The author looms above his page
and thinks it strange that at his age
he can not find the proper words
to describe his only world.
One would think that in a life
where no two snowflakes are alike
one would have a brilliant rhyme
for each and every bit of time.
__________________
I PROMISED MESS I WOULDN'T DO THIS
Is there a particular song you think exemplifies some quality Plant lyrics?
Early Zeppelin, he mostly just improvised some bluesy sounding lyrics to go along with the (mostly stolen) songs. Later Zeppelin he tried reaching for it a bit with some more spiritual songs (Stairway, Kashmir, No Quarter).
Just curious what songs you were thinking of. I find most Zeppelin lyrics "good enough", just don't consider them on the level of say, Waters.
I love Led Zep but their lyrics are a bunch of twaddle culled from Lord Of the Rings.
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Biggie, Tupac, Nas, Jay-Z, Lupe Fiasco, GZA. Top in rap genre IMO.
Rap never managed to top:-
A child is born with no state of mind
Blind to the ways of mankind
God is smiling on you but he's frowning too
Because only God knows what you'll go through
You'll grow in the ghetto, living second rate
And your eyes will sing a song of deep hate
The places you're playin', where you stay
Looks like one great big alley way
You'll admire all the number book takers
Thugs, pimps, pushers and the big money makers
Driving big cars, spending twenties and tens
And you wanna grow up to be just like them, huh,
Smugglers, scrambles, burglars, gamblers
Pickpockets, peddlers even panhandlers
You say: "I'm cool, I'm no fool!"
But then you wind up dropping out of high school
Now you're unemployed, all non-void
Walking 'round like you're Pretty Boy Floyd
Turned stickup kid, look what you've done did
Got sent up for a eight year bid
Now your manhood is took and you're a may tag
Spend the next two years as a undercover fag
Being used and abused to serve like hell
Till one day you was found hung dead in a cell
It was plain to see that your life was lost
You was cold and your body swung back and forth
But now your eyes sing the sad, sad song
Of how you lived so fast and died so young
Don't push me 'cause I'm close to the edge
I'm trying not to lose my head
It's like a jungle sometimes it makes me wonder how I keep from going under
It's like a jungle sometimes it makes me wonder how I keep from going under
It was all downhill after that
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A man walks down the street,
It's a street in a strange world.
Maybe it's the Third World.
Maybe it's his first time around.
He doesn't speak the language,
He holds no currency.
He is a foreign man,
He is surrounded by the sound, sound ....
Cattle in the marketplace.
Scatterlings and orphanages.
He looks around, around .....
He sees angels in the architecture,
Spinning in infinity,
He says Amen! and Hallelujah!
My personal favorite is Dax Riggs. I know many people wont like this style of music or his writing style but IMO he's a poet.
Acid Bath - Scream of the Butterfly
A creature made of sunshine
Her eyes were like the sky
Rabbit howls like something old as we twitch to her lullaby
The scalpel shines in god's sunshine
Street lights whisper pain
Down here near the poison stream our god has gone insane
She smiles like a child with flowers in her hair
With blood on her hands into the sun she stares
She feels it die, I heard her cry (verse x2)
Like the scream of the butterfly
Sunshine a house in flames
She likes it where she gets it but it's never felt the same
Surgery in the house of dissection
When your candle burns out I will resurrect you
She runs through fields of daisies
Yeah it's just a shame that they eat their own babies
Who cares cause the air is free
When you get there will you kiss the dead for me?
There's blood on the moon and the summer is cold
There's love in the room but baby that's gettin' old
There's blood on my face sittin' on a dead shore
A highway of emptiness and I'm gettin' bored
There's blood on the moon as we plan our escape
The goddess in bloom, handcuffed and raped
There's blood in the bathtub, baby, murder the king
There's blood on the moon
There's blood on just about everything
Sunshine a house in flames
She likes it where she gets it but it's never felt the same
Surgery in the house of dissection
When your candle burns out I will resurrect you
She runs through fields of daisies
Yeah it's just a shame that they eat their own babies
Who cares? 'Cause the air is free
When you get there will you kiss the dead for me?
