UKH

Just been listening to Rough and Rowdy Ways by Bob Dylan and especially 'Murder most Foul'. The title apparently was a pinch from Shakespeare. It contains 5 long verses but as the song progresses the lyrics just get better and better. I know Dylan has form in this aspect of musical composition but this is really great writing.

I'll just attach a small selection from verse5 and see what you think...

Verse 5]
Play "Please Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood"
Play it for the First Lady, she ain't feeling any good
Play Don Henley, play Glenn Frey
Take it to the limit and let it go by
Play it for Carl Wilson, too
Looking far, far away down Gower Avenue
Play "Tragedy", play "Twilight Time"
Take me back to Tulsa to the scene of the crime
Play another one and "Another One Bites the Dust"
Play "The Old Rugged Cross" and "In God We Trust"
Ride the pink horse down that long, lonesome road
Stand there and wait for his head to explode
Play "Mystery Train" for Mr. Mystery
The man who fell down dead like a rootless tree
Play it for the reverend, play it for the pastor
Play it for the dog that got no master
Play Oscar Peterson, play Stan Getz
Play "Blue Sky," play Dickey Betts
Play Art Pepper, Thelonious Monk
Charlie Parker and all that junk
All that junk and "All That Jazz"
Play something for the Birdman of Alcatraz
Play Buster Keaton, play Harold Lloyd
Play Bugsy Siegel, play Pretty Boy Floyd
Play the numbers, play the odds
Play "Cry Me a River" for the Lord of the gods
Play Number nine, play Number six
Play it for Lindsey and Stevie Nicks
Play Nat King Cole, play "Nature Boy"
Play "Down in the Boondocks" for Terry Malloy
Play "It Happened One Night" and "One Night of Sin"
There's twelve million souls that are listening in
Play "Merchant of Venice", play "Merchants of Death"
Play "Stella by Starlight" for Lady Macbeth
Don't worry, Mr. President, help's on the way
Your brothers are comin', there'll be hell to pay
Brothers? What brothers? What's this about hell?
Tell them, "We're waiting, keep coming," we'll get them as well
Love Field is where his plane touched down
But it never did get back up off the ground
Was a hard act to follow, second to none
They killed him on the altar of the rising sun
Play "Misty" for me and "That Old Devil Moon"
Play "Anything Goes" and "Memphis in June"
Play "Lonely at the Top" and "Lonely Are the Brave"
Play it for Houdini spinning around in his grave
Play Jelly Roll Morton, play "Lucille"
Play "Deep in a Dream", and play "Driving Wheel"
Play "Moonlight Sonata" in F-sharp
And "A Key to the Highway" for the king on the harp
Play "Marching Through Georgia" and "Dumbarton's Drums"
Play "Darkness" and death will come when it comes
Play "Love Me or Leave Me" by the great Bud Powell
Play "The Blood-Stained Banner", play "Murder Most Foul"

what about the following from America ?

"There were plants and birds and rocks and things"

maybe not quite in the same league as Dylan. More seriously I've always liked the following from Pete Seeger

"Snow, snow, falling down
Covering up my dirty old town

Covers the garbage dump, covers the holes
Covers the rich homes, and the poor souls
Covers the station, covers the tracks
Covers the footsteps of those who'll not be back

Snow, snow, falling down
Covering up my dirty old town

Under the street lamp, there stands a girl
Looks like she's not got a friend in this world
Look at the big flakes come drifting down
Twisting and turning, round and round

Snow, snow, falling down
Covering up my dirty old town

Covers the mailbox, the farm and the plow
Even barbed wire seems - beautiful now
Covers the station, covers the tracks
Covers the footsteps of those who'll not be back

Snow, snow, falling down
Covering up my dirty old town"

A great song from a great album. "Murder most foul" is how the ghost of Hamlet's father describes his own murder, when appearing to Hamlet and demanding revenge - so it defines Hamlet's destiny. Obvious reference to JFK's assassination, but many other resonances.  Not a duff song on the album in my view. Great images and one-liners everywhere. A lone rider ranging across the whole cultural landscape. And "My own version of you" is a hoot.

