Top 10 Best Song Lyrics

This article was updated on June 9, 2020.

We all have those songs that we enjoy because they are funny, relatable, or just fill us with emotion. But of all of these songs, which ones have the best lyrics?

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10. There is a Light That Never Goes Out (The Smiths)

And if a double decker bus
Crashes into us
To die by your side is such a heavenly way to die

Fun fact: the second drawing in my first sketchbook was a hand reaching up to a ball of light with the words “Take me out tonight…to die by your side…” My mother got mad at me for writing the lyrics to “Shake Me Down” by Cage the Elephant but called “There is a Light That Never Goes Out” — a song with an obviously suicidal speaker — uplifting. In a way, it makes somewhat sense. To die by the side of a loved one —knowing you will be together in death —is beautiful in a way. And then there’s the lyrics she knew nothing about: “But then a strange fear gripped me and I just couldn’t ask” and the title repeating in the outro while fading out.

9. Rebellion (Lies) (Arcade Fire)

Sleeping is giving in
No matter what the time is

There are other Arcade Fire songs with overall more meaningful lyrics. But “Rebellion” has its charm. And the first two lines of the song are nostalgic to me for a strange reason, but still makes me smile when I hear them. And “sleeping” can be interpreted to be a metaphor for something else, as well.

8. Do I Wanna Know? (Arctic Monkeys)

Now I’ve thought it through
Crawling back to you

The best lyrics are those that paint a story, and “Do I Wanna Know?” is an intimate one that leaves you wondering if the one you have your eye on feels the same way. “Ever get the feel that you can shift the tide that sticks around like somemat in your teeth?” The song is littered with rhetorical questions while describing a personal experience so well you can almost smell the spilt alcohol on the settee.

7. Within You (David Bowie)

I move the stars for no one
You’ve run so long, you’ve run so far
Your eyes can be so cruel
Just as I can be so cruel

There are so many songs I could praise by the British rock/movie star, I had to choose the chilling number written for The Labyrinth film in the 90s. There was no better star they could choose for such a roll as the goblin king than Bowie, and his high vocals chill you to the bone as he sings, “I can be so cruel.” This is one musician that you never want to be on his bad side.

6. Turning Point (Velvet Starlings)

And in time all our footprints will fade
Like a watercolor painting in the rain

For one, “Turning Point” being about climate change, “our footprints” was the perfect word choice for this metaphor, just like the common term, “carbon footprint.” Even the rain suggests the effect of weather changes destroying what we have created. But besides the brilliant diction, these metaphors combined as one smile creates a beautiful image. It reminds me of the famous poem, “Footprints in the Sand,” and the idea that those footprints are fading makes me feel more alone, like our lives are slowly washing away with the rain, rendered meaningless.

5. Carolina Drama (The Raconteurs)

If you must know the truth about the tale
Go and ask the milkman

It would be a crime to not include “Carolina Drama” on this list. This song made the list not for this lyric specifically, but because of the entirety as a whole. The lyrics themselves are pretty straightforward save a few symbols or implications, but the music makes it rhetorical. If I were an English teacher, this would be the song I would show my students to demonstrate pace. The song starts off slow as you get ready and comfortable to listen to White’s story, but once the climax hits, it’s loud, it’s fast, the words are jumbled and difficult to understand. White weaves these characters into such an elaborate mess that leaves your head spinning with confusion and even shock. The milk dripping with the blood — something white stained red, the symbol of the staining of Billy, the innocent boy now being involved in the drama; the literal murder weapon delivered religiously “every morning at nine.” And then — it abruptly ends. Because it simply, doesn’t. The little brother walks in, “Holding the milkman’s cap and a bottle of gin.” So at the end, when everything slows and becomes quiet, if I must ask the milkman to know, I’m not sure that I want to.

Read my full analysis of “Carolina Drama” here.

4. Eleanor Rigby (The Beatles)

Eleanor Rigby
Died in the church and was buried along with her name
Nobody came

In the process of making this list, “Eleanor Rigby” surpassed “Help!” on my favorite Beatles songs list. The strings combined with Paul’s vocals sends shivers down my spine, especially the effect of the verse in one ear and then the chorus in both wearing headphones. Two people that spend their time in the same place, but are still lonely — one of them dreaming, the other in acceptance. Even more eerily, Eleanor Rigby’s grave from John and Paul’s childhood — she died in the church “and was buried along with her name.”

3. Mystical Machine Gun (Kula Shaker)

Are you glad to see how far you’ve come?
You’re a wizard in a blizzard, a mystical machine gun!

Mainly for humorous reasons, “Mystical Machine Gun” is hands down my favorite song by Kula Shaker. So many great lyrics in the song, the bit before the chorus giving it humor and a sarcastic or cynical tone, but others give it a meaning and purpose that is surprisingly comforting in times of anxiety: “Breathe in, breathe out, retain a sense of suicide,” “You awoke to the riddle of your life but no one was there for you,” and especially the voice screaming over the outro, “Everybody stay calm/It’s just the end of the world/It’ll be alright as long as we all keep chanting!”

2. Shake Me Down (Cage the Elephant)

Even on a cloudy day
…I’ll keep my eyes fixed on the sun

The song that hooked me to Cage, “Shake Me Down” is the most solemn but uplifting song I have ever heard. There are so many amazing lyrics in the song, I found it hard to pick just one. Heck, Matt Shultz is such an amazing lyricist it hurt to leave the other songs off the list! But the bridge had to make my favorite because it struck me so much, I quoted it in both a photobook and on my first life token. It is a stark contrast to “Fixed upon the ground/Their eyes cast down,” and I’m a sucker for songs that end with the first lyrics of the track. I can’t say enough about it — I could analyze the entire song if you wanted me to, and I would talk for at least another hour.

1. Picture in My Mind (Plastiscene)

In the mirror now see a faceless man swimming with the stars in a sea of hands

My song of the year 2019 and the best song off Seeing Stars, “Picture in My Mind” was the reason I was inspired to write what is now my longest album review on Play it Loud. This lyric has always stood out to me as special; exactly as the song suggests, this lyric in particular paints such a grand and elaborate picture in your mind of a scene of looking at yourself floating on top of a sea of hands. Is the man faceless because he has no face? Or is Gisborne describing his feelings? It may be interpreted either way — but when you put yourself in the shoes of the speaker, just like a mirror you are immersed in the song, writing the lyrics on a wall in your mind as you self-reflect on your life. The pen running dry, the pulling of “I need to see you” and “I need to leave you” trying to get away from someone, something going wrong with your spiritual circuit — all of it is picturesque and beautiful, and that’s not even analyzing the effect of the music!