Favourite lyrics

[CN211276]

Here's some rock music lyrics. Aerosmith- Pandora's Box. As if the song title wasn't provocative enough

"The ladies there They look so proud
That's 'cause they know
That they've been so well endowed"

[karatestu]

Sorry Mr Badger. I got a bit grumpy without cause.

[Lindsayt]

I generally prefer lyrics that aren't about love. Or if they are about love are done in an interesting way, eg Squeeze's Up The Junction.

Stiff Little Fingers
Stranglers
PiL
New Model Army
Ian Dury

are all examples of musicians that had something to say with their songs.

[NSNO2021]

Up the junction is to me a timeless classic, it's beautiful in an earthy, industrial sort of way

[CycleCoach]

For lyrics, see Half Man Half Biscuit. There is a site, run by fans, that prints all the lyrics after fans have listened over and over to decipher them. Then, once they've agreed on the lyrics, there are hundreds of pages of discussion about the contents. Here's a sample of HMHB's genius...

National Shite Day

Pulling the ice axe from my leg
I staggered on
Spindrift stinging my remaining eye

I finally managed to reach the station
Only to find that the bus replacement service had broken down

After wondering to myself whether or not it should actually be called a train replacement service
I walked out onto the concourse and noticed the giant screen seemed to have been tampered with
Probably by a junior employee
Disgruntled commuters were being regaled with some dismal TVM
Involving a tug-of-love custody battle
Stockard Channing held sway

Down in the High Street somebody careered out of Boots without due care or attention
I suggest that they learn some pedestrian etiquette
i.e sidle out of the store gingerly
Embrace the margin

Fat kids with sausage rolls
Poor sods conducting polls

There’s a man with a mullet going mad with a mallet in Millets

I try to put everything into perspective
Set it against the scale of human suffering
And I thought of the Mugabe government
And the children of the Calcutta railways
This works for a while
But then I encounter Primark FM
Overhead a rainbow appears
In black and white

Shite Day
I guess this must be National Shite Day
This surely must be National Shite Day
Don’t tell me, it’s National Shite Day

Float… float on
Float… float on
Barry… Herpes

I got a letter from Stringy Bob:
“Still on suicide watch
Screws not happy
Spotted a marsh fritillary during association
Was roundly ignored
What news you?”
I felt sorry for him
He’d only been locked up for public nuisance offences
One of which saw him beachcombing the Dee Estuary
Found a dead wading bird
Took it home, parcelled it up, and sent it off to the rubber-faced irritant Phil Cool
With a note inside which read: “Is this your sanderling?”

Another time saw him answering an advert in the music press
“Keyboard player required: Doors, Floyd, etc.
Must be committed, no time wasters”
You can guess the rest

I’d always imagined he would simply wander off some day into the hills
To be found months later
His carcass stripped by homeless dogs
His exposed skull a perch for the quartering crow

I folded away the letter and put it in my inside pocket
All of a sudden I felt brushed by the wings of something dark
May the Lord have mercy on Stringy Bob

Shite Day
I do believe it’s National Shite Day
It all points to National Shite Day
Someone’s declared it National Shite Day

Shite Day
My birthday! On National Shite Day
No bogroll, it’s National Shite Day
Cue drumroll, it’s National Shite Day

[CycleCoach]

Getting back to the 'nitty gritty', I'll raise the stakes a little...

White Punks On Hope - Crass

They said that we were trash
Well the name is crass, not clash
They can stuff their punk credentials
Cause it's them that take the cash
They won't change nothing with their fashionable talk
All their rar badges and their protest walk
Thousands of white men standing in a park
Objecting to racism's like a candle in the dark
Black man's got his problems and his way to deal with it
So don't fool yourself you're helping with your white liberal shit
If you care to take a closer look at the way things really stand
You'd see we're all just ni**ers to the rulers of this land

Punk was once an answer to years of crap
A way of saying no where we'd always said yep
But the moment we saw a way to be free
They invented a dividing line, street credibility
The qualifying factors are politics and class
Left wing macho street fighters willing to kick arse
They said because of racism they'd come out on the street
It was just a form of fascism for the socialist elite
Bigotry and blindness, a marxist con
Another clever trick to keep us all in line
Neat little labels to keep us all apart
To keep us all divided when the troubles start

Pogo on a nazi, spit upon a jew
Vicious mindless violence that offers nothing new
Left wing violence, right wing violence, all seems much the same
Bully boys out fighting, it's just the same old game
Boring fucking politics that'll get us all shot
Left wing, right wing, you can stuff the lot
Keep your petty prejudice, I don't see the point
Anarchy and freedom is what I want

[slinger]

I've always been a fan of "story" songs, and two of my favourite artists are Al Stewart and Harry Chapin. Al often sings about historical subjects, while Harry was more of an up-close-and-personal sort of bloke.

Al's "Roads to Moscow," tells the story of the German invasion of Russia during World War II, as seen through the eyes of a Russian soldier. It's possible it's about Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Al has neither confirmed nor denied this. To me, it paints a really vivid picture of what was happening, and while some of the lines are cinematic in their depth and power, broad bright, brilliant slashes and splashes of colour on Al's chosen canvas, it still retains that personal, human, element, which allows you to enter Al's world.

Yes, that was me being all arty-farty, and I don't care.

