heretic on 18/1/2009 at 00:54

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Lonesome Bulldog by The Butthole Surfers...

Get along lonesome bulldog it's turning to spring
Get along lonesome bulldog it's that time again
Though it's raining, stop complaining
There's a long road to bear
Get along lonesome bulldog,
Get along over there
Get along lonesome bulldog
in the Spring

Well, Mohatma Ghandi was a little spindly-bottomed and raggedy-headed boy
that grew up in a Western-Kentucky village called Johnstonville.
In Harrison County; there he grew up.
His mother was a white woman;
his father was a rastafarian who refused to buy the family seafood on their family outings.
And there he developed a taste for convertables, blonde-headed women,
and a big old long Indian dick...
So get along
Get along little Mohatma Ghandi,
in the Spring.

Get along lonesome bulldog while there's snow on the ground,
Get along lonesome bulldog where you'll never be found,
In the mornin', without warnin'
And there's no food to share
Get along lonesome bulldog, get along over there.
Get along lonesome bulldog in the Spring

Well, pretty soon little Mohatma Ghandi
was going three hundred miles an hour, and I'll tell you what.
He was going three hundred miles an hour
because his strangely turbocharged penis-head was making him do it that way.
Just kidding--Mohatma Ghandi had a tremendous career in high school,
in college, and in law school, and in the House of Representatives.
There he found himself as a presidential candidate.
He met up with Mary-Jo Kopechne and across the Chappaquadick bridge they did ride.
So get along little Mohatma Ghandi,
get along
in the Spring.

demagogue on 18/1/2009 at 02:42

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oh, so many clever, or well-timed (in terms of connecting to an important life-stage), or mind-fuck songs to choose from ...

But if you talk about lyrics that invite you to think about them, that suggest deeper or more profound things if you look ... maybe

Leonard Cohen's (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zKk76YkF1U) Anthem.

Practically all of Cohen's songs have words that punch ... Hallelujah, Tower of Song, Everybody Knows... But something about Anthem. Sentences aren't complex, but they speak.

The birds they sang
at the break of day
Start again
I heard them say
Don't dwell on what
has passed away
or what is yet to be.

Ah the wars they will
be fought again
The holy dove
She will be caught again
bought and sold
and bought again
the dove is never free.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.

We asked for signs
the signs were sent:
the birth betrayed
the marriage spent
Yeah the widowhood
of every government --
signs for all to see.

I can't run no more
with that lawless crowd
while the killers in high places
say their prayers out loud.
But they've summoned, they've summoned up
a thundercloud
and they're going to hear from me.

Ring the bells that still can ring ...

You can add up the parts
but you won't have the sum
You can strike up the march,
there is no drum
Every heart, every heart
to love will come
but like a refugee.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.
That's how the light gets in.
That's how the light gets in.




Some runners up:

Sufjan Stevens' John Wayne Gacy ("On my best behavior I'm just like him. Look underneath the floorboards for the secrets I have hid.")

Daniel Johnson's Some Things Last a Long Time ... if you're susceptible, his songs can be like mind-fuck viruses.
Goes along with NIN's Something I Can Never Have ("My favorite dreams of you still wash ashore. / Scraping through my head till I don't want to sleep anymore.")

Tears for Fears' Mad World before it got covered and pushed out of obscurity,

Peter Gabriel's The Flood really got into me for some reason ("And if we break before the dawn, they'll use up what we used to be." Makes me think of the last two people waiting to die in Noah's flood, a holocaust of millions, realizing their death's will be remembered as a fun-loving children's bedtime story full of colorful furry animals), but he's been said. (Also Mercy Street.)

Little Jack Melody and his Young Turks' On the Blank Generation (The Cake Song), the most obscure of the bunch. ("Let's treat the masses to imported charity. A crust of bread... Try this instead: We'll let you eat cake.")

As for some classics:
Beatles' Across the Universe ("Nothing's gonna change my world"). Simon & Garfunkle's Sound of Silence (not so obscure, but really pay attention to the lyrics next time.) Dylan's It's All over Baby Blue, the soulful parting folk song to the betrayed and booing fans outraged by him not working on Maggie's farm no more on that hot day in 1964. If I had to mark the divide between the old world and the brave new "post"-world, it might be that concert, this song, to that audience.