My favourite lyrics will always be from The Smiths, despite the fact that Morrissey has turned into Nigel Farage. 

A great line about stardom:

World tour, media whore, please the press in Belgium!
This was your life...

From "Paint A Vulgar Picture":

At the record company meeting
On their hands - a dead star
And oh, the plans they weave
And oh, the sickening greed

At the record company party
On their hands - a dead star
The sycophantic slags all say :
"I knew him first, and I knew him well"

Re-issue! Re-package! Re-package!
Re-evaluate the songs
Double-pack with a photograph
Extra track (and a tacky badge)

A-list, playlist
"Please them , please them !"
"Please them !"
(sadly, this was your life)

But you could have said no
If you'd wanted to
You could have said no
If you'd wanted to

BPI, MTV, BBC
"Please them ! Please then!"
(sadly this was your life)

But you could have said no
If you'd wanted to
You could have walked away
...Couldn't you?

I touched you at the soundcheck
You had no real way of knowing
In my heart I begged "Take me with you ...
I don't care where you're going..."

But to you I was faceless
I was fawning, I was boring
Just a child from those ugly new houses
Who could never begin to know

Who could never really know
Oh...

Best of! Most of!
Satiate the need
Slip them into different sleeves!
Buy both, and feel deceived

Climber - new entry, re-entry
World tour! ("media whore")
"Please the Press in Belgium!"
(This was your life...)

And when it fails to recoup ?
Well, maybe :
You just haven't earned it yet, baby

I walked a pace behind you at the soundcheck
You're just the same as I am
What makes most people feel happy
Leads us headlong into harm

So, in my bedroom in those 'ugly new houses'
I danced my legs down to the knees
But me and my 'true love'
Will never meet again...

At the record company meeting
On their hands - at last! - A dead star !
But they can never taint you in my eyes
No, they can never touch you now

No, they cannot hurt you, my darling
They cannot touch you now
But me and my 'true love'
Will never meet again

The Jam - Down in a tube station at midnight. You’ll have to google the lyrics but it perfectly describes the horror of the night bus/tube

I was always most impressed with the way in which Alicia Keys managed to work in "empty fridge" as something to rhyme with "Brooklyn Bridge".

Tutti frutti, aw rooty. Wop bop a loo bop a lop bam boom. Pinch of Shakespeare there as well.

Most of the songs from West Side Story, especially "America" and "Gee, Officer Krupke". 

And I really like "American Pie", though I don't understand a fair proportion of it.

Eight posts in to a UKC "best lyrics" thread and nobody has mentioned Tom Waits or Leonard Cohen yet?  Good grief, what's the world coming to?

It has to be Tom Waits for me, but I don't think I'd know where to start to single out one song and quote lyrics on here.  (A single lyric is easier.  From 'Heartattack and Vine': "Don't you know there ain't no Devil, there's just God when he's drunk.")

Ok, I will pick a song.
You could make an entire feature film about a homesick sailor without coming close to evoking his ennui, loneliness and homesickness the way Waits does in four minutes of 'Shore Leave'.
youtube.com/watch?v=JP8egHbjHaY&

Surely 'I was happy in the haze of a drunken hour but Heaven knows I'm miserable now' tops the lot? All of life in there (at least when you're young).

Every day

You must say:

"So how do I feel about my life?"

For me, no one does opening lines like Dylan: 

They're selling postcards of the hanging, they're painting the passports brown...

Ain't it just like the night to play tricks when you're trying to be so quiet...

All the early Roman kings in their sharkskin suits...

They sat together in the park as the evening sky grew dark...

Masterly.

Pink Floyd..

'You're too old to loose the weight  you  used to need to throw around' plus lots more.

