intriguing lyrical turns of phrase

[dubkitty]

i thought it would be interesting to hear examples of a line or two from a song which you think is particularly well-put. i thought of this cos of two examples that really struck me lately:

the first is from "Little Baby Nothing" by Manic Street Preachers, a song about the sexual exploitation of women which describes johns: "all they leave behind is money...paper made out of broken twisted trees." what a way to capture the awful, crabbed, base reality of that transaction.

the other is "Cenotaph" by This Heat; the Cenotaph is a large war memorial in London which was most recently in the news when some drunken bee-yotch pissed on the stairs there and was caught on the ubiquitous British CCTV cameras. Here they look at the cycle of war:

history repeats itself
Remembrance Sunday
a war to end all wars
and the war that came after that

[dubkitty]

apropos of nothing, i've also discovered a winning example of what i'll call "extrasyllablism," the phenomenon of vocalists adding random syllables to a word to make it scan with the melody. for many years my fave has been Liam Gallagher's mangling of "sunshine" into "sun-shee-yine," but it's now been supplanted by the Manics. James had to do many strange things to Richey's lyrics to make them fit into standard rhythm, but i believe he topped himself in "So Dead" where he renders the final word of the line "cos i'm a slut and you just suck" as "su-huh-huh-he-yuh-YUCK."

[coldbrightsunlight]

Manic Street Preachers lyrics phrasing is always hilarious because of that. Somehow mostly works.

[Paul_C]

Elvis Costello is one of my favourite lyricists, eg.

She looked like she learned to dance from a
series of still pictures
She's madly excited now, she throws her hands
up like a tulip
She looks like an illustration of a cocktail party
Where cartoon bubbles burst in the air,
champagne rolls off her tongue
Like a second language
And it should have been her biggest night
The satellite looks down on her as she begins
to cry

- - - - -

He's got a mind like a sewer and a heart like a fridge
He stands to be insulted and he pays for the privilege

- - - - -

Don't tell me you don't know the difference
Between a lover and a fighter
With my pen and my electric typewriter
Even in a perfect world where everyone was equal
I'd still own the film rights and be working on the sequel

- - - - -

Oh, I know that I'm ungrateful
I've got it lying on a plate
And I'm not buying my share of souvenirs

[lordgalvar]

I saw the light, mother fucker
I shot at Charles De Gaulle.
I've seen one million toilets
And I've rocked 'em all.
// Fleshies - "Led Fuckin' Zeppelin Man"

----
Run my little brother
Run to the chicken farm
Opportunity is calling
You might even find a watch

// Dead Kennedys "Chicken Farm"

(Dead Kennedys have too many gems).

[moid]

Maybe a bit of Bob Dylan at his poetic finest?

"My love, she speaks softly
She knows there's no success like failure
And that failure's no success at all"

and from the same song

"The wind howls like a hammer
The night wind blows cold n' rainy
My love, she's like some raven
At my window with a broken wing"

Love Minus Zero / No Limits


or hearing Robert Plant say:
"This is a song of hope" before live versions of Stairway to Heaven always seems to raise the hairs on the back of my neck

Pavement's Here is one of those tracks I seem to sing to myself whenever everything is going to shit

"I was dressed for success
But success it never comes
And I'm the only one who laughs
At your jokes when they are so bad
And your jokes are always bad
But they're not as bad as this.
Come join us in a prayer
We'll be waiting, waiting where
Everything's ending here. "

There should be something from Paul Simon in here somewhere... but I need some sleep first