Songs with Great Lyrics You Probably Haven't Considered

4 months ago 3

!950s photo of Brill building — famous location where lots of lyricists worked

This article will not have anything by Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Elvis Costello, or any of the usual done to death suspects for great Rock and Roll lyricists in articles generally written by really old people or young people who just keep regurgitating the old stuff because, hey we know those songs are great right?

I’ll also forego less obvious but still common visitors to these lists — Paul Simon, David Byrne, etc. etc.

What is the definition of great lyrics for this context, that people who like reading verse would like reading it without knowing the music.

Great Songs do not much need, and often do not have lyrics of that quality. Here for example are the lyrics to Bishop Briggs Higher (you can just skip to the end of these lyrics if you want, because they’re not much worth reading)

Higher, your love has set me free
Now nothing’s out of reach
Higher, higher, ooh

[Verse 1]
I run the days into the night
I feel my heart is goin’ rogue here
But I kinda like it (I do)
You run your mouth, I ran a mile
I’ve heard it all, now you don’t want me
Well I’m done, I promise

[Pre-Chorus]
Yeah I will go
Screamin’ out my pain into the night
Do what I like
I’ll lose control
Shave my head and dance with girls you like
It gets me higher, you get me higher

[Chorus]
Higher, your love has set me free
Now nothing’s out of reach
Higher, highеr
Higher, I’m stronger now I’m free
I’m who I wanna be
Highеr, higher, ooh

[Post-Chorus]
Higher, higher, ooh
Higher, higher, ooh

[Verse 2]
I’ll paint my skin with broke hearts
I’ll rip our memories all apart
I lose my mind now that you’re not here (I do)
Your guitar I smash it up
’Cause that’s the music that I love
Play it so loud, you can hear it

[Pre-Chorus]
Yeah I will go
Screamin’ out my pain into the night
Do what I like
I’ll lose control
Shave my head and dance with girls you like
It gets me higher, you get me higher

[Chorus]
Higher, your love has set me free
Now nothing’s out of reach
Higher, higher
Higher, I’m stronger now I’m free
I’m who I wanna be
Higher, higher, ooh

[Post-Chorus]
Higher, higher, ooh
Higher, higher, ooh

[Bridge]
This ain’t no give or take (Ooh, ooh)
I’ve learned from my mistakes (Ooh, ooh)
I’m so much stronger now (Ooh, ooh)
I’m so much stronger now
This ain’t no give or take (Ooh, ooh)
I’ve learned from my mistakes (Ooh, ooh)
I’m so much stronger now (Ooh, ooh)
I’m so much stronger now

[Chorus]
Higher, your love has set me free
Now nothing’s out of reach
Higher, higher, ooh
Higher, your love has set me free (Has set me free)
Now nothing’s out of reach
Higher, higher
Higher, I’m stronger now I’m free
I’m who I wanna be
Higher, higher, ooh

[Post-Chorus]
Higher, higher, ooh
Higher, higher, ooh

[Outro]
This ain’t no give or take (Ooh, ooh)
I’ve learned from my mistakes (Ooh, ooh)
I’m so much stronger now (Ooh, ooh)
I’m so much stronger now
This ain’t no give or take (Ooh, ooh)
I’ve learned from my mistakes (Ooh, ooh)
I’m so much stronger now (Ooh, ooh)
I’m so much stronger now

It’s a good song, although Briggs has obviously written better, but the lyrics have all the tediousness of a dumped teen’s secret love diary, if I was given this to read I would probably stop before getting to the only interesting lyrics in the whole song —

Your guitar I smash it up
’Cause that’s the music that I love

Most song lyrics read and not heard aren’t worth the effort. This will be lyrics that are worth the effort

Declaration done — we can proceed.

The Mauritian Badminton Doubles Champion 1973 — Hamish Hawk

This song has what might be the greatest opening couplet ever written

To write a cathedral, I’ll need a ball-point pen
It’ll sound like ‘Common People’ sung by Christopher Wren

Just let the brag soak through for a second, this guy doesn’t even need a MONTBLANC Meisterstuck Geometry Solitaire LeGrand Fountain Pen (affiliate link) which I think would be most people’s go to pen for even attempting such a thing as writing a cathedral.

painting of super cool expensive pen found in affiliate link. I would recommend this for Cathedral writing personally.

All Hamish Hawk needs is a Bic!

And of course the audacity of the claim is such you believe it, you feel that anyone who would claim to only need a ballpoint pen for writing a cathedral is able to backup their claims, they are not to be trifled with.