Something cold is forced inside her
A tear spills down her cheek
Stillborn songs of a dead dreamer
Hymns of the needle freak
With sunlight in her hair she smiles like she don't care
Her dreams are liquid blue
I cut myself again and again to remind myself of you
She smiles like a child with flowers in her hair
With blood on her hands into the sun she stares
She feels it die, I heard her cry (verse x2)
Like the scream of the butterfly (x2)
I met an angel with a sawed-off shotgun
Wanted by the FBI
We dropped some acid, killed our parents
Then we hit the road
Like the scream of the butterfly (x4)
Agents of Oblivion - Phantom Green
Just a cold millennium in another dry age
Just a cold millennium in another dry age
The vanishing man has madness to sow
There are secrets he knows that have never been told
I was sleeping with the insects yeah.....
I was dreamin of the ocean
The devil is just out of frame
The devil is just out of frame
It's suck a cold dimension
This slow burn in my head
(soul, blood)
Phantom green is the color of the sky
Its the color I see when I close my eyes
Phantom green is the color of the sky
Its the color I see when I close my eyes
The devil is just out of frame
The devil is just out of frame
He also writes and performs in Deadboy and the Elephantmen, and does solo acoustic stuff. Im sad that Acid Bath is no longer together, but its interesting to hear how hes mellowed out in his music.
don't know how I didn't think of this one in my first post, but Stan Rogers has to be mentioned here for sure:
Northwest Passage
cho: Ah, for just one time I would take the Northwest Passage
To find the hand of Franklin reaching for the Beaufort Sea;
Tracing one warm line through a land so wild and savage
And make a Northwest Passage to the sea.
Westward from the Davis Strait 'tis there 'twas said to lie
The sea route to the Orient for which so many died;
Seeking gold and glory, leaving weathered, broken bones
And a long-forgotten lonely cairn of stones.
Three centuries thereafter, I take passage overland
In the footsteps of brave Kelso, where his "sea of flowers" began
Watching cities rise before me, then behind me sink again
This tardiest explorer, driving hard across the plain.
And through the night, behind the wheel, the mileage clicking west
I think upon Mackenzie, David Thompson and the rest
Who cracked the mountain ramparts and did show a path for me
To race the roaring Fraser to the sea.
How then am I so different from the first men through this way?
Like them, I left a settled life, I threw it all away.
To seek a Northwest Passage at the call of many men
To find there but the road back home again.
__________________
"If Javex is your muse…then dive in buddy"
Ding, ding, ding. Did you see him and Lovett (and Joe Ely and Guy Clark) at the Knox Presbyterian downtown a few years back? He won the AMA Lifetime Achievement Award for songwriting a while back, quite an accomplishment for a guy with limited commercial success.
No and I can't believe I missed it. I did see the Austin City Limits episode though. What a collection of songwriters that was. Guy Clark is fantastic as well.
Step Inside This House
That picture hangin' on the wall
Was painted by a friend
He gave it to me all down and out
When he owed me ten
Now it doesn't look like much I guess
But it's all that's left of him
And it sure is nice from right over here
When the light's a little dim
Step inside my house Babe
I'll sing for you a song
I'll tell you 'bout where I've been
It shouldn't take too long
I'll show you all the things I own
My treasures you might say
Couldn't be more'n ten dollars worth
But they brighten up my day
Here's a book of poems I got
From a girl I used to know
I guess I read it front to back
Fifty times or so
It's all about the good life
And stayin' at ease with the world
It's funny how I love that book
And I never loved that girl
Hold this piece of glass
Up to the light comin' through the door
It's a prism glass I found on the road
Can you see that little rainbow
Well it's not really a prism I guess
It just broke in a funny way
I found it on my way from Texas
Headed for L.A.
This guitar was given me
By old man Thomas Gray
It's not too much to look at
But I pick it every day
It's been across the country
Four or five times I guess
Between me and old man Tom
It never got much rest
Well that's about all I own
And all I care to I guess
Except this pair of boots
And that funny yellow vest
And that leather jacket and leather bag
And hat hangin' on the wall
Just so it's not too much to carry
Could I see you again next Fall
One of Lovett's heroes that hasn't been mentioned is Townes Van Zandt.
