Arbit Raj

This post is about some of my all time favourite lyrics. One of the questions that I have always had about songwriting is how the writer can come up with myriad emotions in a song through evocative lyrics. Has the writer already gone through the same situation which is put down into words? Because sometimes the lyrics are so emotionally charged and feel so personal that anything otherwise seems too difficult.

All I want is everything - Def Leppard
All I want is everything
Am I asking too much?
All I want is everything
Like the feel of your touch
But all I have are yesterdays
Tomorrow never comes

Its hard to hold your head up
When you're kneeling down to pray
And the talking doesn't come easy now
When the words get in the way
And if you could see what's going on
Behind these private eyes
The truth would look so easy now
But I'm running out of lies

You Oughta Know - Alanis Morissette
Cause the love that you gave that we made wasn't able
To make it enough for you to be open wide, no
And every time you speak her name
Does she know how you told me you'd hold me
Until you died, till you died
But you're still alive

And I'm here to remind you
Of the mess you left when you went away
It's not fair to deny me
Of the cross I bear that you gave to me
You, you, you oughta know

Unchained Melody - Righteous Brothers
Lonely rivers flow to the sea, to the sea,
to the open arms of the sea.
Lonely rivers sigh, wait for me,
wait for me.
I'll be coming home, wait for me

What it takes - Aerosmith
There goes my old girlfriend
There's another diamond ring
And all those late night promises
I guess they don't mean a thing
So baby, whats the story?
Did you find another man?
Is it easy to sleep in the bed that we made?
When you dont look back I guess
The feelings start to fade away
I used to feel your fire
But now its cold inside
And you're back on the street
Like you didn't miss a beat, yeah

Tell me what it takes to let you go

Things have changed - Bob Dylan
People are crazy and times are strange
I'm locked in tight, I'm out of range
I used to care, but things have changed


Brothers in Arms - Dire Straits
Now the sun's gone to hell
And the moon's riding high
Let me bid you farewell
Every man has to die
But its written in the starlight
And every line on your palm
We're fools to make war
On our brothers in arms

Thousand Years - Sting
A million roads, a million fears
A million suns, ten million years of uncertainty
I could speak a million lies, a million songs,
A million rights, a million wrongs in this balance of time
But if there was a single truth, a single light
A single thought, a singular touch of grace
Then following this single point , this single flame,
The single haunted memory of your face

I still love you
I still want you
A thousand times the mysteries unfold themselves
Like galaxies in my head

One - U2
Have you come here for forgiveness?
Have you come tor raise the dead?
Have you come here to play Jesus
To the lepers in your head?
Did I ask too much?
More than a lot
You gave me nothing
Now its all I got
We're one
But we're not the same
We hurt each other
Then we do it again

There was a show they did at Belfast where Bono, the U2 frontman, spoke this beauty of a line before heading into the song.

'To be one is a great thing, but to respect differences, even greater'

All this might seem dry in this blog if you are not familiar with these songs, but I strongly recommend listening to these songs and sinking deeper into the rich emotionscapes!