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Some of the greatest lyrics? - Printable Version

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Some of the greatest lyrics? - sherpa32 - 01-21-2006

This is a tough one fans, but I would love to know some of your favorite Hip lyrics...let me start, and by no means is this an easy choice, and in some ways it may not even be my favorite, but it definitely has to be one of the most ingenious.

Album: Trouble At The Henhouse(brilliant)

Song: Apartment Song

Lyrics:

She's the horrible esthete
at the place where her friends all meet
While her clock reinforces its' conceit
and her mirror checks out other things
The walls stand a little more at ease
and her books they chat so expertly
and her cups and saucers get some sleep
and things get all together neat
and at the clicking of the key
returns the horrible esthete

Find the entire lyrics, but it is pure genious giving life to these inatimate objects, and once again giving creedence to Gord Downie; Canada's most creative song writer, and one of it's greatest poets!!

- SoylentGreg - 01-21-2006

Are we posting whole songs or just our favorite snippets?

i've always been partial to "the real wonder of the world is that we don't jump too", it's found itself coming out in conversations.

Also I have a strange love for this song and it's nonsensicalness:

Writing a song about Lake Memphremagog
And tonight I don't believe
There are words to spare and be a tip and a nod
Admitting it's half the defeat

Tonight the non-essential worker is hunting the problem bears
One sounds cornered and one can go no further
And it all sounds like it's happening upstairs

Do you hear that?
Like dry leaves a-straggling
Or a guard dog's claws on cement
Or an idea that's gettin' more determined
To get where it's gettin'

This might be harder than keeping it simple
Yeah, this can be simpler than keeping it real
This might be harder than keeping it simple
Yeah, this can be simpler than keeping it real

Shakespeare, you're a drunken savage
Well, you're a sober and green-eyed Voltaire
It almost sounds funny like two tough-talking goalies really going at it upstairs

Tonight the non-essential worker takes on the green-eyed Voltaire
Who won't go further than sounding just like murder when everything is quiet upstairs

Now do you hear that?
The song of Memphremagog
The shush-shush of his gentle lament
It's maybe a song that can't quite be determined till it gets where it's gettin'...

- skippy the wonder dog - 01-21-2006

I love that one too, though I don't find it nonsensical at all.

But 11th Fret is, I think, the best of all.

- Corby - 01-22-2006

A line that always stuck with me was from henhouse:

"You teach your children some fashion-sense and they fashion some of their own"

- tigerthelion - 01-22-2006

I would say "Nautical Disaster" is right up there as far as brilliantly written songs.

One I'm quite partial to is 'Into the Night' from "Battle of the Nudes", aside from the brilliant "11th Fret" Skippy already mentioned. 'Into the Night' doesn't have the intellectual words (for lack of a better phrase) of most of Gord's work but it's just right. It paints a vivid picture and I just love it.

I saw you running with your friends
I called your name too loud - 'come back'
so many times it might have been embarrassing
if you hadn't come walking back

Here's where I shook you by the shoulders
shoved you up against a truck - 'what's up'
it was a picture of someone getting older
and of someone growing up

someone growing up

it was like you were in disguise
you were so nonchalant - 'come on'
as though your well half-lidded eyes said,
'what the hell do you want?'

Well I must've said something
for you to feel I was alright - 'alright'
We had a great conversation
that went on well into the night

went on well into the night

- opiated - 01-22-2006

11th fret is simply pure brilliance...
one line that stands out for me though in a song is "i wrote unfriendly things..truly cruel..on the day that you were born...to prove that words could not touch beauty..but i was torn"...

dark..mysterious..powerful...i love the "prove that words could not touch beauty"...great way to start off such a cool sexy track

- opiated - 01-22-2006

" your imagination's havin puppies"..love that as well

and well..from my favorite song...

"maybe i couldn't catch up, no, but..maybe he could have waited"

- sherpa32 - 01-22-2006

those are some great snipets Opiated!!!
Gord has some great one liners, along with terrific whole verses.
I have always loved "your imagination's havin puppies"

How about 'The Rules"

"Legs scream at bikes and bikes scream at trucks"

or later in the same song:

Salesman said this vacuum's guaranteed
It could suck an ancient virus from the sea
It could put the dog out of a job
Could make traffic stop so little thoughts
Can safely get across

Especially that last line: "Could make traffic stop so little thoughts can safely get across"

Those are the lines that have kept me a faithful Hip lover for years, and for years to come!!!

Give me more fans...I wanna know your favorites!!!

Re: Some of the greatest lyrics? - The Horrible Esthete - 01-22-2006

sherpa32 Wrote:let me start, and by no means is this an easy choice, and in some ways it may not even be my favorite, but it definitely has to be one of the most ingenious......

....Song: Apartment Song

Obviously, I share your sentiments!

- tigerthelion - 01-22-2006

I think my favourite one liner is: "maybe a prostitue could teach you how to take a compliment".

Others include:
"cause as soon as Joni says 'blue', you're somewhere else"

"i'll stroke your hair, i'll dry your cheeks, when the failures come, and no one speaks"

"one day you'll just up and quit,and that'll be it, just then the stripper stopped in a coughing fit, she said sorry I can't go on with this"

"me and the vivid girl, in our hammock to the stars, staring into the fire before TV, the remote-control's on Mars"

"At 3 o'clock in the morning, you'd better be dyin'and you were, so we talked about time and where it went, unremarkable events, and how one day took two days and they got spent"

- LoftyPines - 01-22-2006

I am not sure why, but this line from The Dark Canuck has always struck somthing within me:

ask; 'can I help you?'
in that way that says, 'I can't'

I think it's Gord's ability to put somthing into words when anyone else would have no idea how to express it in words.

- HipCheck - 01-22-2006

You don't complain but you still do. -- BRILLIANT!

- Sam - 01-23-2006

"You'll have to wait a minute, 'cause it's an Instamatic."

It was so validating to discover I wasn't the only kid confused about the non-instant like qualities of the "Instamatic."

- SoylentGreg - 01-23-2006

What the hell is an Instamatic, anyhow?

- The Horrible Esthete - 01-23-2006

An old, cheap, easy to use Kodak camera.