Shane McGowan is certainly one candidate for the greatest lyricist the UK has produced, but another songwriter, his one-time friend Elvis Costello (also of Irish descent like Morrissey too), has probably has put down more clever couplets and phrases than anyone. Here's just a of the few memorable ones. 'Nice girls not one with a defect Cellophane shrink-wrapped, so correct Red dogs under illegal legs She looks so good that he gets down and begs' 'She's been a bad girl. She's like a chemical. Though you try to stop it, she's like a narcotic. You wanna torture her. You wanna talk to her. All the things you bought for her, putting up your temp'rature.' 'You either shut up or get cut up; they don't wanna hear about it. It's only inches on the reel-to-reel. And the radio is in the hands of such a lot of fools tryin' to anaesthetise the way that you feel' 'And it's the damage that we do And never know It's the words that we don't say That scare me so Somehow I found myself down at the dockside Thinking of the old days of Liverpool and Rotherhide The transparent people who live on the other side Living a life that is almost like suicide' 'Your body speaks much louder than your voice You let it do the talking so I don't have any choice' 'But if your patience is exhausted and you still cannot decide You're sitting in the garage contemplating suicide And you have no motivation you can't even catch your breath All of this acceleration is driving you to death' 'When I said that I was lying I might have been lying Never let me hear you say you're not trying' 'So in this almost empty gin palace Through a two-way looking glass You see your Alice' 'There's a tuppeny hapenny millionaire Looking for a fourpenny one With a tight grip on the short hairs Of the public imagination' 'They talked to the sister, the father and the mother With a microphone in one hand and a chequebook in the other' 'I saw a newspaper picture from the political campaign A woman was kissing a child, who was obviously in pain She spills with compassion, as that young child's face in her hands she grips Can you imagine all that greed and avarice coming down on that child's lips?' 'Two newspaper editors like playground sneaks Running the book on which of them is going to last the week One of them calls to me And he says, "I know you" "You gave me this tattoo back in '82" "You were a spoilt child then with a record to plug" "And I was a shaven headed seaside thug" "Things haven't really changed that much" "One of us is still getting paid too much"' |
Jim Morrison must have been reading Joseph Campbell when he wrote this line. It resonates increasingly with me as the years pass by. "Trade in your hours for a handful of dimes" I don't exactly hate my job, well only sometimes, but still can't help feel there must be better ways of getting money than working with the public. https://www.songfacts.com/facts/the-doors/five-to-one |
