sunnyphilly43’s lyrics put me in mind of the song Wires by Athlete.
Offical video on YouTube. It’s a pretty damn fine song on its own, but becomes especially moving when you know that it’s aboutthe singer’s baby daughter, who was born prematurely and very ill, and spent time in an incubator in intensive care.
Reading over the thread, one word: bleh. Neutral Milk Hotel is sort of the be all, end all to this discussion.
“Follow me through a city of frost covered angels
I swear I have nothing to prove
I just want to dance in your tangles”
[ LYRICS DELETED ]
Etc etc.
“The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” by Gordon Lightfoot.
BLEH
My personal favorite, Dean Friedman, has some wonderful lyrics. Here’s a bit from [The Letter](Dean Friedman Music Website Letter):
The entire song is just as beautifully descriptive.
FTR, American Pie was my favorite album for several years.
Harry Chapin can turn a phrase. In his otherwise rambling, uneven epic “There Only Was One Choice,” he spends a couple stanzas in self-doubt wondering if he’s just another hypocritical rock and roller, ending with these brilliant lines:
Am I observer or participant
or huckster of belief
making too much of a life
so mercifully brief?
And in “Story of a Life,” maybe his best tune, he sings:
So you settle down and the children come
and you find the place you’ve come from
you’re wand’rin is done
and all your dreams of open spaces
you find in your children’s faces
one by one
Stan Roger’s “Northwest Passage” is fine poetry, and Springsteen’s"Paradise" is terriby haunting.
OK so its absolutely subjective but here’s my favourite lyric of all. Its about how words are useless sometimes.
XTC’s No Language in Our Lungs.
I thought I had the whole world in my mouth
I though I could say what I wanted to say
For a second that thought became a sword in my hand
I could slay any problem that would stand in my way
[ LYRICS DELETED ]
MiM
Can you express that sentiment without them?
Or a middle-finger-salute smiley
okay…
Um - that’s kind of the point.
I’m confused by your ‘middle finger smiley’ - to whom is it aimed? Me or the lyric?
In terms of your opening question; I think this lyric is achingly beautiful. It points out the futility of language while recognising it is dealing in the same. I love it for many reasons but don’t feel like sharing them right now.
I started by saying it was subjective but you still seem to be calling me out on it?
Ok - it’s your thread.
MiM
I apologize if I seemed to be calling you out; that was not my intent. I was saying that my request that you express the sentiment without words was snarkish and, let’s be frank, assholish, so you would be entirely justified in replying with a middle-finger-salute smiley, if one existed.
No one gets my humor.
She comes out of the sun in a silk dress running like a watercolor in the rain
For some reason, this song has always reminded me of Thomas Hardy. I like Eva Cassidy’s version of it best.
Sting’s Fields of Gold (sorry if it’s too lover-ish)
Youll remember me when the west wind moves
Upon the fields of barley
Youll forget the sun in his jealous sky
As we walk in the fields of gold
[ LYRICS DELETED ]
“Little Girl Please Wait”:
She helps set the table, antique lace,
sterling silver, her grandmothers’ china
You tell her the tales, women strong,
women frail, like hand-me-downs and heirlooms
A chip in the cup, a stain on the cloth, a useful existence
[ LYRICS DELETED ]
I never expected someone would steal my thunder with this song, but am pleasantly surprised!
I also love this part, just before your snip:
Linkety link to a YouTube video from a 1980 concert.
I love that line.
…Well, morning comes and you’re still with her
And the bus and the tourists are gone
And you’ve thrown away the choice and lost your ticket
So you have to stay on
[ LYRICS DELETED ]
Al Stewart–that takes me back!
I vote for an old standard…“Moonlight in Vermont.” I got so caught up in the picture it painted that I never realized it didn’t rhyme. When someone pointed this out I had to pull it out and listen again…sure enough.
Wiki says:
*The lyrics are very unusual for an American pop song of the 1940s, because they do not rhyme and are impersonal, focusing mostly on the sensory appeal of the Vermont countryside while alluding briefly to romance. The lyrics are also metrically subtle: Each verse (not counting the bridge) is a haiku. *
Here’s one from one of my favorite songwriters:
Mexican Home by John Prine
It got so hot, last night, I swear
You couldn’t hardly breathe
Heat lightning burnt the sky like alcohol
[ LYRICS DELETED ]
Tell me you can’t just just feel that scene. I grew up on a farm in an old, non-airconditioned house, and I remember those hot summer afternoons, with the doors and windows propped open, hearing nothing but flies buzzing around… And then an afternoon thunderstorm would roll in, and you could smell the ozone in the air and a cool breeze would kick up… That song just brings every emotion of that time back to me.
Fall Of Troy by Tom Waits has some beautiful, heartbreaking lyrics.
It’s hard to say grace and to sit in the place
Of someone missing at the table
Mom’s hair sprayed tight and her face in her hands
Watching TV for answers to me
After all she’s only human
And she’s trying to find her own way home, boys
She’s trying to find her own way home.
Bright Eyes has some astonishgly good lyrics: