What's your favorite lyric from a song?

@roxy54 

I'm surprised you don't like this hard edged version, I prefer it to the 1966 original.

Of course that's the Kinks themselves, live from their 1996 album, To the Bone. Sounds like Ray on vocals although Dave has covered it himself on occasion.

This is the version made famous by its appearance on The Sopranos episode according to Wiki.

"The track, amongst many others, was reworked by the Kinks for their 1996 release To the Bone. This version featured in the Sopranos season five episode "Cold Cuts".

Just goes to show what versality that bands like the Beatles and the Kinks had. When they wanted to rock, they could rock as hard as anyone.

Hollies - Gasoline Alley Bred

I’m gonna heat me some water
Put a shine upon my shoes
Telephone my ma, keep the room above Joe’s
’Cause we’re comin’ back, comin’ back to the homestead

Everythin’ is packed, gettin’ back to the homestead
This time, this time we’ll stay, baby
I know that we could have made it
We had ideas in our heads
And I wish somehow we could have saved it
But we’re gasoline Alley Bred

Yet the years haven’t really been wasted
And I know it in my head
We did good for the life that we tasted
’Cause we’re gasoline Alley


-----


Of all the Hollies songs this is the one I like to keep on repeat in the car.

Back in my heady student days I remember asking my friend Calvin what he had playing in his headphones. This was something I'd never heard before and quite difficult to take in as 21 year old. But I never forgot it.

------

"The Revolution Will Not Be Televised"

You will not be able to stay home, brother
You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out
You will not be able to lose yourself on skag and
Skip out for beer during commercials
Because the revolution will not be televised

The revolution will not be televised
The revolution will not be brought to you by Xerox
In 4 parts without commercial interruptions
The revolution will not show you pictures of Nixon
Blowing a bugle and leading a charge by John
Mitchell, General Abrams and Spiro Agnew to eat
Hog maws confiscated from a Harlem sanctuary

The revolution will not be televised
The revolution will not be brought to you by the
Schaefer Award Theatre and will not star Natalie
Wood and Steve McQueen or Bullwinkle and Julia
The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal
The revolution will not get rid of the nubs
The revolution will not make you look five pounds thinner
Because the revolution will not be televised, Brother

There will be no pictures of you and Willie May
Pushing that shopping cart down the block on the dead run
Or trying to slide that color TV into a stolen ambulance
NBC will not be able to predict the winner at 8:32
On reports from 29 districts
The revolution will not be televised

There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
Brothers on the instant replay
There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
Brothers on the instant replay
There will be no pictures of Whitney Young being
Run out of Harlem on a rail with a brand new process
There will be no slow motion or still life of Roy
Wilkins strolling through Watts in a Red, Black and
Green liberation jumpsuit that he has been saving
For just the proper occasion

Green Acres, Beverly Hillbillies, and Hooterville
Junction will no longer be so damned relevant, and
Women will not care if Dick finally got down with
Jane on Search for Tomorrow because Black people
Will be in the street looking for a brighter day
The revolution will not be televised

There will be no highlights on the eleven o'clock
News and no pictures of hairy armed women
Liberationists and Jackie Onassis blowing her nose
The theme song will not be written by Jim Webb or
Francis Scott Key, nor sung by Glen Campbell, Tom
Jones, Johnny Cash, Engelbert Humperdinck, or The Rare Earth
The revolution will not be televised

The revolution will not be right back
After a message about a white tornado, white lightning, or white people
You will not have to worry about a dove in your
Bedroom, a tiger in your tank, or the giant in your toilet bowl
The revolution will not go better with Coke
The revolution will not fight the germs that may cause bad breath
The revolution will put you in the driver's seat

The revolution will not be televised, will not be televised
Will not be televised, will not be televised
The revolution will be no re-run brothers
The revolution will be live


Gil Scott-Heron

This lyric has been popping into my head rather a lot recently. Wonder why?


If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next - Manic Street Preachers
-----

Bullets for your brain today
But we’ll forget it all again
Monuments put from pen to paper
Turns me into a gutless wonder

And if you tolerate this
Then your children will be next

@roxy54 ,

You can’t really expect Beefheart to make much by way of literal sense.

