Words to Live By
I recently posted a long piece about Bon Jovi's 1994 hit, "Always." I paid particular attention to the song's lyrics; an amalgam of every devotional ballad ever written, they seem ripe for ridicule, or, at least, a knowing smirk. But part of me knows that for every eye-rolling, chuckling hipster, there's a high-school couple who sang those words to each other over the phone...or inscribed them forever in a senior-class yearbook.
Song lyrics are the narration to our own, private movie; a greek chorus of affirmation, pain, and wonder. When I, as a teenage boy, sat alone for endless hours in my darkened bedroom, listening to The Cure, it wasn't just for the melancholy sweep of the music, but also for the words...words that made Robert Smith seem like a friend and companion:
If only I'd thought of the right words
I could've held on to your heart
If only I'd thought of the right words
I wouldn't be breaking apart
All my pictures of you
At happier moments, behind the wheel of my first car, or reveling in my imminent graduation from high-school, I felt intoxicated with newfound freedom and possibility, and the music I blasted reflected that joy. Rob Halford shrieked:
The road is open wide to place your biddin'
Now, wherever you turn, wherever you go
If you get it wrong, at least you can know
There's miles and miles to put it back together
And I'm heading out to the highway
I got nothin' to lose at all
I'm goin' to do it my way
Take a chance before I fall
There's no doubt that these lyrics are overwrought; whether they seem fearless or funny is merely a function of your mindset...and your needs at the time.
So, as we prepare for the release of Bigger than Jesus: The Diary of a Rock and Roll Fan, let's take a moment to reflect on those lyrics -whether plaintive or powerful, ferocious or forlorn- that stuck with us.
What are some of your favorite song lyrics ever?
Song lyrics are the narration to our own, private movie; a greek chorus of affirmation, pain, and wonder. When I, as a teenage boy, sat alone for endless hours in my darkened bedroom, listening to The Cure, it wasn't just for the melancholy sweep of the music, but also for the words...words that made Robert Smith seem like a friend and companion:
If only I'd thought of the right words
I could've held on to your heart
If only I'd thought of the right words
I wouldn't be breaking apart
All my pictures of you
At happier moments, behind the wheel of my first car, or reveling in my imminent graduation from high-school, I felt intoxicated with newfound freedom and possibility, and the music I blasted reflected that joy. Rob Halford shrieked:
The road is open wide to place your biddin'
Now, wherever you turn, wherever you go
If you get it wrong, at least you can know
There's miles and miles to put it back together
And I'm heading out to the highway
I got nothin' to lose at all
I'm goin' to do it my way
Take a chance before I fall
There's no doubt that these lyrics are overwrought; whether they seem fearless or funny is merely a function of your mindset...and your needs at the time.
So, as we prepare for the release of Bigger than Jesus: The Diary of a Rock and Roll Fan, let's take a moment to reflect on those lyrics -whether plaintive or powerful, ferocious or forlorn- that stuck with us.
What are some of your favorite song lyrics ever?
12 Comments:
I can't believe summer's almost here
I made it through another year
even if alone
But there's no tears in my eyes
Life is still full of surprise
I'm not looking for a one night stand
I stand behind you and I watch you from a mile away
Wishing you could be the one but not here this way
I'd like to know your name
And I must know who you are
I look at you and I know who you are
You're just a little bit too far from my home
But please don't get me wrong
Even though it has been long
I hope I never sing my last song without someone
I want you now
Tomorrow won't do
There's a yearning inside
And it's showing through
Reach out your hand
And accept my love
We've waited for too long
Enough is enough.
I want you now.
My heart is aching
My body is burning
My hands are shaking
My head is turning
You understand
It's so easy to choose
We've got time to kill
We've got nothing to lose.
I want you now.
(this song + a beautiful teenage boy + a black light + a little chemical enhancement = seemingly the most profound experience of your life)
*sigh*
Some guy tried to rub up against me
In a crowded subway car
Some guy tried to feed me some stupid line
In some stupid bar
I see the same shit everyday
The landscape looks so bleak
I think I’ll take the first one of you’s home
That does something unique
Some chick says
Thank you for saying all the things I never do
I say
The thanks I get is to take all the shit for you
It’s nice that you listen
It’d be nicer if you joined in
As long as you play their game girl
You’re never going to win
Today I just want someone to entertain me
I’m tired of being so fierce
I’m tired of being so friendly
You don’t have to be a supermodel
To do the animal thing
You don’t have to be a supergenius
To open your face up and sing
Somebody do something
Anything soon
I know I can’t be the only
Whatever I am in the room
So why am I so lonely?
