Baby I was just the midwife of your adolescence.

Cry me a River was originally written for Ella Fitzgerald to sing in the film Pete Kelly's Blues.

However, the film's producer felt that "Told me love was too plebeian" just didn't work; the word "plebeian" just jarred with him too much. He demanded that the composer Arthur Hamilton change the line; Arthur refused and the song was dropped from the film.

Julie London - a schoolfriend of Arthur - asked to record the song instead, and her version was the first one released in 1955.

Ella Fitzgerald did eventually record the song, but not until 1961.

Wonderful, wonderful song, one of my very favourites.

He had a big fat hit, it was ghastly

Nick Lowe - All Men Are Liars

So, I broke into the palace
With a sponge and a rusty spanner
She said : "Eh, I know you, and you cannot sing"
I said : "That's nothing - you should hear me play pianner"

The Smiths - The Queen Is Dead

What do you get when you kiss a girl
You get enough germs to catch pneumonia
After you do, she'll never phone you

Bacharach/David - I'll Never Fall In Love Again

Now I guess I'll have to tell'em
That I got no cerebellum

Ramones - Teenage Lobotomy

Don't know if you're looking for romance, or
You don't know what you're looking for.

I don't know whether to laugh or cringe at that, which is a kind of brilliance I suppose.

Ian Dury "Billericay Dickie"

had a love affair with Nina
in the back of my Cortina
a seasoned up hyena could not have been more obscener
she took me to the cleaners
and other misdemeanours
but I got right up between her
rum and her Ribena

And Sam and Delilah they both we should file under fool
'Cos when the temple start to crumble
Sammy for his comb did fumble
Life was in a ruin, she loved Johnny Fruin

I'm gonna get you in my tent tent tent tent tent
Where we shal have such merriment ment ment ment ment

"You think that I'm made of readies
That makes me choke on my shreddies."

A. Ant (aged 13 3/4)
"Made of Money", 1982

Can you hear the drums Fernando?
They're sounding out for you and me,
For liberty,
Fernando.

That whole half rhyme from "For you and me..." on in always makes me smile at Abba brilliance

Well Respected Man

and he plays at stocks and shares
and he goes to the regatta
he adores the girl next door
'cause he's dying to get at her

Regatta/get at her just inspired, always makes me laugh.

Then she hung up on the silence
Unperplexed
Innocently spun her Rolodex
I dialled again, I could not resist
Revealing just the dentist's receptionist

For Other Eyes, Costello & Brodsky Quartet

I'm expressin' with my full capabilities,
And now I'm livin' in correctional facilities.

A declaration of principles and a wry joke - opening lines, too.

Though the passion still flutters and flickers
It never got into your Knickers

It's knowing that he knows you now after only guessing
It's the thought of him undressing you or you undressing

and finally...

You go cheap cheap cheap between bulleyes and bluster
Stiff as your poker face
Keener than mustard
From your own back yard to the land of exotica
From the truth society to neurotic erotica

I am just a vagabond
A drifter on the run
And eloquent profanity
It rolls right off my tongue

Lowell George.

from "Little does she know"

When she finished her laundry
She was all in a quandry

Switchboard Susan

"When I'm with you girl I get an extension

And I don't mean Alexander Graham Bell's invention"

I know you wanna leave me,
But I refuse to let you go
If I have to beg and plead for your sympathy,
I don't mind coz' you mean that much to me

Elvis was a hero to most
But he never meant shit to me you see
Straight up racist that sucker was
Simple and plain
Motherfuck him and John Wayne

She's got cheekbones like geometry and eyes like sin
And she's sexually enlightened by Cosmopolitan

Lloyd Cole - Perfect Skin

Well my head was beating like a song by the Clash
It was writing cheques that my body couldn't cash

Tear Stained Letter

Help me, Mrs Medlicott, I don't know what to do
I've only got 3 bullets and there's 4 of Motley Crue

We'll take a hamper with some cashews and champers
Now and then we need a good pamper
We'll make our way for the day with much promptness
Excuse me while I make the most of this

I love the champers-pamper bit

Ooh, also:

I've used up all my tissues 'cause there's more serious issues

(From Where Are You Baby?)

