Lyrics

[cybot]

The Fish Song - Thin White Rope

You should of seen the one that got away
It must have weighed about a hundred and ten
It pulled away so fast it burned my hand
it cut the line so hard I could not stand

I gave it some play, gave it slack
Like you do when the big one attacks
Now a part of me is roaming the deep
Stuck on the big one I could not keep

[Ivor]

Billy Bragg - Levi Stubb's Tears

With the money from her accident
She bought herself a mobile home
So at least she could get some enjoyment
Out of being alone
No one could say that she was left up on the shelf
It's you and me against the World kid she mumbled to herself

CHORUS:
When the world falls apart some things stay in place
Levi Stubbs' tears run down his face

She ran away from home with her mother's best coat
She was married before she was even entitled to vote
And her husband was one of those blokes
The sort that only laughs at his own jokes
The sort that war takes away
And when there wasn't a war he left her anyway

Norman Whitfield and Barratt Strong
Are here to make right everything that's wrong
Holland and Holland and Lamont Dozier too
Are here to make it all okay with you

One dark night he came home from the sea
And put a hole in her body where no hole should be
It hurt her more to see him walking out the door
And though they stitched her back together they left her heart in pieces on the
floor

When the world falls apart some things stay in place
She takes off the Four Tops tape and puts it back in its case
When the world falls apart some things stay in place
Levi Stubbs' tears...

[cybot]

Nice one Ivor. A perfect example in how to write a song or a poem.....

[cybot]

Shades of a Blue Orphanage - Thin Lizzy

When we were kids he used to go over the back wall, and into old Dan's scrapyard,
Then into the snooker hall where most us kids were barred
And into the Roxy and the Stella where film stars starred
That's where me and Hopalong Cassidy, Roy Rogers got drunk and jarred
And we might have been
the Saviour of the men,
The Captured captain in,
the devil's demon den,
And we might have been,
the magic politician
in some kind of tricky position.
But like old, old, old master musicians we kept on wishin'
We was headed for the number one hit country again

[Adrian]

1234

Do it now, do it now,
Day starts with a blast that feeds back,
Still spinning from the night that we had,
In the mirror where I brush my teeth at,
There's three more heads, and they watching me back,
Read the bread while I toast my pay check,
One the girls said grins a safe bet,
Phone ringing an I refuse to take it,
Wanna play dead but I'm on the dayshift,
Stepping out on to the weekly rota,
On the cheap share a seat with Olga,
Train driver said it aint a joka,
Were gonna be stuck till I fix the motta,
Half hour in-between the stations,
Start jogging when I hit the pavement,
Ran straight into a situation,
Cops say stop cause I aint Caucasian,
Whole hour on explanation,
Missed the bus an the cab was ancient,
I'm really now in a situation,
When I return to my destination,
I get told to collect my payment,
Clear the desk quick make it vacant,
Now if I ever needed inspiration,
Right about now where I lose my patience,
If I ever needed inspiration,
Right about here's where i lose my patience,
Do it now, do it now,

Groove Armada, Album Love Box, Madder

I particularly like the line...."Were gonna be stuck till I fix the motta" it just cracks me up!!

[Tertonmike]

Excellent idea for a thread - have we never had this before? And, if not, why not?

As an opener from me, consider the following:

"All the young girls look like ravens
As they flock around the pool,
And they peck at their reflection
In the shadows of men's drool.

I could look out there forever,
Forever has no holes,
Through the windows of eternity
You can glimpse the passing souls.

This party's over,
The bells are ringing themselves,
I'm going home."

Robyn Hitchcock, "Flanagan's Song"

[Adrian]

Squeeze "Up the Junction"

I never thought it would happen
With me and the girl from clapham
Out on a windy common
That night I ain’t forgotten
When she dealt out the rations
With some or other passions
I said you are a lady
Perhaps she said I may be
We moved into a basement
With thoughts of our engagement
We stayed in by the telly
Although the room was smelly
We spent our time just kissing
The railway arms we’re missing
But love had got us hooked up
And all our time it took up

I got a job with stanley
He said I’d come in handy
And started me on monday
So I had a bath on sunday
I worked eleven hours
And bought the girl some flowers
She said she’d seen a doctor
And nothing now could stop her

I worked all through the winter
The weather brass and bitter
I put away a tenner
Each week to make her better
And when the time was ready
We had to sell the telly
Late evenings by the fire
With little kicks inside her

This morning at 4:50
I took her rather nifty
Down to an incubator
Where thirty minutes later
She gave birth to a daughter
Within a year a walker
She looked just like her mother
If there could be another

And now she’s two years older
Her mother’s with a soldier
She left me when my drinking
Became a proper stinging
The devil came and took me
From bar to street to bookie
No more nights by the telly
No more nights nappies smelling

Alone here in the kitchen
I feel there’s something missing
I’d beg for some forgiveness
But begging’s not my business
And she won’t write a letter
Although I always tell her
And so it’s my assumption
I’m really up the junction

Those Lyrics always bring a smile to my face!!

[Ivor]

Squeeze "Up the Junction"

always brilliant!

