Favorite Lyrics

[justin anxiety]

Punk and underground music has changed my life and the way I think about the world we live in. It's crazy the way a song can change your life.

So the topic here is a favorite lyric or lyrics that really changed your life or really said something that moved you.

One of mine would have to be Crimpshrine. When I first heard them at 14 and read the lyric booklet with their first 7" I was like holy shit! music can really mean something.

A favorite, and I would say a damn fine point: "question everything you've accepted without thinking, make sure you have a basis for what you believe in." from the song Free Will.

[laz]

that's an amazing song justin. i'd say the firs time i was REALLY moved by music would have been they day i purchased minor threat's complete discography. i was 14, almost 15... i had special ordered it from MUSICLAND in antioch mall in gladstone! i had no idea how else to get a record like that...this was a few years before these places really started carrying more popular punk music. not really sure where i heard about them...maybe some magazine or somethin...may have done some internet research (i was an internet geek back then too)

anyway lyrics wise...i had never heard ANYTHING like that. that was the first time i felt i could really relate to music. i mean, EVERYONE i knew was getting fucked up and i was losing friends left and right because i chose not to do those things. and i get this record with songs were dealing with exactly what i was going through at the time. to this day, this record is probably still my favorite record of all time.

some favorite quotes:

"you tell me i make no difference...well at least i'm fucking trying! what the fuck have you done?!"
(there are some words that have always really picked me up when someone has talked shit about something that i was putting a lot of heart into. i tend to think about this a lot when i hear someone being really discouraging to others that are doing their best to create change. while i think it's important for all of us to be critcal...it needs to be constructive. and although sometimes the things we're doing aren't probably the best thing we could be doing to make a difference in the world...i like to think that every little bit counts. but maybe i'm wrong. ha.)

also the lyrics to "betray" and "look back and laugh" were also great. boy was i feelin those words in 1995.

operation ivy "knowledge". great lyrics about the pressures of growing up and trying to figure out what to do with your life. still feelin this.

the postivity (and at sometimes corny-ness) of gorilla biscuits' lyrics really got me through some of the shittier parts of high school.

[justin anxiety]

Follow up:

For those of you reading and not posting c'mon who doesn't have that favorite lyric?

It doesn't necessarily have to be anything profound, like when I heard the Angry Samoans song Lights Out at 13 and was amazed that someone would actually write a song with a chorus that just says "lights out...poke poke poke your eyes out" over and over again.

That was something that was so amazingly idotic and fun in a good way at a time when bon jovi was topping the charts.

So anyway, yeah it can be something like that too. Or even a favorite lyric attached to a moment like when me and my friend first heard "cats and dogs" by Gorilla Biscuits and we got into a big argumetn becasue he said they were obviously assholes that didn't think anyone should have pets, I still laugh about that one.

What's your lyric story?

[laszlo]

cats and dogs have all the luck!!!!

hahahahahahaha

[thousandaire]

if maps were novels then the one that leads to you would be all verbs and adjectives. -764hero

[laz]

"i drop so much shit my anus needs an icepack" -company flow

[ksgrant]

"When we move, it's a movement." - Orchid

The moment the needle dropped on "Dance Tonight, Revolution Tomorrow," I fell in love. I was listening to a lot of hardcore at the time, a lot of Minor Threat and Cripus Attucks, and I had never heard anything like it. It made my sixteen year old heart almost beat right out of my chest and on to the turn table. Since I've obsessivly collected anything Orchid I could find. I got to watch their last show ever when I was eighteen. It was the worst show experience of my life, but I endured the rain and flock of three hundred scathing hipsters and watched in awe at my favorite band doing what they love to do for the last time. The room they played in could legally only hold a hundred people at a time, so they ended up playing three times to packed crowds and just as heartfelt each time.

Other good lyrics: "The air tastes so much sweeter when you dance to the sound of your pounding heart." - Western Sky

"I'm trying to unlearn and relearn through real communication with humans on a conversation based on more than records." - The Attack

"Sunset is an all day process." - cLOUDDEAD

"And should blood happen to spill from lovers, enemies, those in the middle, for the record, we are sorry. But when this super clean von Braun Machine sets human blood to boil, our response is filled with kerosene and 1/3 parts motor oil." - Please Inform the Captain, This is a Hijack.

[mookie]

whoo boy. i've got a few.