"Flash,  Flash,  I love you, but we only have 14 hours to save the earth". 

National Shite Day by Half Man Half Biscuit, which begins:

Pulling the ice axe from my leg
I staggered on
Spindrift stinging my remaining eye
I finally managed to reach the station
Only to find that the bus replacement service had broken down

The whole song is a work of art. But yes, Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen did some good stuff too.

Brilliant!

One of my favourite songs has this great bit:

'Would you still love me if I lost my legs?'
'I'd see that you were loved and you were fed'
'I end up in a car crash almost dead'
'For richer and for partly severed head'

Tonight I Fancy Myself, The Beautiful South

She'd brought along the oranges
He'd brought the tea
They'd both brought along a sick-bag just in case

The plate of chicken sandwiches
Were lovely they agreed
And I watched him spit the bits into her face

'Do you love me like you used to' he sighs
'I love you twice as much' she replies
They were on the train to Venice, where else?
I think tonight I fancy myself

I'd rather drink that toast to my own health
I think tonight I'd rather love myself
And if you drink that drink to your own health
I think tonight I'd rather love myself

Later in the evening
The sun came rolling down
And they talked about their fantasies and fears

Between the heavy breathing
And those lighter licking sounds
I heard him whisper this question in her ear

'Would you still love me if I lost my legs?'
'I'd see that you were loved and you were fed'
'I end up in a car crash almost dead'
'For richer and for partly severed head'

I'd rather drink that toast to my own health
I think tonight I'd rather love myself
And if you drink that drink to your own health
I think tonight I'd rather love myself

The neighbours ask them out but they flatly refuse
'We're saving up for a world-wide cruise'
With a choice between loneliness and love-sick QE2's
Well tonight I choose - self-abuse

A four-pack in the fridge
A good book on the shelf
I think tonight I'd rather love myself

Great version with just an acoustic guitar here. I wish Paul Heaton's songs just sounded like this, rather than the pop tripe they released.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Krs1WgAp80g&ab_channel=neileastwood

Edit: This is from the man who, long before Brexit, sang the words

"I'll crap into your Union Jack and wrap it round your head". Lovely stuff.

There is great elegance in saying everything you need to say with the minimum of words.

So I'd say that's not Mr Zimmerman's finest work.

T.

Complete change of tone but I found the music of Casisdead this year and his tracks “you might be scared”, “pat earrings” and “Charlotte” are some of the best grime lyrics I’ve ever heard. 
 

Also - the guy seems to truly do what he can to avoid the lime light. He released an EP and only made something like 200 old cassette tapes and sold them on his website.

Most of his music is on soundcloud and some of it (not all) is on Spotify. Well worth a listen.  

"Thousands are Sailing" by the Pogues has, among others, these wonderfully evocative lines:

In Manhattan's desert twilight
In the death of afternoon
We stepped hand in hand on Broadway
Like the first man on the moon

And "The Blackbird" broke the silence
As you whistled it so sweet
And in Brendan Behan's footsteps
I danced up and down the street

Then we said goodnight to Broadway
Giving it our best regards
Tipped our hats to Mister Cohan
Dear old Times Square's favorite bard

Then we raised a glass to JFK
And a dozen more besides
When I got back to my empty room
I suppose I must have cried

Sometimes its just a single lyric that catches you

'You're in my blood like holy wine' -Joni Mitchell 

Pink Floyd, Time:

And you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way, but you're older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death

A great lyric to use on a birthday card

The smell of hot food from a takeaway curry,
Diesel fumes from a passing lorry,
Waiting in the queue in the pouring rain,
For the chip shop up on Bowling Lane,

Takes me back 🙂

I have always quite liked the lyrics from Robin Hood by Ocean Colour Scene. It strikes me as quite raw with a touch of melancholy:

When you're starting to choke
Take some pills with your coke
It's inspirational
When you're life is a mess
Light one more cigarette
It's so logical

