The Awesome Lyrics Thread

[Fish Tacos]

The diametrically opposed thread to the shitty lyrics thread!

I think most of us are familiar with AB/Tremonti lyrics so I'd suggest trying to post artists outside of that but whatever floats your boat

Bick Wreck - Albatross

Ah that’s OK, and I’m alright
I guess I’ll be lost again
For one more night
Ooh and that’s alright, I’m OK
I'll wear the albatross
For one more day

[Timotheus]

^ That's my favorite Big Wreck song

John Mayer is one of my favorite lyricists:

From Stop This Train:

So scared of getting older
I'm only good at being young
So I play the numbers game to find a way to say that life has just begun
Had a talk with my old man
Said, "Help me understand."
He said, "Turn 68,
you'll renegotiate
Don't stop this train
Don't for a minute change the place you're in
Don't think I couldn't ever understand
I tried my hand
John, honestly, we'll never stop this train."

From Born & Raised:

I still have dreams, they're not the same
They don't fly as high as they used to

Then all at once it gets hard to take
It gets hard to fake what I won't be
Cause one of these days I'll be born and raised
And it's such a waste to grow up lonely

And Walt Grace's Submarine Test, January 1967 in its entirety.

[SHEAKENBAKEN]

A Black Minute - Periphery

Embrace the feeling of our human skin
Intertwining now in ecstasy

Alpha - Periphery

Stop bleeding on the inside, we are alive
And it's more than enough to paint the walls that are white
Can we show the ones who are blind?

The Bad Thing - Periphery

Isn't this desire that you're looking for?
Or is insanity just knocking at your door?
And give me just a piece and surely you will find,
Everything is better on the other side.
But can you look within and find what is in store?
This life is but a scream that has become your whore
It's tearing a hole inside
You're buried alive.

Basically most of Periphery's lyrics are great so those are just a few of my favorites

Break My Fall - Breaking Benjamin
[Chorus:]

I am losing you again
Let me out and let me in
'cause you're not alone here
Not at all
Let me belong here
Break my fall

Same thing with BB

There's just way too many lyrics to post XD

[AliceMudgarden]

Anything by Tom Waits (My favorite lyricist)

Mr. Siegal

"I spent all my money in a Mexican whorehouse baby
cross the street from a Catholic church
and I wiped off my revolver
and I buttoned up my burgundy shirt

I shot the morning in the back with my red wings on
told the sun he better go back down
and if I can find a book of matches
I'm goin to burn this hotel down

you got to tell me brave captain
why are the wicked so strong
how do the angels get to sleep
when the devil leaves his porch light on."

Downtown Train

"Outside another yellow moon
Punched a hole in the nighttime, yes
I climb through the window and down the street
Shining like a new dime
The downtown trains are full
With all those Brooklyn girls
They try so hard to break out of their little worlds

You wave your hand and they scatter like crows
They have nothing that will ever capture your heart
They're just thorns without the rose
Be careful of them in the dark."

Everything Goes to Hell

"A woman when she weeps
A merchant when he swears
A thief who says he'll pay
A lawyer when he cares
A snake when he is sleeping
A drunkard when he prays
I don't believe you go to heaven when you're good
Everything goes to hell, anyway..."

Singapore

"The captain is a one-armed dwarf
He's throwing dice along the wharf
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is King."

$29.00

"and the siren's just an epilogue the cops here always get there too late
they always stop for coffee on their way to the scene of the crime
they always try so hard to look just like movie stars
but they couldn't catch a cold
baby don't waste your dime
she's lucky to be alive the doctor whispered to the nurse
she only lost half a pint of blood twenty-nine dollars and an alligator purse."

[Lotha]

Tony Kakko (Sonata Arctica) and Tuomas Holopainen (Nightwish) will always be my top lyricists. If they weren't musicians, I feel Tony would make an amazing novelist and Tuomas a poet.

It was a match made in Hell,
Now the whole mountain burns
And every man gets what no man deserves!

Clever and ironic word play by Tony in a song about a man burning down a mountain town for vengeance.
He writes some amazing lyrics but it's hard to quote just parts of them, you really need them whole. So, some of the best in my opinion are White Pearl Black Oceans, Replica, My Land, Gravenimage, Wildfire, Ain't Your Fairytale, It Won't Fade... well, most of them.

