Cleverest lyrics?

Staying with my current theme, how about what you think are clever lyrics?
 
My entry here comes from the Motels: "Take the L out of lover and it's over."

And if California slides into the ocean like the mystics and statistics say it will, 
I predict this motel will be standing until I pay my bill.  

Desperadoes Under The Eaves--Warren Zevon

All about clever.
 
Van Gogh did some eyeball pleasers.
He must have been a pencil squeezer.
He didn't do the Mona Lisa,
That was an Italian geezer.
 
Ian Dury - There ain't half been some clever folk.
 

"If I said you had a beautiful body, would ya hold it against me?"

;-)

There once was a man from Nantucket...

Some of the best lyrics ever...

TIME

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an off hand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun

And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but its sinking
And racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in the relative way, but youre older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death

Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the english way
The time is gone, the song is over, thought Id something more to say.

Here's a chorus I like that's semi-current.

'Cause you and tequila make me crazy  Run like poison in my blood  One more night could kill me, Baby  One is one too many, one more is never enough 

This is a hard one, because, "what is clever?"

Do to the recent tragedy in Connecticut, I am apprehensively linking this.  I do not believe we should, "hide from art."  The song has slightly violent undertones.  Fair warning.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BCTgMbLn_Q

The Ramones, "I Wanna Live."

craigb

Linear Phase


This is a hard one, because, "what is clever?"

clev·er /ˈklɛv ər/ Show Spelled [klev-er] Show IPA adjective, clev·er·er, clev·er·est. ...
2. superficially skillful, witty, or original in character or construction; facile: It was an amusing, clever play, but of no lasting value.

3. showing inventiveness or originality; ingenious: His clever device was the first to solve the problem.
...
 
 
HTH

I was asking rhetorically, "what is clever, what is dawn, what is truth, what is blue?"

I agree with Julian Time is a great song with lyrics by roger waters and anything he has written is genius but for mind you can't go past Nobody Told Me by Lennon

Everybody's talking and no one says a word
Everybody's making love and no one really cares
There's Nazis in the bathroom just below the stairs
Always something happening and nothing going on
There's always something cooking and nothing in the pot
They're starving back in China so finish what you got 

Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Strange days indeed -- strange days indeed 

Everybody's runnin' and no one makes a move
Everyone's a winner and nothing left to lose
There's a little yellow idol to the north of Katmandu
Everybody's flying and no one leaves the ground
Everybody's crying and no one makes a sound
There's a place for us in the movies you just gotta lay around 

Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Strange days indeed -- most peculiar, mama 

Everybody's smoking and no one's getting high
Everybody's flying and never touch the sky
There's a UFO over New York and I ain't too surprised 

Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Strange days indeed -- most peculiar, mama




It's a pity that Lennon died before completing the song and apparently he wrote it for Ringo.


Anything by Lennon, Waters and Freddie Mercury.  These three are perhaps the best and clever lyricists of the classic rock era.


Peace Ben