Well, we have a thread about bad song lyrics, so we might as well have one about good song lyrics. We know who you think isn't getting the job done, but who do you think is doing it well?
i'm inordinately fond of 'dear john' by nice / aden right now. it's sad and funny at the same time. the lyrics, scroll down. probably nothing special, but i like them.
i got something good and i want you to taste it open your mouth now don't you waste it ah sh!t.. all over ya face kid from "gimme dat nut" by EasyE
My, a Doctor Jones sighting!!! My 2 cents: The Throwing Muses "Dizzy" has so many odd, beautifully compsed lines it's not funny.
Blue Oyster Cult This ain't the Garden of Eden There ain't no angels above and things ain't what they used to be and this ain't the summer of love
Life's been like dragging feet through sand, and never finding my Promised Land. Queensryche All of "Judith" by A Perfect Circle
Heck, while you're going there, all of the Aenima record from Tool. "Alibi" from the new Elvis Costello. Best breakup song ever. "And you never had a pony." And, as for individual lines: "When I am king you will be first against the wall." (Radiohead, Paranoid Android) Later, COZ
David Berman of Silver Jews is my favorite lyricist. A lot of his lines seem unrelated to the lines before and after it but taken as a whole song they generate an interesting feel. Kind of like a lyrical quilt. Here is an example called "Buckingham Rabbit": Back then I had a Buckingham rabbit. I'd been lonely since she found Christ. Now is the time to depend on the law: the nights of my professional life. I was living in a very young city. Grand piano, great lakes, good-bye. If you ask me my name, it's high-low-jack in the game. I can track a single bee to the hive. Every single game was a blowout. And the Nascar blurred into porn. Scenic this, scenic that, don't fall for the traps of the man who was never born. And so the rent became whiskey, and then my life became risky: shattered dogs on the rocks. At the back of the bar there's a couch where the lonely people go and lie. They talk to the honky tonk psychiatrist into the wee hours of the night. The factories on muscle relaxers. The pine perfume of hilltown floors. The lover, the thinker, the talker, the singer won't be lucid for her anymore. (chorus) When you know how I feel I feel better When you're 15 you want to look poor. Do unto others, and run like a mother I don't want to look poor anymore Jesus in a runaway shelter, said "The deaf have pictures of you." From the digital fountains to the analog mountains, let the mirrow express the room. Murf
Way too many Elvis Costello, Dylan and Pavement songs to mention, but if I had to pick one from each of these: Visions of Johanna - Dylan Painted from Memory - Elvis Embassy Row - Pavement (with that unforgettable line "men in dashiquis with their leftist weeklies...")
All time best song lyrics (AKA "my favorites"): 1) best couplet, IMO Take the hands off the clock, we're gonna be here for awhile. Camper Van Beethoven. 2) best whole song, "Take Our Test," by the Minutement ("your mind, organized by Nazis..."
I'm a huge fan of Bob Marley's 'War', which was actually taken and adapted from a speech by Selassie: 'Short Memory' by Midnight Oil. Most of what Peter Garrett & co. pen is quite awesome. Most tunes written by Bill Mallonee Pretty much everything by David Eugene Edwards of Sixteen Horsepower.
Funny intro to that old Dr. Dre CD: "What do you call two nuts that are hanging on the wall?" "Those would be Wallnuts." "Well if I have a nuts on my chest would those be Chestnuts?" "Hell-yeah." "Well daddy if I had to nuts hangin' on my chin would those be chin nuts?" "Then I said 'Hell knaw byotch you'd have a dik in your mouth..." =NAF= radio...
Your Cheatin' Heart, Hank Williams, for visually and painfully evoking heartache and betrayal. Your cheatin' heart will make you weep, You'll cry and cry and try to sleep. But sleep won't come the whole night through, Your cheatin' heart will tell on you. When tears come down like fallin' rain. You'll toss around and call my name. You'll walk the floor the way I do, Your cheatin' heart will tell on you. Your cheatin' heart will pine some day And crave the love you threw away. The time will come when you'll be blue, Your cheatin' heart will tell on you.
And, as long as I'm on the topic of Hank Williams, I kind of like the words in Move It on Over (made famous to a new generation by George Thorogood): This dog house here is mighty small But it's better than no house at all So ease it on over (move it on over) Drag it on over (move it on over) Move over old dog cause a new dog's moving in So whole song plays on being in the dog house and having to move in or sleep with the dog.
Totally agree: There's not a line in that song that doesn't have some kind of zip to it, and he still managed to make it sound like he wrote it in 5 minutes.
In the high school halls In the shopping malls Conform or be cast out In the basement bars In the backs of cars Be cool or be cast out Many escapes might help to smooth The unattractive truth But the suburbs have no charms to soothe The restless dreams of youth -Rush, "Subdivisions"
Another Favorite A protest song that's not too pompous 21st Century Schizoid Man -Peter Sinfield Cat's foot iron claw Neuro-surgeons scream for more At paranoia's poison door Twenty first century schizoid man. Blood rack barbed wire Politicians' funeral pyre Innocents raped with napalm fire Twenty first century schizoid man. Death seed blind man's greed Poets' starving children bleed Nothing he's got he really needs Twenty first century schizoid man.
Never was an early's 80's MTV music fan. But this one brought to my mind. "Once in a Lifetime" by Talking Heads