The Year In Zingers: DimSim's Favourite Lyrics Of 2012
A selection of my favourite lyrics of the year, ranked. Some are single lines, others are entire stanzas, and a few are even the complete lyrics to a song. Some are thematically brilliant, some are profoundly evocative and some are just aurally brilliant (a handful are all three). Enjoy and check out some of the bands/records/songs you haven't heard yet. |
| 75 |  | GOOD Music
Cruel Summer
Asians get it from behind while they cleanin' their wok
- "New God Flow" |
| 74 | | Earl Sweatshirt
Chum
We were the pottymouth posse crash the party and dip / with all belongings then toss 'em out to the audience
- "Chum" |
| 73 |  | Relations
Summits
To everyone I've ever loved / I'm sorry for all the things I've done / and maybe it'd be best if you could forget me
- "Faults" |
| 72 |  | Statuette
Losing Roots
But I just don't care / addicted to careless things / addicted to careless people / the damage is done / I hung my heart / can't you see?
- "Everything Went Black" |
| 71 |  | Death Grips
The Money Store
Let me off, screeching halt / concussion blinding / not my fault / ankles tied to cinder blocks
- "The Fever (Aye Aye)" |
| 70 |  | Dot Hacker
Inhibition
Control myself now / will be your famous last words
- "Order/Disorder" |
| 69 |  | Yellowcard
Southern Air
You would be watching "Star Wars" / with your PJ's on / and you would have / all the love in my heart / yeah, you would have / all the love in my heart
- "Ten" |
| 68 | | Brendan Kelly and the Wandering Birds
I'd Rather Die Than Live Forever
And the last sound that I'll ever know is my heart exploding / "whoa-whoa-whoa, whoa-no" / soon, I'll be nothing but these bones
- "Suffer the Children, Come Unto Me" |
| 67 |  | Circa Survive
Violent Waves
God, money, and women will bring you down / always searching for something that's not been found
- "Phantasmagoria" |
| 66 |  | I Kill Giants
We Can Live in the Exact Same Place
He said something kind, but I couldn't pay attention / I'm not alright, but that's okay. I'll be fine, just not today / I'll stay inside my room, my pillow's my own best friend / I'm not alright, but that's okay. I'll be fine, just not today
- "Sleep Instead of Life" |
| 65 |  | The Saddest Landscape
After the Lights
Cherry blossoms line the streets calling on all those that love us / I'll show you what it means to feel haunted / what it means to never be truly alone
- "The Urge for Permanence" |
| 64 |  | The Devin Townsend Project
Epicloud
Now I see the way I'm headed / down and down, the youth descended / hell is here, but it hath no fury / like this woman still, there is no worry / I'm fine
- "Kingdom" |
| 63 |  | Alaska/Oranges
The Summer I Joined the Harlem Globetrotters Split
I'll be there in the morning / "I'm sorry, sir, you've missed your cue / he left this note for you / says he'll return in the morning / seems he's missed you too / had something to do."
- Alaska, "Spaceballs 2: The Search for More Money" |
| 62 |  | Japandroids
Celebration Rock
Remember when we had them all on the run / and the night we saw the midnight sun / remember saying things like, "We'll sleep when we're dead." / and thinking this feeling was never going to end
- "Younger Us" |
| 61 |  | The Mars Volta
Noctourniquet
Nature red in tooth and claw / I haven't seemed to keep my powder dry / I always seem to hear it in your laughter
- "Dyslexicon" |
| 60 |  | Love American
Disquiet
Our empty faith leads us to such empty depths of our emotions / breathe. Peace. / lost in maya sewn shut to our eyes we corrupt the seed of our hearts/ exhale, man
- "All That is Lost in That Which is Found" |
| 59 |  | The Mountain Goats
Transcendental Youth
Sad and angry, can't learn how to behave / still won't know how in the darkness of the grave / long black night, morning frost / I'm still here, but all is lost
- "Cry for Judas" |
| 58 |  | Propagandhi
Failed States
If everything is bland and unambiguous, maybe they can understand how they fit into this place
- "Cognitive Suicide" |
| 57 | | Kid/Astro
Disaster Sounds
Just howl at the moon / there was never a plan / 'cause everyone knows something I don't
- "Snowing" |
| 56 | | The Mars Volta
Noctourniquet
I've been hanging wreaths of cancer / on every door where children sing
- "Zed and Two Naughts" |
| 55 | | Empire! Empire! (I was a lonely estate) / Rika
Split
This is how my heart broke / I couldn't do a damn thing but watch
- Empire! Empire! (I was a lonely estate), "It's a fate we can't escape. Someday we will all pass away." |
| 54 |  | Deftones
Koi No Yokan
I'd like you to take me apart from the inside / then spit through the cycle right to the end
- "Tempest" |
| 53 |  | Titus Andronicus
Local Business
I grew up on one side of the river / I was a disturbed dangerous drifter / moved over to the other side of the river / now I'm a drop in a deluge of hipsters
- "In a Big City" |
| 52 |  | Basement
Colourmeinkindness
The stars and me were speaking / they told me you were leaving / if Jupiter is moving / then maybe you should stay
- "Wish" |
| 51 |  | Old Gray
Everything I Let Go & The Things I Refuse To
I have been lost and faded into this place, waking only to find it still surrounds me, blotting out the pain but with it, the comfort
- "359 Pine" |
| 50 |  | Foxes and Iselia
Split
And now this place is uninviting / as the darkness brings the cold / now frozen numb within you / but still your arms are so inspiring / that warmth I once felt / now my nest / for you to rest inside me
- Foxes, "Hollow Nest" |
| 49 |  | Trap Her Keep Her
Fake Record
So now my back's against the wall / I always break before I fall / just a taste of a better escape that I couldn't muster / and all my words have disappeared, this is the day I always feared: the day the pen could only cross words out / and now my life has disappeared / this is the day I always feared / this is the day where my mouth crossed out / I will not fade away / I will not fade away
- "II" |
| 48 |  | Hot Water Music
Exister
Oh, I for one may not shy / away from the fact that I'm sick/ and too tired to stand this/ it all seems contagious
- "State of Grace" |
| 47 | | Au Revoir
In the Key of Night
Everything dies, that's a fact / everything that dies, never comes back
- "4:34 pm" |
| 46 | | The Mountain Goats
Transcendental Youth
Plug a night light in / leave the porch light on / because the small dark corners breathe like heavy animals / live like an outlaw / clutching gold coins in his claw
- "Night Light" |
| 45 |  | OFWGKTA
The OF Tape Vol. 2
Drive around with your friends / smoke a gram of that haze / bro, easy on the ounce, that's a lot for a day / but just enough for a week, my nigga what can I say?
