WHY DO THEY ALWAYS SEND THE POOR‽

“No, his mind is not for rent

To any god or government,

Always hopeful yet discontent,

He knows changes aren’t permanent,

But change is.”

Rush - Tom Sawyer

Did you ever wonder why we had to run run for shelter when the promise of a brave new world unfurled beneath the clear blue sky?

"Sexual violence doesn't start and end with rape

It starts in our books and behind our school gates

Men are scared women will laugh in their face

Whereas women are scared it's their lives men will take"

Idles - Mother

I cried the first time I heard this song.

Can't believe how strange it is to be anything at all.

Neutral Milk Hotel - In an aeroplane over the sea

For me it's probably:

"Don't you do it
You're not even you yet"

I first heard Otep's Perfectly Flawed when I was early in transition and deeply suicidal. I'd already been hospitalized for it a couple of times. And then I heard this song and felt like it was speaking right at me. I'm still alive. Still depressed and working on it, but alive with the intention to continue. I don't know if the song actually helped or if it was all the other things I've tried, but it still resonates fondly for me so I'm comfortable calling that lyric my favorite.

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

Time - Pink Floyd

Pull up rockin', smack a racist in the face
Jet out, and leave 'em screamin' in the place
I come straight from the heart, you come straight from hate
And if you’re threatenin' someone I ain’t gonna sit around and wait
I just smacked two cops, I’m waiting to see what the case is
Because my hands automatically smack people who are racist

• 2 Mello, Pull Up

Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!!!

FUCK YOU, I WON'T DO WHAT YOU TELL ME!

The moment that I let go of it was the moment I got more than I could handle. The moment I jumped off of it was the moment that I touched down.

Thank U - Alanis Morissette

Strangers passing in the street by chance two separate glances meet and I am you and what I see is me.

Echoes - Pink Floyd

As a child, an easy listening radio station soothed me to sleep. It kept the monsters at bay. I would not unpack nor understand the psychological abuse I suffered at home for decades. The song now reminds me that a late bloomer can still be beautiful. Crushes me to death every time.

It's the heart, afraid of breaking
That never learns to dance
It's the dream, afraid of waking
That never takes the chance
It's the one who won't be taken
Who cannot seem to give
And the soul, afraid of dying

That never learns to live

Fun fact, the woman who wrote this song, Amanda McBroom, also played JAG Capt. Phillipa Louvois in the incredible Star Trek: TNG episode Measure of a Man

As soon as you're born, they make you feel small  
By giving you no time instead of it all  
Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all  

A working class hero is something to be  

They hurt you at home, and they hit you at school  
They hate you if you're clever, and they despise a fool  
Till you're so fucking crazy, you can't follow their rules  

A working class hero is something to be  

When they've tortured and scared you for twenty-odd years  
Then they expect you to pick a career  
When you can't really function, you're so full of fear  

A working class hero is something to be  

Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV  
And you think you're so clever and classless and free  
But you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see  

A working class hero is something to be  

There's room at the top they are telling you still  
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill  
If you want to be like the folks on the hill  

A working class hero is something to be  

I have squandered my resistance For a pocketful of mumbles Such are promises All lies and jest Still a man hears what he wants to hear And disregards the rest

Pretty much everything from Aesop rock.

Here an example.

Death wish from day one, I wake up and it rain blood

Raincheck these fuck shows, I'm donezo, my brain's mush

Drumroll, I might piss straight, loose tooth in my spit shake

Every possible Futurama come trooping out of his pill case

Every time I look up from the paper I see animals exhibiting irregular behavior

Even though I know that it's a warning I am back on my old shit again like any other morning

Every time I peek out from the corner Birds are flying belly-side-up, fish are walking out the water

Even though it seem legit I'm right here til the season dip

I ain't seen shit I ain't seen shit

Play me online
Well you know
That I’ll beat you

If I ever meet you,
I’ll Ctrl+Alt+Delete you

All About the Pentiums, Weird Al

"And it's your face, I'm looking for, on every street".

That one will haunt me for the rest of my life. For reasons similar to Knopfler's.

“Don’t let the sunshine fool you” Townes Van Zandt

Also:

I fell in love again that time that you said
"Fuck every cop who ever did his job!
And fuck every bank that never got robbed!
And fuck all the other banks, especially mine."

