Between the Bars by Elliott Smith is a beautiful but sad song about alcohol addiction. These lyrics about how it robs you of potential while at the same time making you feel like anything is possible really hit home for me.

Drink up baby, stay up all night

With the things you could do

You won’t but you might

The potential you’ll be

That you’ll never see

The promises you’ll only make

I typically don’t listen to the lyrics, but a few songs by The Velvet Underground are an exception, and I like Lou Reed’s writing style of using simple words and imagery. Check out ‘Candy Says’, ‘I’m Waiting For The Man’, ‘After Hours’, ‘I’m Sticking With You’.

A couple songs written by Jackson Browne and sung by Nico work in a remarkably similar way: ‘These Days’ and ‘The Fairest of the Seasons’.

Let the products sell themselves

Fuck advertising commercial psychology

Psychological methods to sell should be destroyed

———————

But our land isn’t free

So I work my youth away

In the place of a machine

I refuse to be a slave

Shit from an old notebook and This ain’t no picnic both by minutemen

”en jaksa mutta jatkan / tämän yhden mäen vielä / sateen jälkeen täältä näkee kauas”

Vorna - Kauas

Don’t know exactly why, but this has always got to me, hits some spot nothing else prior ever had, and nothing else still has not since.

Translated to English, it’s something like:

“I have no will or energy, but I shall climb / this one last hill / after the rain you can see so far from here”

It doesn’t translate well, but something about it really resonates with me. I’ve lived with clinic depression for so long, and I’ve been so close to giving in, but always just choosing to climb that one last hill gives some perspective and after all these years… here I am.

I’m too tired to continue, but I’ll fight this one more fight before I fall to my eternal slumber. And after the fight, as the dust settles, the rains stop… well, the view is beautiful. The world is beautiful. But I’m tired… too tired to go on. So I shall only fight this one more fight before I get my peace. One last glance at the beauty. Ah, one more fight, but no more, and I’ll return back up this hill and this view shall be my last. But it’s so beautiful. Only one more fight, and… And so on and so on.

It just feels like I belong in those words.

And I’m not dead yet so I guess I’ll be alright

In “Way less sad” by AJR

At the moment?

I’m not searching the sky for a reason to live 'Cause I found beauty right here and found the passion to give So let me give you my heart, let me give you my tears Let me give you my life, let me give you my fears

I’ve always interpreted it as someone finding an alternative to suicide, by helping those around them.

This world, it turns on the thought of you dead.

• local H, misanthrope.

If you want, a second to breathe, I’ll give you all of my love, give you all that you need

• Sjowgren, seventeen

Will nicht immer alles müssen was ich kann Eine Hand in den Sternen, die andere bietet Getränke an. Ich kann mit allen zehn Füßen in zwanzig Türen Und mit dem elften in der Nase Ballette aufführen
Aber wenn ich könnte wie ich wollte würd ich gar nichts wollen. Ich weiß aber das alle etwas wollen sollen.

Wir sind Helden

Translation:
I don’t always want to have to what I can
One hand in the stars the other one is offering drinks
I can stand with all my ten feet in twenty doors
And with the eleventh up my nose I can perform balletts
But if I could how I wanted, I wouldn’t want anything. Though, I know that everybody has to want something.

That question is too hard, so I will just answer with the latest lyrics I brought up to anyone - was listening to Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls, not a lyrical powerhouse. But the very beginning is one of the best beginnings -

“And I’d give up forever to touch you” is such a strong opening.

Usually for me it’s more a combination of the lyrics and delivery, not just the words.

Not sure if they’re my favourite, but always liked this sequence in Bulls on Parade:

Weapons, not food, not homes, not shoes
Not need, just feed the war, cannibal animal, I
Walk the corner to the rubble
That used to be a library, line up to the mind cemetery now
What we don’t know keeps the contracts alive and movin’
They don’t gotta burn the books, they just remove 'em
While arms warehouses fill as quick as the cells
Rally 'round the family, pockets full of shells

“Calling all friends and people I met on the way down
Calling all friends and people I don’t even know
Calling on high I want to believe there’s a way now
I’m too tired to pretend I don’t want to be alone”

• Low Stars
  I like to remind myself it’s ok to reach out for a connection to other people.

How violent is hope

Love only knows

The Pogues - Pont Mirabeau

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

Pink Floyd - Time

“Why do we always send the poor”

„Filmriss“ by Knochenfabrik („blackout“ by Bonefactory) in a way one of the saddest songs I know.

Original [2023 remix]

Great cover with more emphasis on the sadness of the topic

Wir hatten uns nicht vorgenommen 
Jemals auf die Welt zu kommen 
Und trotzdem is es irgendwie passiert 
Als wir uns schließlich selbst erkannten 
Und alles ziemlich scheiße fanden 
Hatten wir das Wichtigste kapiert

Denn solange wir noch kriechen können, geht noch einer rein 
Wir trinken uns den Schädelknochen leer 
Denn so hohl wie unser Leergut, wollen wir für immer sein 
Alles andre intressiert uns längst nicht mehr

We never planned to be born, and yet, somehow, it happened

When we finally recognized ourselves and thought everything was pretty shitty, at least we figured out what really mattered:

Because as long as we can still crawl, there’s room for one more we drink until our skulls are empty

Because we want to be forever as hollow as our empty bottles.

Everything else doesn’t matter anymore