No lyrics. Irony.
I suck.
There was a person on my flist (I wanna say wordweaverlynn, but I'm just not sure who it is) who made an excellent post about their favorite lyricists, with examples of their work.
Anyway, from whoever, for whoever, here's my list. Click on links for the lyrics.
Bob Dylan
Yeah, he's the gold standard. But there's a reason for that.
sample:
Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child's balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand you know too soon
There is no sense in trying.
Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn
Suicide remarks are torn
From the fool's gold mouthpiece the hollow horn
Plays wasted words, proves to warn
That he not busy being born
Is busy dying.
Temptation's page flies out the door
You follow, find yourself at war
Watch waterfalls of pity roar
You feel to moan but unlike before
You discover that you'd just be one more
person crying.
So don't fear if you hear
A foreign sound to your ear
It's alright, Ma, I'm only sighing.
As some warn victory, some downfall
Private reasons great or small
Can be seen in the eyes of those that call
To make all that should be killed to crawl
While others say don't hate nothing at all
Except hatred.
Disillusioned words like bullets bark
As human gods aim for their mark
Made everything from toy guns that spark
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark
It's easy to see without looking too far
That not much is really sacred.
While preachers preach of evil fates
Teachers teach that knowledge waits
Can lead to hundred-dollar plates
Goodness hides behind its gates
But even the president of the United States
Sometimes must have to stand naked.
And though the rules of the road have been lodged
It's only people's games that you got to dodge
And it's alright, Ma, I can make it.
Advertising signs that con you
Into thinking you're the one
That can do what's never been done
That can win what's never been won
Meantime life outside goes on
All around you.
You lose yourself, you reappear
You suddenly find you got nothing to fear
Alone you stand with nobody near
When a trembling distant voice, unclear
Startles your sleeping ears to hear
That somebody thinks
They really found you.
A question in your nerves is lit
Yet you know there is no answer fit
To satisfy, ensure you not to quit
To keep it in your mind and not fergit
That it is not he or she or them or it
That you belong to.
Although the masters make the rules
For the wise men and the fools
I got nothing, Ma, to live up to.
For them that must obey authority
That they do not respect in any degree
Who despise their jobs, their destinies
Speak jealously of them that are free
Cultivate their flowers to be
Nothing more than something they invest in.
While some on principles baptized
To strict party platform ties
Social clubs in drag disguise
Outsiders they can freely criticize
Tell nothing except who to idolize
And then say God bless him.
While one who sings with his tongue on fire
Gargles in the rat race choir
Bent out of shape from society's pliers
Cares not to come up any higher
But rather get you down in the hole that he's in.
But I mean no harm nor put fault
On anyone that lives in a vault
But it's alright, Ma, if I can't please him.
Old lady judges watch people in pairs
Limited in sex, they dare
To push fake morals, insult and stare
While money doesn't talk, it swears
Obscenity, who really cares
Propaganda, all is phony.
While them that defend what they cannot see
With a killer's pride, security
It blows the minds most bitterly
For them that think death's honesty
Won't fall upon them naturally
Life sometimes must get lonely.
My eyes collide head-on with stuffed
Graveyards, false gods, I scuff
At pettiness which plays so rough
Walk upside-down inside handcuffs
Kick my legs to crash it off
Say okay, I have had enough
What else can you show me?
And if my thought-dreams could be seen
They'd probably put my head in a guillotine
But it's alright, Ma, it's life, and life only.
Beck
He's probably to blame for the common perception of him as a pop-culture junkyard. But that doesn't make him any less deserving of re-examination.
sample:
lazy flies all hovering above
the magistrate, he puts on his gloves
and he looks to the clouds
all pink and disheveled
there must be some blueprint
some creed of the devil
inscribed in our minds
a hideous game
vanishes in thin air
the vanity of slaves
who wants to be there?
to sweep the debris
to harness dead horses
to ride in the sun
a life of confessions
written in the dust
out in the mangroves
the mynah birds cry
in the shadows of sulphur
the trawlers drift by
they're chewing dried meat
in a house of disrepute
the dust of opiates
and syphilis patients
on brochure vacations
fear has a glare that traps you
like searchlights
the puritans stare
their souls are fluoresecent
the skin of a robot
vibrates with pleasure
matrons and gigolos
carouse in the parlor
their hand-grenade eyes
invalid and blind
Paul Simon
A songwriter who truly knows how to be enigmatic. You don't know what the hell is going on, except for his most personal moments. But you get the feeling clearly.
sample:
The mama pajama rolled out of bed
And she ran to the police station
When the papa found out he began to shout
And start the investigation
It's against the law
It was against the law
What the mama saw
It was against the law
The mama looked down and spit on the ground
Everytime my name gets mentioned
The papa said oy if I get that boy
I'm gonna stick him in the house of detention
Well I'm on my way
I don't know where I'm going
I'm on my way
I'm taking my time
But I don't know where
Goodbye to Rosie the queen of Corona
See me and Julio
Down by the schoolyard
See me and Julio
Down by the schoolyard
In a couple of days they come and
Take me away
But the press let the story leak
And when the radical priest
Come to get me released
We was all on the cover of Newsweek
And I'm on my way
I don't know where I'm going
I'm on my way
I'm taking my time
But I don't know where
Goodbye to Rosie the queen of Corona
See me and Julio
Down by the schoolyard
See me and Julio
Down by the schoolyard
See me and Julio
Down by the schoolyard
Aesop Rock
I love hip-hop, but all the mainstream stuff is egocentric, meaning it's hard for me to care that much about 50 Cent's lyrics, because I'm not him. The party people of the Eighties and the street poetry of the Nineties are gone. Underground hip-hop, however...
sample:
Jiggy-jabberjaw vitamin idol and primal rages
When bible page verse tidal waves has begun (Water one)
I wrote the book that shook America to splinters
In a winter wasteland
Icicle-bound barren township
Call barren moon childs and proud gimps to clinch this chemical war pig
Delinquent sinkin like a paper tugboat
Well beneath your holiday
Beached on a red tide infested shore corroding eastern seaboard beauty
I'm a jigsaw slab, but all the pig saw was dirt bag
It's like a bleeding comet bombing on your sequels
To the riverside park tunnel people claim last lifeform standing
Carbon based pardons ain't enough
My stilts truly personify the serbonite flea circus
We urchins merkin on daily
I catapult brain opera past basic
Tear my own face off in the finale, stick around it's ill
Diabolic Prodigal Son spill grimmace
If you had one more eye, you'd be a Cyclops
Which explains missing the premise
Bliss mimic, baptise, chastise, laugh die
Kiss the finish, piss the villagers the fuck off
Pete Piper picked peppers, and Run rocked rhymes
Aes Rock might've smoked one too many dimes in his time
Now where you gonna be when the sun falls, brother
Probably gathering your sheep with all these other mothafuckers
Struck twice in the same place by a moody Zues fishliner
Smackin the third clear out the park
Going gone (To infinity and beyond!)
I rocked for a flock of Chewbacca look-alikes in magic makers
Hermit crabs and New York city sewer aligators
Keep your homily dream out your homily
I deal with tangible goods
And avoid manufacturing food for landfills
I've seen friends bow to needles
I've seen needles bow to records
I've seen boughs break
I've seen God bow and make the clouds shake
I've seen the proud break
I've seen alot for a blind soldier
Who tattooed the city scape up skin to blend in
Rats travel by night invite the waterbugs
I'm here to pull the three-prong
When it's prime directive wormhole of self-sacrifice
Had a hatchet slice for camps
For that God-awful Frankenstein
Starving your style to someday be a story in my time
Life's hard, life's easy
Life's everything in between
Life's Peachy like James and the Giant
And I keep spittin as long as these kittens buy it
And I keep casting my line as long as these officials bite it
And I like it (Don't try it like that)
Ban away temper tantrum, decrepit anthem
Set a low go, I arrived late
I'm here to scrape a car clean to the funk machine
Imposes on the underling amalgam cluster and identifies the mother (You got heart)
I hate to tell you but it skips more than it palpitates
Like these here drunken little archers missed one of they calculate
The falcon hates the mockingbird
The farmer hates the drought
I hate em all, I kick the bottom brick out shouting "Yes y'all"
And blow the village out perspective (Aesop!)
Do you take this makeshift-Candy Land-cold classic-bastard style
To be your lawfully wedded head trip
Doing base throughout sickness, health, electrical storm
Fire, pain, rain, hail, wind, ice, sleet, snow? (Hell no!)
