Pithy song lyrics you wish you'd written?...

Cafe Society
101

Sorry about the paul/john snafu. I’ll do that occationally. Feh. Today’s selections of pithiness:

Look over there! (Where?)
Here comes Jeanie with her new boyfriend
They say that looks don’t count for much
If so, there goes your proof

  • Joe Jackson

I crack a window and feel the cool air cleanse my every pore
As I pour my poor heart out
To a radio song that’s patient and willing to listen
My volume drowns it out

But that’s OK cause I sound better then him anyway any day
Yeah my voice is sweet as salt
I search for comfort and I’ve found it where I’ve found it many times before
Times before can be forgotten

  • Eve 6

I love you
I am the milkman of human kindness
I will leave an extra pint

  • ::thump:: <–me jumping on the Billy Bragg bandwagon.
102

“Once in a while you get shown the light, in the strangest of places if you look at it right.” Robert Hunter, lyricist for the Grateful Dead. Scarlett Begonias.

103

I’m sure Alanis Morisette is a very nice person, but I’m sick and tired of trying to talk some sense into her fans.

Hey. That’s pretty pithy. Maybe I’ll make it into a lyric.

“Songs mean a lot
When songs are bought.
And so are you.”
–Pavement

“You want the rock that breaks your back
To be polished and without cracks
You want a love to save your life
But of a certain shape and size.”
–Superchunk

“Everyone has a dollar sign after their name.
When somebody wants you, you treat 'em just the same.”
–Elliot Smith via Mary Lou Lord

“If the ground’s not cold,
Everything is gonna burn
We’ll all take turns.
I’ll get mine, too.”
–Pixies

(In a song concerning mas-true-bation)
“My hand’s a five-leaf clover
It’s Palm Sunday over and over.”
“You don’t need a brain to have a stroke of genius
Or a beautiful girl to let down your curls.”
–Jellyfish

And just because it’s on my mind today, though it is hardly “pithy:”
“Cut yourself up and down your arms.
Both arms! If it makes you feel better!
They’re your arms! And it’s none of my business!
It’s none of my business! If it makes you feel better…”
–Shellac

104

Any promise we make is as easy to break
As the plastic people on a wedding cake

  • Concrete Blonde
105

but a goodie:

"You shake my bones and you rattle my brain.
Too much lovin’ drives a man insane.
You broke my will,
but what a thrill!
Goodness gracious great balls of fire

                  *Jerry Lee Lewis*
106

“But I believe in this, and it’s been tested by research:
He who fucks nuns will later join the church.”
—The Clash

107

A bit of a mix:

“I couldn’t care less now I’m here with you,
We’re the only ones left and we’re flat on our backs,
Taking the rest of the day off.”
– Neil Finn, Rest of the Day Off

"Last night I was
East with them, but West within
Trying to be for you what you want to see
– Ben Folds Five, Best Imitation of Myself

But I can’t help the feeling
I could blow through the ceiling
If I just turn and run
– Radiohead, Fake Plastic Trees

108

~~Don’t know if anyone has listed Mad Season’s
River of Deceit

*My pain is self-chosen
At least, so The Prophet says
I could either burn
Or cut off my pride and buy some time
A head full of lies is the weight, tied to my waist

The River of Deceit pulls down
The only direction we flow is down

My pain is self-chosen
At least I believe it to be
I could either drown
Or pull off my skin and swim to shore
Now I can grow a beautiful shell for all to see*

109

“In my dreams, I was drowning my sorrows
but my sorrows, they learned to swim” -U2

110

Couldn’t wait to read all the pages…

There is freedom within, there is freedom without
Try to catch the deluge in a paper cup
– Crowded House “Don’t Dream It’s Over”

If I’m again beside your body, don’t tell me where it’s been
It’s cruel, unusual punishment to kiss fingerprinted skin
– BareNaked Ladies “The Wrong Man Was Convicted”

Now I’m a New Kid on the Block,
well I’m twenty-three and they won’t let me grow up.
– BareNaked Ladies “New Kid on the Block”

You signed your picture with an O and X
I bet you don’t write “love” each time you sign your cheques.
– BNL (again) “Straw Hat and Old Dirty Hank”

I could quote these guys all day (but I won’t)

111

Yeah, same here… God Is A Bullet has some great lyrics, too, but I can’t remember them off the top of my head.