Also have to mention Dave Matthews. He writes some very interesting ans sometimes obscure lyrics. The Space Between is quite a beautiful song when you read the lyrics. I just really dig that concept of the space between.
You cannot quit me so quickly
There's no hope in you for me
No corner you could squeeze me
But I got all the time for you, love
The Space Between
The tears we cry
Is the laughter keeps us coming back for more
The Space Between
The wicked lies we tell
And hope to keep safe from the pain
But will I hold you again?
These fickle, fuddled words confuse me
Like 'Will it rain today?'
Waste the hours with talking, talking
These twisted games we're playing
We're strange allies
With warring hearts
What wild-eyed beast you be
The Space Between
The wicked lies we tell
And hope to keep safe from the pain
Will I hold you again?
Will I hold...
Look at us spinning out in
The madness of a roller coaster
You know you went off like a devil
In a church in the middle of a crowded room
All we can do, my love
Is hope we don't take this ship down
The Space Between
Where you're smiling high
Is where you'll find me if I get to go
The Space Between
The bullets in our firefight
Is where I'll be hiding, waiting for you
The rain that falls
Splash in your heart
Ran like sadness down the window into...
The Space Between
Our wicked lies
Is where we hope to keep safe from pain
Take my hand
'Cause we're walking out of here
Oh, right out of here
Love is all we need here
The Space Between
What's wrong and right
Is where you'll find me hiding, waiting for you
The Space Between
Your heart and mine
Is the space we'll fill with time
The Space Between...
don't know how I didn't think of this one in my first post, but Stan Rogers has to be mentioned here for sure:
Northwest Passage
cho: Ah, for just one time I would take the Northwest Passage
To find the hand of Franklin reaching for the Beaufort Sea;
Tracing one warm line through a land so wild and savage
And make a Northwest Passage to the sea.
Westward from the Davis Strait 'tis there 'twas said to lie
The sea route to the Orient for which so many died;
Seeking gold and glory, leaving weathered, broken bones
And a long-forgotten lonely cairn of stones.
Three centuries thereafter, I take passage overland
In the footsteps of brave Kelso, where his "sea of flowers" began
Watching cities rise before me, then behind me sink again
This tardiest explorer, driving hard across the plain.
And through the night, behind the wheel, the mileage clicking west
I think upon Mackenzie, David Thompson and the rest
Who cracked the mountain ramparts and did show a path for me
To race the roaring Fraser to the sea.
How then am I so different from the first men through this way?
Like them, I left a settled life, I threw it all away.
To seek a Northwest Passage at the call of many men
To find there but the road back home again.
Come all ye lads, draw near to me, that I be not forsaken
This day was lost the Jeannie C. and my living has been taken
I'll go to sea no more
We set out his day in the bright sunrise, the same as any other
My son and I and old John Price in the boat named for my mother
I'll go to sea no more
Now it's well you know what the fishing has been, it's been scarce and hard and cruel
But this day, by God, we sure caught cod, and we sang and we laughed like fools
I'll go to sea no more
I'll never know what it was we struck, but strike we did like thunder
John Price give a cry and pitched overside. Now it's forever he's gone under
I'll go to sea no more
Now a leak we've sprung, let there be no delay if the Jeannie C. we're saving
John Price is drown'd and slip'd away. So I'll patch the hole while you're bailing
I'll go to sea no more
But no leak I found from bow to hold. No rock it was that got her
But what I found made me heart stop cold, for every seam poured water
I'll go to sea no more
My God, I cried as she went down. That boat was like no other
My father built her when I was nine, and named her for my mother
I'll go to sea no more
And sure I could have another made in the boat shop down in Dover
But I would not love the keel they laid like the one the waves roll over
I'll go to sea no more
So come all ye lads, draw near to me, that I be not forsaken
This day was lost the Jeannie C. and my whole life has been taken
I'll go to sea no more:
Last edited by tyler durden; 04-15-2010 at 05:52 PM.
