Best Song Lyrics?

[manifold]

I'm sure everyone can list several songs that they believe have great lyrics, for one reason or another. However, if you had to nominate JUST one song as having the best lyrics ever, what song would you pick? Why? and of course, please post them.

Personally, I'm going to have to think about it for a while.

 

[Glori.B]

I'm sure everyone can list several songs that they believe have great lyrics, for one reason or another. However, if you had to nominate JUST one song as having the best lyrics ever, what song would you pick? Why? and of course, please post them.

Personally, I'm going to have to think about it for a while.

for some reason dylan's "it's alright ma i'm only bleeding" comes to mind.

 

[Shogun]

Willie Nelson's entire Red Headed Stranger album.

 

[AllieBaba]

I love that album.

We had it on 8-track when I was a kid. Spent many, many hours listening to it in the car.

 

[Shogun]

i have it on cd, mp3 and vinyl.

Willie has been quite the lyrical master in his day. from Crazy to his gay cowboy song Willie is a lyrical genius.

 

[AllieBaba]

It is not gay!

 

[manifold]

Willie Nelson's entire Red Headed Stranger album.

So which song is the best in your opinion?

 

[Shogun]

come on, allie..

[youtube]1u4CXlIYjyE[/youtube]

 

[AllieBaba]

Ok, I thought about it and decided "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" is the best album ever made.

 

[Reality]

May not be your thing, but I like artists with ginormous balls, in a figurative sense. Not an official video


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[editec]

Impossible!

I could spew lyrics lodged in head from now till doomsday and as those words came to me I'd think each and every song had the best lyrics until the next one came stumbling out of the vaults.

I think this has poetic merit. the BEST? hardly, but it's lodged in my head, so hell, you deal with it, too.

The night sets softly
With the hush of falling leaves,
Casting shivering shadows
On the houses through the trees,
And the light from a street lamp
Paints a pattern on my wall,
Like the pieces of a puzzle
Or a child's uneven scrawl.

Up a narrow flight of stairs
In a narrow little room,
As I lie upon my bed
In the early evening gloom.
Impaled on my wall
My eyes can dimly see
The pattern of my life
And the puzzle that is me.

From the moment of my birth
To the instant of my death,
There are patterns I must follow
Just as I must breathe each breath.
Like a rat in a maze
The path before me lies,
And the pattern never alters
Until the rat dies.

And the pattern still remains
On the wall where darkness fell,
And it's fitting that it should,
For in darkness I must dwell.
Like the color of my skin,
Or the day that I grow old,
My life is made of patterns
That can scarcely be controlled.

 

[Steerpike]

Marillion has the best lyrics ever (or did when Fish was the lead singer).

I like this bit from a song about words:

"Listen as the syllables of slaughter cut with calm precision
patterned frost phrases rape your ears and sow the ice incision
adjectives of annihilation bury the point beyond redemption
venomous verbs of ruthless candor plagiarize assassin's fervor
apocalyptic alphabet casting spell, the creed of tempered diction"

Also nice is their intro to the album misplaced childhood:

"Huddled in the safety of a pseudo silk kimono wearing bracelets of smoke
Naked of understanding
Nicotine smears, long, long dried tears, invisible tears
Safe in my own words, learning from my own words
Cruel joke, cruel joke

Huddled in the safety of a pseudo silk kimono a morning mare rides
In the starless shutters of my eyes
The spirit of a misplaced childhood is rising to speak his mind
To this orphan of heartbreak, disillusioned and scarred
A refugee, refugee"

Or maybe this bit from the beginning of Fugazi:

"Vodka intimate, an affair with isolation in a blackheath cell
Extinguishing the fires in a private hell
Provoking the heartache to renew the licence
Of a bleeding heart poet in a fragile capsule
Propping up the crust of the glitter conscience
Wrapped in the christening shawl of a hangover
Baptised in the tears from the real
Tears from the real"

 

[Steerpike]

Speaking of Marillion, if you want to hear one of the best songs ever, listen to Grendel:

GRENDEL audio on Google Video

It's about 17 minutes but well worth the listen.

 

[Ravi]

I can't for the life of me decide on what my favorite lyrics are. I've tossed out at least a dozen.

Tomorrow maybe I'll come up with what I think other's favorite lyrics are.

 

[manifold]

I grossly underestimated the difficulty of the request.

 

[Steerpike]

I grossly underestimated the difficulty of the request.

Can't name just one.

 

[editec]

Yeah, it's an impossible question to answer for most of us, I think.

Now if the question was limited somewhat it might be easier.

Like if you asked:

What are you favorite song lyrics which include the word: pudenda, you might narrow it down somewhat.

I mean, who among us can ever forget that great old ballad of love go terribly wrong entitled:

Reaching Around for Love in all the Wrong Places:​

I wish I couldn't remember
She was sweet and slender
I thought I'd found pudenda,
Until I grabbed his member​

 

[manifold]

It wasn't easy to pick. What I basically did was list all my nominees and then started comparing them head to head in a double elimination type tourny. I actually surprised myself with my winner, since it's one of the more simple and understated of the bunch, but it just refused to be beaten head-to-head and so here it is.

Skating Away by Jethro Tull

Meanwhile back in the year one
When you belonged to no one
You didn't stand a chance son
If your pants were undone

Cause you were bred for humanity
And sold to society
One day you'll wake in the present day
A million generations removed from expectations of
being who you really want to be

Skating away
Skating away
Skating away
On the thin ice of a new day

So as you push off from the shore
Won't you turn your head once more
And make your peace with everyone
For those who choose to stay will live just one more day
To do the things they should have done

And as you cross the wilderness
spinning in your emptyness you feel you have to pray
Looking for a sign that the universal mind
Has written you into the passion play

Skating away
Skating away
Skating away
On the thin ice of a new day

And as you cross the circle line
Well the ice wall creaks behind
You're a rabbit on the run
And silver splinters fly in the corner of your eye
Shining in the setting sun

Well do you ever get the feeling
That the story's too damn real and in the present tense
Or that everybody's on the stage
And it seems like you're the only person sitting in the audience

Skating away
Skating away
Skating away
On the thin ice of a new day

Skating away
Skating away
Skating away

 

[Ravi]

You forgot to explain why it's your favorite.

 

[DiamondDave]

Forgot the artist off hand.... but...

"Die Hippie Scum, Die"

pretty self explanatory... almost poetic in it's simplicity of message