Best Song Lyric NOT about Love.

[Yetmorebeanstocount]

Just that - most songs are about love, so what is the best line you know which is about something else?

Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way

Pink Floyd - 'Time'. The whole song is brilliant, so it is hard to pick the best lines.

The Mississippi delta was shining like a national guitar - Paul Simon

I said, now, watch what you say, they'll be calling you a radical
A liberal, oh, fanatical, criminal
Oh, won't you sign up your name? We'd like to feel you're acceptable
Respectable, oh, presentable, a vegetable

Do you realize
That happiness makes you cry?
Do you realize
That everyone you know someday will die?
And instead of saying all of your goodbyes
Let them know you realize that life goes fast
It's hard to make the good things last
You realize the sun doesn't go down
It's just an illusion caused by the world spinning round.

• Do you realise?? By The Flaming Lips

Violet was a silent girl
Grew up with violent starts
Her mother was a drinker
And her father was a bastard
Every night he'd tuck her tight
But never left the room
I'll spare you of the things he did
I'm sure her mother knew
Violet was a silent girl
She moved out at sixteen
A semi-detached council flat
Paid for by a welfare-scheme
Packing shelves at Tesco's
Stacking jars like pickled bricks
She met a boy named Stevie
And he was a little prick
Violet was a silent girl
And Violet, she fell fast
See, Stevie was a wrongin'
But he sure knew how to charm her
Every night he'd tuck her tight
But never left the room
History repeats itself
He'd paint her black and blue and, ah
She never stood a chance
The Devil comes to dance

Part of Violet's Tale by Ren...

You know I've heard about people like me
But I never made the connection.
They walk one road to set them free
And find they've gone the wrong direction.
But there's no need for turning back
Cause all roads lead to where I stand;
And I believe I'll walk them all
No matter what I may have planned.

Crossroads Don McLean

The rich declare themselves poor and most of us are not sure if we have too much but we'll take our chances coz God's stopped keeping score.
Or pick any line you want from Praying for Time by the late great genius George Michael.

You will never understand
How it feels to live your life
With no meaning or control
And with nowhere left to go
You are amazed that they exist
And they burn so bright
Whilst you can only wonder why

Rent a flat above a shop
Cut your hair and get a job
Smoke some fags and play some pool
Pretend you never went to school
But still you'll never get it right
'Cause when you're laid in bed at night
Watching roaches climb the wall
If you called your dad he could stop it all
Yeah
Common People

Oh, Deborah, do you recall?
Your house was very small
With woodchip on the wall
When I came round to call
You didn't notice me at all
And I said…

Disco 2000

both by Pulp

It's actually written by Mark Knopfler, but Tina made it her own.

All of The Ballad of Lucy Jordan by Marianne Faithfull, but particularly

At the age of thirty-seven
She realised she'd never
Ride through Paris in a sports car
With the warm wind in her hair

and
She could clean the house for hours
Or rearrange the flowers
Or run naked through the shady street
Screaming all the way

edit: sorry, recorded by MF, but written by the poet Shel Silverstein

Look around, everywhere you turn is heartache
It's everywhere that you go (look around)
You try everything you can to escape
The pain of life that you know (life that you know)
When all else fails and you long to be
Something better than you are today
I know a place where you can get away
It's called a dance floor
And here's what it's for, so

What's your plan for tomorrow
Are you a leader or will you follow
Are you a fighter or will you cower
It's our time, take back the power

The Interrupters.

A mantra for those of us back in the rat race at 9M tomorrow.

Well, one leap forward, two leaps back
Will politics get me the sack?
Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards
Well, here comes the future and you can't run from it
If you've got a blacklist I want to be on it
Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards
Well, it's a mighty long way down rock 'n roll
From Top of the Pops to drawing the dole
You're waiting for the Great Leap Forwards
If no one out there understands
You can start your own revolution and cut out the middleman
Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards
In a perfect world we'd all sing in tune
But this is reality so give me some room!
Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards
So join the struggle while you may
The revolution is just a t-shirt away

Waiting For The Great Leap Forwards

Kiss me goodnight and say my prayers
Leave the light on at the top of the stairs
Tell me the names of the stars up in the sky
A tree taps on the window pane
That feeling smothers me again
Daddy is it true that we all have to die
At the top of the stairs
Is darkness
At the top of the stairs
Is darkness
I closed my eyes and when I looked
Your name was in the memorial book
And what had become of all the things we planned
I accepted the commiserations
Of all your friends and your relations
But there's some things I still don't understand
You were so tall
How could you fall?
Some photographs of a summer's day
A little boy's lifetime away
Is all I've left of everything we've done
Like a pale moon in a sunny sky
Death gazes down as I pass by
To remind me that I'm but my father's son
I offer up to you
This tribute
I offer up to you
This tank park salute

