I forgot to mention U2’s Bloody Sunday.
Metallica’s “The Unforgiven” and “Nothing Else Matters”
Bruce Springsteen’s “Into the Fire” and “You’re Missing”
Garth Brooks’ “The Change” and “Ireland”
And many more too numerous to count.
Seconded. Just downloaded it, actually. 'Course, I think just about anything by U2 is by default, good.
They Might Be Giants, “Don’t Let’s Start”:
No one in the world ever gets what they want,
and that is beautiful.
Heaven help the boy who won’t reach 21.
Heaven help the man who gave that boy a gun.
~Stevie Wonder~
And Jersey Girl by Tom Waits is one of the most powerful love songs ever written.
(I always post this one when “powerful lyrics” threads come around, but I just can’t help it.)
Freedy Johnston’s “This Perfect World” is about a man whose wife is killed during a robbery. He can’t handle it and splits, deserting his young daughter. When the song starts, it’s years later, he’s dying and he has come to see his now-grown daughter. “I still deserve to say goodbye no matter what I’ve done,” he observes. At the end of the song, he advises her to lock the door after him – partially harkening back to the robbery, but also because he won’t ever be back.
Pink Floyd have some fairly poignant lyrics.
“When the Tigers Broke Free” and “Wish You Were Here”
“And the Anzio Bridgehead was held for the price of a
few hundred ordinary lives”
“How I wish, how I wish you were here
We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year
Running over the same old ground
What have we found
The same old fears
Wish you were here”
Ahem.
DO NOT post complete lyrics here. Provide a link if you simply must share every deathless word. See that sticky thread up at the head of the forum? Thank you.
– Uke, Cafe Society moderator