I'm balanced, personified phantom to the bone
Walkin like a Jabberwocky
Scalpin a pair of one-way tickets to shadowboxing
Christmas with a shallow stocking
Like this (I'm just trying to milk the mileage)
You drop science like Don Herbert with liquor in him
Soundin off like senior citizens sitting at bingo parlor bickering
Yeah it's kinda funny, isn't it
How I can build while you just sit there and bitch about your syllabus
Dwarfed by the lights, bewildered by the fanbase
Bound by an idea, skeptical of the handshakes
John Fogerty (Creedence Clearwater Revival)
No one, and I mean no one, does more with less.
sample:
It came out of the sky, landed just a little south of Moline
Jody fell out of his tractor, couldn't believe what he'd seen
Laid on the ground and shook, fearing for his life
Then he ran all the way to town screaming "It came out of the sky"
Well, a crowd gathered 'round and a scientist said it was marsh gas
Spiro came and made a speech about raising the Mars tax
The Vatican said, "Woe, the Lord has come"
Hollywood rushed out an epic film
And Ronnie the Popular said it was a communist plot
Oh, the newspapers came and made Jody a national hero.
Walter and Eric said they'd put him on a network TV show
The White House said, "Put the thing in the Blue Room"
The Vatican said, "No, it belongs to Rome"
And Jody said, "It's mine and you can have it for seventeen million"
Oh, it came out of the sky, landed just a little south of Moline
Jody fell out of his tractor, couldn't believe what he'd seen
Laid on the ground and shook, fearing for his life
Then he ran all the way to town screaming "It came out of the sky"
Edward Ka-Spel (The Legendary Pink Dots)
One of the strangest cult figures of all time.
sample:
Powdered Heaven dressed in plastic pulled the shades down on his eye. Pinprick pupils soaring skywards Offer him no alibis. But then, who needs them? He's quite perfect. Perfect body, perfect teeth that flash sublime and blind the kids who Spread their legs for their belief. Who cross themselves at the drop of a parable; Who scream they're saved when they've touched his jeans Who swear his wisdom's just infallible and beg for mercy -- in his dreams... Another day. another sermon. Broken bread, forgotten lines. A line for comfort keeps him human. The needle trembles, band on tight. Another little perforation ventilates him and paints him white. A wordless song, a prayer to no-one but still he whistles through the night. They found him on his throne of porcelain. A rusty chain draped 'round his neck. Incapable. Incoherent. His eyes switched off but a king no less! The jury all wore black chewed razors. Witnesses were D.O.A. O.D'd, amoral, senses skewered. Dribbling lies and tooth decay. They declared his guilt. The defence said nothing... sobbing as the judge turned blue and washed his hands and said "Lord forgive us, for we know not what we do..." "Drown in your soma bath!" They said, "Drown in your soma bath! What are we gonna do with you? Let the punishment fit the crime! We have the technology. We got the instruments. Down! Down in your soma bath..."
Billy Joel
Underrated. Vastly underrated. Mainly because he's an arrogant trend-chaser. Still, he carries on the Tin Pan Alley tradition for the modern age.
sample:
Come out Virginia, don't let me me wait
You Catholic girls start much too late
But sooner or later it comes down to fate
I might as well be the one
They showed you a statue and told you to pray
They built you a temple and locked you away
But they never told you the price that you pay
For things that you might have done...
Only the good die young
You might have heard I run with a dangerous crowd
We ain't too pretty we ain't too proud
We might be laughing a bit too loud
But that never hurt no one
Come on Virginia show me a sign
Send up a signal I'll throw you the line
The stained-glass curtain you're hiding behind
Never lets in the sun
And only the good die young
You got a nice white dress and a party on your confirmation
You got a brand new soul
And a cross of gold
But Virginia they didn't give you quite enough information
You didn't count on me
When you were counting on your rosary
They say there's a heaven for those who will wait
Some say it's better but I say it ain't
I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints
Sinners are much more fun...
And only the good die young
You say your mother told you all that I could give you was a reputation
She never cared for me
But did she ever say a prayer for me?
Roger Waters (Pink Floyd)
One of rock's great misanthropists, but also one of its clearest thinkers and deepest philosophers.
sample:
Floating down through the clouds
Memories come rushing up to meet me now.
In the space between the heavens
and in the corner of some foreign field
I had a dream.
I had a dream.
Good-bye Max.
Good-bye Ma.
