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

Call you up in the middle of the night
Like a firefly without a light
You were there like a blowtorch burnin'
I was a key that could use a little turnin'
So tired that I couldn't even sleep
So many secrets I couldn't keep
Promised myself I wouldn't weep
One more promise, I couldn't keep
It seems no one can help me now
I'm in too deep, there's no way out
This time I have really led myself astray
Runaway train, never goin' back
Wrong way, on a one way track
Seems like I should be gettin' somewhere
Somehow I'm neither here nor there
Can you help me remember how to smile
Make it somehow all seem worthwhile
How on Earth did I get so jaded
Life's history seems so faded
I can go where no one else can go
I know what no one else knows
Here I am just a drownin' in the rain
With a ticket for a runaway train
And everything seems cut and dry
Day and night, earth and sky
Somehow I just don't believe it
Runaway train, never goin' back
Wrong way on a one way track
Seems like I should be getting somewhere
Somehow I'm neither here nor there
Bought a ticket for a runaway train
Like a madman laughin' at the rain
A little out of touch, little insane
Just easier than dealin' with the pain
Runaway train, never goin' back
Wrong way on a one way track
Seems like I should be getting somewhere
Somehow I'm neither here nor there
Runaway train never comin' back
Runaway train, tearin' up the track
Runaway train, burnin' in my veins
I run away, but it always seems the same

The Waterboys:

I pictured a rainbow
You held it in your hands
I had flashes
But you saw the plan
I wandered out in the world for years
While you just stayed in your room
I saw the crescent
You saw the whole of the moon
The whole of the moon

You were there at the turnstiles
With the wind at your heels
You stretched for the stars
And you know how it feels
To reach too high
Too far
Too soon
You saw the whole of the moon

I was grounded
While you filled the skies
I was dumbfounded by truths
You cut through lies
I saw the rain-dirty valley
You saw Brigadoon
I saw the crescent
You saw the whole of the moon

I spoke about wings
You just flew
I wondered, I guessed and I tried
You just knew
I sighed
But you swooned
I saw the crescent
You saw the whole of the moon
The whole of the moon

With a torch in your pocket
And the wind at your heels
You climbed on the ladder
And you know how it feels
To get too high
Too far
Too soon
You saw the whole of the moon
The whole of the moon

Unicorns and cannonballs
Palaces and piers
Trumpets, towers, and tenements
Wide oceans full of tears
Flags, rags, ferry boats
Scimitars and scarves
Every precious dream and vision
Underneath the stars

Yes, you climbed on the ladder
With the wind in your sails
You came like a comet
Blazing your trail
Too high
Too far
Too soon
You saw the whole of the moon

Not about love, surely; the exact opposite, really?!

Good luck, I wish you well
For all that wishes may be worth
I hope that love and strength
Are with you for the length of your time on Earth

I know I still believe he'd never let me leave
I had to run away alone
So many threats and fears, so many wasted years
Before my life became my own

Just the whole of "All My Friends" by LCD Soundsystem.

Most of my favourite lyrics are songs about love 🙈 going to comb through my Spotify

Sadik · Yesterday 16:48

All of The Ballad of Lucy Jordan by Marianne Faithfull

Broken English is a great album, isn't it?

Well I kissed the day, I was on my way
From those cold gray blocks of stone
For seventeen years of squalor filled tears
A time now with innocence lost

As the sun split the room
With its rays filled with gloom
Turning all hope to despair
And the only thing left
Was to flee from the nest
That was Life in a Tenement Square

I remember the song where the rats sang along
And danced for their daily bread
While the damp washed the walls
That were twenty feet tall
Not a child in the house was fed

Flogging Molly - "Life in a Tenement Square.

i love the lines from piano man

’and the waitress is practising politics, as the business men slowly get stoned. Yes they’re sharing a drink they call loneliness but it’s better than drinking alone’

a lot being said without being said

Under this pressure, under this weight
We are diamonds taking shape.

Coldplay

No way!! Did he write it for Tina? I’m Away to Google if he ever say it and if dire straits ever played it 🤩🤩

Jackboot jump by Hozier

Still waiting patiently for a proper studio release of this

At Standing Rock the Jackboot Jump
You'd swear was all the rage
Whether tearing up old treaties
Or just tearing up the place
It's always corporate infrastructure
Over the structure of your face
In Moscow the Jackboot show
Has so much in store
For any silly student
Who doesn't wanna learn the score
So the Moscow Jackboot Ballet
Finds some scared young dancing floor
In Hong Kong it won't be long
'Til they have to fall in line
For the long hand of Beijing
Stretching south a thousand miles
Where they rock the Jackboot Jump there
Like that shit's going out of style
All around the world
You'd think that things were looking rough
But the jackboot only jumps down
On people standing up
So you know good things are happening
When the jackboot needs to jump

Military vehicles are passing through our village
Passing through our village with young soldiers ill at ease
Unsmiling and unshaven, distrustful and uncertain
Distrustful and uncertain and all smoking constantly

My neighbors say, "Don't worry for you are one of us
You are one of us and it will not happen here"
But the next night at the cafe when I bring wine to the table
When I bring wine to the table they are sitting drinking beer

Last night the hand of friendship fell heavy on my shoulders
Heavy on my shoulders as I turned away to go
As I said goodnight some old men, some old men and young soldiers
Were humming tunes and singing words to songs that I did not know

From 'Peppers and Tomatoes' by Ralph McTell

Dancing in the disco bumper to bumper
wait a minute - where’s me jumper?