ROADS TO MOSCOW - AL STEWART

They crossed over the border, the hour before dawn
Moving in lines through the day
Most of our planes were destroyed on the ground where they lay
Waiting for orders we held in the wood
Word from the front never came
By evening the sound of the gunfire was miles away
Ah, softly we move through the shadows, slip away through the trees
Crossing their lines in the mists in the fields on our hands and on our knees

And all that I ever
Was able to see
The fire in the air glowing red
Silhouetting the smoke on the breeze

All summer they drove us back through the Ukraine
Smolensk and Viasma soon fell
By autumn we stood with our backs to the town of Orel
Closer and closer to Moscow they come
Riding the wind like a bell
General Guderian stands at the crest of the hill
Winter brought with her the rains, oceans of mud filled the roads
Glueing the tracks of their tanks to the ground while the sky filled with snow

And all that I ever
Was able to see
The fire in the air glowing red
Silhouetting the snow on the breeze

In the footsteps of Napoleon, the shadow figures stagger through the winter
Falling back before the gates of Moscow, standing in the wings like an avenger
And far away behind their lines, the partisans are stirring in the forest
Coming unexpectedly upon their outposts, growing like a promise
You'll never know, you'll never know which way to turn, which way to look you'll never see us
As we're stealing through the blackness of the night
You'll never know, you'll never hear us

And the evening sings in a voice of amber, the dawn is surely coming
The morning roads lead to Stalingrad, and the sky is softly humming

Two broken Tigers on fire in the night
Flicker their souls to the wind
We wait in the lines for the final approach to begin
It's been almost four years that I've carried a gun
At home, it will almost be spring
The flames of the Tigers are lighting the road to Berlin
Ah, quickly we move through the ruins that bow to the ground
The old men and children they send out to face us, they can't slow us down

And all that I ever
Was able to see
The eyes of the city are opening
Now it's the end of the dream

I'm coming home, I'm coming home, now you can taste it in the wind, the war is over
And I listen to the clicking of the train wheels as we roll across the border
And now they ask me of the time that I was caught behind their lines and taken prisoner
"They only held me for a day, a lucky break, " I say they turn and listen closer
I'll never know, I'll never know why I was taken from the line and all the others
To board a special train and journey deep into the heart of Holy Russia

And it's cold and damp in the transit camp, and the air is still and sullen
And the pale sun of October whispers the snow will soon be coming
And I wonder when I'll be home again and the morning answers "Never"
And the evening sighs, and the steely Russian skies go on
...forever

Two broken Tigers on fire in the night
Flicker their souls to the wind

What a great and wonderfully descriptive couplet that is. I don't even need to close my eyes to see that picture.

[Copperblue]

“Los Angeles” by Frank Black

So many good lines, from a virtually perfect album Frank Black by Frank Black (aka Black Francis)

I met a man
He was a good man
Sailing and shoring
Dancing the beta can-can
Making me foreign
Oh yeah

I want to live in Los Angeles
Not the one in Los Angeles
No, not the one in South California
They got one in South Patagonia

I want to live in Los Angeles
Not the one Los Angeles
They got a bunch down in Moleville
They got a bunch more still

I want to live in Los Angeles
Not the one in Los Angeles
They got one in twenty-five two five
Works just like a beehive

I want to live in Los Angeles
Not the one in Los Angeles
Counting helicopters on a Saturday night
The symphony of the fair light

I hear them saying Los Angeles
In all the black and white movies
And if you think they star-spangled us
How come we say Los Angeleez?

I'll wait in Los Angeles
I'll wait in the pouring sun
No way
For not anyone
No way
I met a man
He was a good man
Sailing and shoring
He got a betatron, man
Talking that foreign
Oh yeah
I'll wait in Los Angeles
I'll wait in the pouring sun
No way
For not anyone
No way
I'll wait in Los Angeles
I'll wait in the pouring sun
No way
For not anyone
No way

[slinger]

Never Buy the Sun
Billy Bragg

Someone's hiding in the bushes with a telephoto lens
While their editor assures them the means justifies the ends
'Cause "we only hunt celebrities", it's all a bit of fun
The Scousers never buy the Sun

The parents of the missing girl cling desperately to hope
A copper takes improper payments in a thick brown envelope
And no one in the newsroom asks "Where's this headline from?"
Scousers never buy the Sun

Tabloids make their money betting bullshit baffles brains
And they cynically hold up their hands if anyone complains
And they say: "All we're doing is giving people what they want"
Well, they're crying out for justice, people crying out for justice

And the man they call "The Digger" casts a proprietary eye
Over what happens in the gutter and what goes on in the sky
And he claims he's fit and proper and the watchdog sings his song
But the Scousers never buy the Sun

International executives, they hang their heads in shame
And tell us with their hands on heart, the paper boy's to blame
But you who love that kiss and tell, you must bear some guilt as well
Scousers never buy the Sun

Tabloids make their millions betting bullshit baffles brains
And they cynically hold up their hands if anyone complains
And they say: "All we're doing is giving people what they want"
Well, they're crying out for justice, people crying out for justice

In the corridors of power they all sit down to sup
With the devil and his minions, and they ask for his opinions
And the politicians wring their hands and cry: "What's to be done?"
But the Scousers never buy the Sun

No one comes out looking good when all is said and done
But the Scousers never buy the Sun

[r3xj0hn570n]

"Turnex, the son of durex, the only blender that can be turned into the most powerful vacuum cleaner!"

Or are we being serious?

"Just as you sow you shall reap"