gratified wrote:i also dig malkmus but his sardonic babble probably doesnt fly well over here.

Malkmus' lyrics are so great to me as part of the Pavement music, whether because of the amusing wordplay (visa/geezer -- wtf?) or the casually disaffected delivery. It's hard to be this intentionally opaque and not sound like a pretentious idiot, but he totally pulls it off.

And anybody who pens this line is okay by me: "You've been chosen as an extra in the movie adaptation of the sequel to your life."

i can't believe no one said Jello Biafra yet... o well, let me be the first:

*Jello Biafra (esp. on Frankenchrist)

-also-

-Weird Al
-The Sugarhill Gang

I would also add tim midget. I mean duh. If the only the song he ever wrote was "Young" he still be one of my favorite songwriters ever.

The problem with Midgett is that he's an egghead. Same with Cohen. And Kadane. They're certified nerds. They're covered in reason.

Phelps seems like an egghead under cover. Uncracked. So there's still a kind of sincerity to what he sings. Altravisbeani is probably the president of Nerd City, but he has a special flair. He such a nerd that he knows exactly how to do it.

This is not to say that the eggheads' lyrics are bad; they're certainly interesting, at least. The problem is that they're way out of their shells.

Take "One Plus One Minus One Equals One." What the fuck. When I first heard that song I wanted to kill it. "We know things happen for no reason but obey the same calculus that says one plus one..."?

What the fuck does adding and subtracting have to do with rates of change? Then I remembered that Kadane's and egghead, so I looked it up. Calculus: method of calculation. Fine.

With the eggheads, you practically need fucking annotations.

But then again, "Young" is pretty good.

ok, another few that need to be named:

Will Oldham (not always brilliant, but devastating when in top form)

Dave Berman

John Darnielle (while the recent, "full band" mountain goats records seem kind of lame to me, both "all hail west texas" and "full force galesburg" have more great lyrics you'd expect to fit on one single record)

Hosoi wrote:egghead...nerds...reason...egghead...Nerd...nerd...eggheads'...egghead...eggheads....

Oh, I get it. You're one of those "emo" kids. It's ok, son, you'll grow out of it.

ian curtis
matt and bubba kadane
rich stim
ian crause
elvis costello
al sparhawk
nick lowe
robert smith
dave gedge
glen johnson
scott walker

I have to toss in a vote for McClusky. I am not a lyric guy by nature, but occasionally a band will manage to accomplish a near perfect blend of non sequiters, witty phrasings and foul language that doesn't take away from the music and, in fact, enhances it. Such is McClusky.

Example given: "But one of those bands got paid I heard/One of those bands got fake tits/yeah"

Of course, it really helps if the music is good. If your band lives and dies by its lyrical content, you'll do the latter a lot more than the former at least until you hook up that Stevie Nicks cover band gig. Remember, fuckwit, your songs are just poems set to music.

Dan

Dan!
Herr Jury told me about the Mclusky, and I concur.

Good, good album.

For me, it gets no better than this:

"I like rock / and your sister says I've got a hard cock."
Oneida. Not just an Indian tribe anymore.

Me, I'm all for eggheads in every form.

Long live 'em!

Townes Van Zandt hands down. Even Dylan cringes in the face of this man's work. Steve Earle, who is no slouch himself, will attest likewise.

"Frankenchrist"? Gosh, instant_zen, I'm a big fan of Biafra's earlier stuff, but this is the most forced and humorless DK offering ever. Peligro wrote many of these lyrics and they suck accordingly. Give me "Fresh Fruit" any day.

I like Maurice's comment: specifically, the early REM stuff was interesting 'cause you could imagine your own lyric sheet.

Bradley R. Weissenberger wrote:

gratified wrote:i also dig malkmus but his sardonic babble probably doesnt fly well over here.

Malkmus' lyrics are so great to me as part of the Pavement music, whether because of the amusing wordplay (visa/geezer -- wtf?) or the casually disaffected delivery. It's hard to be this intentionally opaque and not sound like a pretentious idiot, but he totally pulls it off.

And anybody who pens this line is okay by me: "You've been chosen as an extra in the movie adaptation of the sequel to your life."

well played.

and yes, that line alone propels him into genius territory, i agree. not to mention many couplets throughout a slew of LPs and EPs that make for an entertaining listen