There'll be icicles and birthday clothes
And sometimes there'll be sorrow

• Joni Mitchell on the life her daughter would have after giving her up for adoption

Lots from the Housemartins-I’m not sure if they ever wrote anything about love? But Flag Day rather epitomises so many charity drives.

Too many florence nightingales
Not enough robin hoods
Too many halos not enough heroes
Coming up with the goods
So you though you'd like to change the world
Decided to stage a jumble sale
For the poor, for the poor
So you thought you'd like to see them healed
Got Blue Peter to stage an appeal for the poor, for the poor
It's a waste of time if you know what they mean
Try shaking a box in front of the queen
'Cause her purse is fat and bursting at the seams
It's a waste of time if you know what they mean
Too many hands in too many pockets
Not enough hands on hearts
Too many ready to call it a day
Before the day starts
So you thought you'd like to see them healed
Decided to save a jumble sale
For the poor, for the poor
So you though you'd like to change the world
Decided to stage a jumble sale
For the poor, for the poor
It's a waste of time if you know what they mean
Try shaking a box in front of the queen
'Cause her purse is fat and bursting at the seams
It's a waste of time if you know what they mean
Flag day, flag day, flag day
Flag day, flag day, flag day

Lots from the Housemartins-I’m not sure if they ever wrote anything about love?

They didn't write it themselves, but... Caravan Of Love?!

10cc - yes! what was that all about? 😁

They had some great lyrics: Dreadlock Holiday!

Interesting thread op.

Love 10cc! ❤ So many brilliant lyrics

I've often heard her jingle
It never struck a chord
With a smile as bright as sunshine she called me through the poster
And welcomed me aboard

From I'm Mandy, Fly Me, which was a BA advertising campaign at the time.

Yes, I thought of that- but it’s more brotherly/global love rather than romantic as well so it depends how strict we’re being 😂

STEELOS
John Tams

I 'ad no choice, and if I 'ad, I'd still 'av chosen steel.
They can do their worst agenst us.
They'll not change the way we feel.
Me father's father did it and I know it's all but gone.
There were a 100,000 of us along the Rother and the Don.

Goin' down to Steelo's, get mesen a start.
Dunna ler it cobble. It'll tear the place apart.
Catch it as it's comin', throw the bugger back,
Keep your tongs upon the metal and your eyes upon the track.

I got a start at Steelo's. Me dad put in a word.
His dad 'ad done the same for 'im. That's how the work got shared.
The mill roared like a dragon's den. The Tongmen prove their power
Catchin' white-hot metal comin' 40 mile an hour.

Goin' down to Steelo's, get mesen a start.Dunna ler it cobble. It'll tear the place apart.Catch it as it's comin', throw the bugger back,Keep your tongs upon the metal and your eyes upon the track.

The original recording for this is interspersed with clips of interviews from metalworkers and their families who remember the days of the big steelworks being in full swing and the album - Songs of Steel - is just beautiful.

Oh, and this beauty by the Divine Comedy

I must say it's the most extraordinary experience not everybody I suppose it's something to do with the sun and all that but I wouldn't understand myself really and I'm not sure its even legal. You know quite for no reason I'm here for the season and high as a kite. Living in error with Maud at Cap Ferrar which couldn't be right. Everyone's here and frightfully gay nobody cares what people say. Though the Riviera seems really much queerer than Rome at its height. On Wednesday night I went to a marvellous party with Nunu and Nada and Nell.

It was in the fresh air and we went as we were and we stayed as we were which was hell

Poor Grace started singing at midnight and she didn't stop singing til four. We knew the excitement was bound to begin when Laura got blind on Dubonnet and Gin. And scratched her veneer with a Cartier pin - I couldn't have liked it more!

I've been to a marvellous party. We played a wonderful game. Maureen disappeared and came back in a beard and we all had to guess at her name

Cecil arrived wearing armour, some shells and a black feather boa. Poor Millicent wore a surrealist comb made of bits of mosaic from St Peters in Rome but the weight was so great that she had to go home - well I couldn't have liked it more..

I've been to a marvellous party. I must say the fun was intense. We all had to do what the people we knew might be doing 100 years hence. We talked about growing old gracefully and Elsie who's 74 said a) it's a question of being sincere and b) if you're supple you've got nothing to fear then she swung upside down from a chandelier - and I couldn't have liked it more..

It was the most fabulous excitement, I've never seen such a carry on obviously it couldn't happen anywhere else but on the Riviera it was most peculiar..

You know people's behaviour away from Belgravia would make you aghast. So much variety watching society scampering past… You know if you had any mind at all, Gibbons divine 'Decline and Fall' well it sounds pretty flimsy no more than a whimsy by way of contrast on Wednesday last…

I went to a marvellous party we didn't sit down til ten. Y'know young Bobby Carr did a stunt at the bar with a lot of extraordinary men. And then Freda arrived with a turtle which shattered us all to the core. And then the Duchess passed out at a quarter to three and suddenly Cyril cried 'fiddle-de-de' and he ripped off his trousers and jumped in the sea - I couldn't have liked it more..

I've been to a marvellous party - Elise made an entrance with May. You'd never have guessed from her fisherman's vest that her bust had been whittled away.

Poor Lulu got fried on chianti and talked about esprit de corps. Louise made a couple of passes at Gus and Freddy who hates any kind of a fuss did half the big apple and twisted his truss - HA HA! I couldn't have liked it more!

My favourite song as a teenager! I knew every word and its so beautiful but still I'm not clear on what exactly it all means? Any thoughts?

I always sang 'cylinders and scars', realising my error now!!.