Lyrics You Love

[diachenko]

My second favorite lyrics are from the song "Defying Gravity" from Wicked. As I was in the process of coming out, I identified very strongly with these words.

Something has changed within me
Something is not the same
I'm through with playing by the rules
Of someone else's game
Too late for second-guessing
Too late to go back to sleep
It's time to trust my instincts
Close my eyes: and leap!

It's time to try
Defying gravity
I think I'll try
Defying gravity
And you can't pull me down!

I'm through accepting limits
'Cuz someone says they're so
Some things I cannot change
But till I try, I'll never know!
Too long I've been afraid of
Losing love I guess I've lost
Well, if that's love
It comes at much too high a cost!

[senda wales]

(09-28-2011 12:38 AM)diachenko Wrote:  My second favorite lyrics are from the song "Defying Gravity" from Wicked. As I was in the process of coming out, I identified very strongly with these words.

Defying Gravity, For Good, and As Long As You're Mine (I actually cried listening to that one once) are all songs I considered posting here. I decided to post Where's the Girl because I've known that one since high school.

Defying Gravity has been one of my favorite songs anytime I've had to make a major life decision. The parts you bolded are favorites of mine as well.

[C_Fresh]

(09-28-2011 12:38 AM)diachenko Wrote:  My second favorite lyrics are from the song "Defying Gravity" from Wicked. As I was in the process of coming out, I identified very strongly with these words.

Something has changed within me
Something is not the same
I'm through with playing by the rules
Of someone else's game
Too late for second-guessing
Too late to go back to sleep
It's time to trust my instincts
Close my eyes: and leap!

It's time to try
Defying gravity
I think I'll try
Defying gravity
And you can't pull me down!

I'm through accepting limits
'Cuz someone says they're so
Some things I cannot change
But till I try, I'll never know!
Too long I've been afraid of
Losing love I guess I've lost
Well, if that's love
It comes at much too high a cost!

I think this is a great song. I heard it around the time of my breakup and thought it was very appropriate for my circumstances.

EDIT: Wicked is on my list of things to do if the show comes to my area again. It was here in January a year or two ago but I couln't make it.

[DaisyDeadhead]

Far between sundown's finish and midnight's broken toll
We ducked inside the doorway, thunder crashing
As majestic bells of bolts struck shadows in the sounds
Seeming to be the chimes of freedom flashing
Flashing for the warriors whose strength is not to fight
Flashing for the refugees on the unarmed road of flight
And for each and every underdog soldier in the night
And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

In the city's melted furnace, unexpectedly we watched
With faces hidden as the walls were tightening
As the echo of the wedding bells before the blowin' rain
Dissolved into the bells of the lightning
Tolling for the rebel, tolling for the rake
Tolling for the luckless, the abandoned and forsaked
Tolling for the outcast, burning constantly at stake
And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

Through the mad mystic hammering of the wild ripping hail
The sky cracked its poems in naked wonder
That the clinging of the church bells blew far into the breeze
Leaving only bells of lightning and its thunder
Striking for the gentle, striking for the kind
Striking for the guardians and protectors of the mind
And the poet and the painter far behind his rightful time
And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

In the wild cathedral evening the rain unraveled tales
For the disrobed faceless forms of no position
Tolling for the tongues with no place to bring their thoughts
All down in taken-for granted situations
Tolling for the deaf and blind, tolling for the mute
For the mistreated, mateless mother, the mistitled prostitute
For the misdemeanor outlaw, chased and cheated by pursuit
And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

Even though a clouds's white curtain in a far-off corner flashed
And the hypnotic splattered mist was slowly lifting
Electric light still struck like arrows, fired but for the ones
Condemned to drift or else be kept from drifting
Tolling for the searching ones, on their speechless, seeking trail
For the lonesome-hearted lovers with too personal a tale
And for each unharmful, gentle soul misplaced inside a jail
And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

Starry-eyed and laughing as I recall when we were caught
Trapped by no track of hours for they hanged suspended
As we listened one last time and we watched with one last look
Spellbound and swallowed til the tolling ended
Tolling for the aching whose wounds cannot be nursed
For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones and worse
And for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe
And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.


--Bob Dylan, Chimes of Freedom

In good conscience, can't print the lyrics of Lou Reed's STREET HASSLE here, so here are the lyrics, given with a warning: ***mature adults only who are not offended easily*** MATURE SUBJECT MATTER

The song inspired one of my tattoos... the narrator of the middle section says he doesn't want to wear his heart on his sleeve, so I deliberately got a tattoo there, of a heart, on my sleeve. (Early in recovery) I realized, if I had not stopped, would have been that person. The heart reminds me not to be.

http://www.songlyrics.com/lou-reed/stree...le-lyrics/

The money quote:

Some people got no choice
When they can never find a voice
To talk with, that they can even call their own
So the first thing that they see
That allows them the right to be
Why, they follow it
Know what that's called?
Bad luck

Here is a thread about the song, which you may have heard part of in the film "The Squid and the whale": http://www.songmeanings.net/songs/view/47249/

[Darcy]

Defying Gravity for SURE.

Also "stand" by Rascal Flatts
"Stand Up", Sugarland
"Little Wonders" and "Someday", Rob Thomas

One that really gets me right now is this one:

"Sometimes I just want to start over,
'cause everything looks like a wreck
And I need the courage to carry on, 'cause I can't see what's ahead
And there are places I've wished I could be,
battles I've wanted to win
Dreams that have slipped through my hands
I may never get back again

Sometimes I just wish we could say
all the things that are easy to hear
Ignore the injustice we see and explain every unanswered prayer
But I'd rather speak honestly
and wear a tattered heart on my sleeve
'Cause in the middle of my broken dreams, redemption is here

And I'm still a dreamer, a believer
Oh, I've lost my faith in so many things, but I still believe in You
'Cause You are the answer, the redeemer
Oh, I've given up on too many things, but I'm not giving up on You
'Cause You can make anything new" ~Sanctus Real

[senda wales]

I've always liked these lyrics by Dido:

My tea's gone cold I'm wondering why I
got out of bed at all
The morning rain clouds up my window
and I can't see at all
And even if I could it'll all be gray,
but your picture on my wall
It reminds me, that it's not so bad,
it's not so bad..

I like how differently these lyrics can be interpreted depending on which song you hear them from. When taken from Dido's original song "Thank You", it's a cute tribute to someone who brightens your day. When featured on "Stan" by Eminem, it's a perfect depiction of waking up on empty on a rainy day with only an unhealthy obsession or habit motivating your existence.

[Ataraxia]

Tom Waits "Tom Traubert's Blues (Four Sheets to the Wind in Copenhagen)"

"No, I don't want your sympathy
The fugitives say that the streets aren't for dreaming now
Manslaughter dragnets and the ghosts that sell memories
They want a piece of the action anyhow"

IMO, Tom Waits is criminally underrated as a lyricist. His songs are amazing character sketches, his voice so people find off putting, but to me I love it. His songs make the smell of bourbon come through your speakers