Great lyrics

[Nicky007]

This is one of my fave lyrics - and songs:


Silent Rain

Words by Gary Hughes, performed by Ten


There was once a time long ago,
When true love drew man and woman together,
She was all he wanted to know,
And he swore that he would love her forever,
So the light fades the colours of life when it's gone,
Like a lost ship of dreams that failed to sail,
But to him she was more than just another fairy tale,
She became his reality unveiled.

Silent Rain,
You and I have shared the fears the night betrayed,
Through the eyes where love appeared but died in vain,
Torn open, bound together,
Silent Rain,
Even now you hide the tears, you light the way,
Through the darkness that remains,
A brand new day, dawns broken, now, forever,
Silent Rain.

Wait for me, one bright star away,
There we'll spend our timeless moments together,
What we built let no one replace,
There's a place here in my heart, child, forever,
If the light fades the colours of life when it's gone,
Like a lost ship of dreams that failed to sail,
We will prove we were more than just another fairy tale,
What we had was reality unveiled.

Silent Rain.

There was once a time long ago,
When true love drew man and woman together,
You were all I wanted to know,
And I swore that I would love you forever,
So the light fades the colours of life when it's gone,
Like a lost ship of dreams that failed to sail,
But to me you were more than just another fairy tale,
You became my reality unveiled.

Silent Rain.


Note the he & she  ==>  I and you.

"She was all he wanted to know" - isn't that the way it should be, guys ?

Nicky.

[Deenfan]

Very well put, as always.

[Nicky007]

Deenie, my guess is that you're talking about the song It's A Ghetto by Buddy Lackey. Am I right ?

Great lyrics iac.


It's A Ghetto

Would you believe what's going down inside my brain
I don't believe you'd understand
Pay no mind to the ghetto man

I know the world is cold
Well that ain't nothin' strange
But the way you push me down
Well it's gettin' old
And I know it's never gonna change
Now I'm gonna start pushing back
Maybe that'll make you understand
You can't push down on a ghetto man

I think you'd finally understand
Once you had to be the ghetto man
It's a ghetto man

Well I've got more love than money
And I got more hope than fame
I'l like to buy the world from under you someday
And leave you sleeping in the rain
And eating from the drain

Maybe that will make you understand
Once you had to be the ghetto man
It's a ghetto man.


Nicky.

[maddox]

Although i'm more of a Peter-Gabriel-Era guy there are some Genesis songs preformed with Phil Collins that i really enjoy listening too.
One of them is Dreaming While You Sleep from the We Can't Dance album.
It's a song about a guy who gets so bloody tired while driving he hits a girl and instead of hit the breaks he drives away like a maniac in shock of what he's done.

Quite a good lyric and when you think of it quite shocking too.

Here it is:

In and out of darkness, in and out of sleep
trying to keep my hands upon the wheel.
Never saw the corner in the driving rain.
I never saw her step into the street.

Dreaming while you sleep
dreaming while you sleep
memories to keep
dreaming while you sleep

I can never understand what went thru my mind
I didn't stop to see what I had done.
Had to keep on driving deep into the night
the miles between would somehow put it right

Dreaming while you sleep
dreaming while you sleep
memories to keep
dreaming while you sleep

All my life you lie silently there
All my life in a world so unfair
All my life and only I'll know why
and it will live inside of me,
I will never be free all my life,
trapped in her memory all my life
Till the day that you open your eyes,
please open your eyes

Dreaming while you sleep
dreaming while you sleep

Heard it on the radio, saw it on TV,
but could I take my secret to the grave.
If I had another chance, would I do the same.
Would I still deny that it was me.

Dreaming while you sleep
dreaming while you sleep
Dreaming while you sleep,
Are you dreaming while you sleep?