All of the song, but particularly...

And I thank you for those items that you sent me,
The monkey, and the plywood violin,
I practiced every night, now I'm ready
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin...

As in many, many areas Ver Vat take the prize...

"Turning into cannibals
And everything that she wants is made out of minerals
I don't know what I done she only speaks in subliminals
The reception here is lousy and the service is minimal."

I particularly love the embedded mobile phone complaint and the bizarre concept of only wanting things made out of minerals (that's pretty much everything isn't it?) - geniusly shoehorned rhyming.

I was walking around the flower show like a leper coming down with some kind of nervous hysteria
When I saw you standing there, green eyes, black hair up against the pink and purple wisteria

Crawling
Over your window you think I'm confused
I'm waiting for the divergent wasp
To complete my current ruse

I'm sorry I doubted you
I was so unfair
You were in a car crash
and you lost your hair

"Police on the scene
You know what I mean"

I know exactly what you mean, son.

OK - Mr Mercer. Here is a jazz instrumental (on vibes) and it's called Midnight Sun. See if you can add some words. Keep the title though.

Mercer comes up with this masterpiece, triple internal rhyming scheme and all.

--------------------------
Your lips were like a red and ruby chalice, warmer than the summer night
The clouds were like an alabaster palace rising to a snowy height.
Each star its own aurora borealis, suddenly you held me tight
I could see the Midnight Sun.

I can't explain the silver rain that found me--or was that a moonlit veil?
The music of the universe around me, or was that a nightingale?
And then your arms miraculously found me,suddenly the sky turned pale,
I could see the Midnight Sun.

Was there such a night, it's a thrill I still don't quite believe,
But after you were gone, there was still some stardust on my sleeve.

The flame of it may dwindle to an ember, and the stars forget to shine,
And we may see the meadow in December, icy white and crystalline,
But oh my darling always I'll remember when your lips were close to mine,
And we saw the Midnight Sun.

------------------
Just cannot be beaten.

Romeo says hey man gimme a cigarette and they all reach for their pack
Frankie lights it for him and pats him on the back,throws a bottle at a milk truck and as it breaks he grabs his nuts
and they all know they could be just like Romeo
if they only had the guts...

Well-meaning little therapists
Goose-stepping twelve-stepping tetotalitarianists
The tipsy, the reeling and the drop-down pissed
We got no time for that stuff here
Zero crime and no fear
We've bred all our kittens white
So you can see them in the night
And at night we're on our knees
As quiet as a mouse
Since the word got out
From the North down to the South
For no-one's left in doubt
There's no fear about
If we all hold hands and very quietly shout
Hallelujah
God is in the house
God is in the house
Oh I wish he would come out
God is in the house.

She said drop dead and left with another guy

Not a clever rhyme but a perfect couplet

As discovered on a Word of Mouth CD which led to a Fopp splurge on the band's back catalogue.

"Don't become a burden,
Say the word an'... be free"

Automatic shoes, automatic shoes
Give me 3D-vision and the California Blues

or maybe David Bowie from The Bewlay Brothers ...

I was Stone and he was Wax,
So he could scream and still relax

In the roaring traffic's boom, in the silence of my lonely room
I think of you

Reflections in A Flat -HMHB
Oh darling sugar honey
When it was nice and sunny
And when I had some money
We would go and see Echo And The Bunny
…men

Since I was eight I’ve loved you
Through garden gates I’ve shoved you
Then there’s the time I slashed you
And you had to go to hospital

Now you are gone forever
Shot by your Uncle Trevor
My story seems so tragic
Ali Bongo’s good at contortionism
Oh he’s much better than David Nixon ever was
Woh oh oh oo-ooh
Slowly I picked my life up
Now I go and pick the wife up
She works at Marks & Spencer’s
La la la Lech Walesas
When Cupid threw her last dart
You, girl, were still in my heart
I love you more than ever
Even though I married Trevor

When they say black and tans
they mean the kind from the cans.
I don't got time to mix it all together:
I'm a very busy man, man.

