The Great Lyrics Thread

[Zephyr_Nova]

The concept is simple: include a clip of a song (or two or three) along with the lyrics of said song(s). Ideally the lyrics should be in spoiler tags so as to avoid having a scrolling nightmare on our hands, and also be great.

 

Here are a few of my favorites to get 'er started.

 

Nick Cave - The Lyre of Orpheus

 

Orpheus sat gloomy in his garden shed

Wondering what to do

With a lump of wood, a piece of wire

And a little pot of glue

O Mamma O Mamma

 

He sawed at the wood with half a heart

And glued it top to bottom

He strung a wire in between

He was feeling something rotten

O Mamma O Mamma

 

Orpheus looked at his instrument

And he gave the wire a pluck

He heard a sound so beautiful

He gasped and said O my God

O Mamma O Mamma

 

He rushed inside to tell his wife

He went racing down the halls

Eurydice was still asleep in bed

Like a sack of cannonballs

O Mamma O Mamma

 

Look what I've made, cried Orpheus

And he plucked a gentle note

Eurydice's eyes popped from their sockets

And her tongue burst through her throat

O Mamma O Mamma

 

O God, what have I done, he said

As her blood pooled in the sheets

But in his heart he felt a bliss

With which nothing could compete

O Mamma O Mamma

 

Orpheus went leaping through the fields

Strumming as hard as he did please

Birdies detonated in the sky

Bunnies dashed their brains out on the trees

O Mamma O Mamma

 

Orpheus strummed till his fingers bled

He hit a G minor 7

He woke up God from a deep, deep sleep

God was a major player in heaven

O Mamma O Mamma

 

God picked up a giant hammer

And He threw it with an thunderous yell

It smashed down hard on Orpheus' head

And knocked him down a well

O Mamma O Mamma

 

The well went down very deep

Very deep went down the well

The well went down so very deep

Well, the well went down to hell

O Mamma O Mamma

 

Poor Orpheus woke up with a start

All amongst the rotting dead

His lyre tacked safe under his arm

His brains all down his head

O Mamma O Mamma

 

Eurydice appeared brindled in blood

And she said to Orpheus

If you play that fucking thing down here

I'll stick it up your orifice!

O Mamma O Mamma

 

This lyre lark is for the birds, said Orpheus

It's enough to send you bats

Let's stay down here, Eurydice, dear

And we'll have a bunch of screaming brats

O Mamma O Mamma

 

Orpheus picked up his lyre for the last time

He was on a real low down bummer

And stared deep into the abyss and said

This one is for Mamma

 

O Mamma O Mamma

O Mamma O Mamma

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zLcaS76OtM

 

"Orpheus went leaping through the fields

Strumming as hard as he did please

Birdies detonated in the sky

Bunnies dashed their brains out on the trees"

--So good.

____________________________________________________________________________

 

Tom Waits - Don't Go Into That Barn

 

 

 

Don't go into that barn, yea [2x]

Black cellophane sky at midnite

Big blue moon with three gold rings

I called Champion to the window

And I pointed up above the trees

That's where I heard my name in a scream

Coming from the woods, out there

I let my dog run off the chain

I locked my door real good with a chair

Don't go into that barn, yea [2x]

Everett Lee broke loose again

Its worse than the time before

Cause he's high on potato and tulip wine

Fermented in the muddy rain of course

A drunken wail a drunk train

Blew through the birdless trees

Oh, you're alone alright

Your alone alright

How did I know [2x]

Don't go into that barn, yea [2x]

An old black tree

Scratching up the sky

With boney, claw like fingers

A rusty black rake

Digging up the turnips

Of a muddy cold grey day

Shiny tooth talons

Coiled for grabbing a stranger

Happening by

And the day when home early

And the sun sank down into

The much of a deep dead sky

Don't go into that barn, yea [2x]

Bank since Saginaw Calinda was born

It's been cotton, soybeans, tobacco and corn

Behind the porticoed house of a

Long dead farm

They found the falling down timbers

Of a spooky old barn

Out there like a slave ship

Upside down

Wrecked beneath the waves of a rain

When the river is low

They find old bones and

When they plow they always

Dig up chains

Don't go into that barn, yea [2x]

Did you bury your fire?

Yes sir

Did you cover your tracks?

Yes sir

Did you bring your knife?

Yes sir

Did they see your face?

No sir

Did the Mom see you?