All my life I'll be haunted by
all my life just one moment in time
all my life until the day I die
and it will live inside of me
Oh I will never be free all my life
trapped in her memory all my life
Till the day that you open your eyes

All of my life - you lie silently there
All my life - in a world so unfair
All my life - and only I know why
And it will live inside of me
I will never be free all my life
Trapped in her memory - all my life
Till the day that you open your eyes.

All of my life.
Just one moment of time, all my life.

On a footnote:

That's why guys and girls: NEVER ever drink and drive! 

[Deenfan]

Deenie, my guess is that you're talking about the song It's A Ghetto by Buddy Lackey. Am I right ?

I haven't been thinking about that, specifically. But on that album, there is a lot to love

[Nicky007]

 
Lazarus

Words by Steven Wilson

As the cheerless towns pass my window
I can see a washed out moon through the fog
And then a voice inside my head, breaks the analogue
And says

"Follow me down to the valley below You know
Moonlight is bleeding from out of your soul"

I survived against the will of my twisted folk
But in the deafness of my world the silence broke
And said

"Follow me down to the valley below You know
Moonlight is bleeding from out of your soul"

"My David don't you worry
This cold world is not for you
So rest your head upon me
I have strength to carry you"

(Ghosts of the twenties rising Golden summers just holding you)

"Follow me down to the valley below You know
Moonlight is bleeding from out of your soul
Come to us, Lazarus
It's time for you to go"


Nicky.

[gelert]

A.B. JUST NUISANCE http://www.simonstown.com/tourism/nuisance/nuisance.htm

 Drunk in charge of an ocean barge
 Giving it large ‘round the old shipyards
 Of Simonstown
 Seven bell liberty R’NR
 Salary shot in an all-night bar
 In 15 rounds
 4 AM got to get on a train
 Sea-legs don’t work, can’t remember my name
 I’ve run aground
 If I’m listed as late I’ll be hauling keel
 Painting the grass or potato peel
 Must find the hound

--------------------

 I’ll guide you to the station
 Wake you at your destination
 All that I ask is three squares and a bed
 Listen to your drunken stories
 Revel in your made-up glories
 Carry you home
 Tuck you in
 Nurse your head

 And on parade at daybreak
 I’ll make sure we’re turned-out ship-shape
 Caps squared away and with spring in our step
 And when they call “Stand Easy”
 As the last notes of Reveille
 Sound
 I am a happy hound
 And with my duty done

 I’m making sail for home
 Where there’s warmth and a bone
 I can hear my friends calling my name
 If you’re still hearing me
 In the wind through the trees
 And the rustling leaves
 I’m alive and I’m still running free........

 --------------------
 
 And believe we shall be reunited in time
 Reunited to run once again
 Across the field out the back
 Through the gate, down the track
 Through the meadows and trees
 And the rustling leaves
 Where I’m home...........


.....For Ben, Gelert, Scrumpy, Rama, Shen, Scruffy, Bosun, Captain, Lubbox, Tapper, Oscar, Sam, Parker, Snorts, Bluey, Rocky, Noppy, Wendy’s Dog, Thorin, Bobby, Bruno, Becky, Sweetpea, et al...

[erik]

Van Der Graaf Generator - Scorched Earth

Lyrics by Peter Hammill
 
Just one crazy moment while the dice are cast,
he looks into the future and remembers what is past,
wonders what he's doing on this battlefield,
shrugs to his shadow, impatient, too proud yet to kneel.
         
In his wake he leaves scorched earth and work in vain;
smoke drifts up behind him - he is free again,
free to run before the onslaught of a deadly foe,
leaving nothing fit for pillage, hardly leaving home.
It's far too late to turn, unless it's to stone.
Charging madly forward, tracks across the snow;
wind screams madness to him, ever on he goes,
leaving spoor to mark his passage, trace his weary climb.
Cross the moor and make the headland -
stumbling, wayward, blind.
In the end his footprints extend as one single line.
         
