I'm a whore for words. Lyrics are such a huge piece of a song for me, and great songs are poetry. Granted, I can enjoy some music purely meant to make you want to move (i.e. Crystal Castles, Cut Copy, Lil Wayne, Kanye), but if a song has a kick-ass lyric, it means so much more. I could go on about this for days (especially if I went down the Tom Waits, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Patty Griffin road) but this is a blog, not an epic, so I won't.
Here's a sampling of some of my favorites.
This whole song is filled with great ones, but this is the most poignant for me -
"She comes back to tell me she's gone/ As if I didn't know that, as if I didn't know my own bed/ As if I'd never noticed the way she brushed her hair from her forehead/ And she says losing love is like a window in your heart/ Everybody sees you're blown apart/ Everybody feels the wind blow"
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Paul Simon,
GracelandOne of my all-time favorite songs, beautiful in its simplicity:
"If you should ever leave me/ Though life would still go on, believe me/ The world could show nothing to me/ So what good would living do me?/ God only knows what I'd be without you..." -
The Beach Boys,
God Only KnowsAlmost a no-brainer:
"You might be a rock n' roll addict prancing on the stage/ You might have drugs at your command, women in a cage/ You may be a business man or some high degree thief/ They may call you Doctor or they may call you Chief/ But you're gonna have to to serve somebody/ It may be the devil, or it may be the Lord/ But you're gonna have to serve somebody"
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Bob Dylan,
Gotta Serve Somebody This song does it for me every time:
"He tried hard to help me, you know he put me at ease/ And he loved me so naughty, made me weak in the knees/ Oh, I wish I had a river I could skate away on.../ I'm so hard to handle, I'm selfish and I'm sad/ Now I've gone and lost the best baby that I ever had/ Oh, 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.../ I wish I had a river I could skate away on/ I made my baby say goodbye"
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Joni Mitchell,
RiverOne of the most underrated, heart-breaking songs ever:
"...Basically, I wish that you loved me.../ I wish that you needed me. I wish that you knew when I said two sugars, actually I meant three / I wish that without me, your heart would break / I wish that without me, you'd be spending the rest of your nights awake/ I wish that without me, you couldn't eat. I wish I was the last thing on your mind before you went to sleep/ Look, all I know is that you're the nicest thing...I've ever seen/ And I wish we could see if we could be something..."
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Kate Nash,
Nicest ThingMy love for this song (and artist) has lasted from high school and continues.
"I've been looking for a savior in these dirty streets/ Looking for a savior beneath these dirty sheets/ I've been raising up my hands, drive another nail in/ Got enough guilt to start my own religion/ Why do we crucify ourselves, everyday?/ I crucify myself, and nothing I do is good enough for you/ I crucify myself, everyday, I crucify myself/ My heart is sick of being in chains..."
"...he says, will you ever learn? You're just an empty cage, girl, if you kill the bird..."
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Tori Amos,
Crucify"Yellow bird flying, gets shot in the wing/ Good year for hunters.. and Christmas parties/ And I hate, and I hate, and I hate/ Elevator music... the way we fight/ The way I'm left here... silent/ Oh, these little earthquakes.. Here we go again/ Oh, these little earthquakes/ Doesn't take much to rip us into pieces."
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Tori Amos,
Little EarthquakesDarkly gorgeous:
"He said you're really an ugly girl, But I like the way you play/ And I died, but I thanked him/ Can you believe that?/ Sick, sick, holding onto his picture, dressing up every day/ I want to smash the faces of those beautiful boys, those Christian boys/ So you can make me come/ That doesn't make you Jesus/ ...I remember, yes, in my peach party dress/ No one dared, no one cared to tell me/ Where the pretty girls are/ Those demigods, with their nine inch nails, little facist panties tucked inside the heart of every nice girl/ These precious things, let them bleed/ Let them wash away/ These precious things/ Let them break their hold on me"
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Tori Amos,
Precious ThingsAgain, this whole song is poetry but a highlight:
"So you found a girl who thinks really deep thoughts/ What's so amazing about really deep thoughts?/ Boy, you best pray that I bleed real soon, how's that thought for you?/ My scream got lost in a paper cup/ I think there's a heaven where some screams have gone/ I got twenty-five bucks and a cracker/ Do you think it's enough to get us there?"
