I'll start! for me, it's "Does anyone know/where the love of God goes/When the waves turn the minutes to hours" from The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, by Gordon Lightfoot.
And the old men march slowly, their bones stiff and sore;— Eric Bogle, “And the band played ‘Waltzing Matilda’”
They're tired old heroes from a forgotten war.
And the young people ask: “what are they marching for?”
And I ask myself the same question
...This is a song that as I think about it to quote I realize will now be stuck in my head, in all its bitter melancholy, for the rest of the evening. Alas!
This body is built on the ruins of all the people I have ever been
Wise men build their houses on rocks
While the rest of us settle for skeletons
-The Narcissist Cookbook from the album This is How We Get Better
I love these lines so much and always end up singing them with my whole chest. Just punches straight through to me each time.
You have taken our lives, our husbands, our wives,
And we're told it's your legal share.
But if blood be the price of your lawful wealth,
By God, we have bought it fair.
-"We Have Fed You All for a Thousand Years," Composer Unknown, published in the I.W.W. songbook 1909.
And it'll burn burn burn, like they did to the Anarchists
And it'll burn burn burn, like the histories they stole from us
One day patriotic thugs will dance to songs of justice
And give apologies for immeasurably acted perfection
- Against Me - Burn, though I could really choose any chunk of it.
I got boys in Secret Service that will puncture your surface
Accidentally kill your family on purpose
- Madshroom, War Machine
"No one in the world ever gets what they want, and that is beautiful. Everyone dies frustrated and sad, and that is beautiful." - Don't Let's Start, They Might Be Giants.
