Lyrics that speak to you.

[bearhart74]

Now were all a little stoned
and we freak when we are at home
but as for me
i'm only free
when im bustin' out.
Rick James - Bustin Out

 

[bearhart74]

 

[bearhart74]

 

[Mktrat]

Five Finger Death Punch "Wrong Side of Heaven"

I spoke to God today, and she said that she's ashamed.
What have I become, what have I done?

 

[bearhart74]

 

[MonetBass]

"What I carry in my heart / Brings us so close, or so far apart / Only love can make love"
-- Peter Gabriel, "That Voice Again"

 

[Stempelloos]

Some songs get under my skin me because they remind me of situations I've been in.
It can be a refrain, or the song as a whole, but also a video that accompanies the song.

To mention a few:

Fortune Teller by Calexico more or less reminds me of standing at the Chilean Pacific coast of a Northern town.
And meeting a gypsy woman there that persuaded me to read my palm.
She gave me a crystal talisman, and a mind boggling story that seemed to start a life of it's own.

The Pretender by Foo Fighters has a refrain that reminds me of things said at a night before the end of a venue where our band used to practice and perform. And the riot police in the video of what showed up the next morning.

The Heart In A Cage video by The Strokes reminds of a lot of things. The lyrics remind me of a certain woman that I used see as a sort of friend and things she or people that we met said.
Scenes in the video remind me of epileptic fits that I used to suffer from in my youth.
The song title can be seen as a description of:

A heap of those kind of images shows up if you type my surname in google images,
because it's the same as the scientist who developed this method.


I Never Came by Queens Of The Stone Age just reminds me of things thought and said at the end of relations.
"Why you gotta shove it in my face
As if you put me in my place
Cause I DON'T CARE
If you or me is wrong or right
Ain't gonna spend another night,
In your bed...

Laws of man, are just pretend
They ain't mine"

 

[Tbone76]

Long Nights by Eddie Vedder.
Say Hello to Heaven by Temple of the Dog.

 

[Bob_Ross]

these are a few choice lines from Gordon Lightfoots "Sundown". Brilliant phrases in my book.

Sometimes I think it's a shame
When I get feelin' better when I'm feelin' no pain

Sometimes I think it's a sin
When I feel like I'm winnin' when I'm losin' again

Yeah, those are succinct, compact, clever, and yet open...something about those examples reminds me of this couplet from Tear For Fears' "Mad World"

>>I find it kind of funny, I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had<<

I always liked the ambiguity of this line from Kodachrome.

If you took all the girls I knew
When I was single
And brought them all together
for one night
I know they'd never match
my sweet imagination
Everything looks worse
in black and white

Ambiguity? I find that scenario incredibly specific. In fact, one of the things I don't like about Paul Simon's lyrics is that so few of them seem truly open to interpretation; he's committed to describing a very particular image, and if you don't "get" that image you've arguably missed the point.

 

[Obese Chess]

Two la dispute posts in one thread, I'm happy.

Seeing them in about a week with thrice!

They put on a GREAT show, you won't be disappointed.

 

[BassFishingInAmerica]

Yeah, those are succinct, compact, clever, and yet open...something about those examples reminds me of this couplet from Tear For Fears' "Mad World"

>>I find it kind of funny, I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had<<




Ambiguity? I find that scenario incredibly specific. In fact, one of the things I don't like about Paul Simon's lyrics is that so few of them seem truly open to interpretation; he's committed to describing a very particular image, and if you don't "get" that image you've arguably missed the point.

I see the line, "everything looks worse in black and white" entirely open to interpretation. To me, it has always meant that reality (like when someone says, give it to me in black and white) is never as interesting as what our imaginations can conceive. I've heard many people disagree with my interpretation, saying the opposite, that colorful reality is better than anything made up (phony black and white). Btw, there has been loads of discussion on these lines, and the debate continues today.

 

[Bob_Ross]

I see the line, "everything looks worse in black and white" entirely open to interpretation. To me, it has always meant that reality (like when someone says, give it to me in black and white) is never as interesting as what our imaginations can conceive. I've heard many people disagree with my interpretation, saying the opposite, that colorful reality is better than anything made up (phony black and white).

