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All-time best lyricist


soggybomb

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So the story goes on and the song ends on the IV so it doesn't feel over, always thought that was a cool touch.

Also, here is the link to the annotated Dead lyrics, very interesting site that covers all the bases, lots of cool info here and lots more of Robert Hunters poetry.

 

http://arts.ucsc.edu/Gdead/AGDL/

 

That's also out in a hardcover book. The book and the website are really cool.

 

Hunter has so many cool "one liners" like: "nothing left to do, but smile, smile, smile," "just a little fractured from the fall," "if I knew the way, I would take you home," and "if you get confused, listen to the music play."

 

The other lyricist, John Perry Barlow, was good, but not as good as Hunter, IMHO.

Turn me over, I'm done on this side...
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No one mentioned James Taylor?

 

And that reminds me, pull Tapastry out of your cd collection and play it. Carole King has few peers.

 

Maybe this list is for Guitar based Rock and Roll but have you ever watched JT play? He is one of the most under rated finger pickers there is.

 

Peace

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Some of the songs were pretty good and didn't have a trace of acid about them.

 

"She's Leaving Home", for example (funny how, as I age, I start to see the parents' point of view). "Fixing a Hole", "With A Little Help From My Friends". "When I'm 64"... Even "Lovely Rita" and "Good Morning" are pretty straight songs, lyrically.

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Ok, perhaps "With A Little Bit Of Help" is a tad weird. All that "I can't tell you but I know it's mine" stuff.

 

Perhaps "She's Leaving Home" is, lyrically, the most accomplished song on the album in that it has two different points of view without being judgemental or very much on one side or the other.

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ZAPPA :thu: PEART, PLANT,DYLAN,LENNON, in no particular order.........Another one of these unanswerable threads :rolleyes:

What can this strange device be?

When I touch it, it gives forth a sound

It's got wires that vibrate, and give music

What can this thing be that I found?

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No one mentioned James Taylor?

 

Ok, erm... what about James Taylor? :confused: I've never really "got" him. Can you give me some examples of lyric stuff that's good?

 

Kramer,

 

Never got into James Taylor? Man, he was a staple in the 8 track for hot dates. (Bread and later Marvin Gaye worked too)

 

As a player, very few bands or guitarists would perform his songs live unless they were out of the "Easy Book". I remember sitting about 3 feet from the TV one night in 70-71 when PBS rebroadcast a BBC show of JT solo. I got a glimpse of what he was doing with his guitar that his recordings confused for multiple instruments. He was a great and seamless finger picker.

 

Funny you mentioned "With a Little Help From My Friends". JT use to start his shows when he was touring his 1st 2 albums with that song. Very nice version.

 

Abet, Carol King wrote one of his biggest hits, You Got A Friend, his lyrics were as good as or better the rock ballads of the day.

 

I always thought this song was a great piece of writing.

 

Something in the ay She Moves

 

Something in the way she moves, or looks my way, or calls my name

that seems to leave this troubled world behind.

And if I'm feeling down and blue or troubled by some foolish game,

she always seems to make me change my mind..

 

And I feel fine anytime she's around me now, she's around me now almost about all the time.

And if I'm well you can tell she's been with me now.

She's been with me now quite a long, long time and I feel fine.

 

Every now and then the things I lean on lose their meaning

and I find myself careening in places where I should not let me go.

She has the power to go where no one else can find me and to silently remind me

of the happiness and the good times that I know, and then I just got to go then.

 

It isn't what she's got to say but how she thinks and where she's been.

To me, the words are nice, the way they sound.

I like to hear them best that way, it doesn't much matter what they mean.

she says them mostly just to calm me down

 

And I feel fine anytime she's around me now, she's around me now almost about all the time.

And if I'm well you can tell she's been with me now.

She's been with me now quite a long, long time and I feel fine.

 

 

Sappy? Maybe but I have been in that mood a few times and I couldn't even pretend to come close to writing something like that.

 

"Every now and then the things I lean on lose their meaning

and I find myself careening in places where I should not let me go."

 

That verse alone is a work of art. I've been there.

 

 

Peace

 

OK - Fire away, I'm pretty bullet proof! LOL :laugh:

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Pete Townshend. He's the the best I've heard.

 

I always encourage people to read Who lyric. Nobody ever thinks of lyric when they think of The Who.

 

One should NOT overlook Pete's lyrics.

Don

 

"There once was a note, Pure and Easy. Playing so free, like a breath rippling by."

 

 

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pagemusic.cfm?bandID=574296

 

http://www.myspace.com/imdrs

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I always thought this song was a great piece of writing.

 

Something in the ay She Moves

 

Something in the way she moves, or looks my way, or calls my name

that seems to leave this troubled world behind...

 

 

Don't know the song, but it reads quite well. :)

 

Sappy? Maybe but I have been in that mood a few times and I couldn't even pretend to come close to writing something like that.

 

"Every now and then the things I lean on lose their meaning

and I find myself careening in places where I should not let me go."

 

That verse alone is a work of art. I've been there.

 

 

Peace

 

OK - Fire away, I'm pretty bullet proof! LOL :laugh:

 

No, I agree. Sometimes people deride things as being sappy, simply because they guard themselves too closely. And hey, somebody's got to write that stuff. It's like that Dylan song (the one in Rattle and Hum) where he complains

 

They ask me to reveal

All the things they would conceal...

 

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Coheed and Cambria is a very cool modern prog rock band that I believe has single-handedly saved my generation from complete rock deafness.
I've been hearing a lot about them. Dream Theater is my favorite band, and I saw, in an interview with Mike Portnoy, he said that he thinks they really have something going, and they could open for Dream Theater. My favorite Dream Theater lyrics are from "In the Name of God" from Train of Thought.
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Hi. I'm not much of a guitarist, mostly a keyboardist and recording engineer, but I decided to read the guitar forum and came across this thread. I can't believe in three pages of replies no one has mentioned

 

Paul Simon

 

I can't believe we overlooked Paul. Yes, he is definitely one of the great ones, as is everyone else mentioned. Lennon/McCartney, Waters, Peart are among my favorites as well. For humor sake, I still think Eric Idle was genius with the following:

 

Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving

And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour,

That's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned,

A sun that is the source of all our power.

The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see

Are moving at a million miles a day

In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour,

Of the galaxy we call the "Milky Way".

 

Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars.

It's a hundred thousand light years side to side.

It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick,

But out by us, it's just three thousand light years wide.

We're thirty thousand light years from galactic central point.

We go 'round every two hundred million years,

And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions

In this amazing and expanding universe.

 

 

The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding

In all of the directions it can whizz

As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know,

Twelve million miles a minute, and that's the fastest speed there is.

So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,

How amazingly unlikely is your birth,

And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,

'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth.

 

:D

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reverbnation stuff

More Reverbnation stuff

I feel happy! I feel happy!

 

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