I once gave the infamous Trout Mask Replica a spin - what an ordeal that turned out to be!

Sad to say, I never really had much luck with his good friend Zappa either. The only lyric of worth I can recall was from Joe’s Cafe.

Acquired tastes I guess.


@reubent,

Wow, I know it’s Jeff Beck, and you’d expect some fireworks, but still wow!

A great record with tremendous sonics.

https://youtu.be/RbYKOlMclas
How did that pass under the radar?


------

The Revolution Will Be Televised

"The revolution, it will be televised,

You can choose to watch or not,

But if you all just talk from the safety of your sofas,

There won’t be much revolution to watch"



Live version
https://youtu.be/RbYKOlMclas

Holiday in Cambodia Dead Kennedys

So, you’ve been to school
For a year or two
And you know you’ve seen it all
In daddy’s car
Thinking you’ll go far
Back east your type don’t crawl
Playing ethnicky jazz
To parade your snazz
On your five-grand stereo
Braggin’ that you know
How the niggers feel cold
And the slum’s got so much soul

It’s time to taste what you most fear
Right Guard will not help you here
Brace yourself, my dear
Brace yourself, my dear
It’s a holiday in Cambodia
It’s tough, kid, but it’s life
It’s a holiday in Cambodia
Don’t forget to pack a wife

You’re a star-belly snitch
You suck like a leech
You want everyone to act like you
Kiss ass while you bitch
So you can get rich
While your boss gets richer off you

Well, you’ll work harder
With a gun in your back
For a bowl of rice a day
Slave for soldiers
Till you starve
Then your head is skewered on a stake

Now you can go where the people are one
Now you can go where they get things done
What you need, my son...
What you need, my son...

Is a holiday in Cambodia
Where people are dressed in black
A holiday in Cambodia
Where you’ll kiss ass or crack

Pol Pot, Pol Pot, Pol Pot, Pol Pot

It’s a holiday in Cambodia
Where you’ll do what you’re told
It’s a holiday in Cambodia
Where the slums got so much soul
Pol Pot
-------

Somehow, even some 41 years later, this song never loses its power.

I first heard it via John Peel on BBC radio. Incredible how times have changed.

For decades I thought Jello was singing "Right, God will not help you here!"

"Beauty I'd always missed
With these eyes before,
Just what the truth is
I can't say anymore."



Moody Blues Nights in White Satin

So you see, the only proof
Of what you are is in the way you hear the truth

Don’t be scared, live to win
Although they’re always gonna tell you it’s a sin

In the end, you’re on your own
And there is no one who can stop you being alone

Motorhead - Stay Clean

In the Avenues and Alleyways
While you sleep there's a whole world coming alive
Abel and his brother, fighting one another
In and out of every dive
The avenues and alleyways
Where the strong and the quick alone can survive
----

The avenues and alleyways
Where the soul of a man is easy to buy
Everybody's wheeling
Everybody's dealing
All the low are living high
Every city's got em
Can we ever stop em?
Some of us are gonna try


Tony Christie Avenues and Alleyways
https://youtu.be/7Z-4IGSk9k0

Political World Bob Dylan

We live in a political world
Where mercy walks the plank
Life is in mirrors
Death disappears
Up the steps into the nearest bank.

 

 

Thankfully music can provide a welcome respite but there's no way of escaping the fact in 2022.

Instant karma’s gonna get you
Gonna look you right in the face

Better get yourself together darlin’
Join the human race


How in the world you gonna see
Laughin’ at fools like me?

Who on earth d’you think you are
A super star?

Well, right you are

I'm probably repeating this Dylan line, but it's well worth repeating.

"That he not busy being born is busy dying."

I still remember how side 2 of Bringing it all Back Home blew my mind when I first heard it some 35 years ago, and it sometimes still does.


It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)

Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child's balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand you know too soon
There is no sense in trying.

Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn
Suicide remarks are torn
From the fool's gold mouthpiece
The hollow horn plays wasted words
Proves to warn
That he not busy being born
Is busy dying.

Temptation's page flies out the door
You follow, find yourself at war
Watch waterfalls of pity roar
You feel to moan but unlike before
You discover
That you'd just be
One more person crying.