The complete opening quatrain is pretty nice

To write a cathedral, I’ll need a ball-point pen
It’ll sound like ‘Common People’ sung by Christopher Wren
On an upright piano with nice, narrow keys
In a Glaswegian chapel or a Parisian library

Later the song descends somewhat into the twee when it gets to the lines

I wanted, I wanted kids getting into good schools
Following, breaking all the new rules
Scoring goals, leading rolеs
Plimsolls, no holes
In a car with nice curves
A wifе with a perfect serve

Just like the Mauritian Badminton Doubles Champion, 1973
Then Christopher Wren would smile down on me

But the twee-ness here is not irritating the way it might be in someone else, because — let’s face it — someone who can write a cathedral using only a ballpoint pen, and have enough insight into the acoustics to predict what it will sound like, should not be expected to be like other people. To be twee is allowed for in a giant among lyricists. The man needs the drawback of an affectation to make him still plausibly mortal.

The Full Song:

And as I sing I watch you diving
Into a swimming pool that shines like a screen

And I call out, ‘isn’t this living?’
And I call out, ‘isn’t this living?’
And you call back, ‘Jim, dear, it’s living’
And you call back, ‘Jim, dear, it’s living the dream’

I see my family in an ugly cemetery
Two of them have been crying, two have shovels at the ready
And I’d been lying if I said I’d foreseen this
I’d prefer to burn my body in Varanasi

As I burn I watch you driving
Into a swimming pool that shines like a screen

And I call out, ‘isn’t this living?’
And I call out, ‘isn’t this living?’
And you call back, ‘Jim, dear, it’s living’
And you call back, ‘Jim, dear, it’s living’

I wanted, I wanted kids getting into good schools
Following, breaking all the new rules
Scoring goals, leading rolеs
Plimsolls, no holes
In a car with nice curves
A wifе with a perfect serve

Just like the Mauritian Badminton Doubles Champion, 1973
Then Christopher Wren would smile down on me

To a write a cathedral

[Outro]
To a write a cathedral
I’ll need a ballpoint pen
To a write a cathedral
I’ll need a ballpoint pen
To a write a cathedral
I’ll need a ballpoint pen
To a write a cathedral
I’ll need a ballpoint pen

For God’s sake, someone get that man a ballpoint pen!

Fish Assassin — Shovels & Rope

This song doesn’t have any bravura opening, but what it does have is a real sense of place (although for all I know it is a place totally fabricated in the lyricist’s mind) and a strong narrative.

Narrative beats just about everything

This song has probably the greatest sense of place of an American water-way since Moon River. Who cares if it’s fictitious.

It also makes you want to go fishing, which is a difficult thing to get me to want to do because I hate fishing more than just about any activity there is.

It also has some vernacular, which goes a ways towards establishing the sense that this place is real.

The Full Song:

It’s quiet on the river this morning
Ain’t nobody on the water but me
But the sun is comin’ on
And it won’t be long
‘Fore there’s a little more wake
Comin’ in this creek

I put the lines out in the
Water in the morning
They’ll be loaded by the end of the day
I put a trap or two in the wolf gut slough
They’ll be full if I’m lucky that way

I crossed that line with that woman of mine
She sent me on down that way
Now I’m making noise with the alligator boys
Twenty miles east of Gauttier

The river got outta the banks, sweet darlin’
Probably up into the roots by now
But there ain’t no harrassin’ this ole fish assassin
I’m gonna get ’em in the boat somehow

We gonna fry a mess of fish in the evening
Me and whoever else is around
And that baby of mine might be mad at me but
Believe me, she’ll be coming on down

I crossed that line with that woman of mine
She sent me on down that way
Now I’m making noise with the alligator boys
Twenty miles east of Gauttier

Fire at the Pageant — The Felice Brothers

The Felice Brothers have some pretty strong writing chops, but it often feels they are rolling through the same country that Tom Waits has rolled through before them, but not here.

Here they were on a road going through the Allegheny Mountains, and drove off on a side road and ended up in a world halfway between From

super cool promotional shot from scary Lost-lite show “From”

And The Waltons

the Waltons opening scene where they are all gathered together with the text The Waltons

The story seems to be set during the early hours of Judgement day, when Harlan’s Papa is one of the first to rise

Harlan’s papa wouldn’t stay in the ground
Dead and buried and he walked into town

but the real problem is what are the social niceties here, and how is poor Ma (Ma to Harlan evidently) going to handle this mess

Harlan’s papa wouldn’t stay in the ground
Dead and buried and he walked into town
Lord God, what is Ma to do

Mama’s so mad cause he muddied up his suit
Caught in a thorn bush, blowin on a flute
Lord God, what is Ma to do

Tom Waits might visit Judgement day, but not with concern for Ma’s etiquette and sewing circle.