"... Years go by, will I still be waiting for somebody else to understand?/ Years go by, if I'm stripped of my beauty and the orange clouds raining in my head?/ Years go by, will I choke on my tears till finally there is nothing left?/ One more tragedy, you know we're too easy, easy, easy..."
Tori Amos,
Silent All These Years"I heard your wrist got bruised/ Must've felt just like old times/ I wish you would have grabbed the gun/ And shot me 'cause I died/ And I'm nothing now without you, Yeah I'm less than nothing now/ I am the one between the bars and lost forever now/ 'Cause honey, it's over/ It's harder now that it's over/ Now that the cuffs are off/ It's over now/ It's harder now that it's over/ Now that the cuffs are off/ You're free.. you're free... you're free/ Free with a history"
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Ryan Adams,
Harder Now That It's Over"Can I love a man the way I love a mountain?/ Can I love a man the way I love the sea?/ I let the beauty of a sunset break my heart a thousand times and I keep coming back to feel it beat/
...I've read about the raven and how it mates for life/ When one passes on, it isn't long before you hear its fading cry/ I have loved like that before but I did not die of grief/ I learned the more I open up my heart, the more it's gonna bleed/ But it's a good thing my friend"
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Molly Venter,
Can I Love A Man The Way I Love A Mountain"I picked you out of the crowd and talked to you/ Said I liked your shoes, you said thanks can I follow you?/ So it's up the stairs and out of view, no prying eyes/ I poured some wine, I asked your name you asked the time/ Now it's 2:00, the club is closed, we're up the block/ Your hands on me, pressing hard against my jeans/ Trying to keep the words from coming out/ You didn't care to know, who else may have been you before/
I want a lover I don't have to love/ I want a girl who's too sad to give a fuck/ ...Hey, where's the kid with the chemicals? I got a hunger and I can't seem to get full/ I need some meaning I can memorize, the kind I have always seems to slip my mind/ You write such pretty words, but life's no storybook/ Love's an excuse to get hurt.. and to hurt/ Do you like to hurt? I do, I do! Then hurt me, then hurt me..."
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Bright Eyes,
Lover I Don't Have To Love"This is the moment, that you know/ That you told her that you loved her but you don't/ You touch her skin and then you think/ She is beautiful but she don't mean a thing to me... I wanted to believe it, all the words that I was speaking as we moved together in the dark/ And all the friends that I was telling/ All the graceful misspellings, every bite I gave that left a mark/ And tiny vessels oozed into the neck and formed the bruises that you said you didn't want to fade/ But they did, and so did I that day"
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Death Cab For Cutie,
Tiny Vessels"It's funny how a morning turns a love to shame/ Disguised and disfigured and you thought I tasted like rain/ There's nothing here but a shadow, nothing here/ Now you know, now you know, now you know, now you know/ There's nothing here but the shadow and I know... I can chew like a cannibal/ I can yell like a cat/ I even had you believing that I really really like it like that/ But there was never a moment/ Not a moment/ Now you know, now you know, now you know, now you know/ You ever got within a hundred million miles of my soul...You left open the window till the morning/ And the winter walked in/ Reality fired her wooden bullet/ Splintered under our skin/ They say I'm walking on freedom/ This is freedom/ Now I know, now I know, now I know, now I know/ I still don't blame you for leaving, baby/ It's cold living with ghosts"
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Patty Griffin,
Every Little BitFavorite rap lyrics for another day! Namaste.
Del The Funky Homosapien, Dan the Automator
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