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The Greatest Song Lyrics of all time |
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#1 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Dec 2009
Posts: 30,260
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The Greatest Song Lyrics of all time
There have been some great songs that have some of the greatest lyrics My favourites are from the song Fairytale of New York where it goes like You scumbag You Maggot you cheap lousy faggot and Dont you want me baby where the songs starts with You were working as a waitress in a cocktail bar that much is true What are your favourites
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#2 |
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Join Date: Mar 2007
Posts: 11,688
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Melt - Siouxsie and the Banshees
You are the melting men You are the situation There is no time to breathe And yet one single breath Leads to an insatiable desire Of suicide in sex So many blazing orchids Burning in your throat Making you choke Making you sigh Sigh in tiny deaths So, melt My lover, melt She said melt My lover, melt You are the melting men And as you melt You are beheaded Handcuffed (in lace and blood and sperm) Swimming in poison Gasping in the fragrance Sweat carves a screenplay of discipline and devotion So, melt My lover, melt She said melt My lover, melt Can you see? See into the back of a long, black car Pulling away from the funeral of flowers With my hand between your legs Melting |
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#3 |
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Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: Ignoringtrollsville
Posts: 7,875
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Not sure I would say the greatest song lyrics of all time but I love this chorus taken from Ray Lamontagne's Jolene (his song, not the Dolly opus!)
I found myself face down in the ditch Booze in my hair Blood on my lips A picture of you, holding a picture of me In the pocket of my blue jeans Still don't know what love means Still don't know what love means Jolene The lyrics throughout the song are pretty brilliant and very evocative. In fact, sod it I'm going to print them all ![]() "Jolene" Cocaine flame in my bloodstream Sold my coat when I hit Spokane Bought myself a hard pack of cigarettes in the early morning rain Lately my hands they don't feel like mine My eyes been stung with dust, I'm blind Held you in my arms one time Lost you just the same Jolene I ain't about to go straight It's too late I found myself face down in the ditch Booze on my hair Blood on my lips A picture of you, holding a picture of me in the pocket of my blue jeans Still don't know what love means Still don't know what love means Jolene Ah, La, La, La, La, La Jolene Been so long since I seen your face or felt a part of this human race I've been living out of this here suitcase for way too long A man needs something he can hold onto A nine pound hammer or a woman like you Either one of them things will do Jolene I ain't about to go straight It's too late I found myself face down in the ditch Booze in my hair Blood on my lips A picture of you, holding a picture of me In the pocket of my blue jeans Still don't know what love means Still don't know what love means Jolene La, La, La, La, La, La, La Jolene La, La, La, La, La, La, La Jolene |
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#4 |
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Join Date: Sep 2012
Posts: 6,056
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Do you ever feel like a plastic bag?
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#5 |
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Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Belfast
Posts: 7,276
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I have only heard the version by Robert Plant's Band of Joy but this is allegedly Townes Van Zandt's last set of lyrics and how appropriate they seem for a man about to enter the Undiscovered Country!
Harm's Swift Way There is a home out of harms swift way I set myself to find I swore to my love I would Bring her there Then I left my love behind The desert was long The mountain high The road ran steep and winding The promises so easily made Unbearable, yet binding Oh me, oh my Who's gonna count my time Time will go, it never stays Memory locked in her passing Try, oh try to cling to her Until she becomes everlasting The world's still blue My word's still true I feel I'm turning hollow She does as she please If ever she leaves I'll strangle upon the sorrow Oh me, oh my Who's gonna mark my time The road is past, tomorrow the sky Between sometimes is blinding Someday soon when I turn to cloud I will fly on her wings somehow Wrapped in the road and filled with above The ground seems to fade away Hold to the earth like a new born child Pray she returns someday Oh me, oh my Who's gonna mark my time |
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#6 |
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Join Date: Jan 2006
Posts: 24
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Bryan Adams 'Run To You'
'She says her love for me will never die But that'd change if she ever found out about you and I' Just sums up betrayal perfectly for me |
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#7 |
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Join Date: Jun 2011
Posts: 3,720
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There's so many but a couple that I really love.