This latest exponent of heresy is goaded into an attack,
persuaded to charge at his enemy.
Too late, he knows it is,
 too late now to turn back, too soon by far to falter.
The past sits uneasily at his rear,
he's walking right into the trap,
surrounded, but striving through will and fear.
Ahead of him he knows there waits an ambuscade
but the dice slip through his fingers
and he's living from day to day,
carrying his world around upon his back,
leaving nothing behind but the tell-tale of his track.
         
He will not be hostage, he will not be slave,
no snare of past can trap him, though the future may.
Still he runs and burns behind him in advanced retreat;
still his life remains unfettered - he denies defeat.
It's far too late to turn, unless it's to stone.
Leave the past to burn - at least that's been his own.
         
Scorched earth, that's all that's left when he's done;
holding nothing but beholden to no-one,
claiming nothing, out of no false pride, he survives.
Snow tracks are all that's left to be seen
of a man who entered the course of a dream,
claiming nothing but the life he's known
- this, at least, has been his own.

Especially love the bit In the end his footprints extend as one single line, it's so evoking, you immediately see this wide landscape with a long line of footprints disappearing in the horizon. Can you escape and free yourself from your past?

[Steve Jones]

Oh, alright then...

Van Der Graaf - Last Frame

Lyrics by Peter Hammill

Pretty keen, yes, my hobby keeps me busy.
And if I talk to myself, well, that's not a crime.
In the darkroom I am a dealer in space and time.
When all memory has mellowed,
when the photograph is yellowed,
still it never lies.

There you are, your eyes laced with secret pleasure,
saying that you're on the way to change,
devouring in inordinate measure,
every diversion that's arranged.
For every appetite, a cruel attraction,
but there's a panic in your action.
Oh, I never saw you look so strange.

Fixing memory chemically,
holding time on the stop-clock,
hanging back from that last frame,
just in case it didn't show you,
in the way I used to know you.
Oh, I thought you'd always stay the same.

Oh, the red light, the silver, the black and the bromide.
Oh, the silence, the waiting for overview.
The past seems under-exposed, low tide,
but still the images ghost through.
And you're there in the bath,
which is all this has led to,
and I can't say your path,
is a right one to choose,
but then I only have a negative of you...

Needs to be heard, as ever, rather than read.  Especially for the haunting & creepy violin at the start, and the way it tails off with 'I only have a negative of you'.

Excellent stuff.  I've got a couple of books of Hammill's lyrics somewhere...

[erik]

Variation on a theme

Marillion - A Collection   

Lyrics: Helmer
 
I've got a photograph
I took a picture of you
I took your picture in front of my favourite view
You play the part so well
You look so sure and free
No one could ever tell that you belong to me

And 'cause you lie so well
I've got to pin you down
Under lock and key
So you will always be in my collection

If you can't speak you can't lie
If you can't run, you can't hide
I know a place you can't die
So no one lives inside
My collection

I want to capture you
I want to immortalise
The way you play with your hair
The way you flash your eyes

I taste the air you breathe
I taste the food you eat
I keep your nails and hair
And some of the clothes you wear

If you can't speak you can't lie
If you can't run, you can't hide
And if you're dead you can't die
So no one lives inside
No one lives inside my collection

I've got some photographs
I'd like to show them to you
Though you don't know the girls
You'll recognise the view..

Steve Hogarth: 
A song about souvenirs... John Helmer had a friend who was in the habit of photographing his girlfriends at a certain favourite location. Every girlfriend he'd had in his life had been innocently lured to this same spot, unaware that she was to become part of a series of similar snapshots. The photographs were assembled in an album, which he would peruse from time to time in secret. Well, it's not illegal... but it's not entirely wholesome either. John was inspired! He wrote this lyric which explores the desire to capture and to possess someone at a moment in time - to keep them forever. 
I was a little worried about it turning into something downright nasty so we tried to hang it on some sweet and naive-sounding music which makes the song sound pleasantly insane, without losing it's perverse undercurrent.

