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Best Song Lyric NOT about Love.

210 replies

Yetmorebeanstocount · 01/01/2024 14:53

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

OP posts:
NannyGythaOgg · 01/01/2024 21:15

Have you seen the old man
In a closed-down market?
Kicking up the paper
With his worn out shoes
In his eyes, you see no pride
And held loosely at his side
Yesterday's paper
Telling yesterday's news

So, how can you tell me ....

Have you seen the old girl
Who walks the streets of London?
Dirt in her hair
And her clothes in rags
She's no time for talking
She just keeps right on walking
Carrying her home
In two carrier bags

So, how can you tell me ....

In the all night café
At a quarter past eleven
Same old man
Sitting there on his own
Looking at the world
Over the rim of his teacup
Each tea lasts an hour
And he wanders home alone

So, how can you tell me ...

Have you seen the old man
Outside the seaman's mission?
Memory fading with
The medal ribbons that he wears
In our winter city
The rain cries a little pity
For one more forgotten hero
And a world that doesn't care

So, how can you tell me you're lonely?
And say for you that the sun don't shine?
Let me take you by the hand
And lead you through the streets of London
Show you something to make you change your mind

I just couldn't choose one verse. It's as true now as it was then and the best song lyrics from every decade and century continue to reflect the same

OhChristmassTree · 01/01/2024 21:15

Old Red Eyes is back
His shoulders ache all over and his brain is sore
He pours a drink and listens to his body thaw

They're only red from all the thoughts unused inside my head
They're only red from all the things I could have done instead
So, when you look into these eyes I hope you realize
They could never be blue
They could never be blue

Old Red, he died
And every single landlord in the district cried
An empty bottle of whiskey laying by his side
A lazy little tear running from each eye
They could never be blue
And they could never be blue
They could never be blue
And they could never be blue

minipie · 01/01/2024 21:16

I will try not to breathe
This decision is mine
I have lived a full life
And these are the eyes that I want you to remember

Interested in this thread?

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Luddite26 · 01/01/2024 21:19

ripplingwater · 01/01/2024 17:25

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.

Can't wait to see the film. And have loved hearing that at Stone Roses Gigs sends such a shiver.

FoxtrotOscarFoxtrotOscar · 01/01/2024 21:19

She was a fast machine, she kept her motor clean
She was the best damn woman that I ever seen
She had the sightless eyes, telling me no lies
Knocking me out with those American thighs

You Shook Me All Night - AC/DC

Genius lyrics.

Also love Lola by the Kinks

PelvicFloorClenchReminder · 01/01/2024 21:25

We're so sorry Uncle Albert, but we haven't done a bloody thing all day.

Tessisme · 01/01/2024 21:29

Our little army boy
Is coming home from BFPO
I've a bunch of purple flowers
To decorate a mammy's hero.

Mourning in the aerodrome
The weather warmer, he is colder
Four men in uniform
To carry home my little soldier.

Kate Bush - Army Dreamers

TisTheDarnSeason · 01/01/2024 21:32

Tessisme · 01/01/2024 21:29

Our little army boy
Is coming home from BFPO
I've a bunch of purple flowers
To decorate a mammy's hero.

Mourning in the aerodrome
The weather warmer, he is colder
Four men in uniform
To carry home my little soldier.

Kate Bush - Army Dreamers

Makes me sob every time. It is definitely about love, though!

Tessisme · 01/01/2024 21:38

Makes me sob every time. It is definitely about love, though!

Me too @TisTheDarnSeason. And you're right, it is about love. I was thinking of it not being about romantic love though.

upinaballoon · 01/01/2024 21:42

He hit a note that rocked the spinnet
And disappeared into the infinite
But up unto the present day
You can take it from me,
Anybody can see,
Everything has happened that way.

No, of course it wouldn't be allowed nowadays because there's a word in the song which we would get into trouble for saying if we said it, and that's a shame because it's a witty song by Hoagie Carmichael about the evolution of music.

TisTheDarnSeason · 01/01/2024 21:52

@Tessisme true, I'm being picky! You have excellent taste, anyway.

Bippertyboppertyboob · 01/01/2024 22:01

In my life
Why do I smile
At people who I'd much rather kick in the eye?

Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now.
The Smiths

notprincehamlet · 01/01/2024 22:20

Tall buildings shake
Voices escape singing sad sad songs
Tuned to chords strung down your cheeks
Bitter melodies turning your orbit around ...