So don't fear if you hear
A foreign sound to your ear
It's alright, Ma, I'm only sighing.

As some warn victory, some downfall
Private reasons great or small
Can be seen in the eyes of those that call
To make all that should be killed to crawl
While others say don't hate nothing at all
Except hatred.

Disillusioned words like bullets bark
As human gods aim for their mark
Made everything from toy guns that spark
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark
It's easy to see without looking too far
That not much
Is really sacred.

While preachers preach of evil fates
Teachers teach that knowledge waits
Can lead to hundred-dollar plates
Goodness hides behind its gates
But even the president of the United States
Sometimes must have
To stand naked.

An' though the rules of the road have been lodged
It's only people's games that you got to dodge
And it's alright, Ma, I can make it.

Advertising signs that con you
Into thinking you're the one
That can do what's never been done
That can win what's never been won
Meantime life outside goes on
All around you.

You lose yourself, you reappear
You suddenly find you got nothing to fear
Alone you stand with nobody near
When a trembling distant voice, unclear
Startles your sleeping ears to hear
That somebody thinks
They really found you.

A question in your nerves is lit
Yet you know there is no answer fit to satisfy
Insure you not to quit
To keep it in your mind and not fergit
That it is not he or she or them or it
That you belong to.

Although the masters make the rules
For the wise men and the fools
I got nothing, Ma, to live up to.

For them that must obey authority
That they do not respect in any degree
Who despise their jobs, their destinies
Speak jealously of them that are free
Cultivate their flowers to be
Nothing more than something
They invest in.

While some on principles baptized
To strict party platform ties
Social clubs in drag disguise
Outsiders they can freely criticize
Tell nothing except who to idolize
And then say God bless him.

While one who sings with his tongue on fire
Gargles in the rat race choir
Bent out of shape from society's pliers
Cares not to come up any higher
But rather get you down in the hole
That he's in.

But I mean no harm nor put fault
On anyone that lives in a vault
But it's alright, Ma, if I can't please him.

Old lady judges watch people in pairs
Limited in sex, they dare
To push fake morals, insult and stare
While money doesn't talk, it swears
Obscenity, who really cares
Propaganda, all is phony.

While them that defend what they cannot see
With a killer's pride, security
It blows the minds most bitterly
For them that think death's honesty
Won't fall upon them naturally
Life sometimes
Must get lonely.

My eyes collide head-on with stuffed graveyards
False gods, I scuff
At pettiness which plays so rough
Walk upside-down inside handcuffs
Kick my legs to crash it off
Say okay, I have had enough
What else can you show me?

And if my thought-dreams could be seen
They'd probably put my head in a guillotine

But it's alright, Ma, it's life, and life only.

@dmac67,

Dads always know best - apart from those few times they don’t.

Was he right, or was he wrong?


@danoroo,

They’re sure great lines, full of rare self insight.

Deserve to be better known.

@simonmoon,

Best song about the Beatles break up?

Contemporary accounts did suggest that McCartney was responsible for the break up - if that actually was Paul McCartney of course.

Of course nowadays we all know it was down to Yoko.

Culture Club - It’s a Miracle

Dance with the counterfeit
The plastic smiles and micro heat
I’ll meet you there, I’ll meet you there

Run to the edge of town
Where Hollywood lay its footprints down
Monroe was there but do you really care

It’s a miracle
It’s a miracle
It’s a miracle

It’s a miracle
It’s a miracle
It’s a miracle

And dreams are made of emotion

-----

Malcolm McLaren - Soweto

All the men shall Boogie and Bark
Never be afraid of the Dark

I’d rather trust in the heart of a killer

Than believe all the lies in a scholar’s brain

I am strange and I have been reckless

But I’ve never been insane


[Larkin Grimm - Link In Your Chain]

As of September 2021 is there a more appropriate lyric than this one?