[Deenfan]

Yes, I know... "A collection" is my pet favourite example of John Helmer's superb lyrical ideas. He seems to have this wonderful knack for cool ideas to build lyrics around. Berlin... God, what a brilliant lyric.

[Herben]

I found this lyric I like very much it is:
Under Peruvian Skies from Dream Theater
about cruelty and evilness in the world

There, there it is
I swear he's gonna murder that poor kid
Wait, I hear it again
Don't turn on the lights until we
Hear the way it ends

Under Peruvian skies
Vanessa regretfully waits
The story unfolds in her eyes
Where midnight hysteria's
No big surprise
Battered and bruised
Always confusing
The love that she's losing for hate
Poor Vanessa
Poor, poor Vanessa

Hey, I hope you know
I'm taking all of this with me when I go
Shame, you're not to blame
I'm the monster you created
In your daddy's name

Under Peruvian skies
Vanessa regretfully waits
The story unfolds in her eyes
Where midnight hysteria's
No big surprise
Battered and bruised
Always confusing
The love that she's losing for hate
Poor Vanessa
Poor Vanessa

Terror by night
Liar by day
Telling her secrets
Won't take them away

Under Peruvian skies
Vanessa regretfully waits
The story unfolds in her eyes
Where midnight hysteria's
No big surprise
Battered and bruised
Always confusing
The love that she's losing for hate.

[maddox]

Very good choice i'd say, Herben.

Thumbs up! 

[Deenfan]

It actually is very good.

[maddox]

A great lyric of Fish.

View From The Hill from the album Vigil In A Wilderness Of Mirrors

"You sit and htink that everything is coming up roses
But you can't see the weeds that entangle your feet
You can't see the wood for the trees 'cause the forest is burning
And you say it's the smoke in your eyes that's making you cry

They sold you the view from a hill
They told you that the view from the hill would be
Further than you have ever seen before
They sold you a view from a hill
They sold you a view from a hill

You were a dancer and a chancer, a poet and a fool
To the royalty of mayhem you were breaking all the rules
Your decadence outstanding, your hopes flying high
One eye looking over your shoulder, one eye on the hill
You used to say you were scared of heights - you said you got dizzy
You said you didn't like your feet being too far off the ground
But they said that up there you'd find the air would be clearer
Promised you more space to move and more room to breathe

They sold you a view from a hill
They told you that the view from the hill
Is further than you'd ever seen before

You were holding out forever - thought they'd never turn your mind
Your ideals they were higher than you ever could have climbed
We thought they couldn't buy you - that the price would be too high
That the riches there on offer they just wouldn't turn your eyes
But your conscience it was locked up in the prisons of your schemes
Your judgement it was blinded by your visions and your dreams
Praying and hoping that the view from the hill
Is wider than you've ever seen before
For the view from the hill we held our heads so high (smell the roses)
All the loved ones that you lied to are strangers left behind
All the ones that really mattered well you stood on as you climbed
You were holding out forever for your fathers and your peers
Holding out for everyone that ever walked in here
The edge was inside and you rode it all the way
You were playing the games that you learned yesterday
Hanging around like a fool with a name
You are holding your place for the view, the view from a hill

They sold you the view from a hill
Look it all for a view from a hill
And you find the view's no further than you've seen before

They sold you the view from the hill
And you stood and took it all for the view from a hill
It's simply coming up roses"

[Deenfan]

That is great, and on the same album, there's "Family business", which is heartbreaking and fantastic.