Well, it's something your mother can't abide
But it's something that I freely prescribe
Take yourself for a ride
It never felt so good
As the night that you and I played Robin Hood
Stealing from the backrooms of my minds
Remembering a time when we were fine
A time I thought we'd left behind

When I'm starting to cry
Come and sit by my side
I will love you so
And when the nightmares come
I will try to be fun
Even though
I'm so scared, you know
Well, it's something your mother can't abide
But it's something that I freely prescribe
Take yourself for a ride
It never felt so good
As the night that you and I played Robin Hood
Stealing from the backrooms of our minds
Stealing from a time when we were fine
A time I thought we'd left behind
Stealing from the backrooms of our minds
Stealing from a time when we were fine
A time I thought we'd left behind

When you're starting to choke
Take some pills with your coke
It's hysterical

I assume you're not a fan of the literary epic - Iliad, Odyssey, Aeneid, Paradise Lost etc - since the catalogue or list is such a key technique of the genre. I think Dylan is aiming for epic sweep in the context of the song, so it strikes me as perfectly justified.

The Residents, Ships a Goin' Down.

Helps if you hear it first, maybe  youtube.com/watch?v=gQYMuTm5GIk&

[Verse 1: "Catbird" & "Chorus" & "Uncle Remus"]
Why not live?
The catbird shrilled!
And give a guy a chance!
For soon the moon will sing a tune and I'll be left to dance
Well, strangers have left on longer trains before
Yes, shake and shout and cause a spout to be a mockery!
Exist inside a lemon drop and cause no word to be
If after all this oleo a speck of dust exists
We'll set aside a common tide 'twixt friend and who he's kissed

[Verse 2: "Enigmatic Foe" & "Chorus"]
He thought the end was overdue, but day broke him instead
And consequently what he read was never what he said
And don't you never
Said the ever Enigmatic Foe
Lose your cool, or after school
They'll find me home in bed

[Verse 3: "Catbird"]
What hoe you rake you fake a taking and a mating moo;
Confuse to use and quick to break are simple rules to you
Why send a curly head to bed and know her secrets too?

[Verse 4: "Enigmatic Foe"]
Glue it down you dripping clown, and be not busy, too;
If a needy, if a seedy lets him come on through
Keys are not thrust open spores, and neither is a broken store!
There are clothes that haven't been worn
Feet that haven't been shorn
There's causes that haven't been given a principle
Need I say more?

I thought that I was odd in not knowing this Dylan album, but it turns out that it only came out this summer. Your quote of the words has got me interested, as I love the broad reference range, especially of musicians. For instance I find it interesting that he presumably likes the Allman Brothers (southern music) as he mentions Dicky Betts one of the guitarists with them. 

Likewise Benmont Tench is one of the contributors, he being a Heart Breaker from Tom Petty's band.

I assume that the harp relates to the electric guitar, as Eric Clapton is where I know Key to the Highway from. Very interesting. I'll have to go and have a listen. 

I still think that probably my favourite Dylan record is the live one with The Band, as they seem to keep him more on the track that I like (Before the Flood-double album). Sadly it won't be repeated as The band has lost at least one of its members, possibly two. (Rick Danko+).

I agree with the comment up thread with the lyrics off Dark side of the moon by Pink Floyd, but is this partly that I can sing along knowing all the words, as I played the record to death when it came out when I was very young.

Or

"False eyelashes and false foundation,

They may heal your pride

But don't gimme no Plastic Saddle (E1 5c) - 

I like to feel the leather when I ride."

Jerry Reed / orig. lyrics Vic McAlpin

Have to add a song by Sting. It's about the stormy relationship he had with his dad. Genius lyrics that use winter and a judge and jury all melded together with a jumble of emotions as he contemplates his feelings while staring into the embers of a dying fire. Moves me to tears when I think of the messed up relationship I've had with my dad. Even the title is brimming with emotion: Ghost Story

"Another day begins and now I'm thinking
That this indifference was my invention
When everything I did sought your attention
You were my compass star, you were my measure
You were a pirate's map of buried treasure"

Lyrics: https://genius.com/Sting-ghost-story-lyrics

Song:  youtube.com/watch?v=udY1Sar4pF4&

Billy Bragg - New England.

