11
votes
What are your favorite verses in music?
Lovers of lyrics, what verses have blown you away or personally impacted you the most? Please share your favorite verses, and be sure to explain why!
Lovers of lyrics, what verses have blown you away or personally impacted you the most? Please share your favorite verses, and be sure to explain why!
This won't be a comprehensive list, by any means, but a couple of artists, songs and lyrics that come to mind for me off the top of my head:
While the lyrics themselves are nothing special, Radiohead - Creep has always spoken deeply to me on an emotional level. Every time I listen to it, it's like a gut-punch. My favorite rendition is by Daniel Mustard, who at the time of recording that was homeless and had been for quite some time, which makes it that much more poignant and hit that much harder.
Death Cab For Cutie - Marching Bands of Manhattan is rather simplistic but has some particularly wonderful stanzas, especially the chorus.
Charles Aznavour - La Bohème is one of my all time favorite songs. It's in French but I linked a copy with Eng translation in the description. It tells a wonderful story about a couple living the Bohemian life and Mr. Aznavour paints a beautifully romantic picture of it.
A recent addition to this list (thanks, @amarok) is Listener - Wooden Heart. It's not only brilliantly delivered but lyrically profound and incredibly dense. If you're a lover a lyrics I definitely suggest checking it out, even if spoken word is not generally your thing.
And as for Hip Hop there is just way too much to even list... but two of my favorite lyricists are Mos Def and Eminem, both of whom are absolutely killer "off the dome" freestylers. Some examples of why I love them: Mos Def - Hip Hop is a masterclass in hip hop lyrics writing. Eminem - Any Man is so damn vulgar but ridiculously clever and hilarious. And speaking of freestyle, Black Thought on Flex just might be the GOAT, IMO.
p.s. Bonus freestyle material since now I'm on a kick again. ;)
Mos Def from Freestyle: The Art of Rhyme (which is a documentary I would highly recommend if you can find it)
Mos Def + Black Thought + Eminem - The Cypher from the 2009 BET Awards.
Biggie Smalls from 1989
Rakim, KRS-One, Erick Sermon, Chubb Rock and MC Search on Yo! MTV Raps final episode
You could throw a dart at Vienna Teng's discography and end up with amazing writing no matter where it lands. She has five studio albums, and each has at least one track that has legitimately brought me to tears--not from sorrow but from appreciation. Her music is always beautiful, and her lyrics are rich, nuanced, and often brilliant.
Rather than scattershot a bunch of what I love, I'm going to give one track that I think is illustrative of Teng's talent: "City Hall" (track) (lyrics).
Even though "City Hall" can stand as a great song on its own, I think that knowing the context about which she wrote it shows how very skilled she is.
Some backstory: in 2004, the mayor of San Francisco directed his city clerks to begin issuing same-sex marriage licenses. At the time, same-sex marriage was illegal in the United States under the Defense of Marriage Act, and President George W. Bush had been making overtures about adding an amendment to the United States Constitution to codify its illegality into our founding documents.
As such, the mayor's action was overtly political and a challenge to the pre-existing status quo that gay people could not and had not ever been able to marry in the United States (or most anywhere in the world, really). For gay rights, this issuance of marriage licenses was a landmark, watershed moment.
"City Hall," the song, does not make explicit mention to these events. Nevertheless, the pieces are all there.
The song opens:
The marriage licenses began on February 11th and almost immediately became national news. Like the couple in the song, many gay couples flocked to San Francisco from across the country, seizing the opportunity to finally have legal recognition for the lives they'd already been living for so long:
While nearly all of her lyrics are stunning, she occasionally has clever, rich moments of pure poetry. "Better late than the never we've been told before" is one of these.
The chorus then anchors the song:
San Francisco is of course the "hilly seaside town," and "the love that's gonna shine" is the focus of the whole song. It's worth noting that throughout the entire thing Teng never uses gendered pronouns, referring only to "me" and "my baby." This is intentional, making the song resonate with and representative of anyone.
I'll leave the remaining lyrics to be heard by you rather than explained by me, as I don't want to kill richness through overanalysis. Nevertheless, I posted this song here because I think it's a great representative sample of Teng's extraordinary talent. Her song is political but not too topical. It's richly written, tells a powerful story, and is an outright beautiful listen.
That said, if I'm allowed a smidge more of analysis, one of the things I appreciate most about her is the narrative and emotional complexity she brings to her songs. While overtly a celebration, the song still has its finger on the pulse of sorrow. In the second verse a nod is given to the many that came before and did not live to see legalized marriage--especially poignant on the heels of the AIDS crisis. Furthermore, in the bridge, when the long-awaited marriage finally comes, she hedges the moment with the acknowledgement that this might be a temporary victory. She grounds the moment in reality but ends with a focus on the triumph.
