Lyrics Lane: Part Deux

[mightyjack]

Post and discuss lyrics that move or groove or inspire you
Dedicate and resonate and never seem to tire you

****

When I watched the Grey's Anatomy Rifftrax, I heard a familiar tune, "Hey!", I sputtered with glee, "It's my song!" and it was.

Indy folk rock band, Rilo Kiley's brilliant album, "More Adventurous" features a song I always call, "Bad News", but they took a quote from the Bible and titled it...

Portions For Foxes
written by: Jenny Lewis

There's blood in my mouth 'cause I've been biting my tongue all week
I keep on talkin' trash but I never say anything
And the talkin' leads to touchin'
and the touchin' leads to sex
and then there is no mystery left

And it's bad news
Baby, I'm bad news
I'm just bad news, bad news, bad news

I know I'm alone if I'm with or without you
but just being around you offers me another form of relief
When the lonliness leads to bad dreams
and the bad dreams lead me to callin' you
and I call you and say "C'mere!"

And it's bad news
Baby, I'm bad news
I'm just bad news, bad news, bad news (2x)

'Cause you're just damage control
for a walking corpse like me - like you

'Cause we'll all be
Portions for foxes
Yeah, we'll all be
Portions for foxes

There's a pretty young thing in front of you
and she's real pretty and she's real into you
and then she's sleepin' inside of you
and the talkin' leads to touchin'
and the touchin' leads to sex
and then there is no mystery left

And it's bad news
I don't blame you
I do the same thing
I get lonely too

And you're bad news
My friends tell me to leave you
That you're bad news, bad news, bad news

You're bad news
Baby you're bad news
and you're bad news
Baby you're bad news
and you're bad news
I don't care, I like you
and you're bad news
I don't care, I like you
I like you

***

I really like Jenny's lyrics and the way she brings 'em to life when she sings them

[Broadsword]

It's back cool.
Now for a surprise band Jethro Tull ;D

Too Old to Rock 'N' Roll: Too Young to Die
The old Rocker wore his hair too long,
wore his trouser cuffs too tight.
Unfashionable to the end drank his ale too light.
Death's head belt buckle yesterday's dreams
the transport cafe prophet of doom.
Ringing no change in his double-sewn seams
in his post-war-babe gloom.
Now he's too old to Rock'n'Roll but he's too young to die.

He once owned a Harley Davidson and a Triumph Bonneville.
Counted his friends in burned-out spark plugs
and prays that he always will.
But he's the last of the blue blood greaser boys
all of his mates are doing time:
married with three kids up by the ring road
sold their souls straight down the line.

And some of them own little sports cars
and meet at the tennis club do's.
For drinks on a Sunday work on Monday.
They've thrown away their blue suede shoes.

Now they're too old to Rock'n'Roll and they're too young to die.

So the old Rocker gets out his bike
to make a ton before he takes his leave.
Up on the A1 by Scotch Corner
just like it used to be.
And as he flies tears in his eyes
his wind-whipped words echo the final take
and he hits the trunk road doing around 120
with no room left to brake.

And he was too old to Rock'n'Roll but he was too young to die.

No, you're never too old to Rock'n'Roll if you're too young to die.

[Phantom Engineer]

I feel compelled to make a statement. Like the first Lyrics Lane thread if people just post lyrics and leave then this isn't really different that Tusk! in Sloane. I'm guessing the intent of this thread, as was the original thread, is to comment on and/or discuss what you think of the lyrics, what they mean to you.
I didn't start this or the other thread so I'm just guessing but I'm hoping that there will be discussion here, not just post and run.

Thank you for your time.



PS, not trying to single you out Broadsword, just the luck of the draw.

[mccloud]

I particularly like Richard Thompson lyrics, because he tells a lot of stories, little mini-dramas.


Here we stand in sheets of rain
Parting ways, loved in vain
Never knew you'd be the reckless kind

I reached out to catch your fall
Said you needed a place to crawl
Never knew you'd be the reckless kind

The reckless kind, the reckless kind
The reckless kind, the reckless kind
You're his not mine

They say you run with a breakneck crowd
Live your love scenes right out loud
Break hearts all around, you're the reckless kind

You said you were well satisfied
Proud to see me by your side
Pride's a worthless thing to the reckless kind

The reckless kind, the reckless kind
The reckless kind, the reckless kind
You're his not mine

Love lies shattered on the ground
Jagged pieces all around
Say you'll come back but I know you're the reckless kind

Oh the reckless kind, the reckless kind
The reckless kind, the reckless kind
You're his not mine
His not mine
You're the reckless kind
The reckless kind
The reckless kind

"The Reckless Kind" 1988, Amnesia

[Phantom Engineer]

The Reckless Kind is a great song. He has a great way with those heartbreaking love-lorn songs.

