Heartland

and anything by Johnny Clarke, especially-
The kitchen has been ransacked
ski trails in the hall
a chicken has been dansacked
and thrown against the wall

Not that I'm a fan but the opening lines of "A Design for Life" by the Manic Street Preachers have always struck me as particularly well crafted:

Libraries gave us power
Then work came and made us free

I especially like the poignancy that "Arbeit Macht Frei" (Work Brings Freedom) was the sign over the gates of Auschwitz concentration camp.
Nice one Welsh Blokes.

Other than that, Heartland for its utter beauty:

Lay me down the long white line
Leave the sirens far behind me,
Paint my name in black and gold,
My heart my flame my heart my road,
My heartland fade across the line,
Heartland sing the faces shining
In the failing, failing, failing,
Heartland make the places mine

Do you see? Good.

Also, "How Was It For You?" by James

Well they said you are as good as you look but that
Would be impossible
For you look even better than the face of god on a sunny day
You look good enough to eat but I've had a bellyful
And now I have this bill but I don't wanna pay

And "The Beat(en) Generation" by the The

When you cast your eyes upon the skylines
Of this once proud nation
Can you sense the fear and the hatred
Growing in the hearts of its population

And our youth, oh youth, are being seduced
by the greedy hands of politics and half truths

The beaten generation, the beaten generation
Reared on a diet of prejudice and mis-information
The beaten generation, the beaten generation
Open your eyes, open your imagination

We’re being sedated by the gasoline fumes
and hypnotised by the satellites
Into believing what is good and what is right
You may be worshipping the temples of mammon
Or lost in the prisons of religion
But can you still walk back to happiness
When you’ve nowhere left to run?

And if they send in the special police
To deliver us from liberty and keep us from peace
Then won’t the words sit ill upon their tongues
when they tell us justice is being done
and that freedom lives in the barrels of a warm gun

Not forgetting "Ich bin ein Auslander" by the mighty PWEI

Welcome to a state where the politics of hate
Shout loud in the crowd "Watch them beat us all down"
There's a rising tide in the rivers of blood
But if the answer isn't violence, neither is your silence

If they come to ethnically cleanse me
Will you speak out? Will you defend me?
Freedom of expression doesn't make it alright
Trampled underfoot by the rise of the right

So many lyrics.... I'll be back with mnore right after this break....

@ mik- about your above post with reference to James

Same James that wrote "Sometimes"?

Oh and hurry with that break....

A couple of all time faves..

Since I was no bigger than a weevil
they've been saying I was evil,
that if bad was a boot that I'd fit it.
That I'm a wicked young lady,
but I've been trying hard lately
Oh f**k it, I'm a monster, I admit it!

Nick Cave - Curse Of Millhaven


Pushing thru the market square,
so many mothers sighing
News had just come over,
we had five years left to cry in
News guy wept and told us,
Earth was really dying
Cried so much his face was wet,
then I knew he was not lying

Bowie - 5 Years

czuczu wrote: Pushing thru the market square,
so many mothers sighing
News had just come over,
we had five years left to cry in
News guy wept and told us,
Earth was really dying
Cried so much his face was wet,
then I knew he was not lying

Bowie - 5 Years

to you - and lazcorp for "candidate". i don't get around to listening to bowie as much as i used to and it's easy to forget how good (read brilliant) a lyricist he is/was.

"rock 'n' roll suicide" -david bowie

Time takes a cigarette, puts it in your mouth
You pull on your finger, then another finger, then your cigarette
The wall-to-wall is calling, it lingers, then you forget
Ohhh, you're a rock 'n' roll suicide

You're too old to lose it, too young to choose it
And the clocks waits so patiently on your song
You walk past a cafe but you don't eat when you've lived too long
Oh, no, no, no, you're a rock 'n' roll suciide

Chev brakes are snarling as you stumble across the road
But the day breaks instead so you hurry home
Don't let the sun blast your shadow
Don't let the milk float ride your mind
They're so natural - religiously unkind