The choruses here don’t manage to do quite as much heavy lifting when read as they do when sung, the terror of everyone when Harlan’s papa comes back from the dead is palpable in the song, here not so much, it’s more about the small town values and what other people think about it.

If he did drive into town
Everyone would stand around, and stare
Harlan’s girl would catch a glimpse
In the mirror as she crimps her hair

This whole resurrection and the dead walking the earth again thing is just so darn inconvenient.

Also, one thing about great lyrics for songs is if the song title is mentioned it obviously helps if the song title is a great one, and Fire at the Pageant is a great title, calling back to the early Christian pageants in concept but also to that other great American apocalyptic song Fire On The Mountain, the Mountain having even more heavenly kingdom connotations.

The Full Song:

Harlan’s papa wouldn’t stay in the ground
Dead and buried and he walked into town
Lord God, what is Ma to do

Mama’s so mad cause he muddied up his suit
Caught in a thorn bush, blowin on a flute
Lord God, what is Ma to do

One two three for five six seven eight nine thousand
Everybody calm down please stop shouting
Go on the run call 911
Calm down, calm down, calm down

One two three for five six seven eight nine housand
Fire, Fire at the pageant
Would everybody calm down please stop shouting
Go on the run call 911
Calm down, calm down, calm down

If he did drive into town
Everyone would stand around, and stare
Harlan’s girl would catch a glimpse
In the mirror as she crimps her hair

Harlan’s papa wouldn’t stay in the ground
Dead and buried and he walked into town
Lord god what is Ma to do

Mama’s so mad ’cause she can’t scare him off
Even if she’s wrapped in a table cloth
Oh Lord what is Ma to do

One two three for five six seven eight nine thousand
Would everybody calm down please stop shouting
Go on the run call 911
Calm down, calm down, Calm down

One two three for five six seven eight nine thousand
Fire, Fire at the pageant
Everybody calm down please stop shouting
Go on the run call 911
Calm down, calm down, calm down

One two three for five six seven eight nine thousand
Fire, Fire at the pageant
Everybody calm down please stop shouting
Go on the run call 911

Tell Em All to Go to Hell — Ezra Furman

Ezra Furman is a great lyricist, although I think in her last album Twelve Nudes she has lightened up a bit to focus more on the music.

I have written about her music before

Like Suck The Blood From My Wounds this seems a lot like Bruce Springsteen merged with The Cramps — Springsteen themes, Cramps style — case in point the opening

I’m a runaway dog, and I’m kicking up dust
In a Chevy Express with a hood full of rust
And a head full of dead ends
And thoughts of young redheads
Who don’t have my number no more

Did it have to be this song — not really, like I said, Furman has a lot of great lyrics. Basically this is just one picked at random that I’ve been listening to recently.

It also shows another aspect of great songs, I think most great songs you read the lyrics you might not know the music, but you can guess the genre and maybe even get a good clue what it will sound like.

Fish Assassin not sure about — someone might expect a sort of Gordon Lightfoot song (albeit down south not up north) but the other ones I think you’d guess the genre and sound pretty accurate.

You read this song and you think to yourself — that is going to be a fast punky rock and roll song.

The Full Song:

I’m a runaway dog, and I’m kicking up dust
In a Chevy Express with a hood full of rust
And a head full of dead ends
And thoughts of young redheads
Who don’t have my number no more

I’m caught in a mouse trap I set for myself
Where I sneer at ideas of material wealth
And I sleep in the alley
And I walk through the valley
Of the shadow of the Fabulous Four

Tell ’em all, tell ’em all
Tell ’em all, tell ’em all
Oh, man
Tell ’em all
Tell ’em all to go to Hell

I’m blown like a leaf ‘cross the United States
By a force that’ll grab you and throw you away
And I’m too young to die
Or I’m too scared to try
But I guess that there’s no way around it

It’s a double-bind, baby, a Catch-22
How nobody knows you until there’s no you
’Cause it all drifts away
Or dissolves into gray
At the moment that you’re saying that I think that I’ve found it

Tell ’em all
Tell ’em all, tell ’em all
Good God
Tell ’em all
Tell ’em all to go to Hell

Tell ’em all, tell ’em all
Tell ’em all, tell ’em all
Oh, tell ’em all
Tell ’em all to go to Hell
Go to Hell
Good God

ST. James Infirmary Blues — Unknown

This song is here mainly to make the point that sometimes gets obfuscated that great song writing, songs that approach the level of poetry and are readable without knowing the music, did not originate with Bob Dylan.