Bob Marley - Natural Mystic

There's a natural mystic blowing through the air
If you listen carefully now you will hear

This could be the first trumpet, might as well be the last
Many more will have to suffer
Many more will have to die
Don't ask me why
Things are not the way they used to be
I won't tell no lie

One and all got to face reality now
Though I've tried to find the answer to all the questions they ask
Though I know it's impossible to go living through the past
Don't tell no lie

There's a natural mystic blowing through the air
Can't keep them down
If you listen carefully now you will hear

Such a natural mystic, blowing through the air.

https://youtu.be/_r8HEJojWBs

@johnto ,

It used to puzzle me why that song used to get so much flak in the first couple of decades after the release of Pepper.


I guess gradually the world is finally catching up with George:


"We were talking about the space between us all

And the people who hide themselves behind a wall of illusion

Never glimpse the truth, then it’s far too late, when they pass away"

Even in 2021 it’s heavy stuff indeed.

Back in ’67 it was probably a little too much for most listeners.

Are You Lonesome Tonight originally written by Roy Turk and Lou Handman in 1926 became through Presley's rendition a good an illustration of a soul in trouble as anything else we have seen

------

I wonder if you're lonesome tonight
You know someone said that the world's a stage
And each of us must play a part
Fate had me playing in love with you as my sweetheart

Act one was where we met
I loved you at first glance
You read your lines so cleverly and never missed a cue

Then came act two, you seemed to change, you acted strange
And why I've never known

Honey, you lied when you said you loved me
And I had no cause to doubt you
But I'd rather go on hearing your lies
Than to go on living without you

Now the stage is bare and I'm standing there
With emptiness all around

And if you won't come back to me
Then they can bring the curtain down
 

"Ya ain't gonna learn what ya don't wanna know"

This line reminded me of 2 different sets of Dylan lyrics illustrating 2 different kinds of knowledge.

 

"Your sister sees the future

Like your mama and yourself

You've never learned to read or write

There's no books upon your shelf"

(One More Cup of Coffee : Desire - 1976)

 

 

"You can smell the pine wood burnin'

You can hear the school bell ring

Got to get up near the teacher if you can,

If you wanna learn anything"

(Floater : Love and Theft - 2001)

 

 

The most embarrassingly confessional first verse I've heard must be this one. 

The Wedding Present - 'Nobody's Twisting Your Arm'.

 

And when I called your house
I'm sure your sister thought that I was somebody else
I heard a laugh down the phone
And then the answer came that you weren't at home (ohh)

 

 

@roxy54

That’s what you might call a real haunting song of loss.

It reminded me of this one originally written by Nick Cave, but performed here by Shane McGowan.

-----

Lucy

 

Last night I lay trembling
The moon it was low
It was the end of love
Of misery and woe

Then suddenly above me
Her face buried in light
Came a vision of beauty
All covered in white

Now the bell-tower is ringing
And the night has stole past
O Lucy, can you hear me?
Wherever you rest

 

As the morning turned my way
Sea birds flying through this hazy face
And I came back here to replace your place in my life

And didn’t you know that I’m not the world’s strongest man
When it comes to you and your world I’m lost
Can’t you see the towers of mine they could shine like a dime
Take me back again to your warm design

 

 

Is this Lou Reed’s best lyric?

If you're feeling low, really low, and this can happen to any of us for whatever reason, there aren't too many songs as good as expressing a total sense of desolation as this one.

 

Inspiral Carpets - This is How it Feels

 

There's a funeral in the town

Some guy from the top estate

Seems they found him under a train

And yet he had it all on a plate  

 

So this is how it feels to be lonely

This is how it feels to be small

This is how it feels

When your word means nothing at all

 

 

@larsman,

It was actually my sister that used to play them back in the 90s.

She was then, and would probably like to think she still is now, an Indie kid.

That was the time I’d hear her playing the Stone Roses, House of Love, the Wedding Present etc before she fell in love with Kurt Cobain and then got into Metallica and System of a Down.

More recently she’s in with a London crowd that likes to model their dance scene on the 1970s work of the likes of David Mancuso, and all that entails.

 

Anyway, I’ll check out the ’Revenge of the Goldfish’ album. It’s always nice to have a real world recommendation.

Any band that can produce a song as strong as ’This is How it Feels’ is worth checking out.

@larsman 

 

Well, that's just it, nothing can recreate memories and feelings for me better than music.