No sir

DId you go cross the river?

Yes sir

Did you fix your rake?

Yes sir

Did you stay down wind?

Yes sir

Did you hide your gun?

Yes sir

Did you smuggle your rum?

Yes sir

How did I know [3x]

Don't go into that barn, yea [2x]

Don't forget that I warned you

Don't go into that barn, yea [3x]

No shirt no coat

Put me on a flat boat

Dover, down to Covington

Covington to Louisville

Louisville to Henderson

Henderson to Smithland

Smithland to Memphis

Down to Vicksburg to

Natchez put me on a

Flat boat Dover Dam

To Covington, Covington to

Louisville, Louisville to

Henderson...

 

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWgwILGLCAs

____________________________________________________________________________

 

Elliott Smith - Junk Bond Trader

 

 

The imitation picks you up like a habit

Writing in the glow of the TV's static

Taking out the trash to the man

Give the people something they'd understand

 

A stick man flashing a fine-lined smile

Junk bond trader trying to sell a sucker a style

Rich man in a poor man's clothes

The permanent installment of the daily dose

 

And you tell off when you tell it like it is

Your world's no wider than your hatred of his

Checking into a small reality

Boring as a drug you take too regularly

 

The athlete's laugh, the broken crutch

The first true love that folded at the slightest touch

Brought down like an old hotel

People digging through rubble for things they can resell

 

Happy holidays, sad sick savior

The leaving lover that I still favor

I won't take your medicine,

I don't need a remedy

To be everything I'm supposed to be

I don't want nobody else

I can do it by myself

We're meant to be together

 

Now I'm a policeman directing traffic

Keeping everything moving, everything static

I'm a hitchhiker you'll recognize passing

On your way to some everlasting

Better sell it while you can

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Arac_GhGxwk

[Guest Xenblake]

"Nightmare made of hash dreams, got the devil in my shoes"

-Nick Drake

[Guest kokeboka]

Leonard Cohen - Chelsea Hotel No. 2

 

 

I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel,

you were talking so brave and so sweet,

giving me head on the unmade bed,

while the limousines wait in the street.

Those were the reasons and that was New York,

we were running for the money and the flesh.

And that was called love for the workers in song

probably still is for those of them left.

Ah but you got away, didn't you babe,

you just turned your back on the crowd,

you got away, I never once heard you say,

I need you, I don't need you,

I need you, I don't need you

and all of that jiving around.

I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel

you were famous, your heart was a legend.

You told me again you preferred handsome men

but for me you would make an exception.

And clenching your fist for the ones like us

who are oppressed by the figures of beauty,

you fixed yourself, you said, "Well never mind,

we are ugly but we have the music."

And then you got away, didn't you babe...

I don't mean to suggest that I loved you the best,

I can't keep track of each fallen robin.

I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel,

that's all, I don't even think of you that often.

 

 

http://youtu.be/3YDb1mZxQRk

 

Bruce Springsteen - Racing In The Streets

 

http://youtu.be/ecunQO_uoIg

 

Prince - Sign O The Times

 

http://youtu.be/VUgGBb2gNBg

 

... anything off of Nick Drake's Pink Moon.

[Guest ansgaria]

"It seems these days the weaker ones survive.

What an awful way to find out you're alive."

 

from 'Amber Rain' by Coil.

 

It has always struck me as one of the most melancholic and thought-provoking piece of lyric ever. It really hits me everytime. It helps with Balance's mournful vocals.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GD012LUjkQE

 

 

Another one is

 

"A stranger with a head full of lead photographs me"

 

from 'Cure for Optimism' by Porcupine Tree.

 

To me it paints a very distinct and powerful image in my mind, I imagine a composition in style with René Margriettes "The Son of Man", where said stranger is holding a gun in such a way that it completely hides his face, the photograph and the flash being a gunshot and the head of lead is the bullet, also hiding his head, seemingly replacing his entire face.

 

Very few pieces of lyrics has ever made me think in a such a way for so long.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUXN_UW19_c

Edited February 8, 2012 by Hasselbalch

[ghOsty]

"True Dreams of Wichita" - Soul Coughing

 

Brooklyn like a sea in the asphalt stalks

Push out dead air from a parking garage,

where you stand with your keys

and your cool hat of silence

while you grip her love like a driver's license

[ghOsty]

"People pulling knives out of their backs,

and then slip in the cracks, cause the

streets are covered in their bleeding

If you think life is Disney you're dreaming

Those birds aren't singing they're screaming

And those aren't just clouds in the sky, no

Those are deathships on a joyride

And they're on our side baby, on our side" - Building Better Bombs, "Deathships"

[beerwolf]

London Calling now don't look to us,

phoney Beatlemania has bitten the duuussst!!!

