I have a bit of the poet in me, and when I hear a particularly pithy phrase in a song I mentally go “Damn… why can’t I come up a phrase like that?” The obvious answer of course is that I have no talent…
Obviously, there are tons of fantastic lyrics… from John Lennon to Bob Dylan to Andrew Lloyd Webber… but I’m talking about a short phrase that really hits home… hence the qualifier “pithy”.
Do you have any particular song lyrics that strike you as impressively creative?
I suspect illegal chemistry might have something to do with it, but here are some examples I’ve come up with…
(note that I recognize that I should be giving credit to the songwriter rather than the artist, but… I’m too lazy to look them up… shoot me.)
(and also note that I did a search to see if anyone has done this already… didn’t find anything but there is always the chance I should’ve gone back further in time.)
“…yellow matter custard, dripping from a dead dog’s eye.” (Beatles)
“…you’ll never find a coupe-de-ville at the bottom of a Cracker Jack box.” (Meatloaf)
“…the ones we most want to kiss, are the ones that most resist.” (George Michael)
“…once upon a time I was falling in love, now I’m just falling apart.” (Bonnie Tyler)
“…ticking away the moments that make up a dull day.” (Pink Floyd)
“…never had me a better time, and I guess I never will.” (Elton John)
“…I have a habit of wearing my mind on my sleeve… I have a habit of losing my shirt.” (Barenaked Ladies)
[ummm… I think these lyrics are accurate… I’m sure someone will correct me.]
You can probably guess my generation by these examples. I’ll be interested to see what the GenXers will post…
“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” – John Lennon
“The tune you’ll be humming forever, all the words are replaced and wrong.” – the New Pornographers
“There’s just two songs in me, and I just wrote the third. Don’t know where I got my inspiration or how I wrote the words.” – They Might Be Giants (just one of many great lyrics)
And just about every lyric Stephen Merritt wrote for the Magnetic Fields’ 69 Love Songs album, including:
"The book of love is long and boring.
No one can lift the damn thing.
It’s full of charts and facts and figures,
and instructions for dancing.
But I love it when you read to me,
and you can read me anything."
“I was bruised and battered and
I couldn’t tell what I felt
I was unrecognizable to myself
Saw my reflection in a window
I didn’t know my own face
[…]
The night has fallen, I’m lyin’ awake
I can feel myself fading away
So recieve me brother with your faithless kiss
Or will we leave each other alone like this
On the streets of Philadelphia” (Bruce Springsteen)
Algernon --> This is a GREAT idea for a thread and I can’t wait to see what other people have to say about it.
With all due respect to the great songwriters of the 20th century who wrote those incredibly witty songs that are now standards, I think the Beastie Boys have crafted some of the most lyrically clever tunes that I can remember. Nothing like a bunch of smart-ass jewish kids from NYC to turn a phrase huh?? Although it is just a lot of frontin’, they do it in a very entertaining and endearing manner. For instance:
“There’s more to me than you’ll ever know and I’ve got more hits than Sadahara Oh”
“I’ve Got Attractions Like I’m Elvis Costello”
“I’ve Got More Spice Than The Frugal Gourmet”
“‘Cause writin’ rhymes to me is like Popeye to spinach”
“I’m the king of Boggle, there is none higher, I get eleven points off the word ‘quagmire’.” (Beastie Boys)
“Like Harrison Ford I’m getting frantic, like Sting I’m tantric, like Snickers guaranteed to satisfy” (Barenaked Ladies)
“And I would raise my hand up to the nighttime sky, count the stars that’s shining in your eye.” (Van Morrison)
“You scumbag, you maggot, you cheap lousy faggot, Happy Christmas your ass, I pray God it’s our last.” (The Pogues)
And really too long to be “pithy” like the OP was asking for, but my favorite song lyric is from a Poi Dog Pondering song called “Jack-ass Ginger” (excuse the hijack)
“Cut by a blade of grass,
fell slain by a drop of rain,
Lay fallow fallen forty feet
Onto pastures of catastrophe
Sucked out set adrift at sea
Floor board decked out with uncertainty
In open doldrum oceans of unknowable emotion.”
I LOVE Barenaked Ladies for witty lyrics: “Like Harrison Ford I’m getting Frantic, like Sting I’m tantric, like Snickers guranteed to satisfy; Like Kurasawa I make mad films, 'kay I don’t make films, but if I did they’d have a samurai.”
And until he disgraced himself with Lawyers In Love, I thought Jackson Brown was a pretty good lyricist: “Sometimes I lie awake at night and wonder, where the years have gone; They have all passed under, sleep’s dark and silent gate. I found my love too late . . .”
“Any moment now a gigantic insect mutation
will swoop down and devour the white man’s burden
starting out with all of the sensitive ones.
Better make like a fly if you don’t want to die.
Look out! There goes Gordon!”
Elvis Costello, “Hurry Down Doomsday (The Bugs Are Taking Over)”
Can’t let this one go by without a mention of Stephen Sondheim, the best lyricist in a generation, IMO:
My favorite, on the conflict between art and life:
“How you’re always turning back too late,
From the grass or the stick, or the dog, or the light;
How the kind of woman willing to wait’s
Not the kind that you want to find waiting.”
“Music is playing in the darkness
And a lantern goes swinging by
Shadows flickering, my heart’s jittering,
Just you and I.”
(John Deacon of Queen)
“Ashes And diamonds,
foe and friend,
we were all equal in the end.”
(Roger Waters)
“and the silver in her hair shines in the cold november air
you hear the tolling bell
and touch the silk in your lapel
and as the tear drops rise to meet the comfort of the band
you take her frail hand”
(Roger Waters)
“Schnapping my fingers on an alcoholiday
Sniff round a Fraulein when I’m scent to Cologne”
(Marillion)
“We sit and watch the divide widen
We sit and listen to our hearts crumble” - Rain by Tindersticks
“So long, Andrew
I will miss you
I just wrote you
A long note you
Had better answer
I am the cancer
Removed from you” - I Am The Cancer by Sloan. Brilliant song, full lyrics here.
“You say that calling 'cause I’m lonely is completely rude.
You could work this into a lecture for the starving not to beg for food” - Loud Family
“I never knew how your kisses felt.
Until I saw you kiss someone else.” - Loud Family
“One day your gonna have to face
A deep dark truthful mirror.
And it’s gonna tell you things that I
Still love you to much to say
The sky was just a purple bruise,
The ground was iron.
And you fell all around the town,
Until you looked the same.” - Deep Dark Truthful Mirror by the king of pop lyrics, Elvis Costello.
“When does sky turn into space,
And air into wind?” - Sparklehorse
“Yellow matter custard, dripping from a dead dog’s eye.
Crabalocker fishwife, pornographic priestess,
Boy, you been a naughty girl you let your knickers down.
I am the eggman, they are the eggmen.
I am the walrus, goo goo g’joob.”
(from “I Am The Walrus”, credits to Lennon/McCartney)
Are you saying they lifted this from a local made-up song?
Do you have a cite? Or do you have personal experience? I’m not necessarily questioning your veracity, I’m just very curious and interested.