Lyrics from old songs that you can now relate to

[Caffeine Junkie]

I was listening to the radio heading home after a tough day in the salt mines and heard an old Pink Floyd song. When I heard the line...

"And then one day you find
Ten years have got behind you.
No one told you when to run.
You missed the starting gun."

...it struck a little too close to home. I never thought twice about that lyric before but it is suddenly all too relevant.

I have been finding new meaning in lots of old songs lately. Anybody else experiencing this too?

[thing]

About two yeears ago, I heard an old Boston song on the radio -- I always thought they were just shallow hack musicians. But at the time I found it consoling that they understood about indecision, I could relate to the fact that they didn't care if they got behind. And I felt that they had hit on a respectible goal in that all they wanted was to have their peace of mind... "So what if they're shallow hacks," I thought, "they got to do something they loved for a living."

Still don't like their music that much, though.

[Crystal Dragon.]

I never thought THIS would make sense..
"Well now sweet sixteens turned thirty-one
Feel a little tired feeling under the gun "

[Caffeine Junkie]

Speaking of Bob Seger, how about this one...

"Deadlines and commitments. What to leave in, what to leave out."

[Me]

Re: Pink Floyd...

It's funny, I had the opposite experience with that lyric. When I was in high school, I was afraid that it would be all too true of my life -- it felt like it would be. But once I got out of high school, life started happening in a much bigger way. Now I look back at 10 years and I'm amazed by how much has happened and how much I've accomplished.

It's a little like the "They Might Be Giants" lyrics that got quoted in some other thread (in politics?):

You're older than you've ever been.
And now you're even older.
...
And now you're older still.

[Hierophant]

Grateful Dead lyrics, by Robert Hunter, have long held meaning. Hunter is an exceptional songwriter, so the meaning grows over time.

Hunter provides an essay on meaning in song lyrics in the following link:

http://arts.ucsc.edu/GDead/AGDL/fauthrep.html

He also provides an explanation of one his own songs, "Franklin's Tower" which, coincidentally, seems to have particular potential for meaning in light of the 9/11 attacks. Further so, since the song was released on the "Blues for Allah" album back in 1975/1976. (The release concert for this material was the subject for the original "From the Vault" series - One From the Vault - and is an absolutely stellar performance. But I digress.)

[thing]

Speaking of They Might Be Giants:

"But I was young and foolish then,
I feel old and foolish now."

[Me]

The Who:
"Things they do seem awful c-c-cold.
Hope I die before I get old."

TMBG:
"Then I think about the dirt that I'll be wearing for a shirt,
And I hope that I get old before I die."

[Anonymous]

Statler Brothers' Class of fifty-Seven

"Things get complicated when you get past eighteen."

[Patience]

Hey listen here
Now your mortgages and homes
I got stiffness in the bones
Ain't no beauty queens in this locality (I tell you)
Oh but I still get my pleasure
Still got my greatest treasure
Heap big woman you gonna make a big man out of me
Fat bottomed girls you make the rocking world go round

[Hierophant]

"My Maserati does 185,
Lost my license, now I don't drive."

Oops, still can't quite relate to that one.

[Drewby]

"We didn't start the fire...."

[Hierophant]

On 2001-10-18 16:45, Drewby wrote:
"We didn't start the fire...."


Which came first - "We didn't start the fire" or "End of the world" by REM. The songs are very similar in format; it looks like somebody ripped off the other's idea.

Are there other songs in this "genre" if you can call it that? (rehash of contemporary culture in a rapid succession of brief verbal images, combined with a tag line?) (Rap songs excluded??)

"It's time I had some time alone..."

[The Mister]

<font size=2>I know one: "I Have a Dream" by Adrian Belew.

Acoustic version here:
http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/103/adrian_belew.html

VERY amplified version on King Crimson's album "ConstruKction of Light" as the coda to "Larks' Tongues In Aspic IV" (samples available in the usual places).

Of course, it's not well known, except by me. :smile:

[Anonymous]

Which came first - "We didn't start the fire" or "End of the world" by REM.

"It's The End of World" was released in 1987 by R.E.M. Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start The Fire" was released in 1989.

[Drewby]

I liked Joel's better - I can understand the words a little easier.

I have often thought of the fun that could be had using "We Didn't Start The Fire" as the syllabus for a contemporary history class, either HS or college level. Anybody know of this actually happening, or share my "enthusiasm"?

[Epsilon Theta]

I've decided to quit taking exams and just be a career ASA. So now here's how I feel....

"....Lookin' for fun and feelin' groovy

Hello lampost
what cha knowing?
I've come to watch your flowers growing...

I got no deeds to do
No promises to keep
I'm dappled and drowsy and ready to sleep
Let the morning time drop all its petals on me
Life, I love you
All is groovy"

[Inconceivable]

These two really speak to me:

1:I ask that you return me
The years I did ignore thee
And with my burden bury
The weight of guilt I carry
And lead me to the well of life
Before my soul departs

Now I so clearly see how I have murdered me
And I cannot fake what I tried to make of myself - a God
Please heal me

The halls of countless eriudite teeming with the self deified
Cloaked in snuffy habiliments
No need to strive for holiness
When beauty dies she leaves behind the scars of dreams abandoned long ago

Where myriad wonders once repelled the onslaught of decay
Now given to the manifold miseries of mortal dismay
And out of joy is sorrow born the stained white halls are now forlorn

Wisdom calls from these halls

Now I so clearly see how I have murdered me and I cannot fake - please heal
me

So very wise in their own eyes
The world's great minds will one day find
That for life they studied, worked, and pined
But in wisdom made by man alone that a high IQ with low regard
Will be dethroned and from heaven barred

Wisdom calls from these halls

I ask that you return me
The years I did ignore thee
And with my burden bury
The weight of guilt I carry
And lead me to the well of life
Before my soul departs

2:Hello, lamppost. Whatcha knowin'? I've come to watch your...
power flowin.

[Redhead]

Shoulda known better
Than to fall in love with you
Now love is just a faded memory

Shoulda known better
Now I'm a prisoner to this pain
And my heart still waits for you

I gave you all of my body and soul
Never believing that I'd lose control
I took my hands off the wheel....

Heard this the other day...good ol' Richard Marx.
I'm not really a prisoner to pain but the rest hit home...
Ah love... :-)

[Inconceivable]

Redhead, I'm sorry about how things worked out between us. I hope we can still be friends though. I hate for things to get awkward between us.

[Meshuga]

same song as the OP:

shorter of breath and one day closer to death

[Redhead]

Redhead, I'm sorry about how things worked out between us. I hope we can still be friends though. I hate for things to get awkward between us.

It's ok...I'm a tough cookie. ;-)