Oh no love! you're not alone
You're watching yourself but you're too unfair
You got your head all tangled up but if I could only make you care
Oh no love! you're not alone
No matter what or who you've been
No matter when or where you've seen
All the knives seem to lacerate your brain
I've had my share, I'll help you with the pain
You're not alone

Just turn on with me and you're not alone
Let's turn on with me and you're not alone
Let's turn on and be not alone
Gimme your hands cause you're wonderful
Gimme your hands cause you're wonderful
Oh gimme your hands.

eastmidswhizzkid wrote:"rock 'n' roll suicide" -david bowie

Time takes a cigarette, puts it in your mouth
You pull on your finger, then another finger, then your cigarette
The wall-to-wall is calling, it lingers, then you forget
Ohhh, you're a rock 'n' roll suicide

You're too old to lose it, too young to choose it
And the clocks waits so patiently on your song
You walk past a cafe but you don't eat when you've lived too long
Oh, no, no, no, you're a rock 'n' roll suciide

Chev brakes are snarling as you stumble across the road
But the day breaks instead so you hurry home
Don't let the sun blast your shadow
Don't let the milk float ride your mind
They're so natural - religiously unkind

Oh no love! you're not alone
You're watching yourself but you're too unfair
You got your head all tangled up but if I could only make you care
Oh no love! you're not alone
No matter what or who you've been
No matter when or where you've seen
All the knives seem to lacerate your brain
I've had my share, I'll help you with the pain
You're not alone

Just turn on with me and you're not alone
Let's turn on with me and you're not alone
Let's turn on and be not alone
Gimme your hands cause you're wonderful
Gimme your hands cause you're wonderful
Oh gimme your hands.

Best Bowie song - ever!

My favourite Bowie lyrics:

Day after day
They send my friends away
To mansions cold and grey
To the far side of town
Where the thin men stalk the streets
While the sane stay underground

Day after day
They tell me I can go
They tell me I can blow
To the far side of town
Where it's pointless to be high
'Cause it's such a long way down

So I tell them that
I can fly, I will scream, I will break my arm
I will do me harm
Here I stand, foot in hand, talking to my wall
I'm not quite right at all...am I?

Don't set me free, I'm as heavy as can be
Just my librium and me
And my E.S.T. makes three

'Cause I'd rather stay here
With all the madmen
Than perish with the sadmen roaming free
And I'd rather play here
With all the madmen
For I'm quite content they're all as sane
As me

(Where can the horizon lie
When a nation hides
Its organic minds
In a cellar...dark and grim
They must be very dim)

Day after day
They take some brain away
Then turn my face around
To the far side of town
And tell me that it's real
Then ask me how I feel

Here I stand, foot in hand, talking to my wall
I'm not quite right at all

Don't set me free, I'm as helpless as can be
My libido's split on me
Gimme some good 'ole lobotomy

'Cause I'd rather stay here
With all the madmen
Than perish with the sadmen
Roaming free
And I'd rather play here
With all the madmen
For I'm quite content
They're all as sane as me

Zane, Zane, Zane
Ouvre le Chien
Zane, Zane, Zane
Ouvre le Chien

mik wrote:Not that I'm a fan but the opening lines of "A Design for Life" by the Manic Street Preachers have always struck me as particularly well crafted:

Libraries gave us power
Then work came and made us free

I especially like the poignancy that "Arbeit Macht Frei" (Work Brings Freedom) was the sign over the gates of Auschwitz concentration camp.
Nice one Welsh Blokes.

"Libraries gave us power" is an Aneurin Bevan line.

most of this goth band called The Sisiters of Mercy

love will tear us apart, passover- joy division

Absolulu, konstytucje, ave hella, opar, leon, allelujaż, ceremonie- Lech Janreka

some of robbie lyrics (yep robbie W.)

and many others

Song To The Siren

To echo someone else "for personal reasons". Or to put it another way it describes how I felt at the time better than I ever could.