The Loss Adjuster Sitting in the World's End with some indie friends, a newsflash on the TV says the world's about to end. Can't catch all the details 'cos the volume's turned down: this is the last night on Earth – as spent in Camden Town. There's no way to escape - this is it. Tomorrow we will all be gone, so check what time the band are on. Let's go outside. Yeah and this was the night I was going to balance the books; the night I turned a minus into a plus. The night my adjustment became complete – I could start again with a clean sheet. Now I can't get through 'cos all the networks are down, and fires are starting all over town, and you're probably being gang-banged by tattooed locals: Damn those Yokels! Damn those Yokels! And a girl cries as she stumbles by "No, the world can't end now – no, it's got to wait. It can't end when I haven't got a boyfriend and I'm half a stone overweight." The guys from Arlington House are marauding the streets, and convent girls are screwing every man that they meet, and the album you just bought will never get heard: Oh yeah, complete social breakdown has occurred. And then you find yourself thinking about Egyptian Sue and the evil things that she used to do. And the night you almost did it after the wedding reception but you didn't have any contraception, and anyway, you couldn't get an erection. Now, what the hell made you think of her? Could it be that old saying coming true? That: 'Nothing could survive a nuclear holocaust except cockroaches and Egyptian Sue?' But even Sue won't make it through. No, even Sue won't make it through this time. It was around this time that the levels of hysteria around the Kentish Town Road caused a warping of the space/time continuum and I found myself face to face with a version of myself from 15 years earlier, when I'd lived in the area. "Greetings indie legend", said I. "**** off sad bell-end", came the reply. I wanted to warn him about the rough times ahead but for some reason he had his coat pulled over his head and wouldn't listen. I left him trying to extricate a punctured Spacehopper from under some rubble in a skip. "He'll find out soon enough", I thought. And then suddenly I realised that I could no longer breathe. Here we go, move along, one last time. The Loss Adjuster lost his mind: too many claims, too little time to file them. And then suddenly it was a Tuesday afternoon and I could see it all, crystal clear; like a giant chandelier turning slowly in the sideways sunlight – hanging by a thread with only seconds to last. And each time you rang it was like an Indian call centre on the line: "Yes, I'm doing fine – just like the last time, and the last time; make this the last time." We'll all be gone by Monday morning – this is it: your final warning. You never did see Dog Day Afternoon. Here today but gone tomorrow – now you could hang your head in sorrow or you could do it. But you'd better do it soon. We'll all be gone by Monday morning – this is it: your final warning. You never did see Dog Day Afternoon. Here today but gone tomorrow – now you could hang your head in sorrow or you could do it. But you'd better do it soon. We'll all be gone by Monday morning – this is it: your final warning. You never did see Dog Day Afternoon. Oh, here today but gone tomorrow – now you could hang your head in sorrow or you could do it. But you'd better do it soon. and Wickerman Just behind the station before you reach the traffic island a river runs though a concrete channel I took you there once; I think it was after the Leadmill The water was dirty and it smelt of industrialisation Little mesters coughing their lungs up And globules the colour of tomato ketchup But it flows Yeah, it flows Yeah, underneath the city through dirty brickwork conduits connecting white witches on the Moor with Pre-Raphaelites down in Broomhall Beneath the old Trebor factory that burnt down in the early seventies Leaving an antiquated sweet-shop smell and caverns of nougat and caramel Nougat Yeah, nougat and caramel And the river flows on Yeah, the river flows on beneath pudgy fifteen-year olds addicted to coffee whitener, courting couples naked on Northern Upholstery and pensioners gathering dust like bowls of plastic tulips. And it finally comes above ground again at Forge Dam: the place where we first met. I went there again for old time's sake, hoping to find the child's toy horse ride that played such a ridiculously tragic tune. It was still there - but none of the kids seemed interested in riding on it. And the cafe was still there too; the same press-in plastic letters on the price list and scuffed formica-top tables. I sat as close as possible to the seat where I'd met you that autumn afternoon. And then, after what seemed like hours of thinking about it, I finally took your face in my hands and I kissed you for the first time and a feeling like electricity flowed through my whole body. And I immediately