I love the bathos of this:

I'm bailing this town, or
Tearing it down, or
Probably more like hanging around.

We need body rockin' not perfection
Now lemme get some action from the back section.

Perfect little bookend at each end of that tune.

Screen door slams
Mary's dress waves
Like a vision she dances across the porch as the radio plays
Roy Orbison singing for the lonely
Hey that's me and I want you only

Mainly for the last couplet but the whole is magnificent.

And another from Elvis, almost the reverse of the above

I don't want to kiss you,
I don't want to touch
I don't want to see you
'cause I don't miss you that much

"The Man Who Sailed Around His Soul"

The man who sailed around his soul
From East to West, from pole to pole
With ego as his drunken captain
Greed, the mutineer, had trapped all reason in the hold

The man who walked across his heart
Who took no compass, guide or chart
To rope and tar his blood congealed
When he found his self revealed ugly and cold

And the sirens that sing
By your nose with its ring
They'll drag you in
For your sins

Now he sits all alone
And it's no place like home
It's empty skin
A bag to keep life's souvenirs in
The man who sailed around his soul
The man who sailed around his soul

The man who sailed around his soul
Came back again to find a hole
Where once he thought compassion and the truth
Had laid to warm his freezing carcass on return

The man who walked across his heart
Was doomed to journey from the start
Of every love affair he'd broken
All the lies he'd ever spoken
Tattooed on his arm
And the jellyfish stings
Even angels with wings
Who look too deep
And dare to peep

Now he sits all alone
Knowing flesh blood and bone
Is everything
He found the treasure he'd been seeking
The man who sailed around his soul

Jackie de Shannon's classic (particularly as performed by the Searchers) gets me every time by the brilliance of getting 'Nonchalant' into a rhyme...

I close my eyes for a second and pretend it's me you want.
Meanwhile I try to act so nonchalant.
I feel a summer's night with a magic moon.
Every time that you walk in the room.

A cigarette that bares a lipstick's traces
An airline ticket to romantic places
And still my heart has wings
These foolish things remind me of you.

A tinkling piano in the next apartment
Those stumblin’ words that told you what my heart meant
A fairground’s painted swings
These foolish things remind me of you.

You came, you saw, you conquered me
When you did that to me I knew somehow this had to be

The winds of March that made my heart a dancer
A telephone that rings but who’s to answer
Oh, how the ghost of you clings
These foolish things remind me of you

First daffodils and long excited cables
A candle lights a little corner table
And still my heart has wings
These foolish things remind me of you

The park at evening when the bell has sounded
The pier in France with all the gulls around it
The beauty that is spring
These foolish things remind me of you

How strange, how sweet,
To find you still,
These things are dear to me
They seem to bring you near to me

The sigh of midnight trains at empty stations
Silk stockings thrown aside, dance invitations
Oh how the ghost of you clings
These foolish things remind me of you

Gardenia perfume lingering on a pillow
Wild strawberries only seven francs a kilo
And still my heart has wings,
These foolish things remind me of you

The smile of Garbo and the scent of roses
The waiters whistling as the last bar closes
The song that Crosby sings
These foolish things remind me of you

How strange, how sweet, to find you still
These things are dear to me, they seem to bring you near to me

The scent of smoldering leaves, the wail of steamers
Two lovers on the street who walk like dreamers
Oh how the ghost of you clings
These foolish things remind me of you.

The Philosopher's Song

Extra marks for working in all of those philosophical points too!

Immanuel Kant was a real pissant
Who was very rarely stable.
Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar
Who could think you under the table.
David Hume could out-consume
Wilhelm Freidrich Hegel,
And Wittgenstein was a beery swine
Who was just as schloshed as Schlegel.

There's nothing Nietzsche couldn't teach ya'
'Bout the raising of the wrist.
SOCRATES, HIMSELF, WAS PERMANENTLY PISSED...