Especially:

I saw two shooting stars last night, I wished on them but they were only satellites

It's wrong to wish on space hardware, I wish I wish I wish you'd care...

The "harp" he refers to will be a "blues harp" (ie harmonica) as played by a genius of the instrument, Little Walter, who recorded a superb version of Key to the Highway in the late 50s. Well worth checking out - this style of Chicago blues (eg Buddy Guy) was a significant influence on Clapton, and all the other blues/rock guitarists of his generation.

I think the whole of Jeffrey Lewis' Chelsea Hotel Oral Sex Song is a wonderful example of lyric-writing - variously funny, sad and uplifting

'...If I was Leonard Cohen
Or some others song writing master
I'd know to first get the oral sex
And then write the song after...'

'...he next time you feelin' kinda lonesome and blue
Just think that someone somewhere Might be singin' about you
...this whole time She could have been singing about me

Probably not

but it could be'

youtube.com/watch?v=dlRanftUqO4&

Son I'm 30, I only went with your mother cos she's dirty.................

Another one for Dark side of the moon. Played to death in my teens, and then one day in my twenties I was listening to it and I suddenly realised that ten years had got behind me.

For a long time I thought this was one of the greatest song lyrics, but then I found out that it's actually by someone else and they were just quoting. From Assault and battery by Hawkwind:

Lives of brave men all remind us we may make our lives sublime.

And departing leave behind us footprints in the sands of time.

Slight tangent but if you want an evocative and efficient snapshot of shore leave, try The Triffids’ “American Sailors”. Four simple lines delivered wistfully in under 50 seconds 

youtube.com/watch?v=KIqNgYDxvHM&

This.

Home improvement expert, Harold Hill from Harold Hill.

Of do it yourself dexterity and double glazing skill.

Came home to find another gentleman’s kippers in the grill.

So he sanded off his winkle with a Black and Decker drill.

Interviewer: 'What does American Pie mean?'

Don McLean: 'It means I never have to work again.'

Most (quite a few) songs by The The have fantastic lyrics.

"Trying so hard to please myself I was turning into somebody else"

"How can anyone know me, when I don't even know myself"

"Peeling the skin back from my eyes
I felt surprised"

"Don't tell me what your name is I want your body, not your mind,
I want a feeling, worth paying for before I say goodbye
But as I was talking, I couldn't look her in the eyes,
I just kept wondering,
How many men unleashed their frustration between her thighs?"
 

There is a nice interpretation of A Case of You (and the whole album) here

https://twitter.com/kieranchodgson/status/1336599500195049473?s=21

Carrying my own in the afternoon
Hiding a spoon, she will be soon
With their fork, with the knife
Speaks me a joke, she slips here alive

Can, 'Spoon'

In reply :  I was always impressed with Elvis Costello's lyrical repertoire, you could pick oh so many, but how about album track "All Grown Up" from 1991 "Mighty like a Rose".  For some reason, it always makes my eyes slightly moister.   youtube.com/watch?v=GA9Aqao2PfM&

- in particular, the "musically resolving" bit where he sings: 

"But look at yourself
You'll see you're still so young
You haven't earned the weariness
That sounds so jaded on your tongue"  

Full lyrics: 

All Grown Up

"I'm trouble" she said
Spread out on the floor of her father's house
Her promise was almost undone
Under her tongue, dissolving her responsibilities
To finally deny everyone with every unflattering comparison

(chorus):
All grown up
And you don't care anymore
And you hate all the people that you used to adore
And you despise all the rumours and lies of the life you led before