More of my favorites:

Sometimes to be near you
Is to be unable to hear you, my love
I’m a few years older than you…
– “Edge of Seventeen”, Stevie Nicks

No I will not lay down
I will not live my life
Like a ghost in this town
I am not lonely, swear to God,
I’m just alone
– “The Sound Of”, Jann Arden

No wind when I took the watch
My ship was still and waiting
I lay on that mirrored sky
A restless sailor, waiting
I closed my eyes, said the words of Will
For the gentle breathing that moves the sea
Make my sails fill…
– “Mistral Wind”, Ann Wilson/Nancy Wilson/Sue Ennis

Some things seem so sacred
Like a loaded question
The power of suggestion
Like the face of danger
The kindness of a stranger
Like a Judas kiss
Like pleasure and a little pain
Immaculate seduction, absolute corruption
Ice and fire counter-act
Like black on black
– “Black on Black II”, Ann Wilson/Nancy Wilson/Lisa Dalbello

The only comfort is the moving of the river
You enter into me, a lie upon your lips
Offer what you can, I’ll take all that I can get
Only a fool is here to stay
– “Ice”, Sarah McLachlan

Got a pocket full of power
Got a handle on control
Take a better man than you babe
To rectify the damage to my soul
'Cause you took me down so easy
Got the devil in your brain
I may remember what was good
But I won’t forget the pain
– “High Road Easy”, Sass Jordan

Too many doubts, too much fear, too much danger
When society constricts our human nature
Live by the rules, live by the laws, live by commandments
Notions preconceived can lead to utter madness
Let it go
– “Let It Go”, Luba

112

“Car” Built to Spill

you get the car / I’ll get the night off / you’ll get the chance to take the world apart and figure out how it works / don’t let me know what you find out / I need a car / you need a guide / who needs a map / if I don’t die or worse I’m gonna need a nap / at best I’ll be asleep when you get back / I wanna see it when you find out what comets, stars and moons are all about / I wanna see their faces turn to backs of heads and slowly get smaller / I wanna see it now I want specifics on the general idea / I wanna think what I should know / I want you to do me what to show / I wanna see movies of my dreams / I wanna see movies of my dreams / I wanna see movies of my dreams / I wanna see movies of my dreams / I wanna see it when you get stoned on a cloudy desert breezy afternoon / I wanna see it untame itself and break its owner / I wanna see it now / I wanna see it now

Doug Martsch is the King of Pithy Lyrics.

113

sweetness i was only joking when i said i’d like to mash every tooth in your head -the smiths

at my most beautiful, i count your eyelashes secretly
with every one whisper i love you
i’ll let you sleep
i know you’re closed-eye watching me, listening
i thought i saw a smile - rem

mother dear, the world’s gone cold
no one cares about love anymore
what would you say, when you see my face - jeff buckley

remember when i moved in you
and the holy ghost was moving too
and every breath we drew was hallejuah - i’m pretty sure leonard cohen wrote this one but it’s been covered several times

114

ok, i’ve got some more

too young to hold on
too old to just break free and run
sometimes a man get carried away
when he feels like he should be having his fun
much too blind to see the damage he’s done
sometimes a man must wait to find that really he has no one
-jeff buckley

i’ll take one, one, one cuz you left me
and two, two, two for my family
and three, three, three for my heartarche
and four, four, four for my headache
and five, five, five for lonely
and six, six, six for i’m sorry
and seven, seven, seven, no tommorrow
and eight, eight, eight i forgot what eight was for
and nine, nine, nine, cuz i lost out
ten, ten ten eveything everthing everything
-the violent femmes

please please please
let me get what i want
lord knows it would be the first time
-the smiths

115

Good call on the Femmes, biblio. I would have used that passage myself.

I will try to keep these short.

Here’s a little Dead Kennedys action:

“A stare is worth a thousand biting phrases
See how stupid you are!”

“When I’m rich and meet Bob Hope
We’ll shoot some golf and shoot some dope.”

"Carter power will soon go away,
I will be Fuhrer one day!
I will command all of you,
The kids will meditate in school!

California Uber Alles!"

"You’re a star-belly sneech
You suck like a leech
You want everyone to act like you

Kiss ass while you bitch
So you can get rich
But your boss gets richer off you
Well you’ll work harder
With a gun in your back
For a bowl of rice a day
Slave for soldiers
Till you starve
Then your head is skewered on a stake"

Lots more DK, but I’ll save 'em for another post.

This phrase by Operation Ivy has always captured my imagination:

“The course of human progress staggers like a drunk
Its steps are quick and heavy and its mind is slow and blunt.”

The following are gems from Foetus

“Step outside godboy
You think I’m unreliable?
Well when you quote the bible
Is when I load my rifle”

“My dreams overflow
With heights and malt liquor
Elastic forms of escape
From twenty-year-old threads
And parasitic dread
Why do I bother?”

“Might whity stand erect
Don’t gotta be politically correct
Hands against the wall and spread em
Your cracker ass is goin to ARMAGEDDON”

And the last are from Marc Almond, whose imagination is easily as twisted as my own.

“I’m pulled each way by wild dogs
And I sway just like a corpse upon a rope
Turning green with nausea
And a shade of white with anger
A touch of purple right round the throat
Then wallow in my sea of doom
A stretch out in a brightened tomb
A man in grey to come and get me soon
Come and get me
Come and get me soon
A rhapsody of suffering
As a thousand wailing souls
Hold out their hand
For bits of me
To pin up as morbid mementos in their rooms.”