John Stuart Mill, of his own free will,
On half a pint of shandy was particularly ill.
Plato, they say, could stick it away;
Half a crate of whiskey every day.
Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle,
Hobbes was fond of his dram,
And Rene Descartes was a drunken fart: "I drink, therefore I am"
Yes, Socrates, himself, is particularly missed;
A lovely little thinker but a bugger when he's pissed!

Get up, you aggravating pup
Or are you going to rot in bed all day?
Why don't you get a job,
You lazy useless slob
And start to pay your way?

It's the chorus from a song I think was called 'I Swear To You I've Never Heard Anything Like It' (or something like that) and have an idea it was a Danny Baker/NME Single of the Week back in the late 70's. Can't remember the artist and the internet brings up nowt - I'd love to hear it again to see if it's as much fun as I remember.

At every jam we play
We break two needles
There's three of us
But we're not the Beatles

"King Of Rock".

Makes Colin Meloy seem illiterate. Chorus snipped for brevity

I am the very model of a modern Major-General,
I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical,
From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical;
I 'm very well acquainted too with matters mathematical,
I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical,
About binomial theorem I'm teeming with a lot o' news ­
With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse.

I'm very good at integral and differential calculus,
I know the scientific names of beings animalculous;
In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I am the very model of a modern Major-General.

I know our mythic history, King Arthur's and Sir Caradoc's
I answer hard acrostics, I've a pretty taste for paradox,
I quote in elegaic all the crimes of Heliogabalus
In conics I can floor peculiarities parabolous.
I can tell undoubted Raphaels from Gerard Dows and Zoffanies,
I know the coaking chorus from the Frogs of Aristophanes,
Then I can hum a fugue of which I've heard the music's din afore,
And whistle all the airs from that infernal nonsense Pinafore.

Then I can write a washing bill in Babylonic cuneiform,
And tell you every detail of Caractacus's uniform;
In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I am the very model of a modern Major-General.

In fact, when I know what is meant by 'mamelon' and 'ravelin,'
When I can tell at sight a Mauser rifle from a javelin,
When such affairs as sorties and surprises I'm more wary at,
And when I know precisely what is meant by 'commissariat,'
When I have learnt what progress has been made in modern gunnery,
When I know more of tactics than a novice in a nunnery;
In short, when I've a smattering of elemental strategy,
You'll say a better Major-General had never sat a gee. -

For my military knowledge, though I'm plucky and adventury,
Has only been brought down to the beginning of the century;
But still, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I am the very model of a modern Major-General.

There was a little old lady, who was walking down the road
She was struggling with bags from Tesco
There were people from the city having lunch in the park
I believe that it's called al fresco

From Footy Footy Footy.

When I go and see Villa
My view gets obscured by a concrete pillar

And Goldie Lookin' Chain:

Guns don't kill people rappers do,
I seen it in a documentary on BBC2,
Shot to death outside Hyper Value,
Guns blazin like Michael Caine in Zulu,
Gun-crime statistics are sometimes misleading,
The type of criminal that rap is breedin,
Shot in the chest? No wonder you stopped breathin,
2 four to base over, are you receivin?
Remember rap tracks in '87
Scott the Rock's up ni Hip-Hop heaven,
Biggie and Tupac R.I.P,
Even Jam Master Jay's in the cemetary.

Like a bottle of Chateauneuf-du-Pape
I'm fine like wine when I start to rap

"Body Movin'" - Beastie Boys

..

She used to be a diplomat
but now she's down the laundromat

Thanks Gary!

We just sit in this hazy bubble with our quarters/
Discussing how beautiful Gail Porter is

From 'Refuge of the Roads':

"In a highway service station
Over the month of June
There was a photograph of the Earth
Taken coming back from the Moon

And you couldn't see a city
On that marbled bowling ball
Or a forest, or a highway
Or me here, least of all."

It's beautiful lyric in-and-of itself, all the more so because I'm told she used the 'Moon/June' rhyme as a bet or a dare. Is that true, anybody know the real story?

