Recommend great lyricists

[drag ass snag]

I love Jeff's lyrics so much that sometimes when listening to them I literally explode with joy.

 

Can anyone recommend other lyric-persons who write similar or comparable impressionistic/poetic/abstract lyrics? And quote a favourite line, yo. I'll start!

 

Michael Stipe - 'Up to buy, Katie buys a kitchen-size, but not me in / Setting trap for the big kill, waste o' time, sitting still'

 

Van Dyke Parks - 'Over and over the crow cries uncover the cornfield'

 

Bob Dylan - 'Not a word was spoke between us, there was little risk involved / Everything up to that point had been left unresolved.'

[Is Chicago Is Not Chicago]

Leonard Cohen "and Jesus was a sailor/when he walked upon the water"

[lizish]

Craig Finn has done it for me lately

 

hey citrus

hey liquor

I love it when when you touch each other

hey whiskey

hey ginger

I come to you with rigid fingers.

 

i see judas in the hard eyes of the boys working the corners.

i feel jesus in the clumsiness of young and awkward lovers.

 

hey barroom

hey tavern

I find hope in all the souls you gather.

hey citrus

hey liquor

I love it when we come together.

 

I feel jesus in the clumsiness of young and awkward lovers.

I feel judas in the long odds of the rackets on the corners.

I feel jesus in the tenderness of honest nervous lovers.

I feel judas in the pistols and the pagers that come with all the powders.

 

lost in fog and love and faithless fear.

I've had kisses that make Judas seem sincere.

[MattZ]

David berman:

 

"and they slow danced so the needle wouldn't skip"

[SarahC]

rhett miller:

I remember the Alamo, I don't recall who won

They had swords, they had horses, I hear we had mighty guns

Like the ones from Navarone last night on Channel 21

It's a long way back to El Paso.

 

It was early Monday morning in the Central Standard Zone

You were quiet like the TV, hung up like the telephone

You were sleeping next to me, I might as well have been

alone

It's a long way back to El Paso.

 

CHORUS

And if my heart was a car, you would have stripped it a

long time ago.

And if my heart was a car, you would have stripped it a

long time ago.

And if my heart was a car

 

You would have stripped it down and sold it off

To the greasy man in the salvage lot

As it is it's just a heart

No, no, it ain't worth nothin'.

 

I ain't talkin' bout tomorrow, I'm talkin' 'bout tonight

You told me you were drunk already, that don't make it

right

You want at me, well, have at it, 'cause I'm in the mood to

fight

And it's a long way back to El Paso.

 

And if my heart was a car, you would have stripped it a

long time ago.

And if my heart was a car, you would have stripped it a

long time ago.

 

And if my heart was a car, you would have stripped it a

long time ago.

And if my heart was a,

And if my heart was a,

And if my heart was a car,

[viatroy]

One of my favorite lines is by Jim James of MMJ: loaded questions in an automatic world.

 

and then there's this:

 

Do you still sing of the mountain bed we made of limbs and leaves?

Do you still sigh there near the sky where the holly berry bleeds?

You laughed as I covered you over with leaves

Face, breast, hips, and thighs

You smiled when I said the leaves were just the color of your eyes

 

Rosin smells and turpentine smells from eucalyptus and pine

Bitter tastes of twigs we chewed where tangled wood vines twine

Trees held us in on all four sides so thick we could not see

I could not see any wrong in you, and you saw none in me

 

Your arm was brown against the ground, your cheeks part of the sky

Your fingers played with grassy moss, as limber you did lie

Your stomach moved beneath your shirt and your knees were in the air

Your feet played games with mountain roots as you lay thinking there

 

Below us the trees grew clumps of trees, raised families of trees, and they

As proud as we tossed their heads in the wind and flung good seeds away

The sun was hot and the sun was bright down in the valley below

Where people starved and hungry for life so empty come and go

 

There in the shade and hid from the sun we freed our minds and learned

Our greatest reason for being here, our bodies moved and burned

There on our mountain bed of leaves we learned life's reason why

The people laugh and love and dream, they fight, they hate to die

 

The smell of your hair I know is still there, if most of our leaves are blown

Our words still ring in the brush and the trees where singing seeds are sown

Your shape and form is dim but plain, there on our mountain bed

I see my life was brightest where you laughed and laid your head...

 

I learned the reason why man must work and how to dream big dreams

To conquer time and space and fight the rivers and the seas

I stand here filled with my emptiness now and look at city and land

And I know why farms and cities are built by hot, warm, nervous hands

 

I crossed many states just to stand here now, my face all hot with tears

I crossed city, and valley, desert, and stream, to bring my body here

My history and future blaze bright in me and all my joy and pain

Go through my head on our mountain bed where I smell your hair again.

