re: Greatest lyricists of all time

Orphans of God
Mark Heard

I will rise from my bed with a question again
As I work to inherit the restless wind
The view from my window is cold and obscene
I want to touch what my eyes haven't seen

But they have packaged our virtue in cellulose dreams
And sold us the remnants 'til our pockets are clean
'Til our hopes fall 'round our feet
Like the dust of dead leaves
And we end up looking like what we believe

We are soot-covered urchins running wild and unshod
We will always be remembered as the orphans of God
They will dig up these ruins and make flutes of our bones
And blow a hymn to the memory of the orphans of God

Like bees in a bottle we are flying at fate
Beating our wings against the walls of this place
Unaware that the struggle is the blood of the proof
In choosing to believe the unbelievable truth

But they have captured our siblings and rendered them mute
They've disputed our lineage and poisoned our roots
We have bought from the brokers who have broken their oaths
And we're out on the streets with a lump in our throats

We are soot-covered urchins running wild and unshod
We will always be remembered as the orphans of God
They will dig up these ruins
And make flutes of our bones
And blow a hymn to the memory of the orphans of God

Page three and no one has mentioned this guy?

Keep a fire burning in your eye
Pay attention to the open sky
You never know what will be coming down
I don't remember losing track of you
You were always dancing in and out of view
I must've thought you'd always be around
Always keeping things real by playing the clown
Now you're nowhere to be found
I don't know what happens when people die
Can't seem to grasp it as hard as I try
It's like a song I can hear playing right in my ear
But I can't sing, I can't help listening
And I can't help feeling stupid standing 'round
Crying as they ease you down
'Cause I know that you'd rather we were dancing
Dancing our sorrow away (right on dancing)
No matter what fate chooses to play (there's nothing you can do about it anyway)
Just do the steps that you've been shown
By everyone you've ever known
Until the dance becomes your very own
No matter how close to yours
Another's steps have grown
In the end there is one dance you'll do alone
Keep a fire for the human race
Let your prayers go drifting into space
You never know what will be coming down
Perhaps a better world is drawing near
Just as easily it could all disappear
Along with whatever meaning you might have found
Don't let the uncertainty turn you around
(The world keeps turning around and around) go on and make a joyful sound
Into a dancer you have grown
From a seed somebody else has thrown
Go on ahead and throw some seeds of your own
And somewhere between the time you arrive
And the time you go
May lie a reason you were alive
That you'll never know

Jackson Browne-For a Dancer

Also

Warren Zevon (we made mad love, shadow love, random love, and abandoned love)
Paul Simon (it's a turnaround jump shot, it's everybody jump start, it's every generation throws a hero up the pop chart)
Robert Hunter (and it's just a box of rain I don't know who put it there, believe it if you need it or leave it if you dare, and it's just a box of rain or a ribbon for your hair, such a long, long time to be gone and a short time to be there)
Roger Waters (did you exhange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage)
Robert Plant (no provisions but an orphan's face)
Billy Joel (so many faces in and out of my life some will last some will just be now and then, life is a series of hellos and goodbyes I'm afraid it's time for goodbye again)
Bruce Springsteen (there were ghosts in the eyes of all the boys you turned away, they haunt this dusty beach road in the skeleton frames of burned out Chevrolets)
Neil Young (where the vulture glides descending, on an asphalt highway bending, through libraries and museums, galaxies and stars, down the windy halls of friendship, to the rose clipped by the bullwhip, the motel of lost companions waits, with heated pool and bar)
Bob Dylan (so now I'm going back again I got to get to her somehow, all the people we used to know they're an illusion to me now, some are mathematicians some are carpenters' wives, I don't know how it all got started I don't know what they're doing with their lives)
Pete Townshend(slit skirts, Jeannie doesn't wear no slit skirts, I don't ever wear no ripped shirts, can't pretend growing older never hurts)
Jim Steinman (nothing ever grows in this rotting old hole everything is stunted and lost, and nothing really rocks and nothing really rolls and nothing is ever worth the cost, and I know that I'm damned if I never get out and maybe I'm damned if I do, but with every other beat I've got left in my heart you know I would rather be damned with you, well if I got to be damned you know I'd rather be damned dancing through the night with you)
Al Stewart(she comes out of the sun with her silk dress running like a watercolor in the rain)

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That's great poetry?

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I don't claim to know anything about poetry.

Most of the stuff posted in this thread comes across as high school doggerel. I suppose the lyrics I posted come off that way too, to someone whose never heard the songs.

We have to remember this stuff wasn't meant to be read on the page, or even read aloud, but sung, with music backing.

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Yes, Springsteen, too, in spite of the occasional cor
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I wholeheartedly agree with your list. Regarding Springsteen his first two albums -Greeting From Asbury Park & The Wild, The Innocent and The E-street Shuffle - contain some of the best lyric songwriting of any artist of the last 60 years.

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I've noticed this board is negative on Springsteen, but he's exceptional with lyrics. Beyond the albums you mention, Nebraska has some fantastic, bleak lyrics.

He's not all-time because his career is still developing, but in the country/folk genre, these days Willi Carlisle is my favorite.

I should add that great lyrics can be written in a lot of ways. Whether it be the heartfelt storyteller writing’s of Guy Clark, Townes Van Zandt, or even modern musicians, like the earlier songs of Tyler Childers and Zach Bryan. Or it can be poetic, deeply thought out lyrics, like Robert Plants or Neal Pearts. For example follow you to Virgie, Pancho, and Lefty, burn burn burn and LA Freeway are all songs when I first heard them I didn’t just hear them I felt them. On the other hand, you can’t get any more deeply thought out, beautiful lyrics, like 10 years gone. Or the extremely profound lyrics of limelight. And also, I must add that not all modern music has the bad lyrics. It’s just mainly main stream music. Even though a lot of main stream pop music of the 60s and 70s had terrible lyrics too.

My favorites are

Jim Croche
James Taylor
Gordon Lightfoot

Shannon Hoon
Neil Peart
Regina Spektor
.

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Townes Van Zandt
Shane MacGowan
Bruce Springsteen
Jay Farrar
Tim Rogers
Stephen Malkmus (in a different kinda way)

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I should add Paul Westerberg to the above..

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Also to say that Robert plants lyrics weren’t deeply thought out tells me you haven’t listen to much Led Zeppelin material besides what’s played on FM rock radio today.

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I will agree with this wholeheartedly.

One of my favorites from their third album

"That's The Way"

I don't know how I'm going to tell you
I can't play with you no more
I don't know how I'm gonna do what mama told me
My friend, the boy next door
I can't believe what people saying
You're gonna let your hair hang down
I'm satisfied to sit here working all day long
You're in the darker side of town

And when I'm out I see you walking
Why don't your eyes see me
Could it be you've found another game to play
What did mama say to me?

That's the way
Oh, that's the way it ought to be
Yeah, yeah, mama say
That's the way it ought to stay

And yesterday I saw you standing by the river
And weren't those tears that filled your eyes
And all the fish that lay in dirty water dying
Had they got you hypnotized?
And yesterday I saw you kissing tiny flowers
But all that lives is born to die
And so I say to you that nothing really matters
And all you do is stand and cry

I don't know what to say about it
When all you ears have turned away
But now's the time to look and look again at what you see
Is that the way it ought to stay?

That's the way
That's the way it ought to be
Oh, don't you know now, mama said
That's the way it's going to stay, yeah