I've always reckoned 'Winter Warz' by Ghostface Killah (and most of the rest of the Wu) is the greatest set of rhymes ever (Quite long, I'm afraid)

"Winter Warz"
(feat. Masta Killa, U-God, Raekwon, Cappadonna)

It's on..
[Cappa] Where your sparkle at kid?
Ryzarector..

[Break: Raekwon the Chef]
Yes the shit is raw, comin at your door
Start to scream out loud, Wu-Tang's back for more
Yes the hour's four, I told you before
Prepare for mic fights (and plus the cold war)

[Verse One: U-God]
This rhyme you digest through the RZA console
Ask why I slam nine diagram pole
Raekwon dropped the bomb, Hunchback, Norte Dame
Golden Arms is bronze, buddah palm hit Qu'ran
It blows extreme, mean stream be the theme
Supreme team, America's Cream Team, redeemed
Vidal Sassoon, chrome tones hear the moans of Al Capone
Gun POW to the dome
And split the bone, wig blown off the ledge
By the alledged, full-fledged, sledge RZA edge
One dose of my feroc(ious) handheld trigga cuts
Acapella spittin shell paralyzed when you get touched
And critical mic cords, hangin like umbilical
Cords, dope swords, five star general
Raw be the quote rap style sore throat
Through the fully operational, hand held tote mm-hmm

[Break: (first two lines)]

[Verse Two: Ghostface Killah]
More than a thousand times one, snatch up my styles get done
I hold a title, enhanced how my belt was won, check it
Slick majestic, broke mics are left infected
Germs start to spread through your crew, drew like an epic
You asked for it, shot up the jams like syringes
My technique alone blows doors straight off the hinges
Masked Avenger, I appear to blow your ear like wind
With a freestyle, sharper than the Indian spear
So sit back and let the king explore
Describe me, the kid's nice and he holds swords
And his name, black attack's the nerve like migraines
With more games than beggars on trains, livid sharp pains
Poisonous Rebel like Deck, you can't destroy this
You get ambushed, skate, try to avoid this
Side effects of, hot raps and hot tracks
A duffle bag full of guns son, dipped in black
My culture, glides and attacks just like a vulture
Ghostface in Madison Square is on your poster

[Break]

[Verse Three: Masta Killa]
Be on the lookout for this mass murderous suspect
That fills more body bags than apartments in projects
And as far as the coroners know
The autopsy show, it was a Shaolin blow
Put on by my family brought to the academy
of the Wu and learned how to
fuck up yo' anatomy, steadily, calm and deadly
Spatter-head lyrics I lick through your transmit
MC's submit to the will as I kill your
juvenile freestyle, civilize the men-tal
Devils worship this like an icon
Bear-huggin mics with the grips of a python

[Break]

[Verse Four: Cappadonna]
You heard of the rasp before but kept waitin
for the sun of song, I keep dancehalls strong
Beats never worthy of my cause, I prolong
Extravangza, time sits still
No propoganda, be wary of the skill
As I bring forth the music, make love to your eardrum
Dedicated to rap nigga beware of the fearsome
Lebanon Don, Malcolm X beat threat
CD massacre, murder to cassette
I blow the shop up, you ain't seen nuttin yet
One man ran, tryin to get away from it
Put your bifocal on, watch me a-cometh
into your chamber like Freddy enter dream
Discombumberate your technique and your scheme
Four course applause, like a black dat to dat
You're stuck on stupid like I'm stuck on the map
Nowhere to go except next show bro
Entertainin motherfuckers can't stop O
in battlin, you don't want me to start tattlin
All upon the stage cause y'all snakes keep rattlin
Bitch, you ain't got nothin on the rich
Every other day my whole dress code switch
So just in case you want to clock me like Sherry
All y'all crab bitches ain't got to worry
Can't get a nigga like Don dime a dozen
Even if I'm smoked out I can't be scoped out
I'm too ill, I represent Park Hill
See my face on the twenty dollar bill
Cash it in, and get ten dollars back
The fat LP with Cappachino on the wax
Pass it in your think, put valve up to twelve
Put all the other LP's back on the shelf
And smoke a blunt, and dial 9-1-7
1-6-0-4-9-3-11
And you could get long dick hip-hop affection
I damage any MC who step in my direction
I'm Staten Island's best son fuck what you heard
Niggaz still talkin that shit is absurd
My repotoire, is U.S.S.R.
P.L.O. style got thrown out the car
and ran over, by the Method Man jeep
Divine can't define my style is so deep
like pussy, my low cut fade stay bushy
like a porcupine, I part backs like a spine
Cut you like a blunt and reconstruct your design
I know you want to diss me, but I can read your mind
Cuz you weak in the knees, like SWV
Tryin to get a title like Wu Killa Bee
Kid change your habit, you know I'm friends with the Abbott
Me and RZA ridin name printed in the tablet
under vets, we paid our debts for mad years
Hibernate the sound, and now we out like beers
and blunt power, born physically power speakin
The truth in the song be the pro-black teaching.