[mccloud]

One of my favorite songs ever...

Oh says Red Molly to James "That's a fine motorbike.
A girl could feel special on any such like"
Says James to Red Molly "My hat's off to you
It's a Vincent Black Lightning, 1952.
And I've seen you at the corners and cafes it seems
Red hair and black leather, my favourite colour scheme"
And he pulled her on behind and down to Boxhill they did ride
Oh says James to Red Molly "Here's a ring for your right hand
But I'll tell you in earnest I'm a dangerous man.
For I've fought with the law since I was seventeen,
I robbed many a man to get my Vincent machine.
Now I'm 21 years, I might make 22
And I don't mind dying, but for the love of you.
And if fate should break my stride
Then I'll give you my Vincent to ride"

"Come down, come down, Red Molly" called Sergeant McRae
"For they've taken young James Adie for armed robbery.
Shotgun blast hit his chest, left nothing inside.
Oh come down, Red Molly to his dying bedside"
When she came to the hospital, there wasn't much left
He was running out of road, he was running out of breath
But he smiled to see her cry
He said "I'll give you my Vincent to ride"

Says James "In my opinion, there's nothing in this world
Beats a 52 Vincent and a red headed girl.
Now Nortons and Indians and Greeves won't do,
Ah, they don't have a soul like a Vincent 52"
Oh he reached for her hand and he slipped her the keys
Said "I've got no further use for these.
I see angels on Ariels in leather and chrome,
Swooping down from heaven to carry me home"
And he gave her one last kiss and died
And he gave her his Vincent to ride

[lilacetoile]

I like "One Hippopotami" by Allan Sherman.

One hippopotami cannot get on a bus,
Because one hippopotami is two hippopotamus.
And if you have two goose, that makes one geese.
A pair of mouse is mice. A pair of moose is meese.

A paranoia is a bunch of mental blocks.
And when Ben Casey meets Kildaire, that's called a paradox.
When two minks fall in love, with all their heart and soul,
You'll find the plural of two minks is one mink stole.

Singulars and plurals are so different, bless my soul.
Has it ever occurred to you that the plural of "half" is "whole"?

A bunch of tooth is teeth. A group of foot is feet.
And two canaries make a pair--they call it a parakeet.
A paramecium is not a pair.
A parallelogram is just a crazy square.

Nobody knows just what a paraphernalia is.
And what is half a pair of scissors, but a single sciz?
With someone you adore, if you should find romance,
You'll pant, and pant once more, and that's a pair of pants!

[mightyjack]

I wonder if I've heard that "Reckless" song? I'll have to check out Thompson, I liked what I read.

John Lennon's Working Class Hero is a song that always moved me. I mean, it really clutched at my heat and spirit from the first.

I remember being a young lad, just starting off attempting to write songs and thinking, "Damn, if I could ever get close to writing lyrics like this I'd die happy"

Poignant, raw and very true. Anyone who thinks his post Beatles work never came close to being as good... um, well is wrong is all I'm saying.


As soon as your born they make you feel small,
By giving you no time instead of it all,
Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all,
A working class hero is something to be,
A working class hero is something to be.

They hurt you at home and they hit you at school,
They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool,
Till you're so f---ing crazy you can't follow their rules,
A working class hero is something to be,
A working class hero is something to be.

When they've tortured and scared you for twenty odd years,
Then they expect you to pick a career,
When you can't really function you're so full of fear,
A working class hero is something to be,
A working class hero is something to be.

Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV,
And you think you're so clever and classless and free,
But you're still f---ing peasants as far as I can see,
A working class hero is something to be,
A working class hero is something to be.

There's room at the top they are telling you still,
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill,
If you want to be like the folks on the hill,
A working class hero is something to be.
A working class hero is something to be.

If you want to be a hero well just follow me,
If you want to be a hero well just follow me.


***

Damn, it still puts chills down my spine.

[Phantom Engineer]

Well not too surprisingly Mighty Jack I differ with you. I'm a Beatles fan and a Lennon fan but I have never cared for Working Class Hero. I think it's very well intentioned, and poetically well written but heavy handed and an obvious attempt at Dylanesque.
Now to me a better song about beating the spirit out of people and decrying the ills of society channeling children into predetermined class positions would go back to Richard Thompson with "You Can;'t Win."
And with most songs hearing the lyrics with the music has more impact but here they are.