knew I'd entered a completely different world. And all the time, in the background, the sound of that ridiculously heartbreaking child's ride outside. At the other end of town the river flows underneath an old railway viaduct; I went there with you once - except you were somebody else - and we gazed down at the sludgy brown surface of the water together. Then a passer-by told us that it used to be a local custom to jump off the viaduct into the river, when coming home from the pub on a Saturday night. But that this custom had died out when someone jumped and landed too near to the riverbank and had sunk in the mud there and drowned before anyone could reach them. Maybe he'd just made the whole story up. You'd never get me to jump off that bridge. No chance. Never in a million years. Yeah, a river flows underneath this city I'd like to go there with you now my pretty and follow it on for miles and miles below other people's ordinary lives Occasionally catching a glimpse of the moon through man-hole covers along the route Yeah, it's dark sometimes but if you hold my hand I think I know the way Oh, this is as far as we got last time but if we go just another mile we will surface surrounded by grass and trees and the fly-over that takes the cars to cities Buds that explode at the slightest touch Nettles that sting - but not too much I've never been past this point What lies ahead I really could not say And I used to live just by the river in a disused factory just off the Wicker And the river flowed by day after day And "one day" I thought "One day I will follow it" That day never came; I moved away and lost track but tonight I am thinking about making my way back I may find you there and float on wherever the river may take me Wherever the river may take me Wherever the river may take us Wherever it wants us to go Wherever it wants us to go |
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#8 |
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Join Date: Jul 2008
Posts: 4,526
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Me my thoughts are flower strewn,
Ocean storm , bayberry moon…. |
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#9 |
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Join Date: Jul 2012
Location: Utopia
Posts: 10,162
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"Look up here, I’m in heaven
I’ve got scars that can’t be seen I’ve got drama, can’t be stolen Everybody knows me now" "This way or no way You know, I’ll be free Just like that bluebird Now ain’t that just like me" |
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#10 |
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Join Date: Oct 2011
Posts: 1,330
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Vincent - Starry Starry Night by Don McClean.
Still get chills when I hear these lyrics: On that starry starry night You took your life like young often do But Vincent I could have told you This world was never meant for someone as beautiful as you |
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#11 |
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Join Date: Nov 2006
Posts: 8,010
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1st part
There is no pain you are receding. A Distant ship smoke on the horizon. You are only coming through in waves. Your lips move but I cant hear what your saying When I was a child I had a fever My hands felt just like two ballons Now I've got that feeling once again I can't explain you would not understand This is not how I am. I have become comfortably numb. 2nd Part There is no pain you are receding A distant ship, smoke on the horizon. You are only coming through in waves. Your lips move but I can't hear what you're saying. When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse Out of the corner of my eye. I turned to look but it was gone I cannot put my finger on it now The child is grown, The dream is gone. I have become comfortably numb. (Then the Greatest Guitar solo in a song though that's a different topic). |
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#12 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Is there life on Mars
Posts: 5,365
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There is some of the greatest poetry ever written in song format and it is often never recognised as such.
Simon and Garfunkel wrote some wonderful words. I particularly like those from 'The Sound of Silence'. And in the naked light I saw Ten thousand people, maybe more. People talking without speaking, People hearing without listening, People writing songs that voices never share And no one dared Disturb the sound of silence. |
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#13 |
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Join Date: May 2011
Location: Devon
Posts: 1,116
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Jimmy Webb's finest moment among many near equals...