 

 

For this example alone, and there are others, I think the Woody/Jeff duo may be the greatest collaborative

songwriting effort ever.

[Synthesizer Patel]

right now, i am liking joanna newsom's lyrics a lot:

 

And the moment I slept I was swept up in a terrible tremor

Though no longer bereft, how I shook and I couldn't remember

 

Then the furthermost shake drove a murdering stake in

And cleft me right down through my center

And I shouldn't say so, but I know that it was then, or never

 

Push me back into a tree

Bind my buttons with salt

Fill my long ears with bees

 

and a perennial favourite of mine is gruff ryhs of the super furry animals:

 

Monica and naughty Billy

Got together something silly,

Holy wars out of lusty minutes

Another Cuban cigar crisis

Honestly! Do we need to know

If he really came inside her mouth?

How will all this effect me now and later?

 

You know that we belong

In a Presidential Suite,

Armed guards in the street

Waving back at those who greet

And when I look over,

Over my shoulder,

I can't see my past

It seems so far away.

[Sweet Papa Crimbo]

In the summer that I was baptized

my father held me to his side

As they put me to the water

he said how on that day I cried

We were prisoners of love, a love in chains

He was standin' in the door I was standin' in the rain

With the same hot blood burning in our veins

Adam raised a Cain

 

All of the old faces

ask you why you're back

They fit you with position

and the keys to your daddy's Cadillac

In the darkness of your room

your mother calls you by your true name

You remember the faces, the places, the names

You know it's never over it's relentless as the rain

Adam raised a Cain

 

In the Bible Cain slew Abel

and East of Eden he was cast

You're born into this life paying

for the sins of somebody else's past

Daddy worked his whole life for nothing but the pain

Now he walks these empty rooms looking for something to blame

You inherit the sins, you inherit the flames

Adam raised a Cain

 

Lost but not forgotten, from the dark heart of a dream

Adam raised a Cain

[cryptique]

Joe Pernice.

 

A favorite line:

 

Contemplating suicide or a graduate degree

[mjpuczko]

i've been thinking some of suicide, but there's bars out here for miles

r. adams

[Doug]

Timothy Bracy (Mendoza Line & Slow Dazzle):

 

you long for a bar with a quiet room

but no one's gonna treat you like a kid that way

you've got trouble enough since you fucked the landlord

you're breaking like eggshells from under the car door

the grains of regret still blooming in her face

now nothing is settled so that makes you nervous

cause you won't be so lucky when they figure it out

and your hand moves so slightly she'd scarcely notice

what you call audacious, dear, i barely count

 

and i won't be there when you change your mind

but if your heart should change i guess i might be found

whether covered up with lies

under paint that never dries

it'll take a damn good disguise to live this one down

 

now you run very slowly but not without purpose

you step in a verse you walk always in rain

and me some small token of your inaffection

that lingers unwelcome and then drifts away

we deferred to your parents who gladly consented

though you were pretending

and i really meant it

you turn a blind eye to a blank wall and that's our life

 

hey you're killing me with protocol

she acts just like she's seen it all

but i don't think she's seen this

a big shot at the mini-mall

you learned to fuck before you could crawl

that don't make you a genius

 

now the obsessives tribunal has brought you to trial

for an ingratitude that surprises even yourself

and the things you were given that you claim to find vile

you cling to like cancer impeaching your health

and i do not wish this misery upon you

or anyone else that it might desire

though it is my fear, darling, that it will choose you

and it is my fear, darling, that you will requite it

[Pecan_Pie]

Townes van Zandt

Living on the road my friend

Was gonna keep you free and clean

Now you wear your skin like iron

Your breath's as hard as kerosene

You weren't your mama's only boy

But her favorite one it seems

She began to cry when you said goodbye

And sank into your dreams

 

 

 

and Paul Westerberg

 

I'm in love with a face that I've never seen

Once upon a place long time ago

I'm in love with a time that never took place

That's easy to trace

As far as I know

And I know everything that I need to sing

I know everything

[MattZ]

Joe Pernice.

 

Contemplating suicide or a graduate degree

 

 

i've been thinking some of suicide, but there's bars out here for miles

r. adams

 

While the things I do to kill me, they just help me to relax

r. adams

[Degenerex]

"I don't know why they even bother puttin' this highway on the map, anybody that's ever been on it knows exactly where they're at" Mike Cooley (Drive by Truckers)

 

"There's a hole in daddy's arm, where all the money goes. Jesus Christ died for nuttin', I supposed" - John Prine

 

"Now its over I'm dead and I haven't done anything that I want, or I'm still alive and there's nothing I want to do" Linnell (They Might Be Giants)

 

and all add onto the "Dear Chicago" Ryan Adams response

"Dear Chicago

You'll never guess,

you know the girl you said I'd meet someday?

Well I got something to confess.

