Top 10 Lyrics to die for

[philipmchugh]

Top Lyric To Die For (in no particular order)

1) 'Long ago and oh, so far away...' SUPERSTAR Russell/Bramlett

2) 'Ev'ry sha-la-la-la- ev'ry wo- wo- still shines.' YESTERDAY ONCE MORE Carpenter /Bettis

3) 'And freedom, oh,- freedom,- well, that's just some people talkin'' DESPERADO Henley/Frey

4) 'No regrets - No tears goodbye - Don't want you back - We'd only cry again - Say goodbye again' NO REGRETS Tom Rush

5) 'We both know what memories can bring - They bring diamonds and rust' DIAMONDS AND RUST Joan Baez

6) 'Rain, sea, surf, sand, clouds and sky - Hush now baby, don't you cry' MOCKINGBIRD Barclay James Harvest

7) 'You played dead - But you never bled - Instead you lay still in the grass - All coiled up and hissin' KEEP ON LOVING YOU Kevin Cronin

8) 'See him driving those golden nails - that hold together the silver bars - That one day gonna take us to the stars - cos he's the man who built America' THE MAN WHO BUILT AMERICA Horslips

9) 'And so the pride of little men - The burghers good and true - Still living through the painter's hand - Request you all to understand' THE NIGHT WATCH King Crimson

10) 'I'm headin home again - 'Cause it seems I don't fit in. - And the world ain't all I thought that it would be.' MY RAINBOW VALLEY Cason and Gayden

Add your favourites.

[JKL2000]

'Down the windy halls of friendship, To the rose clipped by the bullwhip' THRASHER Neil Young

[Gruno]

"I volunteered you my eyes in place of facing me" -- Top by Live.

[StevegSr]

As I walked over North Bartley Copse
I saw a fine lady ghost across the top
with the rings on her fingers and the wind on her toes
She can have music where ever she goes.


Those were the days in the cradle of our love,

Those were the days I dream of sweetly,

Those were the days and I thank the stars above,

The flycatcher, the cherry tree, the coal fire and sea.


The Flycatcher-R Harper

[ronmac]

Working Class Hero -- John Lennon

As soon as you're born they make you feel small
By giving you no time instead of it all
'Til 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
'Til you're so fucking 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 20 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 T.V.
And you think you're so clever and classless and free
But you're still fucking 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

[walt]

Every line of For Free, by Joni Mitchell.Lyrical genius,imo.

[ronmac]

So now as I’m leavin’
I’m weary as Hell
The confusion I’m feelin’
Ain’t no tongue can tell
The words fill my head
And fall to the floor
If God’s on our side
He’ll stop the next war

[StevegSr]

So now as I’m leavin’
I’m weary as Hell
The confusion I’m feelin’
Ain’t no tongue can tell
The words fill my head
And fall to the floor
If God’s on our side
He’ll stop the next war

Yes, I used to be politically and socially conscious too, but now I'm just romantic. LOL

[rcarlberg]

"It doesn't mean that much to me, to mean that much to you... - Neil Young

[Zonefish]

"I eat at Chez Nous" (ducks)

In the more serious vein:

"In your eyes I see the resolution to all the fruitless searches" PG

[Socrates]

Hortz fur dehn Štëkëhn Ẁešt
Hortz zï ẁëhr dünt Da Ëhrtz
Hortz da felt dos Fünker
Hortz Zëbëhn dë Ğeuštaah

MDK, of course

I honestly can't think of many songs where the lyrics bear as many repeated listenings as the music, so there is a lot to be said for singing in Kobaian.

[The Dark Elf]

Baker Street Muse

[Baker Street Muse]

Windy bus-stop. Click. Shop-window. Heel.
Shady gentleman. Fly-button. Feel.
In the underpass, the blind man stands.
With cold flute hands.
Symphony match-seller, breath out of time.
You can call me on another line.
Indian restaurants that curry my brain.
Newspaper warriors changing the names they advertise from the station stand.
With cold print hands.
Symphony word-player, I'll be your headline.
If you catch me another time.

Didn't make her
with my Baker Street Ruse.
Couldn't shake her
with my Baker Street Bruise.
Like to take her
but I'm just a Baker Street Muse.

Ale-spew, puddle-brew
boys, throw it up clean.
Coke and Bacardi colours them green.
From the typing pool goes the mini-skirted princess with great finesse.
Fertile earth-mother, your burial mound is fifty feet down in the Baker Street underground. (What the hell!)
Walking down the gutter thinking,
"How the hell am I today?"
Well, I didn't really ask you but thanks all the same.

