Selected song lyrics I particularly like (not ordered in any way). There are so many but so few come to mind when I want to write them down, hopefully the list will expand eventually.
We share the same biology, regardless of ideology
– Sting (Russians)
Time is a piece of wax fallin’ on a termite who’s chokin’ on the splinters
– Beck (Loser)
I’m young, but I’m yours, I am free but I am flawed
– Benjamin Francis Leftwich (Box of Stones)
It’s no good you trying to sit on the fence
– Alan Parsons Project (Turn it Up)
And hope that the trouble will pass
‘Cause sitting on fences can make you a pain in the ass
I’d rather have freedom than smoke in arenas
– Young Dreams (Fog of War)
I’m as giddy as a baby in a centrifuge
– Everything Everything (Two For Nero)
The sky will be my shroud
– Keane (Black Burning Heart)
A cenotaph of cloud
Through Autumn’s golden gown we used to kick our way…
Those fallen leaves lie undisturbed nowLike the sun through the trees you came to love me
– Justin Hayward/Jeff Wayne (Forever Autumn)
Like a leaf on a breeze you blew away
There’s a small boat made of china
– Crowded House (Weather With You)
It’s going nowhere on the mantlepiece
Would you butcher my love To understand it
– Editors (Formaldehyde)
To know where it lies?
Cut a hole in my heart
Fill a hole in your life
It’s such long shot, everything that we’ve got, just living on this rock, surrounded by the sea
– Newton Faulkner (Long Shot)
How’s it feel when there’s time to remember?
– Mike Oldfield (Man in the Rain)
Branches bare like the trees in November
When your heart’s on fire, you must realise, smoke gets in your eyes
– The Platters (Smoke Gets In Your Eyes)
You were writhing on the floor like a moth in molasses
– White Lies (Holy Ghost)
I asked myself for peace
– Future Islands (A Dream Of You And Me)
And found a piece of me
Staring at the sea
There’ll be twisted karaoke at the Aniseed Lounge
– Elbow (Grounds for Divorce)
Love can mend your life or love can break your heart
– Sting (Message in a Bottle)
Don’t put your faith in time, she heals but doesn’t change
– Bluetones (Bluetonic)
You smile, mention something that you like
– Franz Ferdinand (The Dark of the Matinée)
Oh how you’d have a happy life
If you did the things you like
I’ve made some bad decisions, I’ll admit that freely
– The Wombats (Jump Into The Fog)
It’s just that life tastes sweeter when it’s wrapped in debauchery
If you love me, won’t you let me know
– Coldplay (Violet Hill)
I’m gonna master all kinds of kung fu
– Newton Faulkner (Gone in the Morning)
I’m gonna live inside a tiny zoo
For you look even better than the face of god on a sunny day
– James (How Was It For You)
Is the power of love worth the pain of loss
– James (Five-O)
Let the good times roll, in case god doesn’t show
– Fall Out Boy (Thnx fr th Mmrs)
When we fall in love, we’re just falling
– Keane (Spiralling)
in love with ourselves
And when your stitch comes loose
– Fall Out Boy (HOLD ME TIGHT OR DON’T)
I wanna sleep on every piece of fuzz
And stuffing that comes out of you
Please don’t put your life in the hands of a rock-and-roll band
– Oasis (Don’t Look Back In Anger)
They’re gonna die in a place they should’ve never been at all
– Levellers (Another Man’s Cause)
I can’t understand what makes a man hate another man, help me understand
– Depeche Mode (People Are People)
Steak knife, card shark, con job, boot cut
– Red Hot Chili Peppers (By The Way)
I love you like a friend but – let’s not pretend – how I wish for something, wish for something more
– Amy MacDonald (Wish for Something More)
These are the hands we’re given, use them and let’s start trying to make this a place worth living in
– Genesis (Land of Confusion)
Pleasures remain, so does the pain
– Depeche Mode (Enjoy the Silence)
All my friends are as sharp as razors
– Kasabian (Vlad The Impaler)
cut you down if you touch the faders
You don’t know what love is – you wouldn’t do this if you did
– Plan B (She Said)
I’m not ever gonna know
– Hoobastank (Same Direction)
if I’m right or wrong
’cause we’re all going in the same direction
I am human and I need to be loved
– The Smiths (How Soon Is Now?)
just like everybody else does
Seek the roses along the way
– Scorpions (Send Me An Angel)
Just beware of the thorns
I know that I can help you
– Pendulum (The Tempest)
I just don’t fucking want to
‘Cause you are constructed of chemicals
– Kaiser Chiefs (Like It Too Much)
and you are descended from animals
The one thing you can’t have you like too much,
you look but you cannot touch
I want to walk in your park
– Scorpions (In Your Park)
’cause I’m alone
I want to walk in your heart
You grew on me like a tumour and you spread through me like malignant melanoma
– Tim Minchin (You Grew On Me)
I’m afraid there’s no cure for me, no dose of emotional chemotherapy
Purely a figment of your imagination 
Yesterday was Thursday, Thursday
Today i-is Friday, Friday (Partyin’)
We-we-we so excited
We so excited
We gonna have a ball today
Die.