JaneJeffer · 01/01/2024 22:20

Round like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning on an ever spinning reel
Like a snowball down a mountain, or a carnival balloon
Like a carousel that's turning running rings around the moon
Like a clock whose hands are sweeping past the minutes of its face
And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind!
Like a tunnel that you follow to a tunnel of its own
Down a hollow to a cavern where the sun has never shone
Like a door that keeps revolving in a half forgotten dream
Or the ripples from a pebble someone tosses in a stream
Like a clock whose hands are sweeping past the minutes of its face
And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind!
Keys that jingle in your pocket, words that jangle in your head
Why did summer go so quickly, was it something that you said?
Lovers walking along a shore and leave their footprints in the sand
Is the sound of distant drumming just the fingers of your hand?
Pictures hanging in a hallway and the fragment of a song
Half remembered names and faces, but to whom do they belong?
When you knew that it was over you were suddenly aware
That the autumn leaves were turning to the color of her hair!
Like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning on an ever spinning reel
As the images unwind, like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind!

usernamenotrequiredagain · 01/01/2024 22:43

Seems to me now
That the dreams we had before
Are all dead, nothing more
Than confetti on the floor
It's the end of a decade
In another ten years time
Who can say what we'll find
What lies waiting down the line
In the end of eighty-nine

Alalalalalongalalalalalonglonglilong · 01/01/2024 22:53

Oh yeah, life goes on
Long after the thrill of living is gone.

NannyGythaOgg · 01/01/2024 23:13

usernamenotrequiredagain · 01/01/2024 22:43

Seems to me now
That the dreams we had before
Are all dead, nothing more
Than confetti on the floor
It's the end of a decade
In another ten years time
Who can say what we'll find
What lies waiting down the line
In the end of eighty-nine

I played this on Spotify this morning and it has been an earworm all day.

I find it incredibly sad and nostalgic. It's a weird combination of being aware that it is over 40 years old BUT finding it challenging to believe that 1989 (the end of the decade) was once the fairly distant future (for a young person) and is now just a vague memory

FatherJackHackettsUnderpantsHamper · 01/01/2024 23:35

NannyGythaOgg · 01/01/2024 23:13

I played this on Spotify this morning and it has been an earworm all day.

I find it incredibly sad and nostalgic. It's a weird combination of being aware that it is over 40 years old BUT finding it challenging to believe that 1989 (the end of the decade) was once the fairly distant future (for a young person) and is now just a vague memory

Me too - I always play this one at New Year, along with Dina Carroll's Perfect Year.

I always think the same thing as you, every single time. It's very poignant; even more so now that the members of ABBA are in their mid-late 70s.

I was singing along and randomly thought about if you recorded it now. For it to make sense, you would have to wait until 2029 to do so, and then alter the lyrics to 'In the end of thirty-nine'.

Then it got me thinking about how far through my life I would be by 2039...

FatherJackHackettsUnderpantsHamper · 01/01/2024 23:40

A lot of people dismiss ABBA as just cheesy disco music, but I really don't think their enduring legacy to popular music can be overstated enough.

Yes, we all enjoy the cheesy singalongs, but it's far too easy to overlook some of the most amazing, profound lyrics in many of their songs - and all written in a foreign language to them as well.

The touring hologram idea is absolutely genius. Those holograms can, and almost certainly will, still be playing to packed crowds of fans for decades, long after they themselves have left us.

swimsong · 01/01/2024 23:50

POE - A Rose is a Rose

%3D

SheilaFentiman · 02/01/2024 00:04

Oh, your 'no' means 'no' but your skirt comes into question
That you ask for it will be the suggestion
You'll work the live-long-day, to take home half the pay
So if I had a girl, I would tell her this

You gotta be bolder, better, harder, faster
Don't take no shit off no Lord, no master
Don't listen when they say how far you've come
'Cos you go to work and you raise the babies
And you work some more, now listen ladies:
If you think we're done, we've only just begun

Nerina Pallott, If I had a girl

usernamenotrequiredagain · 02/01/2024 00:12

@NannyGythaOgg
And
@FatherJackHackettsUnderpantsHamper

You have both expressed exactly what I feel about this song.
It's so beautiful and sad
The passage of time is so quick and scary. Can't believe Abba recorded it in 1979

SerenityNowInsanityLater · 02/01/2024 00:21

Only parents cry,
When they want to
Show the world they’re still alive.

Sufjan Stevens, Carol of St. Benjamin the Bearded One (gorgeous song).

Woahtherehoney · 02/01/2024 00:25

Blackbird singing in the dead of night, take these sunken eyes and learn to see, all your life you were only waiting for this moment to be free

(The Beatles - Blackbird. Have lyrics from this song tattooed on me, I feel very strongly about it haha)

In fact The Beatles have lots of brilliant lyrics not about love.

Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see (Strawberry Fields)

Let me tell you how it will be, there’s one for you 19 for me, I’m the taxman, should 5 percent appear too small, be thankful I don’t take it all (Taxman)

Luddite26 · 02/01/2024 00:31

Woahtherehoney · 02/01/2024 00:25

Blackbird singing in the dead of night, take these sunken eyes and learn to see, all your life you were only waiting for this moment to be free

(The Beatles - Blackbird. Have lyrics from this song tattooed on me, I feel very strongly about it haha)

In fact The Beatles have lots of brilliant lyrics not about love.

Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see (Strawberry Fields)

Let me tell you how it will be, there’s one for you 19 for me, I’m the taxman, should 5 percent appear too small, be thankful I don’t take it all (Taxman)

My grandma used to say
How did those young men write songs that meant so much about life?