Well, maybe that is overstateing it a bit. But I just listened to “The River” by Bruce Springsteen, and when the lines:
“But, I remember us riding in my brothers car,
her body tan and wet down at the reservoir.
At night on the banks I’d lie awake,
and hold her close just to feel each breath she’d take.”
come on, I can’t help but think:
My God! Was I ever that young…I was! And damnit I miss it!
YOUTH IS WASTED ON THE YOUNG! I WANT SOME BACK!
“I’ve been looking for a saviour in these dirty streets
Looking for a saviour underneath these dirty sheets
I’ve been raising up my hands, drive another nail in
Just what God needs, one more victim
Why do we crucify ourselves?
Every day I crucify myself
And nothing I do is good enough for you (crucify myself)
Every day I crucify myself
My heart is sick of being,
I said my heart is sick of being in chains…”
-Tori Amos, “Crucify”
“Rent a flat above a shop
Cut your hair and get a job
Smoke some fags and play some pool
Pretend you never went to school
Still you’ll never get it right
Cause when you’re laying in bed at night
Watching roaches climb the wall
If you called your dad he could stop it all, yeah
You’ll never live like common people
You’ll never do whatever common people do
Never fail like common people
Never watch your life slide out of view
And then dance and drink and screw
Because there’s nothing left to do…”
-Pulp, “Common People”
“Later that evening, turn on my TV
Everybody’s talking about the news of a killing spree
Fourteen young women shot dead in Montreal
It’s a killing of us all
And it could have been me just as easily
Could have been my sister left there to bleed
It could have been my father and my brother done the deed
Oh, no, don’t let me lose this memory…”
-Wyrd Sisters, “It Could Have Been Me” (about the Ecole Polytechnique Massacre)
“For the sorrow, the suffering, the glory, the pain,
The killing and dying were all done in vain,
For, young Willie McBride, it all happened again,
And again and again and again and again…”
-Eric Bogle, “No Man’s Land”
“I look from my window down to the square
At workers still queuing patiently there
For market forces to provide
What history so far has denied
For a different kind of fate
Than to labour long and always wait…
And will spring bring rain and summer burn?
Will tears at last precede the turn
From summer warmth to sudden cold
As certainly as growing old?
And if I decide to step aside
I will try to forget all the tears I have cried…”
-Pet Shop Boys, “To Step Aside”
From Bruce Hornsby’s “Mandolin Rain:”
"Boat steaming in,
Oh, watch the sidewheels spin
And I think about her when
I hear that whistle blow
I can’t change my mind
Oh, I knew all the time
That she’d go
But that’s a choice I made long ago
(chorus:)
Listen to the mandolin rain
Listen to the music on the lake
Listen to my heart break
Every time she runs away
Listen to the banjo wind
Sad song, drifting road
Listen to my tears flow
Down my face as she turns to go
As she turns to go…"
The pain in the song just makes me want to go hug and curl up with my fiancé. Bruce’s heartbreak is palpable in these lyrics.
Damn smiley!
The saddest song ever written is “Sam Stone”, by John Prine.
“There’s a hole in Daddy’s arm where all the money goes
And Jesus Christ died for nothing, I suppose
Little pitchers have big ears, don’t stop to count the years,
Sweet songs never last too long on broken radios.”
“Hello In There” is high on the list, as well.
Dr. J
– Vertical Horizon “Everything you want”
Of course, in my mind, the “He” in that song is me, and the “you” is my ex-girlfriend. Right after we broke up, she told me she was listening to this song and thought of me. It’s good music, I just can’t stand to hear it now.
The Living Years - by Mike and the Mechanics
Tell me there’s a heaven - Chris Rhea
I have a weakness for songs about frustrated lovers:
The Beatles’ "For No One: “You think she needs you” (kind of says it all).
Elvis Costello’s “Possession”: “Now I see us lying back to back.”
Dire Straits’ “Romeo & Juliet”: The whole song, but mostly “Juliet/When we made love, you used to cry.”
“Fair and Tender Ladies” (the customary title of a very old Irish song): “You could make me believe/By the fall of your arm/That the sun rose in the west.”
Of course, sometimes it’s the singer who makes the killer lyric. Roy Orbison’s howl of frustration and disappointment makes the simple “Only in dreams/In beautiful dreams” one of the most moving lines you’ll ever hear.
Catrandom
A long time ago I don’t remember when
That’s when they say I lost my only friend.
They said she died easy of her broken-heart disease
As I listened through the cemetary trees.
-The Wallflowers, “one headlight”
*Jesus was a sailor when he walked upon the water.
And he spent a long time watching from his lonely wooden tower.
And when he knew for certain only drowning men could see him
He said “All men will be sailors, then, until the seas will free them.”