I think your interpretation is correct, and tbh I'm not sure how anyone could get the opposite interpretation from that lyric. He's pretty much explicitly said so; the only thing that could have made it more explicit is if he'd said "I know they'd never match my sweet imagination because everything looks worse in black and white"

 

[Fingerpickingood]

How many of YOU folks write lyrics? Do you tend to write in a literal fashion, or more obliquely?

 

[Salicete]

Yup, the story of my life is succinctly summed up by these Rush lyrics.

From "Far Cry"

One day I feel I'm on top of the world
And the next it's falling in on me
I can get back on, I can get back on

One day I feel Im ahead of the wheel
And the next it's rolling over me
I can get back on, I can get back on

And the closely related...

"Between the Wheels"

You know how that rabbit feels
Going under your speeding wheels
Bright images flashing by
Like windshields towards a fly
Frozen in the fatal climb
But the wheels of time
Just pass you by
Wheels can take you around
Wheels can cut you down
We can go from boom to bust
From dreams to a bowl of dust




Read more: Link Removed

 

[spanndrew]

They put on a GREAT show, you won't be disappointed.

I've heard. It'll be my first time seeing them so I'm very excited.

 

[spanndrew]

How many of YOU folks write lyrics? Do you tend to write in a literal fashion, or more obliquely?

Depends on the project. Right now I'm in a very political punk band, and the lyrics are ridiculous and dripping with satire. My solo music is a bit more literal.

 

[Fingerpickingood]

Depends on the project. Right now I'm in a very political punk band, and the lyrics are ridiculous and dripping with satire. My solo music is a bit more literal.

It's always hard one way or the other with me. I'm either telling a specific story, or on an obtuse rant.

 

[zisme]

i rarely focus on lyrics when listening to music. a lot of the music i listen to has indecipherable vocals. my favorite band sings in a language i don't speak/understand...

most of the time the voice is just another instrument in the mix

there are a few exceptions. maynard james keenan's lyrics for tool and apc certainly speak to me. beautifully poetic and inspiring
"...threw you the obvious just to see if there's more behind the eyes of a fallen angel, eyes of a tragedy" - a perfect circle, 3 libras
"...i embrace my desire to feel the rhythm, to feel connected enough to step aside and weep like a widow
to feel inspired, to fathom the power, to witness the beauty, to bathe in the fountain, to swing on the spiral, to swing on the spiral of our divinity and still be a human" tool, lateralus

chino moreno's (deftones). cryptic, image-laden, often sexy
"...i wanna watch the way you creep across my skull
you slowly enter 'cause you know my room
and then crawl your knees off before you shake my tomb" you've seen the butcher

brandon boyd's (incubus). great wordplay
"...blessed is she who clearly sees the wood for the trees,
to obtain a bird's eye is to turn a blizzard to a breeze" nice to know you

just to name a few

my band's lryics are a collision of passages our bass player writes (typically relationship, personal issues) and our drummer writes (he's the most poetic, lots of music scene and modern life commentary). the lyrics i contribute are typically stream of conscious and develop from my initial vocal mumblings for new songs when establishing a melody. they typically end up being social commentary of some form or another and are rarely personal. the combination of the three in a single song is common and sometimes interesting. we prefer to see what other people take from them rather than what they actually mean (if anything)

 

[Obese Chess]

How many of YOU folks write lyrics? Do you tend to write in a literal fashion, or more obliquely?

My vocalist and I trade off lyric-writing duties. I don't know how I'd explain my own lyric writing though. I try to approach things as a narrative and be descriptive. Like here's one of ours that I wrote in its original form before I turned it over to our vocalist for modification. She's writing the words for most of the album but I wanted creative control on a couple.

She sits in a bright red room
Searching for answers that she'll never find
Watching the clock tick by
Flashes a glance to the edge of the knife
Drowned in the scent of long-lost loves
Wasting breath on wasted nights
And the screens flicker in black and white
When this little death edges out all those lives

How much of yourself can you sell
Before your head has a price?
And if there's nothing else left,
Will you sell me out to survive?

Oh, Will you tell me your secrets?
Will you pick up the phone?
Now confess all your sins
So that we might atone

And had you not burned this world to ashes,
This monument would still stand
And had you conquered the stars above,
This map would have read as you planned

and then it's just variations on that. Anyway that's enough tooting my own horn.

 

[Maiden Bass]