[maddox]

Pain Of Salvation - Kingdom Of Loss

"Someone sells us Toys in a cheap cartoon
someone sells us Cars in the latest Bond
that’s coming soon
someone sells us Trends through a sitcom star
someone sells Herself in a docu-soap
that goes too far
Life on sale
can someone please just tell me what happened?
I mean, first we pay for fastfood that will make us all fat and tired
so then we pay for elevators
so we won’t have to climb the three stairs up to our aparents
then we buy freakin’ StairMaster machines
so we can burn away while watching someone make real food on TV
now, if that doesn’t make us winners I don’t know what will
I bet we would hang ourselves, if the world would just cut us the slack
and now you think maybe you should see a shrink
help you feel alive again - yeah, that’s a plan
just tell us who to pay
someone sells us Man in a White House speech
then Woman tightly pressed
between two bouncing breasts on a Baywatch beach
someone sells us Us everywhere I turn
then introducing Them
to earn stock points on our concern
all for sale
it’s all for sale...
welcome down to planet Earth
please don’t ask us what it’s worth
you will notice that the world you found
is slightly tattered and worn down
someone sold us every stain
now if you wish to complain
there’s an open spot at 6 pm
that’s when Caucasia is listening
if you’re tearing down my world
please just try to do it gently...
there is love inside
for a dream that has to die
see, it’s really all about time and choice:
the fastfood saves us enough time to squeeze lunch in exactly when we want it
the elevators save us just a little more
and the StairMaster lets us choose exactly when to walk the stairs
time is so important these days
it’s becoming a fucking disease
and I guess in a way it is
since it is bound to kill us all in the end
now with all the time and money we stash away on others’ expense
I can only assume that the tickets to hell are really expensive
and for some reason
it’s important to be first in line
someone sells us God in 2-for-1 with Shame
someone sells us War
and the marketing looks just the same
someone sells us Fear on TV each day
a shape for every taste
if the flavor’s right we gladly pay
all on sale
we’re all on sale...
welcome to the only Earth
please enjoy your only birth
you will learn to take more than you give
buying scars we must live with
someone sold us every scar
they somehow made us what we are
we all want that spot at 6 pm
but no one is really listening
no
not anymore
we’re all too busy
buying Sex
buying War
oh
buying Self Confidence
Security
Insurance Plans
just buying More & More
as you’re tearing down my world
please just try to do it gently...
(there’s still love inside for the dream that had to die)
as you’re tearing down our world.."

[Deenfan]

Makes you think, doesn't it?

What I think, in addition to the obvious thoughts one might get from this well written piece about modern living, is that it doesn't strike me as much of a lyric, really. It comes across more as a blog entry with a hint of lyrical approach. It might be just some new style I don't understand. I've got nothing else against it than the use of plain black on white language that isn't anywhere near poetry.

This part here, for instance, might be a word perfect transcript from a statement uttered by a man talking to his friends 'round a coffee table:

I mean, first we pay for fastfood that will make us all fat and tired
so then we pay for elevators
so we won’t have to climb the three stairs up to our apartments
then we buy freakin’ StairMaster machines
so we can burn away while watching someone make real food on TV

I find myself wondering how you sing such a thing.

But, then again, there are several passages I find reads well, and what is said is essentially very cool. Could be it's all my loss if I can't connect with the style.

[PH]

SPOCK'S BEARD - All That's Left
(Spock's Beard, 2006)

In dreams I reach to touch your perfect face again
In dreams you never cry or walk away
But I wake to the truth, the daylight streaming in
I never found the way or words to make you stay

Photographs and falling leaves
Scattered dust of memories
The poems I wrote I still believe
That's all that's left of you and me

I found a flower in a book you hid away
In better days they seem so long ago
I tried to touch it but it crumbled in my hand
Just like a future planned that we would never know

Photographs and falling leaves
Scattered dust of memories
The poems I wrote I still believe
That's all that's left of you and me

Echoes of a better time
Ring forever in my mind
Where I'm going where I've been
Different places in the end

Photographs and falling leaves
Scattered dust of memories
The poems I wrote I still believe
That's all that's left of you and me


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Firstly, the song itself is of course really beautiful. But the lyrics are also very strong.
About someone who's relationship has ended and he can't forget her.
It really affects me.
Especially this part:

"I found a flower in a book you hid away
In better days they seem so long ago
I tried to touch it but it crumbled in my hand
Just like a future planned that we would never know"

Looking back on that relationship, when everything looked fine and everything seems obvious and logical.
You're planning your future, a future you were looking forward to and was sure it would be like that.
But suddenly, it's not that self-evident anymore and that future that you thought was yours, is now gone.
Or worse: the idea that someone else might get it...