Bob Dylan himself tirelessly makes this observation but the generation that grew up listening to his music doesn’t seem to want to hear it.

It is old enough that the authorship is unknown and this has had some interesting effects on the song itself, one is that the song seems like it might have been stitched together from two separate songs- for example the first two verses

Folks, I’m goin’ down to St. James Infirmary
See my baby there
She’s stretched out on a long, white table
She’s so sweet, so cold, so fair

Let her go, let her go, God bless her
Wherever she may be
She will search this wide world over
But she’ll never find another sweet man like me

doesn’t seem to match the writing style of the next two verses

Now, when I die, bury me in my straight-leg britches
Put on a box-back coat and a Stetson hat
Put a twenty-dollar gold piece on my watch chain
So you can let all the boys know I died standing pat

Then give me six crap shooting pall bearers
Let a chorus girl sing me a song
Put a red hot jazz band at the top of my head
So we can raise Hallelujah as we go along

Another appreciated feature of lyrics of these kinds of songs is you don’t tend to read the oohs and ahs and side comments as part of the lyrics you might find in rock and roll, that stuff is basically the conversational pauses of song and should be left out, just as in an interview transcript it is better to leave out the uhs and hmms that sometimes connect strands of spoken thought.

Because these songs don’t have an authoritative version these conversational pauses have been removed. Which makes for better readability.

Other notes on this song — starts with spare emotional text, turns into a visual tour de force with the Jazz funeral scenario.

I’ve always liked Cab Calloway’s version of this song, in fact when I first heard it I though he had written it because Calloway was himself a great lyricist. You don’t believe me? Go on and actually read the lyrics to Minnie the Moocher with an open mind and you’ll agree.

Full Lyrics:

Folks, I’m goin’ down to St. James Infirmary
See my baby there
She’s stretched out on a long, white table
She’s so sweet, so cold, so fair

Let her go, let her go, God bless her
Wherever she may be
She will search this wide world over
But she’ll never find another sweet man like me

Now, when I die, bury me in my straight-leg britches
Put on a box-back coat and a Stetson hat
Put a twenty-dollar gold piece on my watch chain
So you can let all the boys know I died standing pat

Then give me six crap shooting pall bearers
Let a chorus girl sing me a song
Put a red hot jazz band at the top of my head
So we can raise Hallelujah as we go along

Folks, now that you have heard my story
Say, boy, hand me over another shot of that booze
If anyone should ask you
Tell ’em I’ve got those St. James Infirmary blues

MacDonell On The Heights — Stan Rogers

Stan Rogers was a Canadian folkie whom probably nobody outside Canada really remembers, which is too bad.

This song is about a hero that nobody remembers. The irony is evident.

It has a good start that grabs you lyrically from the beginning, as most great lyrical songs do

Too thin the line that charged the Heights
And scrambled in the clay
Too thin the Eastern Township Scot
Who showed them all the way
And perhaps had you not fallen
You might be what Brock became

But not one in ten thousand knows your name

There is of course something old fashioned about the whole thing. Perhaps it is that it respects martial valor, perhaps it is just the natural rhythm but yes it seems like a poem from the last quarter of the 1800s, something Longfellow might have written. Something uncynical about bravery and sacrifice. Something naive.

Rogers started out at the end of the 60s and he died in a plane accident in 83 due to smoke inhalation.

Stan Rogers, bald, with weird facial hair, and a gut.

He just missed the pop sensibilities of Lightfoot, and, let’s face it — the looks

Gordon Lightfoot, genetically predisposed to be the most handsome man in any room he walked into. And a mean drunk, reputedly. Hard to figure these folks out sometimes.

His voice sounded like an older style too, Lightfoot had a sort of warmth to his voice (which is probably why Dylan said he had never written a bad song.)

Rogers sounded like a Roman orator rallying the people for burning down Carthage or a preacher working the pulpit for a packed congregation. Not warmth, but carrying power and depth. His was a voice that demanded the adjective stentorian.

Here of course we don’t care about the voice, just the lyrics but the lyrics here are ones suited to Rogers’ voice

to say the name, MacDonnell
It would bring no bugle call
But the Redcoats stayed beside you
When they saw the General fall
Twas MacDonnell raised the banner then
And set the Heights aflame

But not one in ten thousand knows your name

Hell the song even has the contraction ‘Twas in it, how much more old-timey do you want your folk-music to sound!?

