Have you ever listened to the lyrics of pop songs and discovered a truism that you never heard before?
For example:
In Soul Asylum’s “Black Gold”: “See the crowd gather around.
Nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd.”
In The Gin Blossom’s “Hey Jealosy”: “If you don’t expect too much from me, you might not be let down.”
In Depeche Mode’s “One Caress”: “When you think you’ve tried every road and every avenue, take one more look at what you found old, and in it you’ll find something new.”
I think Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls is almost all truisms
“I’d give up forever to touch you, 'cause I know that you fill me somehow.
You’re the closest to heaven that I’ll ever be and I don’t want to go home right now.
When all I can taste is your sweetness,
and all I can breath is your light (or life?)
Sooner or later it’s over,
I just don’t want to miss you tonight.”
Jim Croce put many truisms in his songs: don’t tug on Superman’s cape, don’t spit into the wind, don’t pull the mask off the ol’ Lone Ranger, don’t mess around with Jim/Slim. I’ve tried to live my life by these words.
On a slightly more serious note, I think “Cat’s Cradle” by Harry Chapin gives a wonderful example of the wrong way to be a daddy.
“Now the preacher looked so baffled
When I asked him why he dressed
With twenty pounds of headlights
Stapled to his chest.
But he cursed me when I proved it to him
Then I whispered ‘Not even you can hide;
You see, you’re just like me,
I hope you’re satisfied.’”
– Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again
“Praise be to Nero’s Neptune
The Titanic sails at dawn
And everybody’s shouting
‘Which side are you on?’
And Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot
Fighting in the captain’s tower
While calypso singers laugh at them
And fishermen hold flowers
Between the windows of the sea
Where lovely mermaids flow
And nobody has to think too much
About Desolation Row.”
– Desolation Row
“He looks so truthful, is this how he feels
Trying to peel the moon and expose it
With his businesslike anger and his bloodhounds that kneel
If he needs a third eye he just grows it
He just needs you to talk or to hand him his chalk
Or pick it up after he throws it.”
Oh. I love lyrics threads. This makes you my hero of the day JJ.
Poysyn, Iris is one of my ‘me’ songs. So wonderful. So true. “You bleed just to know you’re alive”
Simon and Garfunkle
"I have my books
And my poetry to protect me;
I am shielded in my armor,
Hiding in my room, safe within my womb.
I touch no one and no one touches me.
I am a rock,
I am an island.
And a rock feels no pain;
And an island never cries."
Joydrop
"if i was beautiful like you, i would never be at fault
i’d walk in the rain between the raindrops, bringing traffic to a hault.
but that will never be, that will never ever be. cuz i’m not beautiful like you.
i’m beautiful like me."
Meredith Brooks
“I hate the world today
You’re so good to me
I know but I can’t change
Tried to tell you
But you look at me like maybe
I’m an angel underneath”
Thanks for reminding me of the Counting Crows, Althea.
“Round Here”:
“She knows she’s just a little misunderstood,
she has trouble acting normal when she’s nervous.”
Sting - “Fortress Around Your Heart”:
“As I returned across the fields I’d known,
I recognized the walls that I once made.
I had to stop in my tracks for fear
of walking on the mines I’d laid…”
And a truism as a song title: Morrissey - “We Hate it When Our Friends Become Successful”
“You can’t close the door
when the wall’s caved in” - Grateful Dead
“People are strange
when you’re a stranger
faces look ugly
when you’re alone.
Women seem wicked
when you’re unwanted,
streets are uneven
when you’re down.” - The Doors
And my personal favorite:
“Don’t sleep in the subway, darling.
Don’t stand in the pouring rain.”
It’s hard to think of some really good examples when I’m surrounded by loud-mouthed sales people! But I did come up with one that seems to be appropriate at this time of year:
Duran Duran:
“A year of Sundays seems to have drifted right by”
It always amazes me how fast time goes, and the older I get, the faster it seems!
Another good one is Soundgarden:
“Had a taste so sour, had to think of something sweet”.
I often think of this when I have to listen to loud-mouthes sales people all day!
Traveling in a fried-out combie
On a hippie trail, head full of zombie
I met a strange lady, she made me nervous
She took me in and gave me breakfast
Really, this paragraph just speaks volumes. Who here can’t relate to this experience? Who here hasn’t been threatened through poison by men of European descent? Clearly there’s a little bit of thunder for all of us to hear.
The fact that it wasn’t awarded the nobel prize for literature plainly shows just how removed from everyday life the committees are. I weep for their souls.
“The worst part of breaking up/ is getting back your stuff.”
I don’t know who sings that, but they’ve been playing it a lot on Radio Disney lately (My daughter listens to that station, and it’s where I get all my knowledge of pop music these days.)
Turpentine mentioned the wonderful Folk Implosion. From the same release:
“There’s no need to worry,
Confusion has its own embrace.
Your mind loves the hurry,
Your heart loves the race.”
Story of my frickin’ life.
The Loud Family (Scott Miller) weighs in with:
“I’m on my feet,
I’m on the phone, demanding answers.
Maybe I better just sit down.”
-and-
“I never knew how your kisses felt,
Until I saw you kiss someone else.”
And from Folk Implosion’s alter-ego, Sebadoh, comes:
“I gotta Saint,
Never ever will forgive.
It never understood me,
But still tells me how to live.”
Nothing like personal catharsis to make all pop songs suddenly fraught with poignant observation.
Also liked Sting from “I’m so Happy that I Can’t Stop Crying”
"And a friend said to me “You look different somehow.”
I said, “Everybody has to leave the darkness sometime.” "
Patty Smith and Don Henley “Sometimes Love Just Ain’t Enough”
”Now, I don’t want to lose you
But I don’t want to use you
Just to have somebody by my side
And I don’t want to hate you
I don’t want to take you
But I don’t want to be the one to cry
And that don’t really matter to anyone, anymore
But like a fool I keep losing my place
And I keep seeing you walk through that door “
And
“When it’s late at night and you’re all alone
Are there things that you wanted to say?
And do you feel me beside you in your bed
There beside you, where I used to lay? “
I Will Survive
“Oh, no, not I, I will survive
Oh as long as I know how to love I know I’ll be alive
I’ve got so much life to live and I’ve got so much love to give”
I can See Clearly Now
“I think I can make it now the pain has gone
And all of the bad feelings have disappeared
Here is the rainbow I’ve been praying for
It’s gonna be a bright, bright sunshiny day “
Let’s try to get this thread back on track. The OP didn’t ask you for lyrics you think are cool or profound, for Christ’s sake. Rather, he asked for truisms… here’s a definition for those unclear on the concept:
On the Remain in Light album…there’s a song called “Seen and Not Seen”
I was listening to it with my friend and suddenly we started paying attention to the lyrics and my friend said
“Oh my God, David Byrne is a genius!”
What he was saying the song was that a man subconsciuosly altered his facial features to resemble people in the media that he admired, gradually, and assumed that most people shared this ability.
“This is why first impressions are often correct.”
When we heard that line, we had to rewind and hear it again to make sure we heard what we thought we had heard.