Favorite Song Lyrics (1 Viewer)

[Mamba]

Post a line or stanza of your favorite song lyrics. My examples:

From Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah (if you know you know):

It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing "Hallelujah"

From Subterranean Homesick Blues by Bob Dylan:

You don't need a weather man to know which way the wind blows

From It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) also by Dylan:

While money doesn't talk, it swears

 

[tenordas]

Tempted (Squeeze):
At my bedside empty pocket
A foot without a sock
Your body gets much closer
I fumble for the clock
Alarmed by the seduction
I wish that it would stop
Tempted by the fruit of another
Tempted but the truth is discovered
What's been going on?
Now that you have gone, there's no other

 

[Nisey55]

Comeback story Kings of Leon

I'll walk a mile in your shoes
Now I'm a mile away
And I've got your shoes

 

[guidomerkinsrules]

“I don’t have a husband, he don’t play the trombone “
Tom Waits, Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis
Even if she did have a husband, he wouldn’t play the trombone
So sad

“
The last time that I saw him he was trying hard to get
a woman's education but he's not a woman yet”
-and also-
“So the great affair is over but whoever would have guessed
it would leave us all so vacant and so deeply unimpressed”
Leonard Cohen, Death of a Ladies Man

“”I know a father who had a son,
He longed to tell him all the reasons for the things he’s done
He came a long way just to explain
Kissed his boy as he laid sleeping and turned around and headed home again “
Paul Simon, Slip Slidin Away

“
With a rhythmic instinction to be able to travel
Beyond existing forces of life
Basically, that Tribal
And if you wanna get the rhythm
Then you have to join a Tribe
Word, peace”
Tribe Called Quest, “youthful expressions”

 

[HoustonSaint68]

Three entries. The first makes me laugh. The second brings tears to my eyes. And the third does both.

Lee Dorsey
Sneakin' Sally through the alley
Tryin' to keep her out of sight
Sneakin' Sally through the alley
When up pops the wife
I said, "I can't find nothing wrong with being friends
'Cause sometimes she lets me use the car"
She said, "If you can't find nothing wrong with your mind
You better, you better find something wrong with her"


Bill Withers
Grandma's hands
Used to hand me piece of candy
Grandma's hands
Picked me up each time I fell
Grandma's hands
Boy, they really came in handy
She'd say, Matty don' you whip that boy
What you want to spank him for?
He didn' drop no apple core
But I don't have grandma anymore
If I get to heaven I'll look for
Grandma's hands

Stevie Wonder
Looking back on when I was a little nappy headed boy
Then my only worry was for Christmas, what would be my toy?
Even though we sometimes would not get a thing
We were happy with the joy the day would bring
Sneaking out the back door to hang out with those hoodlum friends of mine
Greeted at the back door with "Boy, I thought I told you not to go outside!"
Tryin' your best to bring the water to your eyes
Thinkin' it might stop her from whoopin' your behind

 

[guidomerkinsrules]

Tempted (Squeeze):
At my bedside empty pocket
A foot without a sock
Your body gets much closer
I fumble for the clock
Alarmed by the seduction
I wish that it would stop
Tempted by the fruit of another
Tempted but the truth is discovered
What's been going on?
Now that you have gone, there's no other

But behind the chalet
My holiday's complete
And I feel like William Tell
Maid Marian on her tiptoed feet
Pulling mussels from a shell
Pulling mussels from a shell

 

[HoustonSaint68]

“”I know a father who had a son,
He longed to tell him all the reasons for the things he’s done
He came a long way just to explain
Kissed his boy as he laid sleeping and turned around and headed home again “
Paul Simon, Slip Slidin Away

Yeah, that one gets me too.

 

[guidomerkinsrules]

Yeah, that one gets me too.

Night before I left for NY, me my dad and uncle were hanging out and this song comes on
He said ‘you’ll never understand this line until you have a son of your own’
Damned if he wasn’t right

 

[HoustonSaint68]

Night before I left for NY, me my dad and uncle were hanging out and this song comes on
He said ‘you’ll never understand this line until you have a son of your own’
Damned if he wasn’t right

Yeah, it's tough to make the timing work out so that you're both wise enough to understand walking a mile in your old man's shoes, and thoughtful enough about the speed of time to speak up and lighten a bit of their emotional load before they're gone.

