Gone savage
for teenagers with
automatic weapons and
boundless love
gone savage for
teenagers who are
aesthetically pleasing
in other words
fly
Los Angeles beckons
the teenagers
to come to her
on buses;
Los Angeles loves
love
Screenwriter's Blues - Soul Coughing

Jim Morrison produced countless lyrical gems with the Doors, but these jumped to mind first:

"I'll tell you this ... no eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn."
-- from The Wasp (Texas Radio and the Big Beat)

"People are strange, when you're a stranger; faces look ugly, when you're alone; women seem wicked, when you're unwanted; streets are uneven, when you're down."
-- from People Are Strange

"Your ballroom days are over, baby
Night is drawing near
Shadows of the evening crawl across the years
You walk across the floor with a flower in your hand
Trying to tell me no one understands
Trade in your hours for a handful dimes
Gonna' make it, baby, in our prime ... get together one more time."
-- from Five to One

Tom, did you know that the lyrics of that particular song actually were co-written by the Chicks and a Minnesotan? Dan Wilson is a great singer and songwriter as well.

This will come as no surprise to anyone who knows me, but some of my favorite song lyrics were written by U2:

One:
"You say 'Love is a temple, love the higher law
Love is a temple, love the higher law'
You ask me to enter but then you make me crawl
and I can't be holding on to what you've got
when all you've got is hurt..."

Sometimes You Can't Make it On Your Own:
"We fight
all the time
You and I
that’s alright
We’re the same soul
I don’t need
I don’t need to hear you say
That if we weren’t so alike
You’d like me a whole lot more."

Stay (Faraway, So Close):
"Green light, Seven Eleven,
You stop in for a pack of cigarettes.
You don't smoke, don't even want to.
Hey now, check your change.
Dressed up like a car crash
Your wheels are turnin' but you're upside down..."

Sunday, Bloody Sunday:
"And it's true we are immune
When fact is fiction and TV reality.
And today the millions cry
We eat and drink while tomorrow they die..."

Speaking of Dan Wilson, during his time with Semisonic he had some great lyrics as well...

So gather up your jackets, and move it to the exits - I hope you have found a friend.
Closing time - every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.

The song Closing Time is one of those that sticks with me because it was big during my high school years and even though its lyrics are simple it's a couple lines like those above that are sort of deep.

I was going to add some Dylan lyrics, too - that's an obvious choice. My favorites are mostly on "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan."

Masters of War:
"Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good?
Will it buy you forgiveness?
Do you think that it could?
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul."

Bob Dylan's Dream:
"While riding on a train goin' west
I fell asleep for to take my rest
I dreamed a dream that make me sad
Concerning myself and the first few friends I had.

With half-damp eyes I stared to the room
Where my friends and I spent many an afternoon
Where we together weathered many a storm
Laughin' and singing 'till the early hours of the morn'.

By the old wooden stove where our hats was hung
Our words were told, our songs were sung
Where we longed for nothin' and were satisfied
Joking and talking about the world outside.

With haunted hearts through the heat and cold
We never thought we could ever get very old
We thought we could sit forever in fun
Our chances really was a million to one.

As easy it was to tell black from white
It was all that easy to tell wrong from right
And our choices they were few and the thought never hit
That the one road we traveled would ever shatter or split.

Now many a year has passed and gone
Many a gamble has been lost and won
And many a road taken by many a first friend
And each one I've never seen again.

I wish, I wish, I wish in vain
That we could sit simply in that room again
Ten thousand dollars at the drop of a hat
I'd give it all gladly if our lives could be like that."

So what does a bar's closing time have to do with a baby, Dan Wilson? Strange...

Another Dylan tune I love is "She Belongs to Me."
Here are a few of those lyrics:
"She's got everything she needs,
She's an artist, she don't look back.
She's got everything she needs,
She's an artist, she don't look back.
She can take the dark out of the nighttime
And paint the daytime black."