She picked me up on Friday,

asked me if she reminded me of you.

I just laughed and lit a cigarette,

said "that's impossible to do."

[Basil II]

Phil Ochs......few favorite lines from him.....

 

 

"and the evil is done in the hopes that evil surrenders,but the deeds of the devil are burned too deep in the embers"

 

 

"the painter paints his brushes black...Through the canvas runs a crack....The portrait of the pain...never answers back"

 

 

"The days grows longer for smaller prizes...I feel a stranger to all suprises...You can have them...I don't want them"

 

 

He also did a killer reading of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Bells"....

 

 

-Robert.

[Guest Jules]

One of my favorite lines is by Jim James of MMJ: loaded questions in an automatic world.

 

I still find his ACL interview comments interesting. He usually has a drum beat and music first, then writes lyrics last.

[mountain bed]

"Give me your hungry, your tired, your poor, I'll piss on 'em...that's what the Statue of Bigotry says" --Lou Reed, NY

[jahilia]

Here's a few from my favorite lyricist, Paul Westerberg:

 

"You can dress to the eights, you can dress to maim

It'll make you feel great, this fortune and fame

Wearing too much makeup, not near enough clothes

It a wonderful lie, I still get by on those"

"It's A Wonderful Lie"

 

"You trade your telescope for a keyhole

Make way for the gray that's in your brown

As dreams make way for plans

See ya watch life from the stands

Come on I'll help you burn 'em to the ground"

"Runaway Wind"

 

"First the lights, then the collar goes up, and the wind begins to blow

Turn your back on a pay-you-back, last call

First the glass, then the leaves that pass, here comes the snow

Ain't much to rake anyway in the fall"

"Here Comes A Regular"

[intodeep]

I think Neil Young is rather good at writing something that makes you "feel"

 

Blind man running through the light of the night

With an answer in his hand,

Come on down to the river of sight

And you can really understand,

Red lights flashing through the window in the rain,

Can you hear the sirens moan?

White cane lying in a gutter in the lane,

If you're walking home alone.

 

Don't let it bring you down

It's only castles burning,

Just find someone who's turning

And you will come around.

 

 

And i think War of man by him is my favorite anti war song... well maybe masters of war is better but i love war of man one of my top 5 neil songs

 

"War Of Man"

 

The little creatures

run in from the cold

Back to the nest

just like the days of old

There in the safety

of a mother's arms

The warmth of ages,

far away from harm again.

 

Ears ringin'

from the battle fire

The tired warrior

aims a little higher

The black falcon

or the little sparrow

The healing light

or the flash of the barrel.

 

No one wins

It's a war of man,

No one wins

It's a war of man.

 

Silver mane flyin' in the wind

Down through the planets

on the run again

No one knows where

they're runnin' to

But every kind is comin'

two by two.

 

Out on the delta

where the hoofbeats pound

The daddy's runnin'

on the frozen ground

Can't smell the poison

as it follows him

Can't see the gas and machines,

it's a war of man.

 

No one wins

It's a war of man,

No one wins

It's a war of man.

 

The windows open

and the little girl dreams

The sky's her playground

as she mounts her steed

Across the heavens

to the other side

On wings of magic

does the little girl ride.

 

The baby creatures

run in from the cold

Back to the nest

just like the days of old

There in the safety

of a mother's arms

The warmth of ages,

far away from harm again.

 

No one wins

It's a war of man,

No one wins

It's a war of man,

No one wins.

[jahilia]

"Give me your hungry, your tired, your poor, I'll piss on 'em...that's what the Statue of Bigotry says" --Lou Reed, NY

 

The first song that came to mind when I read this thread title was "Perfect Day" - "You made me forget myself. I thought I was someone else, someone good" gets me everytime. It's just so devastatingly honest and unexpected.

 

My favorite from "New York"

"Caught between the twisted stars the plotted lines the faulty map

that brought Columbus to New York

Betwixt between the East and West he calls on her wearing a leather vest

the earth squeals and shudders to a halt"

 

Others:

Townes Van Zandt - To Live is To Fly

"Days up and down they come, like rain on a conga drum

Forget most, remember some, but don't turn none away

Everything is not enough, nothing is too much to bear

Where you've been is good and gone, all you keep is the getting there"

 

Nick Cave - there are just too many great lyrics of his to quote, but here's a couple

 

"Are You the One That I've Been Waiting For"

Out of sorrow entire worlds have been built

Out of longing great wonders have been willed

They're only little tears, darling, let them spill

And lay your head upon my shoulder

 

 

"Song Of Joy"

And so I've left my home. I drift from land to land

I am upon your step and you are a family man

Outside the vultures wheel

The wolves howl, the serpents hiss

And to extend this small favour, friend

Would be the sum of earthly bliss

Do you reckon me a friend?