Sanest choice in this insane world:
Beware the beast, but enjoy the feast he offers

A great line that makes you think, by Tuomas. Lines like these tend to stick with me, they're very memorable.

In my world, love is for poets
Never the famous balcony scene
Just a dying faith on the heaven's gate

Also by Tuomas, one of my favorites.

I studied silence to learn the music
I joined the sinful to regain innocence

Great line, similar to the first one, also Tuomas.

Edit: oh and also Roy Khan, formerly of Kamelot.

How could I be condemned for the things that I've done
If my intentions were good?
I guess I'll never know, some things under this sun
Can never be understood!
How can we believe in Heaven?
Human reason counters all ideas of a soul society
My life is just a fragment of the universe and all
There must be more than I can see...
In the dark we're the same,
In the concept of time we're like a grain in the sand
And we strive for the flame as if death was our aim
'Cause we cannot understand
How I wish there was a heaven
All for one and one for all, a flawless soul society
Our lives are just a fragment of the universe and all
There may be more than we can see...

And I could go on and on and on...

[One Drew Remains]

Every word you whisper
Every tear you hide
You'd die for love, when it's alive
But where does love go when it dies?

- def leppard "where does love go when it dies"

[austinjhnsn]

If you love the guilt then let it die, a life kept so clean will measure the price of misery. But manifest the taste of paradise, and surely you'll see, the sin inside of me.

FUCKING MINT

Our story began in the heart,
In the heart of a star.
We've lost our way, forgotten what we are.
We are only particles in motion.
Floating through space, a destructive race.
What a destructive race.

Look at this life as a grain of sand, the blink of an eye, a world in your hands.
Look at this life as a grain of sand, the blink of an eye.
We're all thinking, feeling, surviving, believing
In what we think is right, refract distorted light.
You helped build this fire inside of me.
Breathing fire won't burn down the borders,
Set against everything that came before us.
All those things that you despise,
We all see through human eyes.

That distant blue, thats me and you
It was from there that we all grew
Framed in space, our first home
All those beating hearts
That were made of stone
We were disaster built from flesh and bone

[Nick_917]

@ Sheakenbaken: I agree about BB. They've had some really great lyrics, especially on their earlier albums.

Same with Shinedown
From "No More Love"...

"Despite the writing on the wall
My future's bleak and rather small
That's all you could ever take from me
I've got nothing to lose so let me be

Well I sized you up you're not that strong
You're weak inside I knew all along
This made up army you fight in your head
Destroyed your worth and pronounced you dead"

They were always good about simple yet meaningful.

[Ubik]

Don't be like the one who made me so old
Don't be like the one who left behind his name
Cause they're waiting for you
Like I waited for mine
And nobody ever came

[gbruin]

Some great lines about recognizing mistakes and how hard it is to change things...

Bruce Dickinson, Tears of the Dragon

Where I was, I had wings that couldn't fly.
Where I was, I had tears I couldn't cry.
My emotions frozen in an icy lake.
I couldn't feel them until the ice began to break.

I have no power over this. You know I'm afraid.
The walls I've built are crumbling.
The water is moving. I'm slipping away.

Locomotive - Guns n'Roses

Yeah, I bought me an illusion
And I put it on the wall.
I let it fill my head with dreams
And I had to have them all.
But, oh the taste is never so sweet
As what you'd believe it is...
Well, I guess it never is.

[Timotheus]

Don't be like the one who made me so old
Don't be like the one who left behind his name
Cause they're waiting for you
Like I waited for mine
And nobody ever came

Brothers in Arms by Dire Straits is one of my favorite songs of all time both lyrically and instrumentally. It's so incredibly meaningful. This is the second part of the song:

There's so many different worlds
So many different suns
And we have just one world
But we live in different ones

Now the sun's gone to hell and
The moon's riding high
Let me bid you farewell
Every man has to die
But it's written in the starlight
And every line in your palm
We are fools to make war
On our brothers in arms

[Epic guitar solo]

[Fish Tacos]

Came across this song today, it totally blew me away. Fantastic mood and atmosphere. I LOVE how they picked a song name that wasn't in the lyrics but perfectly conveys them in context.

[Timotheus]

I love that song. It's my favorite from the new album.