After the service when you're walking slowly to the car
And the silver in her hair shines in the cold November air
You hear the tolling bell
And touch the silk in your lapel
And as the tear drops rise to meet the comfort of the band
You take her frail hand
And hold on to the dream:
A place to stay
Enough to eat
Somewhere old heroes shuffle safely down the street
Where you can speak out loud
About your doubts and fears
And what's more no-one ever disappears
You never hear their standard issue kicking in your door.
You can relax on both sides of the tracks
And maniacs don't blow holes in bandsmen by remote control
And everyone has recourse to the law
And no one kills the children anymore.
And no one kills the children anymore.
Night after night
Going round and round my brain
His dream is driving me insane!
In the corner of some foreign field
The gunner sleeps tonight.
What's done is done.
We cannot just write off his final scene.
Take heed of his dream.
Take heed.
Mike Watt / D. Boon (The Minutemen)
These two are interchangeable: their brands of notebook socialism are indistinguishable from each other. But no one does the leftist poetry as well.
sample:
And so my soul collapsed into a big guilt wad
Some big thunder law forces me to eat shit
And if I was a word could my letters number a hundred?
More likely coarse and guttural one syllable anglo saxon
I'm a victim of fact let's say I loved a girl
But the world was wrong and I was forced to march in line
But it felt like handcuffs
Machines disregard my pronouns
I am defeated
I am the cool damp clay
Randy Newman
The world's greatest living musical satirist.
sample:
No one likes us
I don't know why
We may not be perfect, but heaven knows we try
But all around, even our old friends put us down
Let's drop the big one and see what happens
We give them money
But are they grateful?
No, they're spiteful and they're hateful
They don't respect us, so let's surprise them
We'll drop the big one and pulverize them
Asia's crowded and Europe's too old
Africa is far too hot
And Canada's too cold
And South America stole our name
Let's drop the big one
There'll be no one left to blame us
We'll save Australia
Don't wanna hurt no kangaroo
We'll build an All American amusement park there
They got surfin', too
Boom goes London and boom Paree
More room for you and more room for me
And every city the whole world round
Will just be another American town
Oh, how peaceful it will be
We'll set everybody free
You'll wear a Japanese kimono
And there'll be Italian shoes for me
They all hate us anyhow
So let's drop the big one now
Let's drop the big one now
There was a person on my flist (I wanna say wordweaverlynn, but I'm just not sure who it is) who made an excellent post about their favorite lyricists, with examples of their work.
Anyway, from whoever, for whoever, here's my list. Click on links for the lyrics.
Bob Dylan
Yeah, he's the gold standard. But there's a reason for that.
sample:
Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child's balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand you know too soon
There is no sense in trying.
Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn
Suicide remarks are torn
From the fool's gold mouthpiece the hollow horn
Plays wasted words, proves to warn
That he not busy being born
Is busy dying.
Temptation's page flies out the door
You follow, find yourself at war
Watch waterfalls of pity roar
You feel to moan but unlike before
You discover that you'd just be one more
person crying.
So don't fear if you hear
A foreign sound to your ear
It's alright, Ma, I'm only sighing.
As some warn victory, some downfall
Private reasons great or small
Can be seen in the eyes of those that call
To make all that should be killed to crawl
While others say don't hate nothing at all
Except hatred.
Disillusioned words like bullets bark
As human gods aim for their mark
Made everything from toy guns that spark
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark
It's easy to see without looking too far
That not much is really sacred.
While preachers preach of evil fates
Teachers teach that knowledge waits
Can lead to hundred-dollar plates
Goodness hides behind its gates
But even the president of the United States
Sometimes must have to stand naked.
And though the rules of the road have been lodged
It's only people's games that you got to dodge
And it's alright, Ma, I can make it.
Advertising signs that con you
Into thinking you're the one
That can do what's never been done
That can win what's never been won
Meantime life outside goes on
All around you.
You lose yourself, you reappear
You suddenly find you got nothing to fear
Alone you stand with nobody near
When a trembling distant voice, unclear
Startles your sleeping ears to hear
That somebody thinks
They really found you.
A question in your nerves is lit
Yet you know there is no answer fit
To satisfy, ensure you not to quit
To keep it in your mind and not fergit
That it is not he or she or them or it
That you belong to.
Although the masters make the rules
For the wise men and the fools
I got nothing, Ma, to live up to.
For them that must obey authority
That they do not respect in any degree
Who despise their jobs, their destinies
Speak jealously of them that are free
Cultivate their flowers to be
Nothing more than something they invest in.
