Okay I am a lyrics junkie as are many of my friends. We were talking today about some of the lyrics that just make you think, make you cry, or just set themselves out as great. This is just your opinion on what the best are out there from any genre.
Well… What’s your opinion?
Oh, that’s easy. MacArthur Park. It made me think a lot, mainly along the lines of “what was the songwriter on” and “how can people possibly like this song”.
I love a lot of contemporary pop and rock music, and there are some great lyrics out there. But if you want the best, you have to hand it to Cole Porter, indisputably the greatest popular songwriter of the 20th century. Loads of examples available online. (The Mods don’t want us posting lyrics here).
counting crows write some pretty introspective lyrics that really make you think, and damien rice’s new album is very well written as well.
Smashing Pumpkins’ Mayonnaise. There’s something about the lyrics to that song that gets me, although I really don’t understand them as such.
Frank Zappa Call Any Vegetable
Call any vegetable Pick up your phone
Think of a vegetable Lonely at home
Call any vegetable And the chances are good
That a vegetable will respond to you
I am in for almost anything by Leonard Cohen for lyrical value.
The Pogue’s “A Pair of Brown Eyes” does it for me.
Was a while before I actually listened to the lyrics but… the song should be enjoying a new burst of fame, if you ask me.
Oh, indeed. You can take any of his songs and just read as a poem.
Tindersticks’ “another night in” has an incredibly moving chorus.
Ok for me many of the aforemetioned would make my list. I would also add a few songs by the strokes. I am not so sure why, but some of their songs especially on their newest album just struck me as good.
“All This Time” by Sting.
“You Look So Fine” by Garbage
". . .You look so fine
I want to break your heart
and give you mine. . . "
My favourite line from a song ever.
Period.
*Real Good and Free * & Cold Blue Steel & Sweet Fire by Joni Mitchell
Bruce Springsteen’s lyrics are some of my favorites, The River may be the one that I like most.
I’m partial to “I don’t need you, you egotistical git” songs.
Basia “How Dare You”:
For the first three choruses, the lyrics are:
For the last chorus, after a whole song of built-up frustration and anger, they become:
Cher’s “Believe” has a similar line, about “'Cos I’ve had time to think it trough
And maybe I’m too good for you”
And of course, we have My Fair Lady. Near the end of the show/movie, Eliza sings a song called “Without You”:
I also think their lyrics came across as good, but I can’t for the life put any deeper meaning to any of them, except maybe for “NYC cops”. I feel like the lyrics are just there to accompany the music.
Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie and The Postal Service is one of the most amazing of today’s lyricists. His songs are poetic slapstick, lithely lyrical snapshots of everyday beauty and the waves and cycles of modern relationships, a Richard Brautigan of songs. He crafts love songs that transcend the love-song genre, partly thanks to his gift for metaphor, symbolism and allusion, partly in the wisdom, irony and experience personified by the multitude of voices and stories.