"On Sunday, the bulls get so bored
And they’re asked to drop dead for us
The sword will plunge down
And the mob will drool
And the blood will pour down
And turn the sand to mud
Ole!
The moment of triumph
When all street thugs become Nero
The moment of triumph
When the girls scream
And shout the name of their hero
And when finally they fell
Did the bulls dream of a hell
Where man and boy Matadors still rule
Or perhaps with their last breath
Would not they pardon us their death

Knowing what we did at
Carthage
Waterloo
Berlin
Stalingrad
Hiroshima
Hiroshima
Saigon
Ole!"

Ok, I lied, that was not short. :wink:

One more, I promise.

“And this town is a potpourri of disease
Can you smell the herpes from the scum-sucking fucks
That hang around the same suckers each mid-night
You were being your photo
And spouting your promo
Flicking back your limp quiff
That’s as limp as your dick
Irritating your greedy cross-eyed sight
Oh Christ and you’re greasing up now
To the creepy old cow.”

Enjoy!

MR

116

“To tell the truth our Mum went off with someone else’s father
Went for two weeks holiday in Taramasalata
Daddy went out with the rubbish and just kept on walking
Between Mum and the walls God only knows who does the talking”
The World and his Wife - Elvis Costello

And then there’s Graham Parker on the subject of his fallout with Mercury Records:

“I’ve got a dinosaur for a representative
It’s got a small brain and refuses to learn”

Probably not very well known, but Doll by Doll, a British band from the 1980s, had some amazing lyrics. Jackie Leven’s voice was changed forever after he had his throat slashed in a late night attack, but he is still performing, mostly acoustic, in small venues across Europe.

“I want to be there with you
At the place that you go in your eyes
When they fade away”
Endgame - Doll by Doll (Jackie Leven)

"When the management had turned out the lights
Silent people had walked back into the night
I thought of you
Still living alone.

From Tokyo to Soho
Ladies are doing the same dance
A fear of distance
Masquerading as romance
As we all go
Down to the stripshow"

Stripshow - Doll by Doll

117

It’s like drinking gasoline
To quench a thirst
Until there’s nothing there left at all
Suzanne Vega, Knight Moves

Sons of true love and sons of regret
All of their sons you cannot forget
Some built the roads, some wrote the poems
Some went to war, some never came home
Sons of your sons or sons passing by
Children we lost in a lullaby
Jacques Brel, Sons of… (translated for “Jacque Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris.” The original, “Fils de,” is even more gorgeous.

A Smiths trifecta:

I’ve come to wish you an unhappy birthday
because you’re evil and you lie
and if you should die
I may feel slightly sad (but I won’t cry).
-from Unhappy Birthday

and the pain was enough to make a shy, bald buddhist reflect
and plan a mass-murder
-from Stop Me if You Think That You’ve Heard This One Before

nothing’s changed, I still love you, oh, I still love you
but only slightly only slightly less than I used to, my love
-id.

Ah what the hell, some more French:

Derrière un Kleenex je saurais mieux
Comment te dire adieu
Serge Gainsbourg, sung by Françoise Hardy

(roughly, from behind a kleenex I would know better how to tell you goodbye.)

118

“My tires and tubes are doin’ fine but the air is showin’ through”- Hank Williams

“She paid ten dollars for a ten-cent hat and got some store bought catfood for her mean-eyed cat”-Johnny Cash

“I am not a negro, but a millionaire, as you can plainly see”- Randy Newman

“Weather is here, wish you were beautiful”-Jimmy Buffett

119

“Power can be such a tease, you’re always wanting more
It’s good to know that, just like sex, it can be paid for” – Pedro the Lion, Simple Economics

“Got a cheerleader here, wants to help with my paper
Let her do all the work and maybe later I’ll rape her” – Frank Zappa, Bobby Brown Goes Down

“Oh God, I am the American Dream
With a spindle up my butt till it makes me scream
Oh God, Oh God I’m so fantastic
Thanks to Freddy I’m a sexual spastic!” – Ibid.

“The piano has been drinking . . . not me.” – Tom Waits, The Piano Has been Drinking

“She was just seventeen, you know what I mean” – Lennon/McCartney, I Saw Her Standing There (Paul wrote the song, but John added the “you know what I mean,” substituting it for Paul’s, “never been a beauty queen”).
Finally, there’s my sig line, takne from Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream.

120

Camper Van Beethoven, from Sweethearts (about a B-52 raid):
“On a mission over China
The lady opens up her arms
The flowers bloom where you have placed them
And the lady smiles, just like mom”

I’ll try to keep it to one & two liners:

Cowboy Junkies from This Street, That Man, This Life
“This street holds its secrets like a cobra holds its kill”

Bruce Springsteen from 4th of July Asbury Park
“The circuit’s full of switchblade lovers, so fast, so shiny, so sharp.”

Dire Straights from Romeo & Juliet:
“Now you just say ‘oh yeah Romeo, I used to have a scene with him.’”

Elvis Costello from I Hope You’re Happy Now
“And you thought like frozen food, our love would last forever.”

“You can’t call it cheating if she reminds me of you”

Fountains of Wayne from Denise
“She got a heart made of gravel”

Great thread!