I'd even say no ter
A Rolls with a chauffeur
A brand new Toyota
A skoda
Give over.

The rhymes only come in towards the end, but the whole lyrics are worth putting up, because off the top of my head I can't think of another lyric that paints a scene complete with backstory so well, and that is just so drenched in compassion.

Houndstooth coat pockets are bulging
with nebutal bought from some doctor
who also was bought to keep those pockets full.
The face was lost but partly recovered
so half asleep and half in a frenzy
one side tries to smile enough for two,
pictures remain split at the image,
cupboards well-stocked with things to diminish
the pain that comes with clarity and mirrors in well-lit rooms.
She checks in at dwindling daylight,
a week up front asks not to be bothered,
the registry will show her mother's name.
Locks the door, sits on the bed just a minute before
she picks her purse up off the floor,
pulling out what she needs,
warming her wrists in promising water,
somebody's love another one's daughter
readies herself apologizing to the motel maids.
Double-edged and super blue
vertically letting the life from you
and casting a new darkness through the room.
Angels lay their odds on you,
know not quite what they should do,
only that they can't quite tear themselves from the view

'Don't stand so close to me'

'Nabokov" rhyming with "shake and cough".

Sting's reaction: 'Okay, I can defend that. Sometimes rhymes can be so bad they can shock you into listening to them.' yeah . . . .

...by the late Rainer Ptacek

"Some things take time to know
Some things you never do
Some things you can't forget
They just become you."

They say that's money
Can't buy love in this world
But it'll get you a half-pound of cocaine
And a sixteen-year old girl
And a great big long limousine
On a hot September night
Now that may not be love
But it is all right

You know you'd often wonder
As the years go past
Why you ever bothered
Going to mass
Was it the fear of god
Or to find a wife
Or just buying shares
In the afterlife

Pretty much the whole song

but I particularly love

"I worked all through the winter,
The weather brass and bitter"

They took all the trees
Put 'em in a tree museum
And they charged the people
A dollar and a half just to see 'em

Have yourself another piece of apple crumble.

So bad it's brillant.

ABC (Marin Fry), That Was Then But This Is Now.

So many to choose from. My favourite:

You're the nimble tread
Of the feet of Fred Astaire,
You're an O'Neill drama,
You're Whistler's mama!
You're camembert.

*He's* the top.

The opening two lines of Lime Street by Procul Harum.

"Generals gathered in their masses,
Just like witches at black masses"

Black Sabbath - War Pigs

You see what they did there - they rhymed a word with the same word - surely an idea that has legs. Anybody with a deep knowledge of scansion etc able to comment as to whether this is actually rhyme, per se?

My other favourite, Wilko's paranoid masterpiece "Sneakin' Suspicion"

"The whole house was empty, and I was alone,
I could hear somebody ringing but I couldn't find my way to the phone"

If I could be so bold and add a verse from the aforementioned song by Professor Elemental.

Keep your sodding coffee in a proper copper coffee pot
and spot me lobbing teapots at your poncy rotten coffee shop
coffee clots nodding off lost the plot sodding off
need some caffeine tannin and some battenburg to top it off.

