Lyrical gems

[progdirjim(Admin)]

prog or not

"but there isn't any sweetness in the dreaming"

(Counting Crows, "Hard Candy")

[Rick and Roll]

ok 2 Genesis...both Phil period, ha!

"When the evil of a snowflake in June, could still be a source of relief" (apologies to our Southern Hemisphere friends)

"Beware the Fisherman, who's casting out his line into a dried up river bed - but don't try to tell him cause he won't believe you"

[progdirjim(Admin)]

There's a bit of magic in everything
And then some loss to even things out

(Lou Reed, "Magic And Loss")

[mossy]

I saw teenage girls like gaudy moths
A classroom's shabby butterflies
Flirt in the glow of stranded telephone boxes
Planning white lace weddings from smeared hearts and token proclamations
Rolled from stolen lipsticks across the razored webs of glass
Sharing cigarettes with experience with her giggling jealous confidantes
She faithfully traces his name with quick bitten fingernails
Through the tears of condensation that'll cry through the night
As the glancing headlights of the last bus kiss adolescence goodbye
In a warm wet circle


From the song Warm Wet Circles, Marillion (Clutching at Straws)

[mossy]

The tell tale tocking of the last cigarette
Marking time in the packet as the whisky sweat
Lies like discarded armour on an unmade bed
And a familiar craving is crawling in his head

And the only sign of life is the ticking of the pen
Introducing characters to memories like old friends
Frantic as a cardiograph scratching out the lines
A fever of confession a catalogue of crime in happy hour


another Fish lyric from the song Hotel Hobbies again off Clutching at Straws

[RogorMortis]

When talking about song lyrics there is only one who sticks out a mile and that is Peter Hammill.

When i buy music today I don't really bother so much about lyrics but it is a differnet story with Peter Hammill because he paints realistic pictures.

The example below is on AM - taken from The Silent Corner and the Empty Stage - Forsaken gradens and it is so true even today about human selfishness and greed.

Forsaken Gardens

Where are all the joys of yesterday?
Where, now, is the happiness and laughter that we shared?
Gone, like our childhood dreams, aspirations and beliefs;
time is a thief, and he ravages our gardens,
stripping saplings, felling trees,
trampling on our flowers, sucking sap and drying seeds.
In the midnight candle-light of experience
all colour fades, green fingers grey.

Time, alone, shall murder all the flowers,
still, there's time to share our plots and all that we call 'ours'.
How much worse, then, if we all deny each others' needs
and keep our gardens privately?

Its getting colder, wind and rain leave gashes;
looking back, I only see the friends I've lost.
Fires smoulder, raking through the ashes
my hands are dirty, my mind is numb,
I count the cost of 'I':
"I need to get on, I've got to tend my garden;
got to shut you out, no time to crave your pardon now".

Now I see the garden that I've grown is
just the same as those outside;
the fences that, erected to protect, simply divide....
There's ruination everywhere,
the weather has played havoc with the grass...
does anyone believe his garden's really going to last?
In the time allotted us, can any man keep miserly his own?
Is there any pleasure in a solitary growth?

Come and see my garden if you wil,
I'd like someone to see it all before each root is killed.
Surely now its time to open up each life to all,
tear down the walls, if it's not too late!

There is so much sorrow in the world,
there is so much emptiness and heartbreak and pain.
Somewhere on the road we have all taken a wrong turn...
how can we build the right path again?

Through the grief, through the pain,
our flowers need each other'srain....

[mossy]

Beautiful, Rogor.

Don't need music to go along with those. That's sort of my personal litmus test with lyrics.

Thanks

[Rick and Roll]

Mossy - the thing about Fish is that he writes such powerful lyrics...and in a way he is just as f'd up as we are. Clutching and Misplaced are great examples of his description of human traits. That whole Hotel Hobbies/Warm Wet Circles/That Time of The Night set is just unparalleled.

For an example of his edgier side, the title cut of Fugazi is perfect.
This whole passage is brilliant and so chilling:

"Son watches father scan obituary columns in search of absent school friends. While his generation digests high fibre ignorance
Cowering behind curtains and the taped up painted windows
Decriminalised genocide, provided door to door Belsens -
Pandora's box of holocausts gracefully cruising satellite infested heavens - Waiting, the season of the button, the penultimate migration - Radioactive perfumes, for the fashionably, for the terminally insane, insane."

Rogor- anything written by Matthew Parmenter reeks of Hammill. You should check out either Discipline record or his solo record and just read the lyrics.

I like songs that make you think. "Dear God" by XTC is jarring. "Did you make mankind after we made you". That whole tune just gives me a knot in my stomach. "Song For America" or "Cheyenne Anthem" by Kansas are two others.

[Roger -Dot- Lee(Admin)]

You want some bone-chilling Fish lyrics, read the lyrics for Grendel. That's some powerful stuff. I won't bother quoting the entire 19 minute song (in which he, incidentally, sings most of the time).