Lyric

"Long afloat on shipless oceans
I did all my best to smile
'Til your singing eyes and fingers
Drew me loving to your isle
And you sang
Sail to me
Sail to me
Let me enfold you
Here I am
Here I am
Waiting to hold you

Did I dream you dreamed about me?
Were you here when i was full sail
Now my foolish boat is leaning
Broken lovelorn on your rocks,
For you sing, "Touch me not, touch me not, come back tomorrow:
O my heart, O my heart shies from the sorrow"

I am puzzled as the newborn child
I am troubled at the tide:
Should I stand amid the breakers?
Should I lie with Death my bride?
Hear me sing, "Swim to me, Swim to me, Let me enfold you:
Here I am, Here I am, Waiting to hold you"

On a lighter note most things by Squeeze - Up The Junction is brilliant.

Oh, I also quite like TV on the Radio's Young Liars: (had to transcribe the first two strophes myself as they were nowhere to be found, so those could have a mistake )

Last thing so static, my head is at half
I'm searching the clouds for the skull
My lady reveals herself of marked down freedom
Forever catched out up to no more

She put the b? ? ? in the blame,
Bullets bearing the name
Of each tigres who's left two a two
Said the skin for a bell and the rest for a bell

Can't open no nothing,
Can't open, no nothing young liars
Thank you for taking my hands, young liars
Thank you for taking my hands

It's cold and it's quiet and cobblestone cold in here
f**king for fear of not wanting to fear again
Lonely is all we are, lovely so far
But my heart's still a marble in an empty jelly jar

Someday suppose that my curious nervousness
Distills into prescience clairvoyant consciousness
I will be calmer than cream
Making maps out of your dreams

But when psychic ability kills the nativity
Simply diminish that flinch
Oooh, young liars, ooooh, young liars
Thank you for taking my hands

And burying them deep in the world's wet womb
Where no one can heed their commands
Where no one can heed their commands
Except young liars.

Manchester can rave about their Sumerbee and Best
Then there's Liverpool and Arsenal and Spurs and all the rest
But let us sing our praises of the lads we love the best
As Leeds go marching on...

(Glory, Glory, Leeds United)

And;

Life is short and love is always over in the morning

Some more I was contemplating on my long commute from Leeds to Nottingham.....

Opening lines from "A Song from under the floorboards" by Magazine

I am angry, I am ill and I'm as ugly as sin,
My irritability keeps me alive and kicking

From "So What?" by Ministry

so what, it's your problem to learn to live with
destroy us, or make us saints
we don't care, it's not our fault that we were born too late
a screaming headache on the brow of the state
killing time is appropriate
to make a mess and f**k all the rest, we say, we say
so what?

"Flower to Hide" by Catherine Wheel
So make it shine
No need to fade
I'll make it hard on you
I'll make it glow
No need to show you this time
I'll make it easy
And I know
The sunlight bleaches you
It colours everything you do

"Strange Fruit" (sung) by Billie Holiday
Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

From "All That Money Wants" by The Psychedelic Furs

painted lies on painted lips
that promise heaven tastes like this

More later maybe; having fun!

mik wrote: "Strange Fruit" (sung) by Billie Holiday
Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Great song! Marvellous singer! Superb lyrics!

Love Is A Burning Thing
And It Makes A Fiery Ring
Bound By Wild Desire
I Fell Into A Ring Of Fire

i originally was introduced to this classic by Wall Of Voodoo...

so to close lets listen in on a Mexican Radio

I feel a hot wind on my shoulder
And the touch of a world that is older
Turn the switch and check the number
Leave it on when in bed I slumber
I hear the rhythms of the music
I buy the product and never use it
I hear the talking of the dj
Can't understand just what does he say?

Lyrics-wise, my favourite is probably Driven Like The Snow, although has written so many fine lyrics. Of the recent songs, I'm particularly keen on the lyrics to Will I Dream.

I find the vast majority of lyrics quite silly or pointless. Anyway, at the less subtle end of the spectrum, I'm rather fond of Barbarossa by Cubanate.

be my sons and daughters
be my kith and kin
be my cannonfodder
be my second skin
you are to die for
but i won't die for you
you are blood confetti
thrown for the chosen few.
we hear the voice of god calling calling
we hear the fatherland calling calling
if you're hungry i'll starve you
if you're naked i'll strip you bare...

... and so on.