I started to cry, they put gin in my cup
I started to crawl and they swaddled me up
I got up and run, they said, easy son
Play up, play the game

They told me to think and forget what I'd heard
They told me to lie and then questioned my word
They taught me to fail, better sink than sail
Just play the game

Oh towers will tumble and locusts will visit the land
Oh a curse on your house and your children and the fruit of your hand

They said you can't win, you can't win
You sweat blood, you give in
You can't win, you can't win
Turn the cheek, take it on the chin
Don't you dare do this don't you dare do that
We shoot down dreams, we stiletto in the back
The nerve of some people, the nerve of some people
The nerve of some people
I don't know who you think you are, who you think you are

Oh what kind of mother would hamstring her sons
Throw sand in their eyes and put ice on their tongues
Better to leave than stay here and grieve
And play the game

Don't waken the dead as you sleepwalk around
If you have a dream, brother, hush, not a sound
Stand there and rust, and die if you must
But play the game

Oh if we can't have it, why should a wretch like you?
Oh it was drilled in our heads, now we drill it into your head too

You can't win, you can't win
You sweat blood, you give in
You can't win, you can't win
Turn the cheek, take it on the chin
Don't you dare do this don't you dare do that
We harpoon dreams, we stiletto in the back
The nerve of some people, the nerve of some people
The nerve of some people, the nerve of some people

[mightyjack]

phantomengineer said:

Well not too surprisingly Mighty Jack I differ with you. I'm a Beatles fan and a Lennon fan but I have never cared for Working Class Hero. I think it's very well intentioned, and poetically well written but heavy handed and an obvious attempt at Dylanesque.
Now to me a better song about beating the spirit out of people and decrying the ills of society channeling children into predetermined class positions would go back to Richard Thompson with "You Can;'t Win."
And with most songs hearing the lyrics with the music has more impact but here they are.

MJ wept...

"Well not too surprisingly Mighty Jack I differ with you."

I think you have me confused with Mr. A - I thought we got along fine musically.

Dismissing the tune as being merely Dylanesque doesn't wash with me. Everyone has their inspirations, but simply waiving this song away like that, would be comparable to going, "Dylan, Me'h, he's just riffing on Woody Guthrie" - I'd be missing the forest for the trees.

And this isn't an obvious Dylan riff the way "You've got to hide your love away" was. While there are echoes, it is distinctly Lennon, especially when heard in context with the rest of the album.

The Thompson lyrics are brilliant, but your comparing apples and oranges (or would that be, two distinct sides of the same coin?). Same theme yes, but the entire "Plastic Ono Band" album isn't John being poetic, pretty or flexing his lyric muscles to impress you. It's raw, sparse, often ugly. It isn't an easy listen (even when he does get pretty, lyrically it's very direct) it's just the truth of his life. Warts and all.

That's the genius of it. And it is one of the most important and meaningful songs in my life, and frankly, because of its direct nature, it touches me more deeply than the Thompson's take on the theme.

I have a friend I've been trying to get to listen to it. She thinks she's the only one whose gone through this stuff. I think she needs to hear these lyrics - on its direct, raw terms- so she can hear that what she feels isn't so alien and unique.

When a song can be used to reach out like that, its importance can't be measured (The whole damn album for that matter does the same. I want her to hear "Mother" as well)

Anyway, that's my 2 cents. If I sounded like a zealot, it's just that the lyrics mean a lot to me and I get very empassioned when discussing it.

[Phantom Engineer]

mightyjack said:

Anyway, that's my 2 cents. If I sounded like a zealot, it's just that the lyrics mean a lot to me and I get very empassioned when discussing it.

And a great 2 cents it is. Of course I'm not trying to dismiss your opinion, just differing.
And while I do have a lot more musical taste in common with you than I do with Mr. A, we still differ a lot. Ain't it grand!

[mightyjack]

it tis, it tis...

And while I'm thinking of it. "Mother", from the same album. Again, as with the rest of the CD. This isn't the "clean, weaver of deft lyrics" John. This is John leveling a punch to the jaw, filling my mouth with blood. This is an uppercut to the gut, which drops me and has me desperately trying to draw in a breath.

When he screams out the final lines (for what, about 2 minutes) it isn't pretty, it's isn't fancy, there nothing clever at all about it. But it stuns me with all the pain and emotion displayed there. You can hear the little boy in him screaming, hoping and failing to keep his mom and dad with him.

Again a song my friend needs to hear. My family was more "Leave it to Beaver", my stories don't hold much weight. But this guy, darlin' this guy knows what you went through.

(clock chiming)
Mother, you had me but I never had you,
I wanted you but you didn't want me,
So I got to tell you,
Goodbye, goodbye.

Father, you left me but I never left you,
I needed you but you didn't need me,
So I got to tell you,
Goodbye, goodbye.