More songs mentioning battenburgs I say

And I see George hand in hand with the dragon
Loading contraband upon the same bandwagon
Pinball machines have a sign saying "TILT"
But in life it's difficult establishing guilt

The rhyme and meter is lovely. The verse rolls around one's mouth in wonderfully sibillant fashion.

Sod it. Look at the whole thing. The last verse is masterful. I hate to cut 'n' paste large chunks. It's here: http://lyrics.wikia.com/Oui_3:For_What_It%27s_Worth

Harvest festival
Harvest festival
What was best of all was the
Longing look you gave me
That longing look
More than enough to keep me fed all year

the rhyme in this which really gets me every time is 'festival' with 'best of all' (best-uv-l). As sung by andy doesn't sound contrived at all

PSB have some corkers....just one of the reasons I love 'em

Sometimes you're better off dead
There's gun in your hand and it's pointing at your head
You think you're mad, too unstable
Kicking in chairs and knocking down tables
In a restaurant in a West End town
Call the police, there's a madman around
Running down underground to a dive bar
In a West End town

- West End Girls

Don't have to be
a big bucks Hollywood star
Don't have to drive
a super car to get far
Don't have to live
a life of power and wealth
Don't have to be
beautiful but it helps

- Love Etc.

Remember when you were more easily led
behind the cricket pavilion and the bicycle shed
Trembling as your dreams came true
you looked right into those blue eyes and knew
it was love and now you can't pretend
you've forgotten all the promises of that first friend
It's bad enough she knows how you feel
but she's not prepared to share you with a memory

- Can You Forgive Her

I don't know why, I don't know how
I thought I loved you but I'm not sure now
I've seen you look at strangers too many times
The love you want is of a different kind

- Domino Dancing

I saw two shooting stars last night
I wished on them, but they were only satellites
It's wrong to wish on space hardware
I wish, I wish you'd care
- New England

There's also this delight from Rogers and Hart sung beautifully by Ella Fitzgerald:

When love congeals it soon reveals
The faint aroma of performing seals
- I wish I were in love again

Don't remember the name of the song, but it started:

"She really likes a band called Tears for Fears
And she's got nothing between her ears, oh yeah."

Marvellous. It was on an indie compilation with a blue cover in around 1986, along with another band's paean to footballer Mark Hateley's dad, "Where have you been lately, Tony Hateley?".

Glad that got a mention. Lyrics by Geezer 'Bard'ler?

catalyst or panacea

PCH One - Pernice Brothers

few from the mondays/grape

she said don't know if i should
cos i'm worried too much about the test on the blood (tart tart)

old pope he told the nazis to clean up their messes
in return for gold and paintings he gave them new addresses

son i'm thirty
i only went with your mother cos she's dirty

you do nothing but socialise and become a menace
put on yer reeboks man and go play fuckin tennis

oh yeah and madvillain (doom) 'figaro'

http://lyrics.wikia.com/Madvillain:Figaro

whre'd my nigga go?
figaro figaro!

all the same it's worth a mention again here:

At night only crickets
No prowlers, no sirens.
No pinky-ring hustlers
No angel dust Byrons.
No bars on the windows
No sabre-toothed neighbors.
Just good simple folks
In a rainbow of flavors.
Somewhere in America
There's a street named after my dad
And the home we never had.

I'll work for Mister Fowler
Making fifty cents an hour
And I'll save all I can
So I can get a piece of land.
I'll raise some cows and carrots,
Get ahead on my own merits
And if I fail I'll take it like a man.
Somewhere in America
There's a street named after my dad
And the home we never had.

It has a lovely simple but sad piano arpeggio, too.

..the captain drank the champagne
but it tasted like Old Spice
hurry and see hurry and see
the ship trapped in the ice

Her beauty is why God invented eyeballs
And her booty is why God invented my balls

Just remembered this John Cooper Clarke classic;

I'll tell you now & I'll tell you firmly, I don't want to go to Burnley.
What they do there don't concern me, why would anyone make that journey.