[Pygmy And The Whore]

"Big bottled Fraulein, put your weight on me," said the Pygmy to the Whore,
desperate for more in his assault upon the mountain.
Little man, his youth a fountain.
Over-drafted and still counting.
Vernacular, verbose; an attempt at getting close to where he came from.
In the doorway of the stars, between Blandford Street and Mars;
Proposition, deal. Flying button feel. Testicle testing.
Wallet ever-bulging. Dressed to the left, divulging the wrinkles of his years.
Wedding-bell induced fears.
Shedding bell-end tears in the pocket of her resistance.
International assistance flowing generous and full to his never-ready tool.
Pulls his eyes over her wool.
And he shudders as he comes.
And my rudder slowly turns me into the Marleybone Road.

[Crash-Barrier Waltzer]

And here slip I
dragging one foot in the gutter
in the midnight echo of the shop that sells cheap radios.
And there sits she
no bed, no bread, no butter
on a double yellow line
where she can park anytime.
Old Lady Grey; crash-barrier waltzer
some only son's mother. Baker Street casualty.
Oh, Mr. Policeman
blue shirt ballet master.
Feet in sticking plaster
move the old lady on.
Strange pas-de-deux
his Romeo to her Juliet.
Her sleeping draught, his poisoned regret.
No drunken bums allowed to sleep here in the crowded emptiness.
Oh officer, let me send her to a cheap hotel
I'll pay the bill and make her well - like hell you bloody will!
No do-good over kill. We must teach them to be still more independent.

[Mother England Reverie]

I have no time for Time Magazine or Rolling Stone.
I have no wish for wishing wells or wishing bones.
I have no house in the country I have no motor car.
And if you think I'm joking, then I'm just a one-line joker in a public bar.
And it seems there's no-body left for tennis; and I'm a one-band-man.
And I want no Top Twenty funeral or a hundred grand.
There was a little boy stood on a burning log,
rubbing his hands with glee. He said, "Oh Mother England,
did you light my smile; or did you light this fire under me?
One day I'll be a minstrel in the gallery.
And paint you a picture of the queen.
And if sometimes I sing to a cynical degree
it's just the nonsense that it seems."

So I drift down through the Baker Street valley,
in my steep-sided un-reality.
And when all is said and all is done
I couldn't wish for a better one.
It's a real-life ripe dead certainty
that I'm just a Baker Street Muse.

Talking to the gutter-stinking, winking in the same old way.
I tried to catch my eye but I looked the other way.

Indian restaurants that curry my brain
newspaper warriors changing the names they advertise from the station stand.
Circumcised with cold print hands.

Windy bus-stop. Click. Shop-window. Heel.
Shady gentleman. Fly-button. Feel.
In the underpass, the blind man stands.
With cold flute hands.
Symphony match-seller, breath out of time
you can call me on another line.

Didn't make her
with my Baker Street Ruse.
Couldn't shake her
with my Baker Street Bruise.
Like to take her
but I'm just a Baker Street Muse.

(I can't get out!)

[ronmac]

Yes, I used to be politically and socially conscious too, but now I'm just romantic. LOL

They're not mutually exclusive, ya know.

[The Other One]

They gave me a nine to five. Ain't living but I'm alive - Four Seasons, Silver Star

He's the hairy-handed gent who ran amok in Kent - Warren Zevon, Werewolves of London

Where the seeds have withered, silent children shivered in the cold. Now their faces captured in the lenses of the jackals for gold - ELP, Karn Evil 9

Call up room service, order peaches and cream. I like my dessert first if you know what I mean - ELP, Taste of My Love

[GuitarGeek]

If we're talking individual lines or couplets, a few of my favorites:

"Until the day I take your hand/In the land/That our grand/children knew"- '39, Dr. Brian May

"For every star in heaven/There's a sad soul here today"- Long Away, Dr. Brian May

"Ripple in still water
When there is no pebble tossed
Nor wind to blow"- Ripple, Robert Hunter

"A broken angel sings/From a guitar"- Stella Blue, Robert Hunter

"A box of rain/will ease the pain/and love/will see you through"- Box Of Rain, Robert Hunter

"Be a sabotage rebel/without a cause"- High Rise, Robert Calvert

"Your android replica is playing up again
It's no joke
When she comes,
she moans another's name"- Spirt Of The Age, Robert Calvert

"Mr Blue, you've made it right
But soon comes Mr. Night
Creeping over
His hand is on your shoulder
Never mind I'll remember you this way"- Mr. Blue Sky, Jeff Lynne

"She's a dancer
A romancer
I'm a Capricorn
And she's a Cancer"- C'mon And Love Me, Paul Stanley

"Different hearts beat on different strings"- Different Strings, Geddy Lee

"What would touch you deeper
Than tears that flow
From eyes that know"- Tears, Geddy Lee

"Try to be a simple
Kind of man
Try to be something
You'll love and understand"- Simple Man, Ronnie Van Zandt

"In a place you only dream of
Where your soul is always free
Silver stages, golden curtains
Filled my head, plain as can be
As a rainbow grew around the sun
All the stars above who died came from
Somewhere beyond the scene you see
These lovely people played just for me