The sun to me is dark, and silent as the moon

Do you, sir, have a room?

Are you beckoning me in?

 

Tom Waits "Alice"

It's dreamy weather we're on

You waved your crooked wand

Along an icy pond with a frozen moon

A murder of silhouette crows I saw

And the tears on my face

And the skates on the pond

They spell Alice

 

"Time"

So put a candle in the window

And a kiss upon his lips

Till the dish outside the window fills with rain

Just like a stranger with the weeds in your heart

And pay the fiddler off till i come back again

[So Long]

Leonard Cohen- Democracy

 

"it's comin from the silence on the dock of the bay,

from the brave, the bold, the tattered heart of Cheverolet"

[Mr. Heartbreak]

Phil Ochs......few favorite lines from him.....

"and the evil is done in the hopes that evil surrenders,but the deeds of the devil are burned too deep in the embers"

"the painter paints his brushes black...Through the canvas runs a crack....The portrait of the pain...never answers back"

"The days grows longer for smaller prizes...I feel a stranger to all suprises...You can have them...I don't want them"

He also did a killer reading of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Bells"....

-Robert.

Yeah!

And a few more from Phil:

"the wild geese are dancing in the ripples of the morn/my wanderlust is born"

"now the only way to touch her is the gun beside your head/your time has fled"

"soldiers have their sorrow, the wretched have their rage/pray for the aged, it's the dawn of another age"

"In the room dark and dim/Touch of skin/He asks her of her name/She answers with no shame/And not a sense of sin"

 

And another favorite, Bruce Cockburn:

"Sundogs flare on windshield glass/Sudden swoop skyward iron horse overpass/Pass a man walking like the man in the moon/Walking like his head's full of Irish fiddle tunes"

"Tired faces with the bus stop blues/Man on a bench with a blanket of news"

"Sun went down looking like the eye of God/Behind icy mist and stark bare trees"

"See the loaded eyes of the children too/Trying to make the best of it the way kids do/One day you're going to rise from your habitual feast/To find yourself staring down the throat of the beast they call the revolution"

"Battered buses jammed up to the roof/Dust and diesel the prevailing themes/Farmer sleeping on the truck in front/Feet trailing over like he's trolling for dreams"

"For every scar on a wall/There's a hole in someone's heart/Where a loved one's memory lives"

"Silver scales flash bright and fade/In reeds along the shore/Like a pearl in a sea of liquid jade"

"Down on the plain of 10,000 smokestacks/Trucks butt each other to establish dominance"

"And some government gambler with his mouth full of steak/Saying, 'If you can't eat the fish, fish in some other lake./To watch a people die -- it is no new thing'"

"After the rain in the streets light flows like blood/I can just taste salt on the humid wind/Here comes that gasoline/Spreading hungry rainbow over shiny black tar"

"The deepest darkness breeds the brightest light"

"I'm always living and I always die/On the event horizon of your eyes"

"I've seen the flame of hope among the hopeless/And that was truly the biggest heartbreak of all/That was the straw that broke me open"

"Hear me you business blackmailers/When I see what you've done to the wild/I feel like a man standing over/The corpse of his murdered child"

"From the lying mirror to the movement of stars/Everybody's looking for who they are/Those who know don't have the words to tell/And the ones with the words don't know too well"

[tkleist]

Billy Corgan:

 

wrap me up in always, and drag me in with maybes

[kathyp]

Townes van Zandt

Living on the road my friend

Was gonna keep you free and clean

Now you wear your skin like iron

Your breath's as hard as kerosene

You weren't your mama's only boy

But her favorite one it seems

She began to cry when you said goodbye

And sank into your dreams

and Paul Westerberg

 

I'm in love with a face that I've never seen

Once upon a place long time ago

I'm in love with a time that never took place

That's easy to trace

As far as I know

And I know everything that I need to sing

I know everything

 

Paul Westerberg and Townes Van Zandt! Wanna be my friend?

[jgriff]

This is one of my favorite Buckner songs, but I could've easily picked many more..........

 

 

Faithful Shooter - Richard Buckner

 

Ask her when you're upstairs later on

With her eyes bowing down and her last light gone

You looked up to her window from the backyard dusk,

Hired as a shot, lingered as a crush.

 

Stake me when I'm running and I'll stay down.

See, I've only had a photograph to drag around.

Would you take another trip with a candle like her?

Strike another promise and watch it burn.

 

Someone drove off slow.

Another left the day before.

Time was saved,

But not a thing was changed.

 

Faith

 

It's low and it's bright and it won't be known

Till you wake up to the sound of the light below

Did you lose her mercy on some torn-down friend?

Half of nothing wasted and split again

 

If one of us had shown up,

Faded, fond, and tried

Waiting for some rain,

Not a thing would change.

 

Faith