Perhaps they're forever intertwined together, somewhere outside space/time?

I'd certainly like to think so.

Everytime I hear Chirpy Cheep Cheep I'm back in the school playground, or if I hear Like a Rolling Stone being blasted out I'm back in college, the moment I walked into the Liberal Studies room in the late '70s and encountered some of the more adventurous students on the course.

I even gave my best shot at learning guitar but only got as far as Jingle Bells, note by note.  I did hear some folks mention chords, but I had no idea what they were.

I'm in my late 50s but 2 recent bereavements within 12 months have now left me feeling older but a lot less scared of the future.

My best friend Mike suddenly passed away in hospital at the end of May and right now I feel something in me has also died with him.

 

Oh well, life must go on for those of us left, whichever way it will, and music can certainly help to recreate a better frame of mind.

 

Anyway, here's a lyric from one of Mike's favourites:

 

Hey, baby, yesterday has just departed 

And tomorrow hasn't started

All what really matters is right now

 

And you should live a lifetime in each minute

Take the sweetness home within it

Yesterday has gone without a sound

 

[Cupid's Inspiration - Yesterday has Gone]

@larsman 

Thanks for that. It's Mike's funeral this Wednesday.

No one is truly alone when it comes to bereavement, but it is mostly a solitary experience. I hope you found a way through it.

 

Anyway I did try piano myself for a while but my musical memory could barely remember where middle C was.

I soon gave up after hearing my sister practice. Somehow without any coaching she was soon playing recognisable tunes!

She soon gave it up though, as she wanted to play guitar and be in a band.

Alas for her she didn't have as much luck there.

People forget, but guitar can be tough on the fingers.

Here's a lyric that's been coming to mind recently. I kind of underappreciated it previously.

 

Ride on fine white stallion

Take me anywhere

Ride on fine white stallion

Where you me take I don't care 

 

Ride on fine white stallion

I'd go anywhere with you

Take me to a new world with new things to find

Help me leave the old world behind.

(Fine White Stallion - Mike Hazelwood)

 

 

Thunder Road Bruce Springsteen

 

"Well, I got this guitar, and I learned how to make it talk
And my car’s out back, if you’re ready to take that long walk
From your front porch to my front seat
The door’s open but the ride, it ain’t free"

 

Sometimes, no matter how carefully you plan things, you just have to make an instant decision.

It could be a life changing decision.

We understand your paranoia
But we don’t want to play your game
You think you’re cool and know what you are doing
666 is your name
So while you’re jerking off each other
You better bear this thought in mind
Your time is up you better know it
But maybe you don’t read the signs

Free the people now
Do it, do it, do it, do it, do it now
Free the people now
Do it, do it, do it, do it, do it now

Well, you were caught with your hands in the kill
And you still got to swallow your pill
As you slip and you slide down the hill
On the blood of the people you killed

Stop the killing (free the people now)
Do it, do it, do it, do it, do it now
Stop the killing (free the people now)
Do it, do it, do it, do it, do it now

 

 

Alifib by Robert Wyatt

 

No nit not
Nit no not
Nit nit folly bololey
Alife my larder
Alife my larder

 

I read that the snooker player Steve Davis recommended that Rock Bottom was album was everyone should listen to, and he wasn't the only one, so eventually I did.

Once heard, you'll know why it's called Rock Bottom.

 

@roxy54 

Just curious; what do those lyrics mean to you?

 

To me they suggest a mind that's struggling to make sense of its new reality.

A mind that has now sunk to its lowest possible level.

 

A mind escaping by way of hallucinating an affinity with some form of underwater parasite that has devolved it's grip on language and logic.

Shades of Kafka's Metamorphosis? Or just alcoholic sickness?

 

It's all too easy to get into cod psychology given what was was happening in Wyatt's life at that point, but a comfortable listen it certainly is not.

I wear my body like a caravan
Gypsy rover in a magic land
Misty mountains where the eagles fly
Lonely valleys where the lost ones cry
I had a little letter full of paper
Inky scratches everywhere
Always looking, looking for a paradise island
Help me find it everywhere

 

Ducks on a Pond - Incredible String Band