Tank Park Salute

Billy Bragg

The sun beams down on a brand new day
No more welfare tax to pay
Unsightly slums gone up in flashing light
Jobless millions whisked away
At last we have more room to play
All systems go to kill the poor tonight

“I got some regrets
but my past won’t keep me from my best” — Die Hard by the brilliant Kendrick Lamar

I love the imagery these lyrics conjure up in my mind:

“ Where did you go on that big black night?
Did you take the coast road back through your life?
See the sand, the moon, the stars that shine the light and say, well
They'll do all right for me”

Northen Skies - I am Kloot

My bed's full of takeaways
And fantasies of easy lays
The pause button's broke on my video
If this is real then I feel fake
Oprah Winfrey, Ricki Lake
Teach me things I don't need to know

And you know, and you know
'Cause my life's a mess
And it's started to show
So before I'm old I'll confess
You think that I'm strong
You're wrong
You're wrong
I sing my song
My song
My song

If I did it all again I'd be a nun
The rain was never cold when I was young
I'm still young.

Don't you know
They're talking about a revolution?
It sounds like a whisper
Don't you know
Talking about a revolution?
It sounds like a whisper

While they're standing in the welfare lines
Crying at the doorsteps of those armies of salvation
Wasting time in the unemployment lines
Sitting around waiting for a promotion

Don't you know
Talking about a revolution?
It sounds like a whisper

Poor people gonna rise up
And get their share
Poor people gonna rise up
And take what's theirs

From Talking about a revolution by Tracy Chapman

Hold on
Feeling like I'm headed for a breakdown
And I don't know why

But I'm not crazy, I'm just a little unwell
I know right now you can't tell
But stay awhile and maybe then you'll see
A different side of me
I'm not crazy, I'm just a little impaired
I know right now you don't care
But soon enough you're gonna think of me
And how I used to be...me

Unwell by Matchbox Twenty.

Got me through many a dark day 😢

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery,
None but ourselves can free our minds.
Have no fear for atomic energy,
'Cause none of them can stop the time.
How long shall they kill our prophets,
While we stand aside and look? Ooh!
Some say it's just a part of it,
We've got to fulfill the Book.

Won't you help to sing
These songs of freedom?
'Cause all I ever have:
Redemption songs,
Redemption songs,
Redemption songs.

Imagine Dragons - Demons

When the days are cold
And the cards all fold
And the saints we see
Are all made of gold

When your dreams all fail
And the ones we hail
Are the worst of all
And the blood's run stale

I wanna hide the truth
I wanna shelter you
But with the beast inside
There's nowhere we can hide

No matter what we breed
We still are made of greed
This is my kingdom come
This is my kingdom come

When you feel my heat
Look into my eyes
It's where my demons hide
It's where my demons hide
Don't get too close
It's dark inside
It's where my demons hide
It's where my demons hide

At the curtain's call
It's the last of all
When the lights fade out
All the sinners crawl

So they dug your grave
And the masquerade
Will come calling out
At the mess you've made

Don't wanna let you down
But I am hellbound
Though this is all for you
Don't wanna hide the truth

No matter what we breed
We still are made of greed
This is my kingdom come
This is my kingdom come

When you feel my heat
Look into my eyes
It's where my demons hide
It's where my demons hide
Don't get too close
It's dark inside
It's where my demons hide
It's where my demons hide

They say it's what you make
I say it's up to fate
It's woven in my soul
I need to let you go

Your eyes, they shine so bright
I wanna save that light
I can't escape this now
Unless you show me how

When you feel my heat
Look into my eyes
It's where my demons hide
It's where my demons hide
Don't get too close
It's dark inside
It's where my demons hide
It's where my demons hide

Some great choices here. Madonna and Bob Marley in the same thread!

You choose your leaders and place your trust
As their lies wash you down and their promises rust
You'll see kidney machines replaced by rockets and guns
And the public wants what the public gets
But I don't get what this society wants

Going Underground by The Jam

Always loved Paul Weller’s political angst! He wrote this in 1980 and I think it’s even more appropriate today. I don’t get what this society wants either 🤪

The Bear Necessities 🙂

I recall that Hot Chocolate had a song about a UFO sighting, but the lyrics are not particularly worth quoting.

What is the weirdest subject for a pop song?

I love the lyrics of Loose Yourself by Eminem

I've not heard that one but I love Lose Yourself by him