Excellent!

as seductively crooned by Alex Harvey is almost Wordsworthian in tone and content

I swear on the wet head of my
First case of gonorrhea
It is his ugly voice that I
forever fear, Next! Next!
A voice that stinks of whiskey, corpses and of mud
The voice of nations
The thick voice of blood, Next! Next!
Since then each woman I have taken into bed
They seem to lie in my arms
And they whisper in my head, Next! Next!

Has a couple of great pop lyrics, my fave being 'If I was richer, I'd still be widja'

I'm as serious as measles
When I say 'Rhythm is a weasel'

I'm as serious as thrush
When I say rhythm is a brush

I'm as serious as scabies
When I say rhythm is "dead babies"

I'm as serious as narcolepsy
When I say rhythm is Shirley and Pepsi

I'm as serious as a torn cruciate
When I say rhythm's Mark Ellen's blue shirt

I'm as serious as arrhythmia
When I say rhythm keeps you livin' yeah

I'm as Serious as the clap
When I say rhythm's be-boom-tish-bap

I'm as serious as cancer
When I say rhythm is a dancer.

I buy her all the right clothes
and pretty jewels to wear
my friends say she's a dumb blonde
but they don't know she dyes her hair
she thinks the fighting in Central America's easily solved
but what to wear to Bel-Air premieres
is a problem she could never resolve...

she's an airhead
stungun and mace - Kharmann Ghia plates say "Lost in Space"
she's an airhead
thousands in trust - cusp Aquarius - get serious
she's an airhead
tinted contacts don't change the fact that black is black
she's an airhead
and while I'm impressed with the length of those legs
she's not an intellectual giant....

she'd like to model or maybe act
or start a magazine
before she signs any contracts
I think she better learn to read (and that's a fact)
but in her dreams she's the queen of the fashion regime...
you ask me do I love you...
does the pope live in the woods?
quod erat demonstrandum, baby.
(oooh! you speak French!)

she's an airhead
stungun and mace - Kharmann Ghia plates say "Lost in Space"
she's an airhead
thousands in trust - cusp Aquarius - get serious
she's an airhead
tinted contacts don't change the fact that black is black
she's an airhead
and while I'm impressed with the size of that chest
she's not an intellectual giant....

sweet and low and oh-so
little Ms. Dora Jarre
safe sex and fishnets
and could you walk me to my car (oh, thank you)
she's losing faith in a world that is out of control
she's gonna nix politics,
she's taking up volleyball. volleyball! why?

'cos she's an airhead
stungun and mace - Kharmann Ghia plates say "Lost in Space"
she's an airhead
thousands in trust - cusp Aquarius - get serious
she's an airhead
and now the time's come for the end of my song,
don't get me wrong
if she's an airhead it has to be said
it was men made her that way
it was us made her that way
it was us made her that way!

I was a teenage werewolf
braces on my fangs.......always makes me chuckle.

Plus how about;
The hinterland, the hinterland
I want to go to the hinterland.
It's fah-fah-fafafa, fa fa far away.

Very poor.

Where do you start with Lehrer's lyrical genius? Off the top of me noggin, my fave rhymes from Poisoning Pigeons In The Park:

"When they see us coming, the birdies all try an' hide,
But they still go for peanuts when coated with cyanide"

"But it's not against any religion
To want to dispose of a pigeon"

"So if Sunday you're free,
Why don't you come with me,
And we'll poison the pigeons in the park.
And maybe we'll do
In a squirrel or two,
While we're poisoning pigeons in the park.

We'll murder them all amid laughter and merriment.
Except for the few we take home to experiment.
My pulse will be quickenin'
With each drop of strychnine
We feed to a pigeon.
It just takes a smidgin!
To poison a pigeon in the park"

"Oh, she's a slag, and he's a creep,
She's a tart, he's very cheap,
She is a slut, he thinks he's tough,
She is a bitch, he is a puff,
yeah yeah..."

There's a girl from Soho with a t shirt saying 'I blow'
She's with the 'jive five two plus three'
And the girls for pay dates are giving cut rates
Or else doing it for free

New York is a rather better album than Metal Machine Music