[Guest Lindrum Larry Cocopipe]

The wild dogs cry out in the night

As they grow restless, longing for some solitary company

I know that I must do what's right

As sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTNmp_iio00

[beerwolf]

Pretty much the whole of Springsteens Nebraska and Dylans Times are a Changin

 

Lyrical masterpeices both of them

[Capsaicin]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0dP7iZv9K0

 

 

There are times that walk from you

Like some passing afternoon

Summer warmed the open window of her honeymoon

 

And she chose a yard to burn

But the ground remembers her

Wooden spoons, her children stir her Bougainvillea blooms

 

There are things that drift away

Like our endless numbered days

Autumn blew the quilt right off the perfect bed she made

 

And she's chosen to believe

In the hymns her mother sings

Sunday pulls its children from their piles of fallen leaves

 

There are sailing ships that pass

All our bodies in the grass

Springtime calls her children until she lets them go at last

 

And she's chosen where to be

Though she's lost her wedding ring

Somewhere near her misplaced jar of Bougainvillea seeds

 

There are things we can't recall

Blind as night that finds us all

Winter tucks her children in, her fragile china dolls

 

But my hands remember hers

Rolling around the shaded ferns

Naked arms, her secrets still like songs I'd never learned

 

There are names across the sea

Only now I do believe

Sometimes, with the window closed, she'll sit and think of me

 

But she'll mend his tattered clothes

And they'll kiss as if they know

A baby sleeps in all our bones, so scared to be alone

 

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BsZt_3MifU

 

 

Well I walk upon this river like it's easier than land

Evil's in my pocket and your will is in my hand

Oh, your will is in my hand

 

And I'll throw it in the current that I stand upon so still

Love is all, from what I've heard, but my heart's learned to kill

Oh, mine has learned to kill

 

Oh, I said I could arise

From the harness of our goals

Here come the tears

But like always, I let them go

Just let them go

 

And now spikes will keep on falling from the heavens to the floor

The future was our skin and now we don't dream anymore

No, we don't dream anymore

 

Like a house made from spider webs and the clouds rolling in

I bet this mighty river's both my savior and my sin

 

Oh, my savior and my sin

 

Oh, I said I could rise

From the harness of our goals

Here come the tears

But like always, I let them go

Just let them go

 

Well I walk upon the river like it's easier than land

Evil's in my pocket and your strength is in my hand

Your strength is in my hand

 

And I'll throw you in the current that I stand upon so still

Love is all, from what I've heard, but my heart's learned to kill

Oh, mine has learned to kill

 

Oh, I said I could rise

From the harness of our goals

Here come the tears

 

But like always, I let them go

 

Just let them go

 

[baph]

The wild dogs cry out in the night

As they grow restless, longing for some solitary company

I know that I must do what's right

As sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTNmp_iio00

 

Aside from the awkward forcing of so many syllables into that line, you can't even see Kilimanjaro from the Serengeti, Toto.

 

That song has some serious nostalgic value, though. My dad rocked the shit out of it 1982-1985 and hearing it is possibly one of my first readily accessible memories.

Edited February 9, 2012 by baph

[baph]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AA8ADG_ei8U

 

 

 

I am made of tons of tiny countries

With closely guarded borders

Each country has a castle

Each castle has a throne

You are the tiny king

Of your very own

 

I sneak across at night

When the crossing is easy

I watch and I wonder

At your curious customs,

But I forget them all by day

 

Did the night invade the day?

Or was it day invaded night?

Were you among the last to be found?

Did you have your hands

In the ground?

 

I buried the dead and they came stories

I planted the stories, they came up singing

I planted the song and it came up dancing

I buried the dance and it

Came up facing home

 

I buried the dead and they came laughing

I planted the laugher, it came up singing

I planted the song and it came up fighting

I buried the battle, it came up facing home

 

I buried the dead and they came up laughing

I buried the laughter and cried

 

This garden weve planted will come up around us

And take us all down in a great big avalanche

Of useless things, of persistently plastic things,

Of things that cost us this tiny world of tiny kings

 

Also favorite title pun

Edited February 9, 2012 by baph

[YO303]

Beetles.

