Best "Angry" lyrics

Alice in Chains-Love, Hate, Love and pretty much anything from The Wall.

You’ll go from this :slight_smile: to this :mad: to this: :frowning:

“Liar” by Rollins Band. Angry lyrics from the “why do you let me keep fucking you over?” perspective.

“You Suck” by The Murmurs.

Black Rat Swing by Memphis Minnie (recorded [I think] 1941):

Chorus:

You is one black rat
Some day I’ll find your trail (2x)
Then I’ll hide my shoe
Somewhere near your shirt tail

Verses:

I’ve taken you downtown
Paid your doctor bills
Now I’m in a little trouble
And you’re trying to get me killed

You sneaked in my kitchen
Eat up all my bread
Soon as I left home
Start to cutting up in my bed

Cursive is great for angry music.

The Martyr -

“Sweet baby, don’t cry
Your tears are only alibis
To prove you still feel
You only feel sorry for yourself
Well, get on that cross
That’s all you’re good for”

Art is Hard -

“If at first you don’t succeed
you gotta recreate your misery
'cause we all know art is hard
young artists have gotta starve
Try, and fail, and try again
the comforts of repetition
Keep churning out those hits
'til it’s all the same old shit”

The Lament of Pretty Baby -

“So cry yourself to sleep
Cry yourself to sleep 'cause I am strong and you are weak
Wait, you are strong, and I am weak
Fuck – just cry yourself to sleep”

Radiator Hums -

“Dinner’s getting cold –
You haven’t touched a thing
So what’s it gonna be?
I can hold out much longer than you
When it’s steady I’m just acting out my roles
When you’re ready I’ll be walking out that door
And don’t call me Pretty Baby anymore,
Oh, foolish worker bee –
I’m your fucking queen.”

…Etc.

Sickness by Disturbed. David Draiman’s pretty pissed off.

More Dylan:

And I hope that you die
And your death’ll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I’ll watch while you’re lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I’ll stand o’er your grave
'Til I’m sure that you’re dead

–“Masters of War”

Nice!

"You are wrong, fucked, and overrated, I think I’m gonna be sick and it’s your fault.

This is the end of everything, you are the end of everything…"

Everything Ends - Slipknot

Alanis’ You Oughta Know got me through a rather nasty breakup. Billy Joel has a song called Angry Young Man, but it’s more a parody of those who are often angered, not about anger itself.

I’m surprised noone has mentioned Caught Out There by Kelis.

Every song on Nine Inch Nails’s Pretty Hate Machine is an opressive (and gorgeous) combination of hate, anger, despair, and horror (of the existential variety). It’s one of my favorite albums.

–Cliffy

To the one true God above:
Here is my prayer.
Not the first you’ve heard,
But the first I wrote.
Not the first, but the others
were a looong time ago.

There are two people here,
And I want you to kill them.

–Shellac, “Prayer to God”

Here are three that haven’t been mentioned yet. These are rather bitter…

From Dylan’s Positively 4th Street:

You say I let you down
You know it’s not like that
If you’re so hurt
Why then don’t you show it

When you know as well as me
You’d rather see me paralyzed
Why don’t you just come out once
And scream it

I wish that for just one time
You could stand inside my shoes
And just for that one moment
I could be you

Yes, I wish that for just one time
You could stand inside my shoes
You’d know what a drag it is
To see you

Part of Mental Revenge by Mel Tillis:

Well I hope that the friend that you’ve thrown yourself on
Gets drunk and loses his job
And every road that you travel on
Is dusty rocky and hard

I couldn’t make you love me
You only made me blue
So all in all if the curtain should fall
Then I hope that it falls on you

Well I hope that the train from Caribou, Maine
Runs over your new love affair
You’ll walk the floor from dawn to dawn
And you’ll tear out your peroxide hair

You never was my woman
Cause you were never true
So all in all if the curtain should fall
Then I hope that it falls on you

Old 97’s Where You Been:

Why aren’t you here? It’s almost 4 am.
I finished up all of your beer, Now I’m startin’ on your gin.
I went through your diary, flipped through your phone book -called all your friends.
I just wanna know where you been, I just wanna know where you been.