Why am I so tired?
I need company
I need backup
I need to be inspired
She
May be the face I can't forget
A trace of pleasure or regret
May be my treasure or the price I have to pay
She may be the song that summer sings
May be the chill that autumn brings
May be a hundred different things
Within the measure of a day.
She
May be the beauty or the beast
May be the famine or the feast
May turn each day into a heaven or a hell
She may be the mirror of my dreams
A smile reflected in a stream
She may not be what she may seem
Inside her shell
She
Who always seems so happy in a crowd
Whose eyes can be so private and so proud
No one's allowed to see them when they cry
She may be the love that cannot hope to last
May come to me from shadows of the past
That I'll remember till the day I die
She
May be the reason I survive
The why and wherefore I'm alive
The one I'll care for through the rough and ready years
Me I'll take her laughter and her tears
And make them all my souvenirs
For where she goes I've got to be
The meaning of my life is
She.
I saw a dead head sticker on a cadillac, don't look back you can never look back...
B-A-N-A-N-A, B-A-N-A-N-A-S!
It's profound simplicity.
Feelin' better than yesterday, and worse than tomorrow
It's depressing for me to say I been dressing like Greta Garbo
Oh psychopharmacology works wonders, wonder will it work on me?
They been searching for a cat who matches that perscription
Sign up for a chat, they said we'll cure your addiction
Well psychopharmacology works wonders, wonder will it work on me?
Yeah psycho...
I need something to calm me down
I need something to keep me focused
Narcaleptic, paranoid, and borderline hopeless
ADD, PCP, F-U-C-K-E-D that's me.
I'm feelin' better than yesterday, and I'm havin' none of that
They say all the world's a stage, it's more like a medicine cabinet.
Psychopharamcology works wonders, wonder will it work
Psychopharmacology works wonders, wonder will it work
Psychopharmacology works wonders, wonder will it work on me?
(Psycho)
On me...
We'll see...
Paul Westerberg
In a room with no window in the corner I found truth.
-Joy Division
I never said I would stay to the end/I knew I would leave you with babies and everything/Screaming like this/In the hole of sincerity/Screaming me over and over and over/I leave you with photographs/Pictures of trickery/Stains on the carpet/And stains on your memory/Songs about happiness murmured in dreams/When we both of us knew/How the end always is...
And:
Well I see you there with the rose in your teeth
One more thin gypsy thief
Well I see Jane's awake --
She sends her regards.
And what can I tell you my brother, my killer
What can I possibly say?
I guess that I miss you, I guess I forgive you
I'm glad you stood in my way.
If you ever come by here, for Jane or for me
Your enemy is sleeping, and his woman is free.
Yes, and thanks, for the trouble you took from her eyes
I thought it was there for good so I never tried.
And:
Hey!
Been tryin' to meet you
Must be the devil between us
Or whores in my head
Whores at the door
Whores in my bed
But hey!
Where
Have you
Been?
If you go
I will surely die
We're chained...
Somebody said they saw me swinging the world by the tail
Bouncing over a white cloud
Killing the blues
A little late but wanted to get this in there...
Somebody (Depeche Mode)
I want somebody to share
Share the rest of my life
Share my innermost thoughts
Know my intimate details
Someone who’ll stand by my side
And give me support
And in return
She’ll get my support
She will listen to me
When I want to speak
About the world we live in
And life in general
Though my views may be wrong
They may even be perverted
She’ll hear me out
And won’t easily be converted
To my way of thinking
In fact she’ll often disagree
But at the end of it all
She will understand me
Aaaahhhhh....
I want somebody who cares
For me passionately
With every thought and
With every breath
Someone who’ll help me see things
In a different light
All the things I detest
I will almost like
I don’t want to be tied
To anyone’s strings
I’m carefully trying to steer clear of those things
But when I’m asleep
I want somebody
Who will put their arms around me
And kiss me tenderly
The old man down on the corner
is drowing in his pain
I can see the sorrow in his eyes
His tears, they leave a stain
The streets have left him broken
He's in the final phase
It's been a long hard road
From his glory days
There's a tattoo of his sweetheart
Fading on his arm
He talks of painful tragedy
How he lost his lucky charm
His memory is cloudy
from the thunder in his vein
He's vanishing, vanishing gone
In the Harlem Rain
Harlem Rain coming down
Another shattered soul in
the lost and found
One more night
On the streets of pain
getting washed away by the
Harlem Rain
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