Random Lyrics

Another day, another stolen idea.

I’d like to apologise and thank Pandora (at Pandora Queen of Denial for sewing the seed with her Random Lyrics post.

I have in my possession an mp3 jukebox jammed full of songs, mostly rock and heavy metal. And in that collection there are some moving, funny and thought-provoking lyrics – even from the heavy metal section.

So without further ado, here are five sets of lyrics from five rock maestros:

Alice Cooper – It’s The Little Things

You can burn my house
You can cut my hair
You can make me wrestle naked with a grizzly bear
You can poison my cat, baby, I don’t care
But if you talk in the movies I’ll kill you right there.

Now I fully understand how Alice feels when he sings this song. To me, the basic message is, there is only so much shit you can take and while you may cope with the horrible things that life throws at you, it might just be the little things that push you over the edge and make you explode with rage. I know that I have a tendency sometimes to bottle things up.

In the past, I have allowed the pressure to reach boiling point and then flown into a rage when confronted by something simple, like, say a piece of cat shit on the carpet. The good thing is that I think I can let off steam a little better these days – I’ve mellowed considerably with age. Nevertheless, tiny little things can sometimes irritate the hell out of me.

That’s what my soapbox is for.

It is a pressure cooker outlet valve.

Def Leppard – From The Inside

So you play the joker and I’ll play the clown
And I’ll laugh while you’re up there and I’ll laugh while you’re down.
Though your screams break the silence, they won’t make a sound.

I love this song.

It is about drug addiction but from the point of the drug itself.

My drug of choice is alcohol and I certainly relate to how alcohol may react to the full cycle of getting drunk and then paying the price. A drunken night out starts off happily enough, with the alcohol loosening those tight strings that harness the extrovert that exists in all of us.

And as the extrovert escapes, all inhibitions are lost and end up having a wonderful time – in your own eyes of course. If you go over the top, you see yourself as an indestructible force that everybody else loves.

The alcohol must see you as a buffoon and laughs because it knows what’s coming. It’s almost like selling your soul to the devil.

Ultimately you pay the price and as you wake up with a hangover, an unknown assailant battering your head with a hammer as your stomach rebels and makes you throw up air, you can imagine the alcohol laughing at you.

And nobody else cares – you brought it all on yourself.

Metallica - The Unforgiven III

How can I be lost, if I’ve got nowhere to go?

I’ve been in a bad place; I guess everybody has at some time or another.

Your life seems to have no direction and you are at your wit’s end.

It takes something to haul you out of that bad place – a loved one, a steely determination that lies deep within yourself.

I’ve managed throughout my life to somehow find something to cling onto when I am lost – so I have always had somewhere to go.

I still have.

Rush – Witch Hunt

Quick to judge, quick to anger, slow to understand. 
Ignorance and prejudice and fear walk hand in hand.

Of course – there had to a song from Rush, my favourite band.

The thing I like about Rush is that most of their songs have amazing lyrics.

And this one is all about prejudice. The basic message is that some people are terrified of things that they don’t understand and lash out rather than trying to overcome that barrier. I’ve always been tolerant of differences between people. The human race is a marvel and rather than blaming other cultures and for the ills of the world, we ought to try to embrace those differences. This is one of the primary reasons I love travelling; to immerse myself in a new country and its customs. I may not always like what I see but that’s no reason to hate people for it.

We are all different – why not enjoy those differences?

Nine Inch Nails - Every Day Is Exactly The Same

I believe I can see the future, cos I repeat the same routine.

We’ve all been there, living a life that seems to be like a scratched record, repeating itself over and over again. Work is like that for me sometimes; I go to work on Monday, feeling pissed off because I still have five days of frustration to go and gradually as the week reaches its peak on Wednesday lunchtime, I start to feel better. It’s like climbing a mountain and then launching yourself off it towards the weekend when you can relax for a couple of days – before Monday morning blues slap you in the face again.

The good news is that although there are tedious aspects to my mundane work life, I do occasionally find the work interesting and the prospect of a trip abroad keeps me interested enough to cope.

But I would dearly love to break the cycle and just escape; one day it will happen. I can see the future – and the future looks good.

Well, that’s it. Thanks to Pandora for the idea. I might do this again in the future.

I have provided links so you can listen to the songs; of all of them, the Def Leppard and Metallica songs will surprise you as they are uncharacteristically mellow songs that do not conform to the stereotype.

Have a listen – and tell me what you think.

31 Days of Blogging - Day 9

Day 9 – Adam and the Ants - Ant Music



“So unplug the jukebox and do yourself a favour – that music’s lost its taste so try another flavour.”

Christmas 1980 and as an eighteen year old I had discovered beer. Of course, I had been partaking in the wicked substance at the tender age of sixteen but because I looked like a ten year old, I found it difficult to get served in pubs.

I ended up carrying my birth certificate around with me to prove my age – which was very embarrassing. S, my good looking mate, looked about thirty as did the other guys we used to hang round with.

Saturday night was pub night and now I had something else to spend my money on, other than music. I had once managed to get myself horribly drunk (read about it here) and I almost became teetotal. However, thankfully, I started to take it easy and by managed to venture to a couple of pubs in Walsall town centre and arrive home feeling the good effects of alcohol.

I also did something about my hair. It had been like a white afro – a huge amount of hair that added about six inches to my height and width. I decided to have it styled and after that major operation I actually looked normal. My hair was the shortest it had been since 1970.

Having a good looking mate like S was a bonus because he lost his shyness after a couple of beers and would randomly talk to women in the pubs. This was particularly good around Christmas because invariably he would ask them for a Christmas kiss – and usually get one. I was just a hanger on and I got the odd snog too – which was a massive bonus.

I discovered that drunk women wear beer goggles.

We also discovered clubs too. Walsall had one night club called “Max’s” and I ventured in there whenever I could afford it – which was tricky on the little money I earned working in a newsagent. Sometimes my dad would help me out by slipping me a few quid, with the words:

“Don’t tell your mum. She’ll go mad if she thinks I’m paying for you to have beer.”

New Years’ Eve 1980 was magnificent. My dad treated me to enough cash to “have a good time” and me S and the lads found ourselves a pub that stayed open into the wee small hours. The bonus was that it was full of young women and we had a great time. I distinctly recall wandering home through Walsall town centre at around half past one in the morning asking every good looking girl I passed for a New Year kiss – and actually getting lots.

Beer goggles again.

Getting a girlfriend was still impossible (they saw me in a different light when they were sober – no beer goggles you see) but to be honest with all the work I had to do for my A levels and exams, it was difficult to juggle everything; a girlfriend would have been impossible. I had to make do with the odd night down the pub.

Of course, S had a girlfriend to occupy his time and I used that time to work. When we did pop out to the pub, we used to always put Ant Music on the jukebox and sing the chorus out loud - until we were shushed by the regulars – who suggested that the landlord really did “unplug the jukebox”.

Looking back, it was a strange experience still being at school and finding ourselves old enough to go to the pub. Sometimes, we would risk popping to the pub on Friday lunchtimes during school, removing our blazers and ties because officially the local pub had a policy not to sell beer to sixth form students.

The landlord must have known though – as well as the teachers (who must surely have smelled alcohol).

Coincidentally the local newsagent did a roaring trade in chewing gum and extra strong mints.