R
ock lyricists can be as eloquent as the best poets. Here are some examples that I like because of the way the words sound, the pictures that they paint, or both. If you'd like to suggest an addition, please send it to me.
I guess I'd better go now
I'd really like to stay here all night
The cars crawl past all stuffed with eyes
Street lights share their hollow glow
Your brain seems bruised with numb surprise
Still one place to go
Still one place to go
Let me sleep all night in your soul kitchen
Warm my mind near your gentle stove
Turn me out and I'll wander baby
Stumblin' in the neon groves
Jim Morrison, "Soul Kitchen"
Morning found us calmly unaware
Noon burn gold into our hair
Jim Morrison, "Summer's Almost Gone"
The music was new
black polished chrome
And came over the summer
like liquid night.
Jim Morrison, "Black Polished Chrome"
Shake dreams from your hair
My pretty child, my sweet one.
Choose the day and choose the sign of your day
The day's divinity
First thing you see.
A vast radiant beach in a cool jeweled moon
Couples naked race down by its quiet side
And we laugh like soft, mad children
Smug in the woolly cotton brains of infancy
The music and voices are all around us.
Choose they croon the Ancient Ones
The time has come again
Choose now, they croon
Beneath the moon
Beside an ancient lake
Enter again the sweet forest
Enter the hot dream
Come with us
Everything is broken up and dances.
Jim Morrison, "Awake"
Rolling like thunder
Under the covers
Bernie Taupin (lyrics) & Elton John (music), "I Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues"
Harry got up
Dressed all in black
Went down to the station
And he never came back
They found his clothing
Scattered somewhere down the track
And he won't be back on Wall Street in the morning
Don Henley, Danny Kortchmar, & Jai Winding, "New York Minute"
Out in the shiny night
The rain was softly falling
The tracks that ran down the boulevard
Had all been washed away
Out of the silver light
The past came softly calling
And I remember the times we spent
Inside the Sad Cafe
Don Henley, Glenn Frey, Joe Walsh, & J. D. Souther, "The Sad Cafe"
The flame rises but it soon descends
Empty pages and a frozen pen
You're not quite lovers and you're not quite friends
After the thrill is gone
Don Henley & Glenn Frey, "After the Thrill Is Gone"
There were lines on the mirror
Lines on her face
Don Henley, Glenn Frey, & Joe Walsh, "Life in the Fast Lane"
Far away, where the desert meets the sun
Far away, where the mountains kiss the ocean
That's where the fabled trail of glory leads
Down to the pastures ever green
That's where I'll rest my head and know that I've come home
Jana Persson, "Round the Bend"
What are these voices outside love's open door
Make us throw off our contentment and beg for something more?
Mike Campbell, Don Henley, & J. D. Souther, "The Heart of the Matter"
Remember when the days were long
And rolled beneath a deep blue sky
Don Henley & B. R. Hornsby, "The End of the Innocence"
Don't you draw the queen of diamonds, boy
She'll beat you if she's able
You know the queen of hearts is always your best bet
Now it seems to me some fine things
Have been laid upon your table
But you only want the ones you can't get
Desperado, oh you ain't gettin' no younger
Your pain and your hunger
They're driving you home
And freedom, oh, freedom
Well, that's just some people talkin'
Your prison is walkin' through this world all alone
The queen of diamonds let you down
She was just an empty fable
The queen of hearts you say you never met
Your twisted fate has found you out
And it's fin'lly turned the tables
Stole your dreams and paid you with regret
Oh, it seemed like a holy place
Protected by amazing grace
And we would sing right out loud
The things we could not say
And the secrets that we shared
The mountains that we moved
Caught like a wildfire out of control
Till there was nothing left to burn and nothing left to prove
And I remember what she said to me
How she swore that it never would end
I remember how she held me oh so tight
Wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then
Like wind on the plains, sand through the glass
Waves rolling in with the tide
Dreams die hard and we watch them erode
But we cannot be denied
The fire inside
There were ghosts in the eyes
Of all the boys you sent away
They haunt this dusty beach road
In the skeleton frames of burned out Chevrolets
Now those memories come back to haunt me
They haunt me like a curse
Is a dream a lie if it don't come true
Or is it something worse
That sends me down to the river tonight?
Well my soul checked out missing as I sat listening
To the hours and minutes tickin' away
I walked a thousand miles
Just to slip this skin