 

[HoustonSaint68]

On the other end of the "favorite" spectrum, here's a brutal lyrical entry which, quite inconceivably, is a hundred times more brutal in the telling. Billie Holiday's vocal is only half the contribution -- the trumpet, piano and ending drum shot -- Jesus....

Southern trees bear a strange fruit
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root
Black bodies swingin' in the Southern breeze
Strange fruit hangin' from the poplar trees

Pastoral scene of the gallant South
The bulgin' eyes and the twisted mouth
Scent of magnolias sweet and fresh
Then the sudden smell of burnin' flesh

Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck
For the rain to gather
For the wind to suck
For the sun to rot
For the tree to drop
Here is a strange and bitter crop

 

[cpg]

Death or Glory

And every gimmick-hungry yob digging gold from rock and roll
Grabs the mic to tell us he'll die before he's sold
But I believe in this and it's been tested by research
He who ***** nuns will later join the church

 

[Andrus]

Vincent (Van Gogh) ... by Don Mclean

Starry, starry night
Paint your palette blue and gray
Look out on a summer's day
With eyes that know the darkness in my soul

Shadows on the hills
Sketch the trees and the daffodils
Catch the breeze and the winter chills
In colors on the snowy, linen land

Now, I understand what you tried to say to me
And how you suffered for your sanity
And how you tried to set them free
They would not listen, they did not know how
Perhaps they'll listen now

Starry, starry night
Flaming flowers that brightly blaze
Swirling clouds in violet haze
Reflect in Vincent's eyes of china blue

Colors changing hue
Morning fields of amber grain
Weathered faces lined in pain
Are soothed beneath the artist's loving hand

Now, I understand, what you tried to say to me
How you suffered for your sanity
How you tried to set them free
They would not listen, they did not know how
Perhaps they'll listen now

For they could not love you
But still your love was true
And when no hope was left inside
On that starry, starry night
You took your life as lovers often do

But I could have told you, Vincent
This world was never meant for one
As beautiful as you

Starry, starry night
Portraits hung in empty halls
Frameless heads on nameless walls
With eyes that watch the world and can't forget

Like the strangers that you've met
The ragged men in ragged clothes
The silver thorn of bloody rose
Lie crushed and broken on the virgin snow

Now, I think I know what you tried to say to me
How you suffered for your sanity
How you tried to set them free

They would not listen, they're not listening still
Perhaps they never will

 

[Saintman2884]

“I don’t have a husband, he don’t play the trombone “
Tom Waits, Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis
Even if she did have a husband, he wouldn’t play the trombone
So sad

“
The last time that I saw him he was trying hard to get
a woman's education but he's not a woman yet”
-and also-
“So the great affair is over but whoever would have guessed
it would leave us all so vacant and so deeply unimpressed”
Leonard Cohen, Death of a Ladies Man

“”I know a father who had a son,
He longed to tell him all the reasons for the things he’s done
He came a long way just to explain
Kissed his boy as he laid sleeping and turned around and headed home again “
Paul Simon, Slip Slidin Away

“
With a rhythmic instinction to be able to travel
Beyond existing forces of life
Basically, that Tribal
And if you wanna get the rhythm
Then you have to join a Tribe
Word, peace”
Tribe Called Quest, “youthful expressions”

Guido, you know the nearest you get to your destination, sometimes, life just makes you Slip Slidin Away….

 

[Saintman2884]

Post a line or stanza of your favorite song lyrics. My examples:

From Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah (if you know you know):

It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing "Hallelujah"

From Subterranean Homesick Blues by Bob Dylan:

You don't need a weather man to know which way the wind blows

From It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) also by Dylan:

While money doesn't talk, it swears

It’s Alright, Ma might be one of the most cynical yet brutally honest songs about the vagaries, contradictions and confusing aspects of American politics, consumerist culture and economy. It’s a very sobering song, too because Dylan was as much critical of the emerging, nascent “counterculture” as he was of mainstream American society, MIC. It also reveals a lot about a part of human nature where pessimists, cynics like to intellectually degrade, castigate people to feel as bad and hopeless as they are.

 

[Consigliere]

We are stardust
Billion year old carbon
We are golden
Caught in the devil's bargain
And we've got to get ourselves
Back to the garden

Always thought it was CSNY but net says Joni Mitchell?