[Rick and Roll]

"As Grendel leaves his mossy home beneath the stagnant mere"

Why did he leave mossy home? Was she making him mad? We'll have to ask mossy!

That tune always got blasted cause of the Supper's Ready 9/8 ripoff. Saw a band cover it though.

One for you Roger, "The Nursery Year" by Discipline.

[mossy]

Not sure what I did. Am more worried about the stagnant mere.

I know it's proobably been sais before (probably by me) but can songlyrics touch you as much as those by Jon anderson and Yes?

There is a passage in "In the presence of" that really gets to me.

As the door was open wide
There inside was a diamond chair
Where I sat when I was young
I wrote down the words

Only when the young at heart
Can enter the real world
This chance I’ve waited for
For you to see

If I had chances I would spend them with you
To hold you close and let your love surround me
Deeper than before

However, the words are only really as good as the person singing them. Jons delivery of these words is spine tingling. When I first heard Yes perform this live on the "Magnification" tour I was literally moved to tears. They meant and mean a lot to me. Reminds me of someone very special everytime I hear them. I hope that person knows what I mean.......I'm sure they do.

[Roger -Dot- Lee(Admin)]

Originally posted by mossy
Not sure what I did. Am more worried about the stagnant mere.

Time to air out the ol' homestead, I'd say...

[VAXman(Admin)]

Originally posted by Rick and Roll
Mossy - the thing about Fish is that he writes such powerful lyrics...and in a way he is just as f'd up as we are. Clutching and Misplaced are great examples of his description of human traits. That whole Hotel Hobbies/Warm Wet Circles/That Time of The Night set is just unparalleled.

If by powerful you mean his apparent allegory cluttered with colorful thesaurus milking, I agree with you. There are passages where it works and it's beautiful but there are a great many where there is just TOO much of it. I think he finally started to achieve a better balance toward the end of his Marillion career but by then he was too far down the neck of the bottle.

For an example of his edgier side, the title cut of Fugazi is perfect.
This whole passage is brilliant and so chilling:

"Son watches father scan obituary columns in search of absent school friends. While his generation digests high fibre ignorance
Cowering behind curtains and the taped up painted windows
Decriminalised genocide, provided door to door Belsens -
Pandora's box of holocausts gracefully cruising satellite infested heavens - Waiting, the season of the button, the penultimate migration - Radioactive perfumes, for the fashionably, for the terminally insane, insane."

A perfect example of what I said above coupled with a more than healthy dose of youthful Fish angst.

I like songs that make you think. "Dear God" by XTC is jarring. "Did you make mankind after we made you". That whole tune just gives me a knot in my stomach. "Song For America" or "Cheyenne Anthem" by Kansas are two others.

And not an original thought either:

"If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him." --Voltaire

"Which is it, is man one of God's blunders or is God one of man's?" -- Friedrich Nietzsche

"Does earth plug a hole in heaven, Or heaven plug a hole in the earth?" -- Peter Gabriel
(from: Anyway on the album:The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway)

[Yesspaz]

"Every time she sneezes I believe it's love and oh, Lord, I'm not ready for this sort of thing...

Every word is nonsense but I understand and oh, Lord, I'm not ready for this sort of thing...

She's talking in her sleep; it's keeping me awake."

---Adam Duritz, Counting Crows, "Anna Begins."





Diggity.

[Roger -Dot- Lee(Admin)]

Dunno how I missed this one...

Originally posted by Rick and Roll
One for you Roger, "The Nursery Year" by Discipline.

I will indeed have to give it at least a cursory glance. I will let all and sundry (read anyone who gives a hoot) my critique.

Thanks for the pointer, Rick. I'll give it the twice over!

Roger -Dot- Lee, always looking for cool things to listen to

[kevishev]

Here's a "gem" for ya

"The price of meat has just gone up and your ol' lady has just gone down......."

Frank Zappa - from "Cosmic Debris"

[Rick and Roll]

Originally posted by kevishev
Here's a "gem" for ya

"The price of meat has just gone up and your ol' lady has just gone down......."

Frank Zappa - from "Cosmic Debris"

From the same record, "Uncle Remus" a favorite....

[Yesspaz]

"Welcome to the planet. Welcome to existance.
Everyone's here. Everyone's here.
Everybody's watching you now.
Everybody waits for you now.
What happens next? What happens next?

I dare you to move. I dare you to move.
I dare you to lift yourself up off the floor.
I dare you to move. I dare you to move
like today never happened before."

-Switchfoot

[RogorMortis]

From Camel's Nod and a WInk there's the song "For Today" which comes with this philosophy which I now live by, as we lost our lovely dog in an accident when I had just recieved this CD:


Time will say I told you so
if we look back in regret.
Never give a day away.
It won't return the same again.

Nothing can last
there are no second chances.
Never give a day away.
Always live for today.