Children, don't do what I have done,
I couldn't walk and I tried to run,
So I got to tell you,
Goodbye, goodbye.

Mama don't go,
Daddy come home.
Mama don't go,
Daddy come home.
Mama don't go...

[Truck Farmer]

This is from Traveling Wilburys vol 1

Tweeter And The Monkey Man

Tweeter and the Monkey Man were hard up for cash
They stayed up all night selling cocaine and hash
To an undercover cop who had a sister named Jan
For reasons unexplained she loved the Monkey Man.

Tweeter was a boy scout before she went to Vietnam
And found out the hard way nobody gives a damn
They knew that they found freedom just acros the Jersey line
So they hopped into a stolen car took Highway 99

And the walls came down
All the way to hell
Never saw them when they're standing
Never saw them when they fell

The undercover cop never liked the Monkey Man
Even back in childhood he wanted to see him in the can
Jan got married at fourteen to a racketeer named Bill
She made secret calls to the Monkey Man from a mansion on the hill

It was out on Thunder Road - Tweeter at the wheel
They crashed into paradise - They could hear them tires squeal
The undercover cop pulled and said "Everyone of you's a liar
If you don't surrender now it's gonna go down to the wire"

And the walls came down
All the way to hell
Never saw them when they're standing
Never saw them when they fell

An ambulance rolled up - a state trooper close behind
Tweeter took his gun away and messed up his mind
The undercover cop was left tied up to a tree
Near the souveneir stand by the old abandoned factory

Next day the undercover cop was hot in pursuit
He was taking the whole thing personal
He didn't care about the loot
Jan had told him many times it was you to me who taught
In Jersey anything's legal as long as you don't get caught

And the walls came down
All the way to hell
Never saw them when they're standing
Never saw them when they fell

Someplace by Rahway prison they ran out of gas
The undercover cop had cornered them said
"Boy you didn't think that this could last"
Jan jumped out of bed said "There's someplace I gotta go"
She took a gun out of the drawer and said "It's best if you don't know"

The undercover cop was found face down in a field
The Monkey Man was on the river bridge using Tweeter as a shield
Jan said to the Monkey Man "I'm not fooled by Tweeter's curl
I knew him long before he ever became a Jersey girl"

And walls came down
All the way to hell
Never saw them when they're standing
Never saw them when they fell

Now the town of Jersey City is quieting down again
I'm sitting in a gambling club called the Lion's Den
The TV set been blown up, every bit of it gone
Ever since the nightly news show that the Monkey Man was on

I guess I'll go to Florida and get myself some sun
There ain't no more opportunity here, everything's been done
Sometime I think of Tweeter, sometime I think of Jan
Sometime I don't think about nothing but the Monkey Man

And the walls came down
All the way to hell
Never saw them when they're standing
Never saw them when they fell

[mightyjack]

Love that song Barry, here's one from the 13th Floor Elevators that I always liked. The songs is a departure from the psychedelia and is just a straight forward, pretty folk rock tune.

I Had to Tell You
(C. Hall/R. Erickson)

Chaos all around me,
with it's fevered clinging,
but I can hear you singing,
in the corners of my brain.

Every doubt that bounds me.
Every sound of riot.
Everything is quiet.
But the song that keeps me sane.

I can hear you're voice,
echoing my voice softly.
I can feel your strength,
reinforcing mine.

If you fear I'll lose my spirit,
like a drunkard's wasted wine,
don't you even think about it,
I'm feeling' fine.

[mightyjack]

I've been listening to that Death Cab For Cutie album I recently purchased and am really, really impressed with the lyrics. How old is this guy, Gibbard, that he should have such insights. The song about marriage is so damn real it's scary and then there's this one about lingering in Hospital, waiting for a loved one to die. It's painful, poetic and so stright to the heart true.

I am completely knocked out by this guys talents as a songwriter. And this tune moves me to tears.

What Sarah Said

And it came to me then that every plan is a tiny prayer to father time
As I stared at my shoes in the ICU that reeked of piss and 409
And I rationed my breathes as I said to myself that I'd already taken too much today
As each descending peak of the LCD took you a little farther away from me

Amongst the vending machines and year-old magazines in a place where we only say goodbye
It stung like a violent wind that out memories depend on a faulty camera in our minds
But I knew that you were a truth I would rather lose than to have never lain beside at all
And I looked around at all the eyes on the ground as the TV entertained itself

'Cause there's no comfort in the waiting room
Just nervous pacers bracing for bad news
And then the nurse comes round and everyone will lift their heads
But I'm thinking of what Sarah said that "Love is watching someone die"

So who's going to watch you die?..