I can never hear this without it bringing a lump to my throat and a tear to my eye. Partially because it seems to be written to me

The time I think most clearly, the time I drift away
Is on the bus-ride that meanders up these valleys of green and grey
I get to think about what might have been and what may yet come true
And I get to pass a rainy mile thinking of you
And all the while, all the while, I still hear that call
To the land of gold and poison that beckons to us all

Nothing changes here very much, I guess you'd say it never will
The pubs are all full on Friday nights and things get started still
We spent hours last week with Billy boy, bleeding, yeah queuing in Casualty
Staring at those posters we used to laugh at:
Never Never Land, palm trees by the sea
Well there was no need for those guys to hurt him so bad
When all they had to do was knock him down
But no one asks to many questions like that since you left this town

And tomorrow brings another train
Another young brave steals away
But you're the one I remember
From these valleys of green and the grey

You used to talk about winners and losers all the time - as if that was all there was
As if we were not of the same blood family, as if we live by different laws
Do you owe so much less to these rain swept hills than you owe to your good self?
Is it true that the world has always got to be something
That seems to happen somewhere else?
For God's sake don't you realise that I still hear that call
Do you think you're so brave just to go running to that which beckons to us all?

No, not for one second did you look behind you
As you were walking away
Never once did you wish any of us well
Those who had chosen to stay
And if that's what it takes to make it
In the place that you live today
Then I guess you'll never read these letters that I send
From the valleys of the green and the grey

Jesus shivers up my back just reading that.

Sheer class ^ that one Markfiend

underworld - dirty epic:

call me wet trampoline she said today
well I was too busy with my hand
shake well before use she said
but you never touch me anymore
I was busy listening for phone sex
coming through the back door
in skin-tight trunks
and we all went mental and danced

like a buffalo thunder

with a smell of sugar
and a velvet tongue
and designer voodoo
and I got phone sex to see me through the emptiness in my 501s
freeze-dried with a new religion
and my teeth stuffed back in my head


and underworld - pearls girl:

white room
sun room
shadow room
night transmitting cars
across the room
these things sent to dance
across the room
eye watching from your bed
returning to you
rioja rioja
reverend al green
deep blue morocco
the water on stone
the water on concrete
the water on sand
the water on fire smoke
the wind the salt the bride boat coming
dave in the water
old man einstein on top of his house
white deep blue
andalusia red yellow red yellow black car
red light far black place walls
blue chair morocco
hamburg paris
the pieces of the puzzle are waiting
the water of the dark boats
gliding the bride boats
gone out to sea
and dave is floating
dave is floating
and old man einstein crazy in his attic

i love these lyrics!!!!

"Oh baby, tonight we sleep in separate ditches"
"Deep In The Woods" - The Birthday Party

Pretty much everything Nick Cave has ever written, in fact...

"And I don’t know anyone who puts peaches on their cornflakes either..."
"Reasons To Be Miserable" - Half Man Half Biscuit

We are no ordinary type of group
We are no humble pop musicians
"W.A.T" - Laibach

I always try to beat the rest
To impress
I put my tongue in a trouser press.
"I Can't Help Myself" - Moloko

Oh, pretty one...
Oh pretty one...
Why did you give me so much desire?
When there is nowhere I can go
To offload this desire
Oh why did you give me so much love
In a loveless world?
Where there is no-one I can turn to
To unlock all this love
Why did you stick me in self-deprecating bones and skin?
Jesus…
Do you hate me?
Why did you stick me in self-deprecating bones and skin
Do you hate me? Do you hate me? Do you hate me? Do you hate me? Do you hate me?
"I Have Forgiven Jesus" - Morrissey

I envy the road, the ground you tread under,
I envy the wind, your hair riding over,
I envy the pillow your head rests and slumbers,
I envy to murderous envy your lover
'til the light shines on me
I damn to hell every second you breathe
"Catherine" - PJ Harvey

That's for starters, I'm sure I'll think of more...

http://ping.fishtank.org.uk/lyrics/jumper.php

Big Si wrote:http://ping.fishtank.org.uk/lyrics/jumper.php

Well Awlrite!!!

A. Taylor via J. Osterberg