• Wingnut Dishwashers Union

Scatman John, Scatman's world:

[Verse 1] Everybody's talkin' something very shocking Just to keep on blockin' what they're feelin' inside But listen to me brother, you just keep on walkin' 'Cause you and me and sister ain't got nothing to hide Scatman, fat man, black and white and brown man Tell me 'bout the color of your soul If part of your solution isn't ending the pollution Then I don't wanna hear your stories told I wanna welcome you to Scatman's World

[Verse 2] Everybody's born to compete as he chooses But how can someone win if winning means that someone loses? I sit and see and wonder what it's like to be in touch No wonder all my brothers and my sisters need a crutch I wanna be a human being, not a human doing I couldn't keep that pace up if I tried The source of my intention really isn't crime prevention My intention is prevention of the lie Yeah, welcome to the Scatman's World

They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
For trying to change the system from within
I'm coming now, I'm coming to reward them:
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin

We should kill the president.

From "Kill the president" by Barnaby Jones:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8jdzfHvCI8

For some reason it just really seems to resonate with people

If this is paradise

I wish I had a lawnmower

I don’t have a single favourite, but a few recent favourites, from my current favourite artist, Jesse Welles:

“I still don’t know what living costs, but I can tell you what I spent”

“A bird in its cage loves the song that it sings”

“As the golden rod fades and short are the days, I wish I could pause ‘em somehow”

“I can see a light at the end of the tunnel, then again it could be the train”

He’s got a ton of great political lyrics too but I felt that would be better in a different comment or post. Check him out, especially his two newest albums (Masks Off and Devil’s Den).

Sky not a roof Ground not a bottom

Grötüs - Brown

Majority rule doesn't work in mental institutions

The simple narrative taught in every history class Is demonstrably false and pedagogically classist Don't you know the world is built with blood? And genocide and exploitation The global network of capital essentially functions To separate the worker from the means of production And the FBI killed Martin Luther King Private property's inherently theft And neoliberal fascists are destroying the left And every politician, every cop on the street Protects the interests of the pedophilic corporate elite That is how the world works (really?) That is how the world works Genocide the Natives, say you got to it first That's how it works

How the world works - bo Burnham

Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup

Such a funny juxtaposition from the Beatles.

The best version is "Across the Universe" from Let it Be... Naked

"We are so small between the stars, so large against the sky"

From the song Stories of the Street by Leonard Cohen. That first album is poetry put to music.

The greatest thing you'll ever learn

Is just to love and be loved in return

Let me take your hands

I'm shaking like milk

"I get the news I need on the weather report. Oh i can gather all the news I need on the weather report. Hey, I've got nothing to do today but smile."

Simon and Garfunkel - The only living boy in New York

I wish life was that simple!

Lyrics are a very important part of the whole music experience for me. There can never be just one.

Of those many, here's one that just popped into my mind:

Given the chance  
I'll die like a baby  
On some faraway beach  
When the season's over  

Unlikely I'll be remembered  
As the tide brushes sand in my eyes  
I'll drift away  

Cast up on a plateau  
With only one memory  
A single syllable  
Oh lie low lie low, li-li-li-li li-li-lo  

"If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice!"

• Rush, Freewill

Not even joking, I find myself quoting this all the time.

Maybe win the lottery Buy myself a lobotomy Scoop out my brains, and maybe then blend right in with management.

Idk I just work here - DURRY

"If you're after getting the honey, then you don't go killin' all the bees"

Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros' Johnny Appleseed

That's stuck with me since my early 20s.

"Is a dream a lie if it don't come true, or is it something worse?" Bruce Springsteen This line pops up in my head from time to time.

Our hopes and expectations,

Black holes and revelations.

Starlight by Muse

I'm not here; this isn't happening 🎵

Relatable lines from Thom Yorke in Radiohead's "How to disappear completely" off of Kid A.

Based on a true story.

Where veterans dream of the fight, fast asleep at the traffic light

Next year can wait 'till next year, I am here alive

Chainsaw brotherhood - Bourbon boys

And evolving from the sea Would not be too much time for me To walk beside you in the sun

"The Sad Punk", The Pixies

In the context of the whole song it's particularly poignant. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcVpFug2p00

And I finally found that everybody loves to love you When you're far away

A recent one from Tierra Whack

The more I get to know you the more I think less of you

"I think you're blind to the fact That the hand you hold Is the hand that holds you down"

Everclear - Everything to Everyone

"It's Never Been a Fair Fight" from Craig Finn

They said there weren't any rules But there were so many goddamn rules They said that they'd be cool But there were so many goddamn rules

If the cops shut down the shows Just remember that we tried And I'll meet you at the place we crashed In 1999 If you're still staying there I'll take that as a sign That the drugs all ganged up on you It's never been a fair fight

Growing up in the punk scene and losing a lot of friends, the whole song really hits me hard.