"It's hard enough, hard enough, just to survive, just to be alive" - Madness and Death by Nomeansno

"We're sorry, but you're no longer needed or wanted or even cared about here. Machines can do a better job than you and this is what you get for asking questions. The leaders agree that sacrifices must be made, computers never go on strike. To save the working man you gotta put 'em out to pasture." - Soup is Good Food by Dead Kennedys (this was the first dead kennedys song i ever heard. in my grandparents' basement when i was 9!! it was all downhill from there.)

"who can remember when their neighborhood looked brighter but somehow forget that Italians used to be niggers and the Irish were the spics so at 50 years old they eat shit for $5 an hour and just don't make the connections. It makes the first generation turn over in their immigrant graves - but what can you do? See union local Uncle Joe, the ones who proved the American Dream can fuck you harder without a color, As lost as can be when commercials come on tv for insurance and cars and vacations, All the things white people are entitled to as the fruit of this nation's lysol douched womb See the white wreckage ask what the fuck is wrong with me." $5 an Hour by Born Against

"We won't stand silent, shout out our voice throw up our hands. we're taking to the streets to take back the people's land. we're not praying or asking your permission. we are the people, we have the power, this is our mission." -People's Rally by the Short Bus Kids (without this band, i don't know where i'd be.)

i think we all know about soophie nun squad. Chicken Fight. for sure. unspeaking. for sure.

"Please don't confront me with my failures. I have not forgotten them" - These Days by Nico

"The moon is a lightbulb breaking
It'll go around with anyone
But it won't come down for anyone" - St. Ide's Heaven by Elliott Smith

[THRAKNAR]

the first lyrics that really struck a chord in me was the song "slap" by link 80. that was right when "mail order is fun" came out on asian man records. i think i can remember all of the lyrics:
"i was lied to when i was told life was fair and that someone would always be there. i've hated myself more than anyone else, i was unhappy with the cards i was dealt. when i was a child, my castle was my home, now i walk down empty streets with memories and me alone, it's easier to burn a bridge than to cross it, to slip, give in, give up, move on and try to forget. more's been said in silence than could ever be spoken in words. secrets shared and promises kept, and feelings that never were cured"

i could type a lot about these lyrics and what i think about them, and how "punk kid" they sound, but i dont really feel like writing much more.

[L Heckman]

Not life changing per se, but still
awesome.

WHATEVER I DO by Negative Approach

Can't accept me for what I am
They'll do whatever they fucking can
To make life hell for me destroy what I believe
They don't give a shit what they do

They try to stop me
Whatever I do
They try to stop me
Whatever I do

It means nothing to them
They'll do whatever they fucking can
To make life hell for me destroy what I believe
They don't give a shit what they do

[chris flanders]

i would have to say the lyric that changed my life is one from the famous quincey punks, "eat a bowl of fuck, yahda yahda yahda, eat a bowl of fuck!" you see these lyrics got me through a lot of hard times when i was young and impressionable.

[mookie]

dillinger four certainly have a way with words.

[Will 2]

Husker Du!

Also, the Embrace LP has some great lines:

"We all struggle for our dreams
To be realized
They end up the objects of our own despise
WHY?"

The song "Money" as a whole is just fucking fantastic, too.

In fact, in many ways, that LP addresses almost every single topic punk bands cover. Also, "Words Are Not Enough" is the name of the zine I'm working on.

[Will 2]

Crud, forgot to mention that line was from "Dance of Days."

Also, I'm surprised "Damaged" by Black Flag has gotten more quotes. It almost completely encapsulates my thought process 15-17... Songs about oppression, self-hatred, dissapointment, and most of all, lashing out. The shortest song on it ("Spray Paint") is my favorite- It's not hiding behind "positivity," it's just saying "fuck everyone else, make your statement." That really resounds with me. "Police Story"? It sounds like a punk blues songs. "Depression"- What isolated suburban kid can't relate to that?

As far as more political bands go, when I first heard Crass as a 14 year old, things definitely changed for me. Yeah, generic band, but those lyrics are so well written.

Youth of Today has a couple songs that really used to get me riled up- "Potential Friends" and "Put it Aside." I think positive hardcore is mostly bullshit (positivity isn't bad to me, but when people substitute their opinions with surface-level appreciation, I think it sucks), but YoT keep it fast enough to not really matter.

Oh yeah, and also, in Spazz's "Sweet Home Alabama," the part where one of the dudes goes "Ohhhhh shiiiiiiit" is cool.

[droppingturds]

"why are you such a stupid asshole?"
-whoever that woman is on the beginning of the dead kennedy's record plastic surgery disasters.