I love Joni Mitchell and I always will. There are so many of her lyrics that have touched me at so many times of my life that it’s hard to narrow them down. Almost everything on “Court and Spark” was written for me — and I’m unashamed about that feeling you get when you hear something and feel “Oh my god, she totally gets it/me”.
“You’ve had lots of lovely women.
Now you turn your gaze to me,
weighing the beauty and the imperfection
to see if I am worthy.
Like the church,
like a cop,
like a mother,
you want me to be truthful—
sometimes you turn it on me like a weapon though
and I need your approval.”
And then Blue — the album that my friend Grace told me to listen to “to get me into Joni” — which is just the most beautiful album in the world evah. “Is it all books and words or do you really feel it?” Ahh. I love my 19-year-old self who first felt that.
And then, leaving my precious Joni…I am still totally tickled by The Smiths lyrics — silly wit and tricksy rhymes, still so good today.
I could go on all night, but I’ll spare you.
Loved reading yours Marianne. xx
Bollocks — I didn’t mean to be anonymous…it’s me, Georgia ^^^^^
Life (Des’ree):
I don’t want to see a ghost,
that’s the site that I fear most
– rather have a piece of toast
watch the evening news
These lines never fail to make me laugh.
Some of my favourite ever lyrics are:
x1 = A * sin (w*t)
x2 = A * sin (w*t) + y
(Sorry no Greek letters)
From the song Fenomenologia by Franco Battiato.
And now that I think about it a lot of Italian singer-songwriters from maybe a few years ago have amazing lyrics.
This could be a very long list, but here are some of mine:
I wanna ride with you in uncertain times,
I wanna go where my thoughts can take a nap,
And if the atom bomb should end us both,
I’ll be happy to go to the stars with you.
(Raveonettes – Uncertain Times)
Remember what the dormouse said:
Feed your head!
Feed your head!
(Jefferson Airplane – White Rabbit)
We won’t use guns, we won’t use bombs,
We’ll use the one thing we’ve got more of,
And that’s our minds.
(Pulp – Mis-Shapes)
“In the here and now, between sensation at the nerve ends, and the arrival of information at the cortex, TIME ELAPSES….”.
Peter Hammill, Now Lover, (Skin 1986).
And so you see I have come to doubt
All that I once held as true
I stand alone without beliefs
The only truth I know is you.
Simon and Garfunkel, Kathy’s Song
*arrives here drunk* Right…
Basically, anything from Neko Case: “Go on go on and scream and cry, you’re miles from where anyone will find you. This is nothing new – no television crew, they don’t even put on the siren. My nightgown sweeps the pavement… “Please, don’t let him die…” ”
Loads of stuff from the Magic Numbers: “Tell me a joke, and I will love you. Pour me a drink, and I’m yours…” […] “And I don’t want to know you right know… but make time to show me your scars….”
Fiona Apple’s description of mental illness: “Every single night, I endure the flight, of little worms of white flame, butterflies in my brain… these ideas of mine, percolate the mind, trickle down my spine, swell in my belly, swell into a blaze… that’s where the pain comes in, like a second skeleton, trying to fit beneath the skin, I can’t fit the feelings in oh every single night’s alight with my braiiiiin…”
Loads of lyrics by KT Tunstall, but especially: “And I used to talk, with honest conviction, of how I predicted my world… … I’m gonna leave it to star-gazers, tell me what your telescope says.”
Loads of Bowie..
“Femme fatales emerged from shadows
To watch this creature fair
Boys stood upon their chairs
To make their point of view
I smiled sadly for a love I could not obey
Lady Stardust sang his songs
Of darkness and dismay”
Loads of The Shins: “But did you really think I’d shut an open door? The future’s callin’, and I’ma answer her.. the wheel’s in motion, I never drank your potion, and I know it breaks your heart..” I also loved “God bless all the bakers at dawn – may they all cut their thumbs, and bleed into their buns ’til they melt away” when I was actually a baker at dawn.
Loads of Steve Harley: “And then in Amsterdam you were perfect fun. You never let on you had a gun, and then you shot that Spanish waiter…”
Loads of the Rolling Stones: “I watched you suffer, a dull aching pain. Now you decided, to show me the same. But no sweeping exits, or off stage lines, could make me feel bitter, or treat you unkind…”
Everything ever written by Simon and Garfunkel. “Still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest,” which is the best line ever written in a song. “Half of the time we’re gone and we don’t know where… and don’t know where.” “And in the naked light I saw, ten thousand people maybe more. People talking without speaking. People hearing without listening. People writing songs that voices never shared – noone dared, disturb the sound of silence.”
And most of all, Justin Bieber.
I’m a Baker at dawn every day, yo