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Good discussion topic! Thanks for stoking the fire Oren!

I’m always inspired by good lyrics…as much as good music, and they are like bread and butter together they are awesome, sometimes you can have one or the other alone, but it’s not as tasty. (In my opinion.)

The Weakerthans. I can’t say enough about them. I love all their songs, but Left and Leaving from the album of the same name is a great poem. ( http://www.theweakerthans.org/ )

“My city’s still breathing (but barely it’s true)

through buildings gone missing like teeth.

The sidewalks are watching me think about you,

sparkled with broken glass.

I’m back with scars to show.

Back with the streets I know

Will never take me anywhere but here.

The stain in the carpet, this drink in my hand,

the strangers whose faces I know.

We meet here for our dress-rehearsal to say ” I wanted it this way”

Wait for the year to drown.

Spring forward, fall back down.

I’m trying not to wonder where you are.

All this time lingers, undefined.

Someone choose who’s left and who’s leaving.

Memory will rust and erode into lists of all that you gave me:

a blanket, some matches, this pain in my chest,

the best parts of Lonely, duct-tape and soldered wires,

new words for old desires,

and every birthday card I threw away.

I wait in 4/4 time.

Count yellow highway lines that you’re relying on to lead you home.

..................................................................................................................................... Ps. They are from Canada. Yay Canada! =D

ameliorator: “I’m always inspired by good lyrics…as much as good music, and they are like bread and butter together they are awesome, sometimes you can have one or the other alone, but it’s not as tasty. (In my opinion.)”

I couldn’t agree more.

Another favourite lyrics: “And they’re only gonna change this place/By killing everybody in the human race”. That’s a deep one, so you may be surprised to learn it’s by the Police (I don’t normally like Sting’s lyrics, they’re fairly stupid and with an awful rhyming scheme).

Which is better, do you think, a song full of conceptual imageries and nonsense lyrics that make you think, or a song telling a real story you can relate to?

oLahav, I love your discussions about music! I was surprised to hear that lyric was by the Police…was just thinking that that lyric reminds me of a lyric by Jawbreaker, from Save Your Generation off the album Dear You. “If you could save yourself,/ you could save us all./ Go on living, prove us wrong./ Your leap of faith could be a well-timed smile./ Survival never goes out of style./ I have a message: save your generation./ We’re killing each other by sleeping in.

Maybe later today we could create a story out of song lyrics, each person posting a line or two. ...

Answering the second part of your response, I like both kinds of songs. And I have difficulty picking one over another in pretty much anything in life. (I’m a both, and kind of girl.) But for you I will say that a song telling a real story I can relate to is better (for me)...for relating, not feeling so disconnected from this crazy world. BUT, songs with conceptual images/nonsense lyrics that make me think have to enter my life at select moments—moments when I am ready for it. When that happens, it’s like when you know there’s a mountain on the horizon but you can’t see it because the weather conditions aren’t right and then finally, just when you think the whole world is a drab drab place, you see the majesty of a mountain on your horizon. (that was always there!) I’m still pretty new to Pink Floyd, but I hear they are the O.G.’s of these sort of conceptual songs. And really, the conceptual songs are telling stories we can relate to as well, they are just more appealing to those who learn better through the use of metaphor.

Really, I just love music. I’m glad you do too.

What do the rest of you music lovers think?

“I was looking back to see if you were looking back at me to see me looking back at you”

Massive Attack

I find that lyric deep, if slightly confusing. Like most good ones.

How about this, one of my favourite Beatles lyrics: “It’s getting hard to be someone, but it all works out. It doesn’t matter much to me.” I’ve always enjoyed Lennon’s Beatles lyrics, although I’m much more of a Paul fan than a John fan when it comes to style and composition.

One of my favourite artists is Regina Spektor, her music is so fresh and so are her lyrics. Here’s a few lines from her song On the Radio which has an amazing video too.