Now if I let you see this place
Where stories all ring true
Will you let me past your face
To see what's really you
It's not for me I ask this question
As though I were a king
For you have to love, believe, and feel
Before the burst of tambourines take you there

Green grass and high tides forever
Castles of stone, souls and glory
Lost faces say we adore you
As kings and queens bow and play for you

Those who don't believe me
Find your souls and set them free
Those who do, believe and know
This time will be your key
Time and time again I've thanked them
For a peace of mind
That helped me find myself
Amongst the music and the rhyme
That enchants you there

Green grass and high tides forever
Castles of stone, souls and glory
Lost faces say we adore you
As kings and queens bow and play for you" Green Grass And High Tides, Hughie Thomasson

[-=RTFR666=-]

I don't really hate you.
I don't care what you do.
We were made for each other,
me and you.
I want to be somebody
You were like that, too
If you don't get given, you learn to take
And I will take you.

Holding my breath
Release the catch
And I let the bullet fly.

[JKL2000]

"You treated my woman to a flake of your life..." - LEONARD COHEN "Famous Blue Raincoat"

[JKL2000]

The whole song really, of course:

"Day after day
Alone on a hill
The man with the foolish grin
Is keeping perfectly still
But nobody wants to know him
They can see that he's just a fool
And he never gives an answer
But the fool on the hill
Sees the sun going down
And the eyes in his head
See the world spinning round"

[Buddhabreath]

Searching for diamonds in a sulfur mine,
leaning on props which are rotten,
hoping for anything, looking for a sign
that I am not forgotten.
Lost in a labyrinth of future mystery,
tracing my steps, all mistaken,
trusting to everything, praying it can be
that I am not forsaken.

[Buddhabreath]

And though dark is the highway
and the peak's distance breaks my heart,
for I never shall see it, still I play my part,
believing that what waits for us
is the cosmos compared to the dust of the
past...
in the death of mere Human life shall start

[Buddhabreath]

Working Class Hero -- John Lennon

Right on ronmac - that used to be a staple of my singin' & strumming 'round the campfire repertoire. A good song to excavate and revitalize in these dark days of incipient American Fascism...

[notallwhowander]

When the night has come
And the land is dark
And the moon is the only light we'll see
No I won't be afraid
Oh, I won't be afraid
Just as long as you stand, stand by me

So darling, darling
Stand by me, oh stand by me
Oh stand, stand by me
Stand by me

If the sky that we look upon
Should tumble and fall
Or the mountain should crumble to the sea
I won't cry, I won't cry
No, I won't shed a tear
Just as long as you stand, stand by me

And darling, darling
Stand by me, oh stand by me
Oh stand now, stand by me
Stand by me

So darling, darling
Stand by me, oh stand by me
Oh stand now, stand by me, stand by me
Whenever you're in trouble won't you stand by me
Oh stand by me, won't you stand now, oh, stand
Stand by me

- Ben E. King

[The Dark Elf]

What I dream I had:
Pressed in organdy;
Clothed in crinoline of smoky Burgundy;
Softer than the rain.
I wandered empty streets
Down past the shop displays.
I heard cathedral bells
Tripping down the alley ways,
As I walked on.
-- For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her, Simon & Garfunkel

Well, the deputy walks on hard nails and the preacher rides a mount
But nothing really matters much, it's doom alone that counts
And the one-eyed undertaker, he blows a futile horn
Come in, she said
I'll give ya shelter from the storm
-- Shelter From the Storm, Bob Dylan

When you pissed yourself in Frankfurt and got syph down in Cologne
And you heard the rattling death trains as you lay there all alone
Frank Ryan brought you whiskey in a brothel in Madrid
And you decked some fucking blackshirt who was cursing all the yids
At the sick bed of Cuchulainn we'll kneel and say a prayer
And the ghosts are rattling at the door and the devil's in the chair
-- The Sick Bed of Cuchulainn, The Pogues

Starry, starry night
Portraits hung in empty halls
Frameless heads on nameless walls
With eyes that watch the world and can't forget

Like the strangers that you've met
The ragged men in ragged clothes
The silver thorn of bloody rose
Lie crushed and broken on the virgin snow
-- Starry, Starr Night, Don McLean

The scattered pages of a book by the sea
Held by the sand, washed by the waves
A shadow forms cast by a cloud,
Skimming by as eyes of the past, but the rising tide
Absorbs them effortlessly claiming.
-- Can-Utility and the Coastliners, Genesis

We'll wait in stone circles
`til the force comes through ---
lines joint in faint discord
and the storm watch brews
a concert of kings
as the white sea snaps
at the heels of a soft prayer
whispered
-- Dun Ringill, Jethro Tull

[GuitarGeek]

OH and I forgot this one from the song Snake Charmer by Doyle Bramhall II:

"When I die
I hope I go to heaven
So I don't have to see
Your face again"

[Dave (in MA)]

A good song to excavate and revitalize in these dark days of incipient American Fascism...

There's always the possibility that she won't get elected.