Did I hear you right?
You're feeling hounded and pushed around
You want to just lay down and die
If all of this life has been such a big disappointment to you
Why don't you stop blaming some guy
And go give the next one a try

(chorus)

But look at yourself
You'll see you're still so young
You haven't earned the weariness
That sounds so jaded on your tongue

"I'm weak" she says
And blesses herself and gets into bed
Clutching the covers to her throat
"So punish me now and let me go back to the sham of my life"
"This night is the perfect antidote for all of the poison that you wrote"

(chorus)

But look at yourself
You'll see you're still so young
You haven't earned the weariness
That sounds so jaded on your tongue

Oh and this,

Birmingham Sunday (about a church bombing in Alabama)

Come round by my side and I'll sing you a song
I'll sing it so softly, it'll do no one wrong
On Birmingham Sunday the blood ran like wine
And the choirs kept singing of freedom

That cold autumn morning no eyes saw the sun
And Addie Mae Collins, her number was one
At an old Baptist church there was no need to run
And the choirs kept singing of freedom

The clouds they were grey and the autumn wind blew
And Denise McNair brought the number to two
The falcon of death was a creature they knew
And the choirs kept singing of freedom

The church it was crowded, but no one could see
That Cynthia Wesley's dark number was three
Her prayers and her feelings would shame you and me
And the choirs kept singing of freedom

Young Carol Robertson entered the door
And the number her killers had given was four
She asked for a blessing but asked for no more
And the choirs kept singing of freedom

On Birmingham Sunday a noise shook the ground
And people all over the earth turned around
For no one recalled a more cowardly sound
And the choirs kept singing of freedom

The men in the forest they once asked of me
How many black berries grew in the Blue Sea
I asked them right back with a tear in my eye
How many dark ships in the forest?

The Sunday has come and the Sunday has gone
And I can't do much more than to sing you a song
I'll sing it so softly, it'll do no one wrong
And the choirs keep singing of freedom

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Richard Farina

This is a great version, better than Baez's IMO youtube.com/watch?v=rMuTXcf3-6A&

That's nice, but doesn't do it for me I'm afraid - in as far as it evokes anything at all I'm just thinking of a slightly posh college ball.  Girls in off-the-shoulder dresses dancing and snogging on the lawn?  What are the American sailors doing there?  Did they gatecrash?  Is it a Gene Kelly 'On The Town' type scenario?

No Townes van zandt yet! One of my favourites:

Your eyes seek conclusion in all this confusion of mine
Though you and I both know it's only the warm glow of wine
That's got you to feeling this way,
But I don't care, I want you to stay
And hold me and tell me you'll be here to love me today

The children are dancin', the gamblers are chancin' their all
The window's accusing the door of abusing the wall                                                                But who cares what the night watchmen say
The stage has been set for the play
So just hold me and tell me you'll be here to love me today

The moon's come and gone but a few stars hang on on to the sky
Well the wind's runnin' free though it ain't up to me ask why
But the poets are demanding their pay
And they've left me with nothin' to say
'Cept hold me and tell me you'll be here to love me today
Just hold me and tell me you'll be here to love me today

The Triffids were a Perth band. That song probably needs a lot of imagined context and familiarity with their output as a whole. I think it allows one to imagine a whole narrative around it. 

Bill Bailey via Kate Bush and his 'Cockney Rock'

Its me I'm Kathy                                                                                                                                               I've come home                                                                                                                                              Put the kettle on                                                                                                                                               Av a luvvly cuppa tea

There are many great Tom Waits one-liners, but my favourite is:

’...come down off that cross, we can use the wood...’

i'd be interested to find the definitive lyric which precedes "........She's a sight to see/And a pleasure for the poor to find" from "If I Needed You".

I would go for Richard Thompson - check out the lyrics to Beeswing or Ling of Bohemia

Boris Johnson is a f*cking c*nt

That's some list!

Top of my list for the most bitter has to go to Bob Dylan in Idiot Wind; "I can't even touch the books you've read". 