I hope you crash your momma’s car.
I hope you pass out in some bar.
I hope you catch some kinda flu.
Let’s say I wish the worst for you.

Why am I here? I’ve got better things to do.
I could hang out on the pier, down by the Hudson, sniffin’ glue.
I guess I’m a loser, but I like being miserable, swimming in sin.
I just wanna know where you been, I just wanna know where you been.

If cynical-angry counts it’s hard to be Dear God by XTC:


The hurt I see helps to compound
that Father, Son and Holy Ghost
is just somebody’s unholy hoax,
and if you’re up there you’d perceive
that my heart’s here upon my sleeve.
If there’s one thing I don’t believe in

it’s you…

Dear God.

From my favorite angry Dylan song, Positively 4th Street:

You say you lost your faith
But that’s not where it’s at
You had no faith to lose
And you know it

and

Yes, I wish that for just one time
You could stand inside my shoes
You’d know what a drag it is
To see you

Dammit, JC o’ Mars beat me to it.

Scum! Scum!
Well then he hooked up with some slut from the same game
Black snow! Black snow!
Cocksuckstress, and I should know
Mean and vicious, her microphone always smelled suspicious
His and herpes bath towel type
If you know what I mean
I could not look at him, worm
He’d be takin a shower and who should walk in
He was the epitome of their type
Her middle name was Welcome, his was Wipe
Scum! Scum!
Well you’re on the shit list
Thrust and twist, twist and screw
You gave me a bad review
And maybe you think that it’s all just water under the bridge
Well my UNfriend, I’m the type that holds a grudge
I’m your creator
I think you fuckin traitor, chronic masturbator,
Shitlicker, user, self-abuser, jigger jigger!
What rock did you crawl from?
Which … did you come?
You Judas, Brutus, Vitus, Scum!

…*

Nick Cave - Scum

Hey, gang, it is contrary to Straight Dope Message Board policy (and probably illegal) to quote the entire lyrics to a song. Copyright rules allow a verse or two, with full citation, but not the whole song. The best thing to do is to quote a couple of lines, and then provide a link to a site that has legitimate rights to publish the whole thing.

I’ve gone through as Moderator and deleted verses from selections that seemed like the whole song. I did not have the time to check each one individually, I just used my Wild-Assed-Guess indicator.

If you think I have unfairly and wrongly snipped parts of what you quoted, email me with what you’d like put back in. I made a lot of judgement calls here, when I couldn’t tell.

(PS - People who indicated that they were only quoting part have get a big smile from me, that makes my job easier. I trust y’all when you tell you me you’re only quoting part.

Well geez, I only posted the first verse and chorus of mine. You’ve reduced it to the first four sentences.

The Barenaked Ladies – “Break Your Heart”

Most anything by Lamb of God….. but here’s a really good example

Break You- Lamb of God

Endless mornings cut by the dawn razor
Whipping the nightmares to a froth
Endless questions with no answers
No replacement for what’s been lost

Lost

Everything suffocates in the dust of past fortunes squandered
The empire of lies to whom you pandered
Suffer a self-imposed exile, taste the bitter fruits of denial
In the presence of greatness the humble can only bow

Frost on the breath of life
Empty of warmth or light
Full of nothing but deprivation
Frost on the breath of life
Empty of warmth or light
For an eternal winter

Tell me a lie with the best of intentions
Mute in the age of mass communication
Dark days lead to darker nights
Frozen, out of time.
Id dies for blessed ego, the once mighty laid low

Frost on the breath of life
Empty of warmth or light
Full of nothing but deprivation
Full of nothing but deprivation, eternal winter
Full of nothing but deprivation, eternal winter

You taught me hate, I’ll teach you fear (Fear, fear, fear, fear)
Open the eyes, kill despair
You tried to squeeze the life from me (From me, from me)
Son of a bitch, I’m going to break you
Son of a bitch, I’m going to break you!
Break you, I’m going to break you
Break you!