On ancient Irish history /
The menfolk started telling jokes /
And the women they got frisky /
By five o'clock in the evening /
Every b*st*rd there was p*ssed /
...

[cherrybomb]

I love the lyrics to "Only In Dreams" by Weezer
(and the tune is amazing too)


You can't resist her
She's in your bones
She's in your marrow
And your ride home
You can't avoid her
She's in the air
In between molecules of oxygen and carbon dioxide

Only in dreams
See what it means
Reach out your hands
Hold on to her's
But when we wake
It's all been erased
And so it seems
Only in dreams

You walk up to her
Ask her to dance
She says hey baby
I just might take a chance
You say it's a good thing
That you float in the air (in the air)
That way there's no way
I will crush your pretty toenails into a thousand pieces

Only in dreams
See what it means.........

[robbo82]

"in the paper today,
tales of warring and waste,
but you turn right over to the TV page"
Crowded House- Don't Dream It's Over

"he must be crazy and Sagitarrius
cos I am Leo and I'm hilarious"
The Housmartins- Five Get Overexcited

"confidence is a preference for the habitual voyer of what is known as- Parklife"
Blur- Parklife

Plus, pretty much anything by Ben Folds or Tim Minchin