Saw a really great ex-60s/70s star in a bar in Mallorca a few years ago, he seemed to be  making a very comfortable living doing covers and reprising his old hits.

At one point he said 'Maybe I should do a Bob Dylan track... Nah, I've met him a few times, I don't think I'll bother.'

?

"

Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray
South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio
Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, television
North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe

Rosenbergs, H-bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom
Brando, "The King and I", and "The Catcher in the Rye"
Eisenhower, Vaccine, England's got a new queen
Marciano, Liberace, Santayana, goodbye

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning, since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No, we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it

Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiev
Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc
Roy Cohn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, Dacron
Dien Bien Phu falls, "Rock Around the Clock"

Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn's got a winning team
Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland
Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Krushchev
Princess Grace, Peyton Place, Trouble in the Suez

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning, since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No, we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it

Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac
Sputnik, Chou En-Lai, "Bridge on the River Kwai"
Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle, California baseball
Starkweather homicide, children of thalidomide

Buddy Holly, Ben Hur, space monkey, mafia
Hula hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go
U2, Syngman Rhee, Payola and Kennedy
Chubby Checker, Psycho, Belgians in the Congo

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning, since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No, we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it

Hemingway, Eichmann, "Stranger in a Strange Land"
Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion
"Lawrence of Arabia", British Beatlemania
Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson
Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British politician sex
JFK – blown away, what else do I have to say?

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning, since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No, we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it

Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon back again
Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock
Begin, Reagan, Palestine, terror on the airline
Ayatollah's in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan

"Wheel of Fortune", Sally Ride, heavy metal suicide
Foreign debts, homeless vets, AIDS, crack, Bernie Goetz
Hypodermics on the shore, China's under martial law
Rock and roller, cola wars, I can't take it anymore

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning, since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
But when we are gone
It will still burn on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning, since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No, we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning, since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No, we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning, since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No, we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it

"

Are you sworn not to reveal his identity?

Maybe the fading star was in some sort of witness protection programme and you had to sign an NDA before you're allowed into the bar. 

I can't remember! It was a bar just outside Porto Pollenca, it was a couple of years ago, anybody know who it might be?

what were some of his old hits he was playing ?

This, to the tune of Dylan's Subterranean Homesick Blues;

I, man, am regal a German am I
Never odd or even
If I had a hi-fi
Madam, I'm Adam
Too hot to hoot
No lemons, no melon
Too bad I hid a boot
Lisa Bonet ate no basil
Warsaw was raw
Was it a car or a cat I saw?

Rise to vote, sir
Do geese see God?
"Do nine men interpret?" "Nine men," I nod
Rats live on no evil star
Won't lovers revolt now?
Race fast, safe car
Pa's a sap
Ma is as selfless as I am
May a moody baby doom a yam?

Ah, Satan sees Natasha
No devil lived on
Lonely Tylenol
Not a banana baton
No "x" in "Nixon"
O, stone, be not so
O Geronimo, no minor ego
"Naomi," I moan
"A Toyota's a Toyota"
A dog, a panic in a pagoda

Oh no! Don Ho!
Nurse, I spy gypsies run!
Senile felines
Now I see bees I won
UFO tofu
We panic in a pew
Oozy rat in a sanitary zoo
God! A red nugget! A fat egg under a dog!
Go hang a salami, I'm a lasagna hog

Who else but Weird Al Yankovic.

Pretty much all lyrics by Rodriguez but especially this line from "Like Janis"

Don't try to enchant me with your manner of dress

Cause a monkey in silk is a monkey no less

Paraphrasing 'The Toadeater' by Robert Burns
(Which is a wee bit ruder.)

"No more of your titled acquaintances boast,
Nor of the gay groups you have seen;
A crab louse is but a crab louse at last,
Tho' stack to the c~~t of a Queen."

https://www.nme.com/news/music/the-kunts-boris-johnson-is-a-f*cking-ct-is-i...