Song Lyrics That Means Something

"I ain't afraid of your husband, baby. I'll be over tonight"

Unknown Hinson.

Here's my "I'm a Melancholy Solitary Man" medley. It needs some work  It might get kicked off of YouTube soon.

I used to listen to a lot of Drive-By Truckers before Hood decided they needed to become overtly political.  Pretty much any song off of Southern Rock Opera would work here, but Zip City is a standout.  I mean the whole blame thing is high art.  Seems a shame to narrow it down to just two lines. 
Keep your draws on, girl, it ain't worth the fight
By the time you drop 'em, I'll be gone, and you'll be right where they fall the rest of your life
 

We're getting closer to Thanksgiving, and The Thanksgiving Filter will no doubt be played many times at the DarkMonohouse.
Thank God for the filter that enables some distance
from the screaming and crying and the needs of assistance
You wonder why I drink and curse the holiday
Blessed be my family, 300 miles away
 

It's tempting to just point a finger at Jason Isbell and say, "anything he wrote".  And it would not be far off.  But since I am on a DBT kick right now, Outfit is the high water mark.  So much is said in the first four lines:
You want to grow up to paint houses like me,
A trailer in my yard 'til you're twenty-three?
You want to feel old after forty-two years?
Keep droppin' the hammer and grindin' the gears.

I may come back and drop some more Isbell lyrics here.  It's hard not to.

Quick addition before I shut 'er down for the night.  Creeker from some Eastern Kentucky kid named Tyler Childers.
Now they knew not his name and he knew not their faces
and he knew not the how nor the reason for why
you could ever wake up and want to keep on a-livin'
in a place where a friend was a such a hard thing to find.
And for everyone you meet, there's a whole mess of people
tryin' like hell to pull you on down
to the level they're on and the trouble they're tendin'
in the mess that they've made in the gutter they've found.

I can't help about the shape I'm in
I can't sing, I ain't pretty and my legs are thin
But don't ask me what I think of you
I might not give the answer that you want me to
 

Fleetwood Mac

20 years ago I was traveling across the vast prairie of ND and I reached the point where one FM radio station cut out just as another one cut in. It was Guess Who singing (American Woman) and just as they sang, "I'm going to leave you (WOMAN)" it switched to Shania Twain singing (I'm a Woman) just as she sang, "Man, I feel like a (WOMAN)" with out missing a beat.

Weirdest thing and a true story, I swear. Like this:

American woman, stay away from me
American woman, mama let me be
Don't come a hangin' around my door
I don't want to see your face no more
I got more important things to do
Than spend my time growin' old with you
Now woman, I said stay away
American woman, listen what I say-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay

American woman, get away from me
American woman, mama let me be
Don't come a knockin' around my door
Don't want to see your shadow no more
Colored lights can hypnotize
Sparkle someone else's eyes
Now woman, I said get away
American woman, listen what I say-ay-ay-ay

American woman, said get away
American woman, listen what I say
Don't come a hangin' around my door
Don't want to see your face no more
I don't need your war machines
I don't need your ghetto scenes
Colored lights can hypnotize
Sparkle someone else's eyes
Now woman, get away from me
American woman, mama let me be

Go, gotta get away, gotta get away now go, go, go
I'm gonna leave you (WO...)

           Man, I feel like a (..MAN) (hey!)

The girls need a break, tonight we're gonna take
The chance to get out on the town
We don't need romance, we only wanna dance
We're gonna let our hair hang down

The best thing about bein' a woman
Is the prerogative to have a little fun and

Oh, oh, oh, go totally crazy, forget I'm a lady
Men's shirts, short skirts
Oh, oh, oh, really go wild, yeah, doin' it in style
Oh, oh, oh, get in the action, feel the attraction
Color my hair, do what I dare
Oh, oh, oh, I wanna be free, yeah, to feel the way I feel
Man, I feel like a woman
Uh, huh

Oh, yeah
The best thing about bein' a woman
Is the prerogative to have a little fun, fun, fun

Oh, oh, oh, go totally crazy, forget I'm a lady
Men's shirts, short skirts
Oh, oh, oh, really go wild, yeah, doin' it in style
Oh, oh, oh, get in the action, feel the attraction
Color my hair, do what I dare
Oh, oh, oh, I wanna be free yeah, to feel the way I feel
(The way I feel)
Man, I feel like a woman

Hey!
Oh, oh, yeah, yeah
Act totally crazy
Can you feel it?
Come, come, come on baby
I feel like a woman

It's a mad mission
But I've got the ambition
Mad, mad mission
Sign me up

Patty Griffin

What amuses me are not the songs that mean something, but when people don't consider the actual meaning of the song, like songs that are actually protest songs, or are about pretty awful things but they sound nice because they have a catchy hook.

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

Like Carnival Cruise using Iggy Pop's Lust for Life?

Every time I hear about (the successful) banning of books, I think of Rage Against the Machine's "Bulls on Parade."