This is how it works
You’re young until you’re not
You love until you don’t
You try until you can’t
You laugh until you cry
You cry until you laugh
And everyone must breathe
Until their dying breath

I find Roger Waters’ work amazing.

For instance – Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time. Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines. Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way. The time has gone, the song is over, thought I had something more to say.

I wonder (as always), how he has such clarity :|

“And you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it’s sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again
Sun is the same, in a relative way, but you’re older
Shorter of breath, and one day closer to death”.

Time is an incredible song, it works on so many levels. And I agree, Roger Waters’ lyrics are quite amazing.

Come to think of it, no wonder they are among the best bands ever

btw, the lyrics to “silent lucidity” by queensryche are awesome; do listen to the song – great music apart, it also has a philosophical import -

“Hush now dont cry Wipe away the teardrop from your eye Youre lying safe in bed It was all a bad dream Spinning in your head Your mind tricked you to feel the pain Of someone close to you leaving the game of life So here it is, another chance Wide awake you face the day Your dream is over…or has it just begun?”

Here’s a lyrics I always appreciated- “You don’t know how you got here, you just know you want out, believing in yourself almost as much as you doubt”. It’s from U2’s Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me. I just heard that song out of the blue and completely got reconnected.

Anybody else has some new lyrics to share?

I could quote every single Waters-era Floyd song here, but I’ll resist that temptation and stick to these “I’ve got a little black book with my poems in, got a bag with a toothbrush and a comb in, when I’m a good dog they sometimes throw me a bone in”

“Strangers passing in the street, By chance two separate glances meet, Now I am you and what I see is me”

Ok maybe one more :) “Shall we buy a new guitar, Shall we drive a more powerful car, Shall we work straight through the night, Shall we get into fights, Leave the lights on, Drop bombs, Do tours of the East, Contract diseases, Bury bones, Break up homes, Send flowers by phone, Take to drink, Go to shrinks, Give up meat, Rarely sleep, Keep people as pets, Train dogs, Race rats, Fill the attic with cash, Bury treasure, Store up leisure, But never relax at all, With our backs to the wall”

The same goes for Pete Townshend “You think we look pretty good together, You think my shoes are made of leather,

But I’m a substitute for another guy, I look pretty tall but my heels are high, The simple things you see are all complicated, I look pretty young, but I’m just back-dated, yeah,

Substitute your lies for fact, I can see right through your plastic mac, I look all white, but my dad was black”

And of course, “No reason to get excited, the thief he kindly spoke, There are many here among us, who think that life is but a joke, But you and I we’ve been through that, and this is not our fate, So let us not talk falsely now, the hour’s getting late”

“Sweet child in time, you’ll see the line, The line that’s drawn between good and bad, See the blind man shooting at the world, Bullets flying, taking toll, If you’ve been bad, Lord I bet you have, And you’ve been hit by flying lead, You’d better close your eyes and bow your head, And wait for the ricochet”

That’s a good point. A lot of bands are like that actually… Pink Floyd, Queen, Fleetwood Mac, Genesis, Black Sabbath (just to name a few). But each of these bands have a defining line-up that’s significantly better than the other ones (in most cases anyway)... when you say Deep Purple, people immidiately think of the “Smoke” era with Gillian up front. But there are lots of other smaller Purples… maybe they deserve a better chance.

@avicster – “Substitute your lies for fact, I can see right through your plastic mac, I look all white, but my dad was black”. That’s an awesome lyric, it’s funny, I thought they were talking about an Apple MacBook or something, but that didn’t make sense since it didn’t exist then. (It’s a raincoat by the way for anyone who was clueless like me).

Ray Lamontagne, I’m not sure if he counts as rock, per se, but here:
“Now you hold me close and hard
But I was like a statue at most
Refusing to acknowledge you’d been hurt
Now you’re clawing at my throat
And you’re crying all is lost
But your tears they felt so hot upon my shirt.”