Re: The best single lyric line ever written?
Date: March 03, 2012 07:51AM
This will be familiar to anyone who has heard Metallica's cover of this Nick Cave classic on the Garage Inc album:
L is for LOVE, baby
O is for O yes I do
V is for VIRTUE, so I ain't gonna hurt you
E is for EVEN if you want me to
R is for RENDER unto me, baby
M is for that which is MINE
A is for ANY old how, darling
N is for ANY old time
In truth you could get all Cave's lyrics, plaster them over a large wall, throw a dart in their direction and every time you'll hit a gem. Here's another great one from West Country Girl where he dissects in bitter detail his split with PJ Harvey:
Her widow's peak, her lips I've kissed
Her glove of bones at her wrist
That I have held in my hand
Her Spanish fly and her monkey gland
Her Godly body and its fourteen stations
That I have embraced, her palpitations
Her unborn baby crying, "Mummy"
Amongst the rubble of her body
And one final, longer one from The Mercy Seat about a guilty man waiting to be executed on death row without any conscience:
I hear stories from the chamber
How Christ was born into a manger
And like some ragged stranger
Died upon the cross
And might I say it seems so fitting in its way
He was a carpenter by trade
Or at least that's what I'm told
In Heaven His throne is made of gold
The ark of his Testament is stowed
A throne from which I'm told
All history does unfold.
Down here it's made of wood and wire
And my body is on fire
And God is never far away.
Into the mercy seat I climb
My head is shaved, my head is wired
And like a moth that tries
To enter the bright eye
I go shuffling out of life
Just to hide in death awhile
And anyway I never lied.
And the mercy seat is waiting
And I think my head is burning
And in a way I'm yearning
To be done with all this measuring of truth.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth
And anyway I told the truth
And I'm not afraid to die
Okay I've gone way over the top there as they're hardly single lyrics, but I think I've just reminded myself how much I love Nick Cave's storytelling!!