I walk the corner to the rubble that used to be a library.

Line up to the mind cemetery now.

What we don't know keeps the contracts alive and movin.'

They don't gotta burn the books

They just remove 'em.

Appleseed said:

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

Like Carnival Cruise using Iggy Pop's Lust for Life?

Or people using Born in the USA not recognizing that it's a protest song.

Your best friend always sticking up for you
Even when I know you're wrong?

"If you scared to take a chance how the berkeley we gonna get rich" - J Cole

True for money to some extent, but applies to everything. 

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

What amuses me are not the songs that mean something, but when people don't consider the actual meaning of the song, like songs that are actually protest songs, or are about pretty awful things but they sound nice because they have a catchy hook.

My favorite was The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again" being used in an Army recruitment ad.

...I bet that was intentionally snuck in who knew *exactly* what they were doing.

All of "Come On Up to the House" by Tom Waits

But if I have to narrow it down:

And you been whipped by the forces
That are inside you
Come on up to the house

tied the with refrain:

"This world is not my home / I'm just passin' through"

From John Prine's song, Far From Me, there is a line that just astounds me every time: 

Kathy was closing the lights  
And a June bug flew from the warmth it once knew   
and I wished for once I weren't right

It's such a simple line. It doesn't add anything to the overall story of the song, but it adds so much detail to the picture in my head that plays every time I hear or play that song. 

We all begin with good intent
Love was raw and young
We believed that we could change ourselves
The past could be undone
But we carry on our backs the burden
Time always reveals
In the lonely light of morning
In the wound that would not heal
It's the bitter taste of losing everything
That I've held so dear.

Sarah McLachlan

Andre 3000's verse in Life of the Party has some really cool parts

"Hey, Miss Donda
You run into my mama, please tell her I said "Say something"
I'm startin' to believe ain't no such thing as Heaven's trumpets
No after-over, this is it, done
If there's a Heaven, you would think they'd let ya speak to your son

Maybe she has in the form of a baby's laugh
I heard passing by in a stroller reminding me, "Hey, keep rolling"
I don't know, maybe she has with a prick of a blade of grass
I've been laying on way too long, got me itchy
Got up and roamed a lil' more"

Under the moonlight
The serious moonlight

David Bowie, "Let's Dance"

Not a lyric of any intellectual meaning. But just a perfectly evocative line.

I turn my back to the wind
To catch my breath,
Before I start off again.
Driven on
Without a moment to spend
To pass an evening
With a drink and a friend

I let my skin get too thin
I’d like to pause,
No matter what I pretend
Like some pilgrim —
Who learns to transcend —
Learns to live
As if each step was the end

Time stand still —
I’m not looking back —
But I want to look around me now
See more of the people
And the places that surround me now

Freeze this moment
A little bit longer
Make each sensation
A little bit stronger
Experience slips away…

I turn my face to the sun
Close my eyes,
Let my defences down —
All those wounds
That I can’t get unwound

I let my past go too fast
No time to pause —
If I could slow it all down
Like some captain,
Whose ship runs aground —
I can wait until the tide
Comes around

Make each impression
A little bit stronger
Freeze this motion
A little bit longer
The innocence slips away…

Summer’s going fast–
Nights growing colder
Children growing up —
old friends growing older
Experience slips away…

Neil Peart

Beer Baron 🍺 said:

Under the moonlight
The serious moonlight

David Bowie, "Let's Dance"

Not a lyric of any intellectual meaning. But just a perfectly evocative line.

and Frank Zappa's response to that one ...

Dance the blues
Let's dance the blues
Let's dance the blues
Under the megawatt moonlight


I'll make you wear red shoes
There's a cheesy atom bomb explosion
All the big groups use

 

What have I done to be a son to an angel?-TOOL

My mom is a saint, I am an shiny happy person.

Indigo Girls have a ton of great lyrics that tug at my heartstrings.

"And I wish her insight
To battle love blindness
straight from the milk of human kindness
a safe place for all the pieces that scattered
learn to pretend there's more than love that mattered."

Or, from Fare Thee Well, which is about addiction and bipolar disorder:

"Fare thee well my bright star
It was a brief brilliant miracle dive
That which I looked up to and I clung to for dear life
Had to burn itself up just to make itself alive

And I caught you then in your moment of glory
Your last dramatic scene against a night sky stage
With a moment so clear that it's as if you're still before me
My once in a lifetime star of an age

So fare thee well my bright star
Last night the tongues of fire circled me around
And this strange season of pain will come to pass
When the healing hands of autumn cool me down"

Appleseed said:

From The Commodores' "Easy."

"Everybody wants me to be what they want me to be..."

To bookend this:

"What else should I be?

All apologies."

-Nirvana, All Apologies.

I've been hit with this E36 M3 waaay too much, lately.

Sometimes people are just what they appear to be
with no redemption at all

-Elvis Costello, Miss Macbeth