More than anything else, this duality is what I love about her music: Teng's songs capture human moments with range. "City Hall" is much more than just a love song. It has depth and resonance. It mixes the good and bad, making each all the more poignant. It is expertly crafted and beautifully written--especially in context.
After same-sex marriage became legal nationwide my husband and I married. As you can probably guess, we did it at our local City Hall. I quoted Teng in my vows. It was a beautiful, perfect moment, and I return to it every time I listen to this song.
At the beginning of my comment I said there was at least one track per album that brought me to tears, and, in case it wasn't clear from this write-up "City Hall" is the one from her third album.
In fact, it still gets me. Every time. Not from sorrow though. These are great, wonderful tears.
I love The Beatles last verse on what was to be their last song "The End". For me it's such a powerful message at the end of an incredible journey that is the Abbey Road medley. The simplicity of it and being followed by Harrison's incredible solo just lights up my day every time.
I feel like there would have to be Bob Dylan, but deciding which verse is hard to do. The last verse in "Oh, Sister" definitely stands out because of my relationship with my own family and sisters. I went through a period of some distance from them and so I went through some longing for that connection.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tc2NpNqDgPE
Definitely "Pitseleh" by Elliott Smith. I just feel like I went through this exact thing with one of my ex girlfriends. I felt from the start that I was sort of a bad influence and the relationship didn't last because of our differences. I did never mean to hurt her, but I ended up causing a lot of pain.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pg7y4czi3UQ
And then there's "I'm Waiting for my Man" by The Velvet Underground. This is just a classic verse perfectly describing the experience of a drug addict. Always saying I'll work on fixing these problems. But how about we do it tomorrow?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwdH09vJwwU
So hard to pick one Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds verse but this is great. From "Albert Goes West". This just always makes me feel good about life, especially with the music behind it. It's like, hey sure we can think about stuff all day, but I'm just sitting here admiring the world and how amazing it is to be here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2r1u-Bz9ws
It's only about a verse long, but the intro track, Be - Common gives me chills, every time.
and
I keep thinking of the songs I like for what they say, and keep recognizing that it's mostly about the way they say it rather than what they say. I also recognize now that there are but a handful of tracks where the lyrics stand out if put outside their musical context. Most of it is in the music, and the voices, and the rhythm, and the lot of the things that make music what it is.
There's also the fact that quite a few songs I know have good lyrics – insightful, philosophical, well-written – but not touching me personally. The Flobots have their politically-charged songs; Run the Jewels have theirs; Eminem has stories to tell; Papa Roach have energy – but it's mostly about the music of theirs for me, not the texts alone.
With that in mind, here's a few that touched me:
Arctic Monkeys' I Wanna Be Yours, every sans the chorus, courtesy of it being the lyricization of John Cooper Clarke's poem of the same name. It's a beautiful poem because of how intimate it is in how it expresses love.
You can tell the chorus has been written by the band, because it has a very different rhythm and speech quality.
Henry Rollins and his I Know You. Is it lyrics when it isn't a song? Sure, why not. When I first heard I Know You a few years ago, it made my cry, so close to home it hit. Made me realize a few things about myself; the kind of a speech you'd hope to hear one day from a flesh-and-blood adult when in your head, you're still a clueless loser of a kid. Heavy thing – but helped immeasurably.
Marco Mendoza's Rocketman. The lyrics create a story-like image – vivid enough to create an impression, but vague enough to let you fill in the blanks. I imagined it to be loosely about Tony Stark, though someone like Elon Musk also fits. The song was on my list of the year, last year.
Probably a handful more that I can't readily recall.
Got a couple
First, please don't laugh, is "Fried Noodles" by Pink Guy. No link, it's very NSFW.
It's literally the verse. Through all of Pink Guy/Filthy Frank's memes, the music can, quite often, offer some nice gems. In general it's framed around dark and edgy humor. It's playing right now and I'm tearing up a bit. The other part of it is I never expected to relate to a track from a guy who put something like Meme Machine (likely NSFW) out, and that's completely ignoring the fact he moved on to do a eponymous, very successful R&B project.
These from Tool - Lateralus:
Feed my will to feel this moment
Urging me to cross the line
Reaching out to embrace the random
Reaching out to embrace whatever may come
and:
With my feet upon the ground
I lose myself between the sounds
And open wide to suck it in
I feel it move across my skin
I'm reaching up and reaching out
I'm reaching for the random or
Whatever will bewilder me
Whatever will bewilder me
And following our will and wind
We may just go where no one's been
We'll ride the spiral to the end
And may just go where no one's been
Spiral out, keep going
Spiral out, keep going
Spiral out, keep going
Spiral out, keep going
The lyrics kind of helped me to try new things, and step out of my comfort zone. The entire album is absolutely mind blowing.