And I need you more than want you, and I want you for all time |
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#14 |
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Join Date: Mar 2008
Posts: 11,780
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Paint It Black.
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#15 |
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Join Date: Jun 2012
Posts: 6,314
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Just a couple of examples of the genius of Mark E Smith
What About Us? Ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba Well, leg-end... living We are living leg-ends The living leg-end I am a rabbit from East Germany I was very happy And I could get anything I want I was so-oh happy Then I moved to North Britain I became an immigrant I could frolic around all night In the green grass I was sort of happy Ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba But then one night By the green grass By a rubbish receptacle I saw a newspaper I was not very happy There was a man going round all the time He was dishing out drugs He was a doctor Dishing out morphine to old ladies I said, what about us? (Shipman!) What about us? (Shipman!) What about us? (Shipman!) What about us? (Shipman!) What about us, Shipman? What about us? (Shipman!) What about us, Shipman? What about us? (Shipman!) Hop hop hop! Hop hop hop! Hop hop hop! I'm an immigrant from East Germany I was sort of happy I could frolic around a lot In the train station I could get anything I want There was a doctor going around He was dishing out drugs He was dishing out left and right To old ladies So don't get me wrong People in Great Britain Please don't get me wrong Hop hop hop! Hop hop hop! Hop hop hop! Please don't get me wrong Hop hop hop! What about us? (Shipman!) What about us? (Shipman!) What about us? (Shipman!) What about us? (Shipman!) What about us, Shipman? What about us? (Shipman!) What about us, Shipman? What about us? (Shipman! Greenway It's good enough for you it's good enough for me (2) It's good enough for you it's good enough for Richard It's good enough for Richie sounds (3) Channel hopping the other day through Danish rock TV I noticed the video, where the person beared a remarkable coincidental resemblance to myself To the video I was in recently So I rang the crew that the Jason fellow cited The attitude that group had to me when I asked if they had a CD player in their room Their tone especially Greenway Greenway I decided to visit their room, where they had a pile of chairs piled behind the door Their tone was snotty and offensive so I called them People like that really get on my nerves (4) To relax I called my cat Greenway Greenway I had to wank off the cat to feed the ****ing dog (5) It's good enough for you it's good enough for you It's good enough for Richard It's good enough for Richie sounds Greenway Greenway I had wank off the dog to feed the ****ing cat Greenway It's good enough for me it's good enough for you boy It's good enough for you it's good enough for me It's good enough for Richard It's good enough for right now Greenway Channel hopping the other day on danish rock TV |
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#16 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Aug 2012
Location: St Helens
Posts: 374
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My favourites are by Pink Floyd:
Childhood's End https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRTyt0okJak Time https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwYX52BP2Sk I think that both songs compliment each other well, almost as if Time is the follow up to Childhood's End. |
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#17 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: London
Posts: 15,790
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Thunder Road, Jungleland, The River, Roulette, Seeds, My Hometown and the whole of the Darkness On The Edge Of Town album.