Under my carpet.

Under my feet.

They come out in the heat.

Edited February 9, 2012 by YO303

[baph]

Pretty much everything on Ys is amazing and tricky and deeply felt but

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xun4yK8TbeQ

 

 

 

and there was a booming above you

that night, black airplanes flew over the sea

and they were lowing and shifting like

beached whales

shelled snails

as you strained and you squinted to see

the retreat of their hairless and blind cavalry

 

you froze in your sand shoal

prayed for your poor soul

sky was a bread roll, soaking in a milk-bowl

and when the bread broke, fell in bricks of wet smoke

my sleeping heart woke, and my waking heart spoke

 

then there was a silence you took to mean something:

mean, run, sing

for alive you will evermore be

and the plague of the greasy black engines a-skulkin'

has gone east

while you're left to explain them to me

released from their hairless and blind cavalry

 

with your hands in your pockets, stubbily running

to where I'm unfresh, undressed and yawning

well, what is this craziness? this crazy talking?

you caught some small death when you were sleepwalking

 

it was a dark dream, darlin', it's over

the firebreather is beneath the clover

beneath his breathing there is cold clay, forever

a toothless hound-dog choking on a feather

 

but I took my fishingpole (fearing your fever)

down to the swimminghole, where there grows bitter herb

that blooms but one day a year by the riverside - I'd bring it here:

apply it gently

to the love you've lent me

 

while the river was twisting and braiding, the bait bobbed

and the string sobbed, as it cut through the hustling breeze

and I watched how the water was kneading so neatly

gone treacly

nearly slowed to a stop in this heat

- frenzy coiling flush along the muscles beneath

 

press on me: we are restless things

webs of seaweed are swaddling

you call upon the dusk

of the musk of a squid

shot full of ink, until you sink into your crib

 

rowing along, among the reeds, among the rushes

I heard your song, before my heart had time to hush it!

smell of a stone fruit being cut and being opened

smell of a low and of a lazy cinder smoking

 

and when the fire moves away

fire moves away, son

why would you say

I was the last one?

 

scrape your knee; it is only skin

makes the sound of violins

when you cut my hair, and leave the birds the trimmings

I am the happiest woman among all women

 

and the shallow

water

stretches as far as I can see

knee-deep, trudging along

a seagull weeps; "so long"

 

I'm humming a threshing song

until the night is over

hold on!

hold on!

hold your horses back from the fickle dawn

 

I have got some business out at the edge of town

candy weighing both of my pockets down

'til I can hardly stay afloat, from the weight of them

(and knowing how the common-folk condemn

what it is I do, to you, to keep you warm

being a woman, being a woman)

 

but always up the mountainside you're clambering

groping blindly, hungry for anything:

picking through your pocket linings - well, what is this?

scrap of sassafras, eh Sisyphus?

 

I see the blossoms broke and wet after the rain

little sister, he will be back again

I have washed a thousand spiders down the drain

spiders ghosts hang soaked and dangelin'

silently from all the blooming cherry trees

in tiny nooses, safe from everyone

- nothing but a nuisance; gone now, dead and done

be a woman, be a woman!

 

though we felt the spray of the waves

we decided to stay 'til the tide rose too far

we weren't afraid, 'cause we know what you are

and you know that we know what you are

 

awful atoll

- o, incalculable indiscreetness and sorrow!

bawl, bellow:

Sibyl sea-cow, all done up in a bow

 

toddle and roll;

teeth an impalpable bit of leather

while yarrow, heather and hollyhock

awkwardly molt along the shore

 

are you mine?

my heart?

mine anymore?