[Ivor]

a lesson in wordplay and pathos...

Tom Waits - Small Change (got rained on with his own .38)

Small Change got rained on with his own thirty-eight,
And nobody flinched down by the arcade
And the marquees weren't weeping, they went stark-raving mad,
And the cabbies were the only ones that really had it made
And his cold trousers were twisted, and the sirens high and shrill,
And crumpled in his fist was a five-dollar bill
And the naked mannequins with their Cheshire grins,
And the raconteurs and roustabouts said "Buddy, come on in, 'cause
'Cause the dreams ain't broken down here now, they're walking with a limp
Now that Small Change got rained on with his own thirty-eight"

And nobody flinched down by the arcade
And the burglar alarm's been disconnected,
And the newsmen start to rattle
And the cops are telling jokes about some whorehouse in Seattle
And the fire hydrants plead the Fifth Amendment
And the furniture is bargains galore
But the blood is by the jukebox on an old linoleum floor
And what a hot rain on Forty-Second Street,
And now the umbrellas ain't got a chance
And the newsboy's a lunatic with stains on his pants, 'cause
'Cause Small Change got rained on with his own thirty-eight

And no one's gone over to close his eyes
And there's a racing form in his pocket,
Circled "Blue Boots" in the third
And the cashier at the clothing store didn't say a word
As the siren tears the night in half, and someone lost his wallet
Well, a surveillance of assailance, it that's what you want to call it
And the whores hike up their skirts and fish for drug-store prophylactics
With their mouths cut just like razor blades and their eyes are like stilettos
And her radiator's steaming and her teeth are in a wreck, and nah,
She won't let you kiss her, but what the hell do you expect?
And the Gypsies are tragic and if you want to buy perfume,
Well, they'll bark you down like carneys, sell you Christmas cards in June, but
But Small Change got rained on with his own thirty-eight

And his headstone's a gumball machine,
No more chewing gum or baseball cards or overcoats or dreams
Someone's hosing down the sidewalk, and he's only in his teens, 'cause
'Cause Small Change got rained on with his own thirty-eight

And a fistful of dollars can't change that,
And someone copped his watch fob, and someone got his ring
And the newsboy got his porkpie Stetson hat
And the tuberculosis old men at the Nelson wheeze and cough
And someone will head south until this whole thing cools off, 'cause
'Cause Small Change got rained on with his own thirty-eight, yeah,
Small Change got rained on with his own thirty-eight

[Tertonmike]

...and, in a similar mood:

Far from crazy pavements, the taste of silver spoons
A clinical arrangement on a dirty afternoon
Where the fecal germs of Mr Freud are rendered obsolete
The legal term is null and void in the case of Beasley Street

In the cheap seats where murder breeds somebody is out of breath
Sleep is a luxury they don't need a sneak preview of death
Belladonna is your flower, manslaughter your meat
Spend a year in a couple of hours on the edge of Beasley Street

Where the action isn't - that's where it is
State your position - vacancies exist
In an X-certificate exercise ex-servicemen excrete
Keith Joseph smiles and a baby dies in a box on Beasley Street

In the boarding houses and bedsits full of accidents and fleas
Somebody gets it where the missing persons freeze
Wearing dead men's overcoats you can't see their feet
A Riff joint shuts, opens up right down on Beasley Street

Cars collide, colours clash - disaster movie stuff
For the man with the Fu Manchu moustache revenge is not enough
There's a dead canary on a swivel seat, there's a rainbow in the road
Meanwhile on Beasley Street silence is the code

Hot beneath the collar, an inspector calls
Where the perishing stink of squalor impregnates the walls
The rats have all got rickets, they spit through broken teeth
The name of the game is not cricket
Caught out on Beasley Street

The hipster and his hired hat drive a borrowed car
Yellow socks and a pink cravat - nothing la-di-dah
OAP, mother-to-be
Watch the three-piece suite
Where shitstoppered drains
and crocodile skis are seen on Beasley Street

In the kingdom of the blind the one-eyed man is king
Beauty problems are redefined, the doorbells do not ring
A light bulb bursts like a blister, the only form of heat
Where a fellow sells his sister down the river on Beasley Street

The boys are on the wagon, the girls are on the shelf
Their common problem is that they're not someone else
The dirt blows out, the dust blows in
You can't keep it neat
It's a fully furnished dustbin: 16 Beasley Street

Vince the ageing savage betrays no kind of life
But the smell of yesterday's cabbage and the ghost of last year's wife
Through a constant haze of deodorant sprays he says "Retreat!"
Alsatians dog the dirty days down the middle of Beasley Street

People turn to poison quick as lager turns to piss
Sweethearts are physically sick every time they kiss
It's a sociologist's paradise
Each day repeats: uneasy, cheasy, greasy, queasy
...beastly, Beasley Street

Eyes dead as vicious fish look around for laughs
If I could have just one wish I would be a photograph
On a permanent Monday morning
Get lost or fall asleep
When the yellow cats are yawning around the back of Beasley Street

John Cooper Clarke, "Beasley Street"

Pure poetry for Now people! (Especially the blue bits!)