While some on principles baptized
To strict party platform ties
Social clubs in drag disguise
Outsiders they can freely criticize
Tell nothing except who to idolize
And then say God bless him.
While one who sings with his tongue on fire
Gargles in the rat race choir
Bent out of shape from society's pliers
Cares not to come up any higher
But rather get you down in the hole that he's in.
But I mean no harm nor put fault
On anyone that lives in a vault
But it's alright, Ma, if I can't please him.
Old lady judges watch people in pairs
Limited in sex, they dare
To push fake morals, insult and stare
While money doesn't talk, it swears
Obscenity, who really cares
Propaganda, all is phony.
While them that defend what they cannot see
With a killer's pride, security
It blows the minds most bitterly
For them that think death's honesty
Won't fall upon them naturally
Life sometimes must get lonely.
My eyes collide head-on with stuffed
Graveyards, false gods, I scuff
At pettiness which plays so rough
Walk upside-down inside handcuffs
Kick my legs to crash it off
Say okay, I have had enough
What else can you show me?
And if my thought-dreams could be seen
They'd probably put my head in a guillotine
But it's alright, Ma, it's life, and life only.
Beck
He's probably to blame for the common perception of him as a pop-culture junkyard. But that doesn't make him any less deserving of re-examination.
sample:
lazy flies all hovering above
the magistrate, he puts on his gloves
and he looks to the clouds
all pink and disheveled
there must be some blueprint
some creed of the devil
inscribed in our minds
a hideous game
vanishes in thin air
the vanity of slaves
who wants to be there?
to sweep the debris
to harness dead horses
to ride in the sun
a life of confessions
written in the dust
out in the mangroves
the mynah birds cry
in the shadows of sulphur
the trawlers drift by
they're chewing dried meat
in a house of disrepute
the dust of opiates
and syphilis patients
on brochure vacations
fear has a glare that traps you
like searchlights
the puritans stare
their souls are fluoresecent
the skin of a robot
vibrates with pleasure
matrons and gigolos
carouse in the parlor
their hand-grenade eyes
invalid and blind
Paul Simon
A songwriter who truly knows how to be enigmatic. You don't know what the hell is going on, except for his most personal moments. But you get the feeling clearly.
sample:
The mama pajama rolled out of bed
And she ran to the police station
When the papa found out he began to shout
And start the investigation
It's against the law
It was against the law
What the mama saw
It was against the law
The mama looked down and spit on the ground
Everytime my name gets mentioned
The papa said oy if I get that boy
I'm gonna stick him in the house of detention
Well I'm on my way
I don't know where I'm going
I'm on my way
I'm taking my time
But I don't know where
Goodbye to Rosie the queen of Corona
See me and Julio
Down by the schoolyard
See me and Julio
Down by the schoolyard
In a couple of days they come and
Take me away
But the press let the story leak
And when the radical priest
Come to get me released
We was all on the cover of Newsweek
And I'm on my way
I don't know where I'm going
I'm on my way
I'm taking my time
But I don't know where
Goodbye to Rosie the queen of Corona
See me and Julio
Down by the schoolyard
See me and Julio
Down by the schoolyard
See me and Julio
Down by the schoolyard
Aesop Rock
I love hip-hop, but all the mainstream stuff is egocentric, meaning it's hard for me to care that much about 50 Cent's lyrics, because I'm not him. The party people of the Eighties and the street poetry of the Nineties are gone. Underground hip-hop, however...
sample:
Jiggy-jabberjaw vitamin idol and primal rages
When bible page verse tidal waves has begun (Water one)
I wrote the book that shook America to splinters
In a winter wasteland
Icicle-bound barren township
Call barren moon childs and proud gimps to clinch this chemical war pig
Delinquent sinkin like a paper tugboat
Well beneath your holiday
Beached on a red tide infested shore corroding eastern seaboard beauty
I'm a jigsaw slab, but all the pig saw was dirt bag
It's like a bleeding comet bombing on your sequels
To the riverside park tunnel people claim last lifeform standing
Carbon based pardons ain't enough
My stilts truly personify the serbonite flea circus
We urchins merkin on daily
I catapult brain opera past basic
Tear my own face off in the finale, stick around it's ill
Diabolic Prodigal Son spill grimmace
If you had one more eye, you'd be a Cyclops
Which explains missing the premise
Bliss mimic, baptise, chastise, laugh die
Kiss the finish, piss the villagers the fuck off
Pete Piper picked peppers, and Run rocked rhymes
Aes Rock might've smoked one too many dimes in his time
Now where you gonna be when the sun falls, brother
Probably gathering your sheep with all these other mothafuckers
Struck twice in the same place by a moody Zues fishliner
Smackin the third clear out the park
Going gone (To infinity and beyond!)