 

stay with me for awhile

that's an awfully real gun

I know life will lay you down

as the lightning has lately done

 

failing this, failing this,

follow me, my sweetest friend

to see what you anointed in pointing your gun there

 

lay it down! nice and slow!

there is nowhere to go, save up

up where the light, undiluted, is weaving in a drunk dream

at the sight of my baby, out back:

back on the patio watching the bats bring night in

- while, elsewhere, estuaries of wax-white

wend, endlessly, towards seashores unmapped

 

last week our picture window produced a half-word

heavy and hollow, hit by a brown bird

we stood and watched her gape like a rattlesnake

and pant and labour over every intake

 

I said a sort of prayer for some sort of rare grace

then thought I ought to take her to a higher place

said: "dog nor vulture nor cat shall toy with you

and though you die, bird, you will have a fine view"

 

then in my hot hand

she slumped her sick weight

we tramped through the poison oak

heartbroke and inchoate

 

the dogs were snapping

so you cuffed their collars

while I climbed the tree-house

then how I hollered!

cause she'd lain, as still as a stone, in my palm, for a lifetime or two

 

then, saw the treetops, cocked her head and up and flew

(while, back in the world that moves, often

according to the hoarding of these clues

dogs still run roughly around

little tufts of finch-down)

 

the cities we passed were a flickering wasteland

but his hand in my hand made them hale and harmless

while down in the lowlands the crops are all coming;

we have everything

life is thundering blissful towards death

in a stampede of his fumbling green gentleness

 

you stopped by, I was all alive

in my doorway, we shucked and jived

and when you wept, I was gone:

see, I got gone when I got wise

but I can't with certainty say we survived

 

then down, and down

and down, and down

and down, and deeper

stoke without sound

the blameless flames

you endless sleeper

 

through fire below, and fire above, and fire within

sleeped through the things that couldn't have been if you hadn't have been

 

and when the fire moves away

fire moves away, son

why would you say

I was the last one?

 

all my bones they are gone, gone, gone

take my bones, I don't need none

cold, cold cupboard, Lord, nothing to chew on!

suck all day on a cherry stone

 

dig a little hole, not three inches round

spit your pit in the hole in the ground

weep upon the spot for the starving of me!

till up grow a fine young cherry tree

 

well when the bough breaks, what'll you make for me?

a little willow cabin to rest on your knee

what'll I do with a trinket such as this?

think of your woman, who's gone to the west

 

but I'm starving and freezing in my measly old bed!

then I'll crawl across the salt flats to stroke your sweet head

come across the desert with no shoes on!

I love you truly, or I love no-one

 

fire

moves

away

 

fire moves away, son

why would you say

I was the last one?

 

clear the room! there's a fire, a fire, a fire

get going, and I'm going to be right behind you

and if the love of a woman or two, dear,

couldn't move you to such heights, then all I can do

 

is do, my darling, right by you

 

[Zephyr_Nova]

 

 

 

 

I am made of tons of tiny countries

With closely guarded borders

Each country has a castle

Each castle has a throne

You are the tiny king

Of your very own

 

I sneak across at night

When the crossing is easy

I watch and I wonder

At your curious customs,

But I forget them all by day

 

Did the night invade the day?

Or was it day invaded night?

Were you among the last to be found?

Did you have your hands

In the ground?

 

I buried the dead and they came stories

I planted the stories, they came up singing

I planted the song and it came up dancing

I buried the dance and it

Came up facing home

 

I buried the dead and they came laughing

I planted the laugher, it came up singing

I planted the song and it came up fighting

I buried the battle, it came up facing home

 

I buried the dead and they came up laughing

I buried the laughter and cried

 

This garden weve planted will come up around us

And take us all down in a great big avalanche

Of useless things, of persistently plastic things,

Of things that cost us this tiny world of tiny kings

 

Also favorite title pun

 

Those lyrics are fantastic. The video didn't work for me unfortunately, but I'm going to have to seek me out some more Sleepytime Gorilla Museum after reading that. I remember being pretty impressed by their music years ago, but I never really followed up on it.

[SR4]

I don't want to swim the ocean

I don't want to fight the tide

I don't want to swim forever

When it's cold I'd like to die

 

 

fuck you, its a good song.

[ghOsty]

That skinny frame

That tired act

She's uninteresting wearing all that black

Still she could be such a little girl sometimes

Whining and kicking

Throwing herself from moving vehicles

 

Running and running

Her raven breast empty and cold

Pushing my face up against the door

It's another night here in something city

It's another night with her going somewhere shitty

 

Into the cold city night she goes running and running

I wanna tell her "Little girl you run too far in the dark and you get yourself lost"

Then like a banshee she screams

And I say god damn

 

You may ask "She can't really be that stupid can she?"

 

 

Daughters - Providence by Gaslight

[J3FF3R00]

If she walks by the men folks get engrossed /
If she winks an eye and bread slices turn to toast /
If she's got a lot of what they call they most /
 

The Girl Can’t Help It - Little Richard