Martin Sexton's Bye Bye Blacksheep ... Goes along with Brave Combo's Buscando Tu Corazon (English song with Spanish name); good when you're young and venturing out to look for yourself. Brave Combo's Flying Saucer also hits a chord for some reason, that desire to find ... something, though it's silly. Like TMBG, which has silly songs like Whistling in the Dark covertly meditating on the nature of free will.

Crowded House's Four Seasons in One Day ... as long as you're not thinking it's about weather

Belle & Sebastian's Fox in the Snow or Get Me Away I'm Dying.

Sting, Shape of My Heart ... maybe Fragile or All this Time.

Asylum Street Spankers' Whatever, for the funneh (or Stick a Yellow Ribbon on your SUV).

Need to stop now...

demagogue on 18/1/2009 at 03:05

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I don't know what Flood was originally on, but I listened to it on his collection album Shaking the Tree (which is also my favorite CD for him incidentally).

june gloom on 18/1/2009 at 09:48

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(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaGsIOaQXnQ) Try this one, fellas.

Acid Bath - New Death Sensation

I wonder have you ever seen the sky
And felt this weight upon open eyes
New death sensation
Flesh flowers dream to bloom
Illumination
New death sensation
We dance the stone death naked by the shore
I hear her highway song forevermore
Illumination
New death sensation
Empty is this tomb
Lay this flesh to waste
Let the pieces fall where they may
Insects play their sunshine games
Splashing blood upon my soul
Crisp black kiss upon my skull
Lay this flesh to waste
Let the pieces fall where they may
Let the worms play their sunshine games
Splashing blood upon my soul
Crisp black kiss upon my skull
Empty is this tomb

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Acid Bath were pretty awesome. Dax Riggs has pretty much been awesome through his entire career- he's best described as an evil John Mayer now.

Video took forever to upload, jesus h. But in a previous incarnation on someone else's account, it scared the everloving shit out of a literature class I was in. The class was mostly focused on political messages in poetry, and I thought the video might be a nice end-of-week treat. I remember the entire classroom was dead silent after the video ended, so I said, cheerily, "Have a great weekend, everybody!"

Sulphur on 18/1/2009 at 18:01

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No mention of Bobbie Dylan yet? :tsktsk:

Bob Dylan - Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands

With your mercury mouth in the missionary times,
And your eyes like smoke and your prayers like rhymes,
And your silver cross, and your voice like chimes,
Oh, who among them do they think could bury you?
With your pockets well protected at last,
And your streetcar visions which you place on the grass,
And your flesh like silk, and your face like glass,
Who among them do they think could carry you?
Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands,
Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes,
My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums,
Should I leave them by your gate,
Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?

With your sheets like metal and your belt like lace,
And your deck of cards missing the jack and the ace,
And your basement clothes and your hollow face,
Who among them can think he could outguess you?
With your silhouette when the sunlight dims
Into your eyes where the moonlight swims,
And your match-book songs and your gypsy hymns,
Who among them would try to impress you?
Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands,
Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes,
My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums,
Should I leave them by your gate,
Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?

The kings of Tyrus with their convict list
Are waiting in line for their geranium kiss,
And you wouldn't know it would happen like this,
But who among them really wants just to kiss you?
With your childhood flames on your midnight rug,
And your Spanish manners and your mother's drugs,
And your cowboy mouth and your curfew plugs,
Who among them do you think could resist you?
Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands,
Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes,
My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums,
Should I leave them by your gate,
Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?

Oh, the farmers and the businessmen, they all did decide
To show you the dead angels that they used to hide.
But why did they pick you to sympathize with their side?
Oh, how could they ever mistake you?
They wished you'd accepted the blame for the farm,
But with the sea at your feet and the phony false alarm,
And with the child of a hoodlum wrapped up in your arms,
How could they ever, ever persuade you?
Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands,
Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes,
My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums,
Should I leave them by your gate,
Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?

With your sheet-metal memory of Cannery Row,
And your magazine-husband who one day just had to go,
And your gentleness now, which you just can't help but show,
Who among them do you think would employ you?
Now you stand with your thief, you're on his parole
With your holy medallion which your fingertips fold,
And your saintlike face and your ghostlike soul,
Oh, who among them do you think could destroy you
Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands,
Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes,
My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums,
Should I leave them by your gate,
Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?