I rocked for a flock of Chewbacca look-alikes in magic makers
Hermit crabs and New York city sewer aligators
Keep your homily dream out your homily
I deal with tangible goods
And avoid manufacturing food for landfills
I've seen friends bow to needles
I've seen needles bow to records
I've seen boughs break
I've seen God bow and make the clouds shake
I've seen the proud break
I've seen alot for a blind soldier
Who tattooed the city scape up skin to blend in
Rats travel by night invite the waterbugs
I'm here to pull the three-prong
When it's prime directive wormhole of self-sacrifice
Had a hatchet slice for camps
For that God-awful Frankenstein
Starving your style to someday be a story in my time
Life's hard, life's easy
Life's everything in between
Life's Peachy like James and the Giant
And I keep spittin as long as these kittens buy it
And I keep casting my line as long as these officials bite it
And I like it (Don't try it like that)
Ban away temper tantrum, decrepit anthem
Set a low go, I arrived late
I'm here to scrape a car clean to the funk machine
Imposes on the underling amalgam cluster and identifies the mother (You got heart)
I hate to tell you but it skips more than it palpitates
Like these here drunken little archers missed one of they calculate
The falcon hates the mockingbird
The farmer hates the drought
I hate em all, I kick the bottom brick out shouting "Yes y'all"
And blow the village out perspective (Aesop!)
Do you take this makeshift-Candy Land-cold classic-bastard style
To be your lawfully wedded head trip
Doing base throughout sickness, health, electrical storm
Fire, pain, rain, hail, wind, ice, sleet, snow? (Hell no!)
I'm balanced, personified phantom to the bone
Walkin like a Jabberwocky
Scalpin a pair of one-way tickets to shadowboxing
Christmas with a shallow stocking
Like this (I'm just trying to milk the mileage)
You drop science like Don Herbert with liquor in him
Soundin off like senior citizens sitting at bingo parlor bickering
Yeah it's kinda funny, isn't it
How I can build while you just sit there and bitch about your syllabus
Dwarfed by the lights, bewildered by the fanbase
Bound by an idea, skeptical of the handshakes
John Fogerty (Creedence Clearwater Revival)
No one, and I mean no one, does more with less.
sample:
It came out of the sky, landed just a little south of Moline
Jody fell out of his tractor, couldn't believe what he'd seen
Laid on the ground and shook, fearing for his life
Then he ran all the way to town screaming "It came out of the sky"
Well, a crowd gathered 'round and a scientist said it was marsh gas
Spiro came and made a speech about raising the Mars tax
The Vatican said, "Woe, the Lord has come"
Hollywood rushed out an epic film
And Ronnie the Popular said it was a communist plot
Oh, the newspapers came and made Jody a national hero.
Walter and Eric said they'd put him on a network TV show
The White House said, "Put the thing in the Blue Room"
The Vatican said, "No, it belongs to Rome"
And Jody said, "It's mine and you can have it for seventeen million"
Oh, it came out of the sky, landed just a little south of Moline
Jody fell out of his tractor, couldn't believe what he'd seen
Laid on the ground and shook, fearing for his life
Then he ran all the way to town screaming "It came out of the sky"
Edward Ka-Spel (The Legendary Pink Dots)
One of the strangest cult figures of all time.
sample:
Powdered Heaven dressed in plastic pulled the shades down on his eye. Pinprick pupils soaring skywards Offer him no alibis. But then, who needs them? He's quite perfect. Perfect body, perfect teeth that flash sublime and blind the kids who Spread their legs for their belief. Who cross themselves at the drop of a parable; Who scream they're saved when they've touched his jeans Who swear his wisdom's just infallible and beg for mercy -- in his dreams... Another day. another sermon. Broken bread, forgotten lines. A line for comfort keeps him human. The needle trembles, band on tight. Another little perforation ventilates him and paints him white. A wordless song, a prayer to no-one but still he whistles through the night. They found him on his throne of porcelain. A rusty chain draped 'round his neck. Incapable. Incoherent. His eyes switched off but a king no less! The jury all wore black chewed razors. Witnesses were D.O.A. O.D'd, amoral, senses skewered. Dribbling lies and tooth decay. They declared his guilt. The defence said nothing... sobbing as the judge turned blue and washed his hands and said "Lord forgive us, for we know not what we do..." "Drown in your soma bath!" They said, "Drown in your soma bath! What are we gonna do with you? Let the punishment fit the crime! We have the technology. We got the instruments. Down! Down in your soma bath..."