The Rangers had a homecoming In Harlem late last night And the Magic Rat drove his sleek machine Over the Jersey state line Barefoot girl sitting on the hood of a Dodge Drinking warm beer in the soft summer rain The Rat pulls into town rolls up his pants Together they take a stab at romance And disappear down Flamingo Lane Well the Maximum Lawmen run down Flamingo Chasing the Rat and the barefoot girl And the kids round here look just like shadows Always quiet, holding hands From the churches to the jails Tonight all is silence in the world As we take our stand Down in Jungleland The midnight gang's assembled And picked a rendezvous for the night They'll meet 'neath that giant Exxon sign That brings this fair city light Man there's an opera out on the Turnpike There's a ballet being fought out in the alley Until the local cops Cherry Tops Rips this holy night The street's alive As secret debts are paid Contacts made, they vanish unseen Kids flash guitars just like switch-blades Hustling for the record machine The hungry and the hunted Explode into rock'n'roll bands That face off against each other out in the street Down in Jungleland In the parking lot the visionaries Dress in the latest rage Inside the backstreet girls are dancing To the records that the DJ plays Lonely-hearted lovers Struggle in dark corners Desperate as the night moves on Just one look And a whisper, and they're gone Beneath the city two hearts beat Soul engines running through a night so tender In a bedroom locked In whispers of soft refusal And then surrender In the tunnels uptown The Rat's own dream guns him down As shots echo down them hallways in the night No one watches when the ambulance pulls away Or as the girl shuts out the bedroom light Outside the street's on fire In a real death waltz Between what's flesh and what's fantasy And the poets down here Don't write nothing at all They just stand back and let it all be And in the quick of the night They reach for their moment And try to make an honest stand But they wind up wounded Not even dead Tonight in Jungleland -------------------------------------------------- Well a great black river a man had found So he put all his money in a hole in the ground And sent a big steel arm drivin' down down down Man now I live on the streets of Houston town Packed up my wife and kids when winter came along And we headed down south with just spit and a song But they said "Sorry son it's gone gone gone" Well there's men hunkered down by the railroad tracks The Elkhorn Special blowin' my hair back Tents pitched on the highway in the dirty moonlight And I don't know where I'm gonna sleep tonight Parked in the lumberyard freezin' our asses off My kids in the back seat got a graveyard cough Well I'm sleepin' up in front with my wife Billy club tappin' on the windshield in the middle of the night Says "Move along man move along" Well big limousine long shiny and black You don't look ahead you don't look back How many times can you get up after you've been hit ? Well I swear if I could spare the spit I'd lay one on your shiny chrome And send you on your way back home So if you're gonna leave your town where the north wind blow To go on down where that sweet soda river flow Well you better think twice on it Jack You're better off buyin' a shotgun dead off the rack You ain't gonna find nothin' down here friend Except seeds blowin' up the highway in the south wind Movin' on movin' on it's gone gone all gone --------------------------------------------------- We left the toys out in the yard I took my wife and kids and I left my home unguarded We packed what we could into the car No one here knows how it started Well suddenly everything was just so out of control Now I want some answers, mister, I need to know I hear all the talk but I don't know what you're saying But I think I got a good idea of the game that you're playing Roulette, that's the name Roulette, that's the game now Roulette, I don't believe what they're saying Roulette, everybody's playing I grew up here on this street Where nothing moves, just a strange breeze In a town full of worthless memories There's a shadow in my backyard I've got a house full of things that I can't touch Well all those things they won't do me much good now I was a fireman out at Riker's, I did my job Mister, I've been cheated, I feel like I've been robbed I'm the big expendable, my life's just cancelled null and void Well what you gonna do about your new boy Roulette, you're playing with my life Roulette, with my kids and my wife Roulette, every day the stakes get bigger Roulette, a different finger on the trigger Down by the river that talks The night speaks in searchlights and shortwave radios squawk Well the police patrol the streets But I've left behind the man I used to be Everything he believed and all that belonged to me I tried to find my way out to somewhere where I thought it'd be safe They stopped me at the roadblock they put up on the interstate They put me in detention but I broke loose and then I ran They said they just want to ask me a few questions but I think they had other plans Now I don't know who to trust and I don't know what I can believe They say they want to help me but with the stuff they keep on saying I think those guys just wanna keep on playing Roulette, with my life Roulette, with my kids and my wife Roulette, the bullet's in the chamber Roulette, who's the unlucky stranger Roulette, surprise, you're dead Roulette, the gun's to your head Roulette, the bullet's spinning in the chamber Roulette, pull the trigger, feel the click No further danger All lyrics copyright Bruce Springsteen. |
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#18 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Nov 2014
Posts: 2,034
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'When I'm drinking my Bonaparte Shandy
Eating more than enough apple pies Will I glance at my screen and see real human beings starve to death Right in front of my eyes' |
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