All creatures born are born to die / but before then survive / some creatures born they never live / but still they are alive

Gwar - Biledriver

Ben Gibbard sure writes some poignant lyrics, e.g.:

You may tire of me

As our December sun is setting

Cause I'm not who I used to be

No longer easy on the eyes

But these wrinkles masterfully disguise

The youthful boy below

Who turned your way and saw

Something he was not looking for

Both a beginning and an end

But now he lives inside

Someone he does not recognize

When he catches his reflection on accident

"The teacher stands in front of the class, but the lesson plan he can't recall. The student's eyes, don't perceive the lies, bouncing off every fucking wall. His composure is well kept. I guess he fears playing the fool. The complacent students sit, and listen to the bullshit that he'd learned in school.

Europe ain't my rope to swing on. Can't learn a thing from it, yet we hang from it. Gotta get it, gotta get it together then, like the motherfuckin' Weathermen."

Adding one more that speaks to me alot at the moment, even if it's not an all time favorite:

"All at once,

the world can overwhelm me,

there's almost nothing that you can tell me,

that would ease my mind.

Which way will you run?

When it's allways all around you.

The feeling's lost and found you again,

the feeling that we have no control."

Hard to choose between:

I once had a life, or rather
Life had me
I was one among many
Or at least I seemed to be

Can You Get to That - Funkadelic

We are stardust
(Billion year old carbon)

Woodstock - Joni Mitchell

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery
None but ourselves can free our minds

Redemption Song - Bob Marley

And you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking

Racing around to come up behind you again

Sun is the same, in a relative way, but you're older

Shorter of breath and one day closer to death

UH!

Killing in the name by rage against the machine

"Stuck in this inferno, straight cooking, al dente" (but pronounced like Dante)

Burn It Down - Timeflies

“I’ve had recurring nightmares, That I was loved for who I am, And missed the opportunity, To be a better man”

-Muse, Hoodoo

"The way the trees look dead, reminds me that there's more to life than living"

Bayside - A Synonym For Acquiesce

"Hamlet" by the group "Wise Guys". The whole song text is a very good summary of Shakespeare's text. Actually better than something I've seen being used in schools. And, of course, with a twinkle in the eyes.

You're trying to find a compromise Between remembering and learning to forget So now just pouring a glass of water Is like trying to move boulders with your breath

-Chris Pureka - So it Goes

I can't explain to y'all how much time I don't have for this

Infinite amounts that ban exactly it, let's pack it in

Or spin some actual axes at each other, happy hunting

The trick is how to trap and stuff what's added up to nothing

Aesop Rock - The Cut

If I can only choose one:

And when the broken-hearted people
Living in the world agree
There will be an answer
Let it be

For though they may be parted there is
Still a chance that they will see
There will be an answer
Let it be

The Beatles, "Let It Be"

When I have to make choices like this, I really feel like Dan Andriano of Alkaline Trio had it right in "Blue Carolina":

You know all my favorite singers
Have stolen all of my best lines

My love has concrete feet My love's an iron ball Wrapped around your ankles Over the waterfall

I really wish my cactus never died

Artist: Knapsack Can't remember the song name right now

It's the opening lyric to the song, and I just think it's a great way to illustrate depression, and wanting with every fibre of your being to do something but being unable to. Cactuses are one of the easiest plants to take care of, so wanting to keep it alive but having it die just shows how helpless it can get

Why would I stop loving you, a hundred years from now, it’s only time? It’s only time.

One that has stuck with me lately was "mistook sign for signified."

From the Eagles, The Last Resort. I love the whole song but this verse hits me hardest.

Who will provide the grand design?  
What is yours and what is mine?  
'Cause there is no more new frontier  
But we have got to make it here  
We satisfy our endless needs  
And justify our bloody deeds  
In the name of destiny  
And in the name of God  

Favorite lyric is the sort of thing that changes constantly, but my favorite lyricist right now is undoubtedly Vessel from Sleep Token

Man just casually busts out bars like

"My, my, those eyes like fire, I'm a winged insect, you're a funeral pyre"

And

"Even if the earth breaks like burnt skin, And the heavens just won't open up for me"

But I'm also going to give a shout out to The Midnight for some genuinely insane lines.

"If the rent's too high we'll just buy cheaper wine" is one of the most uncomfortably present lyrics I have ever heard.

I believe in this and it's been tested by research

He who fucks nuns will later join the church

The Clash - Death or Glory