Billy Joel
Underrated. Vastly underrated. Mainly because he's an arrogant trend-chaser. Still, he carries on the Tin Pan Alley tradition for the modern age.
sample:
Come out Virginia, don't let me me wait
You Catholic girls start much too late
But sooner or later it comes down to fate
I might as well be the one
They showed you a statue and told you to pray
They built you a temple and locked you away
But they never told you the price that you pay
For things that you might have done...
Only the good die young
You might have heard I run with a dangerous crowd
We ain't too pretty we ain't too proud
We might be laughing a bit too loud
But that never hurt no one
Come on Virginia show me a sign
Send up a signal I'll throw you the line
The stained-glass curtain you're hiding behind
Never lets in the sun
And only the good die young
You got a nice white dress and a party on your confirmation
You got a brand new soul
And a cross of gold
But Virginia they didn't give you quite enough information
You didn't count on me
When you were counting on your rosary
They say there's a heaven for those who will wait
Some say it's better but I say it ain't
I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints
Sinners are much more fun...
And only the good die young
You say your mother told you all that I could give you was a reputation
She never cared for me
But did she ever say a prayer for me?
Roger Waters (Pink Floyd)
One of rock's great misanthropists, but also one of its clearest thinkers and deepest philosophers.
sample:
Floating down through the clouds
Memories come rushing up to meet me now.
In the space between the heavens
and in the corner of some foreign field
I had a dream.
I had a dream.
Good-bye Max.
Good-bye Ma.
After the service when you're walking slowly to the car
And the silver in her hair shines in the cold November air
You hear the tolling bell
And touch the silk in your lapel
And as the tear drops rise to meet the comfort of the band
You take her frail hand
And hold on to the dream:
A place to stay
Enough to eat
Somewhere old heroes shuffle safely down the street
Where you can speak out loud
About your doubts and fears
And what's more no-one ever disappears
You never hear their standard issue kicking in your door.
You can relax on both sides of the tracks
And maniacs don't blow holes in bandsmen by remote control
And everyone has recourse to the law
And no one kills the children anymore.
And no one kills the children anymore.
Night after night
Going round and round my brain
His dream is driving me insane!
In the corner of some foreign field
The gunner sleeps tonight.
What's done is done.
We cannot just write off his final scene.
Take heed of his dream.
Take heed.
Mike Watt / D. Boon (The Minutemen)
These two are interchangeable: their brands of notebook socialism are indistinguishable from each other. But no one does the leftist poetry as well.
sample:
And so my soul collapsed into a big guilt wad
Some big thunder law forces me to eat shit
And if I was a word could my letters number a hundred?
More likely coarse and guttural one syllable anglo saxon
I'm a victim of fact let's say I loved a girl
But the world was wrong and I was forced to march in line
But it felt like handcuffs
Machines disregard my pronouns
I am defeated
I am the cool damp clay
Randy Newman
The world's greatest living musical satirist.
sample:
No one likes us
I don't know why
We may not be perfect, but heaven knows we try
But all around, even our old friends put us down
Let's drop the big one and see what happens
We give them money
But are they grateful?
No, they're spiteful and they're hateful
They don't respect us, so let's surprise them
We'll drop the big one and pulverize them
Asia's crowded and Europe's too old
Africa is far too hot
And Canada's too cold
And South America stole our name
Let's drop the big one
There'll be no one left to blame us
We'll save Australia
Don't wanna hurt no kangaroo
We'll build an All American amusement park there
They got surfin', too
Boom goes London and boom Paree
More room for you and more room for me
And every city the whole world round
Will just be another American town
Oh, how peaceful it will be
We'll set everybody free
You'll wear a Japanese kimono
And there'll be Italian shoes for me
They all hate us anyhow
So let's drop the big one now
Let's drop the big one now