The Full Song:

Too thin the line that charged the Heights
And scrambled in the clay
Too thin the Eastern Township Scot
Who showed them all the way
And perhaps had you not fallen
You might be what Brock became

But not one in ten thousand knows your name

To say the name, MacDonnell
It would bring no bugle call
But the Redcoats stayed beside you
When they saw the General fall
Twas MacDonnell raised the banner then
And set the Heights aflame

But not one in ten thousand knows your name

At Queenston now, the General on his tower stands alone
And there’s lichen on ‘MacDonnell’ carved upon that weathered stone
In a corner of the monument to glory you could claim

But not one in ten thousand knows your name

You brought the field all standing with your courage and your luck
But unknown to most, you’re lying there beside old General Brock
So you know what it is to scale the Heights and fall just short of fame
And have not one in ten thousand know your name
You brought the field all standing with your courage and your luck
But unknown to most, you’re lying there beside old General Brock
So you know what it is to scale the Heights and fall just short of fame
And have not one in ten thousand know your name

painting of Scaling the heights, and getting shot.

This Tornado Loves You — Neko Case

Often in great writing that portrays a character the line between the character and the author dims somewhat, the author derives some of the Mana that the character has

In some ways this is the opposite of Hamish Hawk’s The Mauritian Badminton Doubles Champion 1973 in which he will create a cathedral with nothing but a ball point pen — this song starts as it intends to continue, with wholesale murder and destruction of a horrifying, inhuman kind

My love, I am the speed of sound
I left them motherless, fatherless
Their souls they hang inside-out from their mouths
But it’s never enough

In reading it you might think that the Tornado in the title is figurative, metaphorical. But by the third verse at least even the dullest wit should be clear that it is literal

Carved your name across three counties
Ground it in with bloody hides
Their broken necks will line the ditch
’Til you stop it, stop it
Stop this madness

And that this Tornado also does actually love the “you” addressed in the lyrics.

I Want You

I mean it is really sort of hard to know who the object of affection is in this fucked up relationship, the Tornado is evidently in love with a human being. which is significantly weirder than the Nephilim or basically any kink I can think of.

It looks however like the human that is desired is somewhat reticent to commit and consummate the relationship

I have waited with a glacier’s patience
Smashed every transformer with every trailer
’Til nothing was standing
65 miles wide
Still you are nowhere
Still you are nowhere
Nowhere in sight

Come out to meet me
Run out to meet me
Come in to the light

It is really difficult to tell a Tornado that maybe the girl just isn’t that into it.

Girl? Well I don’t know but I think it is a girl that is wanted here, and sometimes I like to think — not just any girl.

super cool picture of Dorothy Gale in colorized corn field. A picture that might inspire a Tornado’s love.

The Full Song:

My love, I am the speed of sound
I left them motherless, fatherless
Their souls they hang inside-out from their mouths
But it’s never enough

I want you

Carved your name across three counties
Ground it in with bloody hides
Their broken necks will line the ditch
’Til you stop it, stop it
Stop this madness

I want you

I have waited with a glacier’s patience
Smashed every transformer with every trailer
’Til nothing was standing
65 miles wide
Still you are nowhere
Still you are nowhere
Nowhere in sight

Come out to meet me
Run out to meet me
Come in to the light

Climb the boxcars to the engine through the smoke into the sky
Your rails have always outrun mine
So I pick them up and crash them down
In a moment close to now
’Cause I miss, I miss, I miss, I miss, I miss
I miss how you’d sigh yourself to sleep
When I’d rake the springtime across your sheets

My love, I am the speed of sound
I left them motherless, fatherless
Their souls they hang inside-out from their mouths
But it’s never enough

My love
I’m an owl on the sill in the evening
But morning finds you
Still warm and breathing

This tornado loves you, this tornado loves you
This tornado loves you, this tornado loves you
This tornado loves you
What will make you believe me?
This tornado loves you, this tornado loves you
This tornado loves you, this tornado loves you
This tornado loves you
What will make you believe me?

In Conclusion

Well this was a selection made in rather haphazard fashion (based on songs with great lyrics that you seldom find mentioned as such that happened to come into my mind given the premise — all except for Hamish Hawk because once you learn there’s some guy looking for a ballpoint pen to write a cathedral you can never unhear it again)

I hope the songs appeal to you.

Here is a playlist of songs, containing these ones but some others that have a tertiary connection to the article, or just something that grabbed the fancy of the gang at Hitmagist.

This article was written by IG Agent 19.

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