But he himself was broken long before the sky would open;
Forsaken, almost human, and he sank beneath Your wisdom like a stone.*
Leonard Cohen, Suzanne
My fave is “How Can I Miss You If You Won’t Go Away?”
Yeah, I found nowhere
It got to know me
Let me sleep all day
Spend the money
I haven’t felt my legs
Since the summer
And I don’t call my friends
Forgot their numbers
VIP 223
I had my chances
Or did they have me
Now stay up nights
Watch TV
I’m country sad
I’m a ballad man
I’m on a comeback roll
Yeah, I’m a blizzard
And in my motor home
Sweat on my pillow all night
VIP 223
I’ve had my chances
And they had me
Now stay up nights
Watch TV
I’m country sad
I’m a ballad man
VIP 223
I’ve had my chances
And they had me
Now stay up nights
Watch TV
I’m country sad
I’m a ballad man
I feel no ???
Cos I’m a ballad man
I talk to the girls
Cos I’m a ballad man
Yeah, I???
Cos I’m a ballad man
Yeah, I sure???
Cos I’m a ballad man
-BLUR, “country sad ballad man”
just hearing damon albarn sing it gives me chills.
Artist: Marilyn Manson
Album: Antichrist Superstar
Title: Dried Up, Tied And Dead To The World
you cut off all of your fingers
trade them in for dollar bills
cake on some more make-up to
cover up all those lines
wake up and stop shaking
'cause you’re just wasting time.
-Marliyln Manson,“dried up, tied, and dead to the world”
When you were mine, by the Dixichicks always does it to me.
It started off so well
They said we made a perfect pair
I clothed myself in your glory and your love
How I loved you
How I cried…
The years of care and loyalty
Were nothing but a sham it seems
The years belie we lived a lie
I love you till I die
Save me save me save me
I can’t face this life alone
Save me save me save me…
I’m naked and I’m far from home
Queen- “Save Me”
He Stopped Loving Her Today
George Jones
He said I’ll love you ‘til I die
She told him you’ll forget in time
As the years went slowly by
She still preyed upon his mind
He kept her picture on his wall
Went half crazy now and then
He still loved her through it all
Hoping she’d come back again
Kept some letters by his bed
Dated 1962
He had underlined in red
Every single I love you
I went to see him just today
Oh but I didn’t see no tears
All dressed up to go away
First time I’d seen him smile in years
Chorus:
He stopped loving her today
They placed a wreath upon his door
And soon they’ll carry him away
He stopped loving her today
You know she came to see him one last time
Oh and we all wondered if she would
And it kept running through my mind
This time he’s over her for good
Chorus:…
Gee, I had forgotten Suzanne but that was one of my all time favorites in the early 70’s. Not really a big hit but oh so poignant! Leonard Cohen was such a poet…Simon and Garfunkel also had songs that were pure poetry. Some examples are:
When you’re weary, feeling small
When tears are in your eyes, I will dry them all (all)
I’m on your side, oh, when times get rough
And friends just can’t be found
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down
OR
Hello darkness, my old friend
I’ve come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence
OR
Tonight I’ll sing my songs again,
I’ll play the game and pretend.
But all my words come back to me in shades of mediocrity
Like emptiness in harmony I need someone to comfort me.
Homeward bound,
I wish I was,
Homeward bound,
Home where my thought’s escaping,
Home where my music’s playing,
Home where my love lies waiting
Silently for me.
OR
A winter’s day
In a deep and dark
December;
I am alone,
Gazing from my window to the streets below
On a freshly fallen silent shroud of snow.
I am a rock,
I am an island.
Paul Simon’s lyrics really make me tear up…
Daddy’s Hands… By Holly Dunn… Daddy’s hands were strong and gentle, but I’ve come to understand, there was always love in Daddy’s hands…
Okay, got a few…lemme see if I can remember the best ones. I agree with Ayesha - “You Were Mine” is one of mine.
– “Untitled,” The Cure
– “Empty,” The Cranberries
– “Why,” Stabbing Westward
More to come later if I remember them…
King Crimson - EPITAPH
The wall on which the prophets wrote
Is cracking at the seams.
Upon the instruments of death
The sunlight brighty gleams.
When every man is torn apart
With nightmares and with dreams.
Will no one lay the laurel wreath
As silence drowns the streams.
Between the iron gates of fate,
The seeds of time were sown,
And watered by the deeds of those
Who know and who are known;
Knowledge is a deadly friend
When no one sets the rules
The fate of all mankind I see
Is in the hands of fools
Confusion will be my epitaph.
As I crawl a cracked and broken path
If we make it we can all sit back and laugh.
But I fear tomorrow I’ll be crying
Yes I fear tomorrow I’ll be crying
(Well, it used to break me up when I was 16)