The song makes me think that it's about me...

[Bupie]

Touching lyrics, indeed.

Considering your age, PH, it's not granted that you won't have to endure this kind of feeling several times ... 

On the other hand, change has his good aspects too 

But it's one of the few good things when you get old : you find yourself much less often in the position to have your heart broken by a beautiful young girl ...

[Deenfan]

That was truly beautiful.

[Nicky007]

Wish You Were Here

So, so you think you can tell heaven from hell,
Blue skies from pain.
Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?

And did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?

How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year,
Running over the same old ground.
What have you found? The same old fears.
Wish you were here.

By Waters, Gilmour.

[The Butterfly Man]

Wish You Were Here

Yeah. Great one Nicky!

The following lyric has been very close to me since I first heard it some years ago. It still sends shivers down my spine.

Anathema - Are You There?

Are you there?
Is it wonderful to know
All the ghosts...
All the ghosts...
Freak my selfish out
My mind is happy
Need to learn to let it go
I know you'd do no harm to me

But since you've been gone I've been lost inside
Tried and failed as we walked by the riverside
And I wish you could see the love in her eyes
The best friend that eluded you lost in time
Burned alive in the heat of a grieving mind

But what can I say now?
It couldn't be more wrong
Cos there's no one there
Unmistakably lost and without a care
Did we lose all the love that we could have shared
And its wearing me down
And its turning me round
And I can't find a way
Now to find it out
Where are you when I need you...

Are you there?

Tom

[maddox]

One of the best lyrics Marillion has ever written, even with Fish still in the band, is without a doubt:

Living With The Big Lie

"It all began with the bright light
The bright light and the noise
The chaos of the senses and the scream of desire

Touching and being touched
A million loose ends to tie up
Ticking of the clock and the cradle rock

The colours stand still
And then they move around
Comin' in and out of focus upside down

Empty winter trees
How space feels
Love of the soft ... the flowers and the sky

One fine day
The chaos subsides
Bleeds into awareness
And a lifetime of surprise

The beauty of your mothers eyes
The pain when you fall
You drink it in and marvel at it all
But you never really figure it out

You get used to it

The babble of the family
And the dumb TV
Roar of the traffic and the thunder of jets

Chemicals in the water
Drugs in the food
The heat of the kitchen and the beat of the system

The attitude of authority
The laws and the rules
Hit me square in the face, first morning at school

The heroes and the zeroes
The first love of my life
When to kiss and to kick and to keep your head down
When they're choosing the sides

I was never any good at it
I was terrified most of the time
I never got over it

I got used to it

Alone in the city at seventeen
With the hollow and the lonely
The drowning and the drowned
I was made to feel worthless
The wretched and the mean
Beat me up like a weapon I can't run away from or find a way round

Holdin' on, holdin' on

The greed and the missiles
Exploding somewhere every day
Hideous dark secrets under the sea and in holes in the ground

The cold war's gone
But those bastards'll find us another one
They're here to protect you, don't you know?
So get used to it
Get used to it!

The clash of religions
And the loaded prayers
Information
The face of starvation and the state of the nation

The sense that it's useless
And the fear to try
Not believing the leaders, the media that feed us
Living with the big lie

You get used to it
Get used to it!
It's okay, I got used to it "

It gives me goosebumps all over when i hear it. 

[Nicky007]

One of the best lyrics Marillion has ever written, even with Fish still in the band, is without a doubt:

OK, now I understand what you mean, Måd. But it is ambiguous.

Just to make it clear:  The lyrics of Living With The Big Lie are by Steve Hogarth.

Nicky.