- "Oldie" |
| 44 |  | Regina Spektor
What We Saw from the Cheap Seats
She's been saying I'll have a baby / when he'll grow up he become a killer and kill everybody
- "Oh Marcello" |
| 43 |  | Anberlin
Vital
You are the king of an island of one / alone in a world that lost its only black sun / you are the king of an island of one / a tyrant soon to come undone / all hail the king
- "Little Tyrants" |
| 42 |  | Jeff Rosenstock
I Look Like Shit
I saw an old lady one time on Astor Place / steal an old man's backpack and then punch him in the face / me and my neighbours screamed nothing
- "Amen" |
| 41 |  | Classics of Love
Classics of Love
Everyone likes power / I wish I had some / but you would kill the prophets for your place in the sun / now it's up to us you, well healed / and all you care about it what it yields / who's telling lies in the corners? / laughing while the house burns down?
- "Castle in the Sky" |
| 40 |  | Between the Buried and Me
The Parallax II: Future Sequence
To see one's self is hard to explain / last night was the first notion of this / once again, real life and dreams are whirling amongst one another
- "Extremophile Elite" |
| 39 |  | The Smith Street Band
Sunshine and Technology
I see people that I love melting into mortgages / and low interest bank loans / income tax percentages / and it's all so fucking meaningless
- "I Want Friends" |
| 38 |  | The Menzingers
On the Impossible Past
You'll carve your name into the Paupack cliffs just to read 'em when you get old enough to know that happiness is just a moment
- "Gates" |
| 37 | | Transit
Listen & Forgive
And isn't it amazing in this world / that anyone could love / anyone at all?
- "Long Lost Friends" |
| 36 | | Frank Ocean
Blue Whale
Stuck in the sky, first time upside down, on the whole ride
- "Blue Whale" |
| 35 |  | Converge
All We Love We Leave Behind
You shook me from my sleep / that willed me to die / a final goodbye
- "All We Love We Leave Behind" |
| 34 |  | Crosses
EP II
The view from the trails from the vapors / that we burn from a kiss / heats the stars that we strangle / and it's proof we exist
- "Frontier" |
| 33 |  | Departures
Teenage Haze
My teenage haze, spent under these dim lights / they came and went too fucking fast / the tears dry too quickly / and the laughs all die away / am I the only one left here?
- "The Home Stretch" |
| 32 |  | The Early November
In Currents
Tonight is a moment I will carve in the back yard / and try to regrow it, with the seeds set in concrete
- "In Currents" |
| 31 | | The Wonder Years / Stay Ahead of the Weather
Punk is Dead. Get a Job.
The graffiti over 309 used to say things that I could romanticize / like "I'll always love you Katie" or "Bernard Herman lives" or maybe "loves"? / I could never quite decipher or decide / but now the overpass says things like "DRAT" / and I'm not sure what to make of it
- The Wonder Years, "Me vs. the Highway" |
| 30 |  | Code Orange Kids
Love is Love // Return to Dust
If it looks dead and it smells dead... / it's probably fucking dead
- "Choices (Love is Love)" |
| 29 |  | Cursive
I Am Gemini
I've done deeds I could never repeat (skeletons) / past mistakes climbing up from their graves (skeletons) / all of our sins are rising again like skeletons
- "Twin Dragon/Hello Skeleton" |
| 28 |  | Tigers on Trains
Foundry
I unwrapped the trenchant truth / and folded away my youth / now nothing more than change / held onto just in case
- "There is No Prize" |
| 27 |  | mewithoutYou
Ten Stories
Topiary Tiger, once burned bright / save your tales of gnostic sight / and take heed on this (most) auspicious night! / Topiary Tiger, once burned bright
- "February 1878" |
| 26 |  | Grimes
Visions
My heart will never be and never see and never know / oh heart ,and then it falls and then I fall and then I know
- "Genesis" |
| 25 |  | Hop Along
Get Disowned
A stranger in India / doing okay so far / I'm just waiting on the feathers and tar / you are the only one / you are
- "Tibetan Pop Stars" |
| 24 |  | State Faults
Desolate Peaks
We said goodbye to golden summers / the tide was high, our dreams went under / holding on to our last breath we walked away / I am left in the wake of this epiphany / that I must walk alone, that I am all alone / that my heart's a haunted home / and it's all I've ever known
- "Sleepwalker" |
| 23 |  | Mount Eerie
Ocean Roar
Pale lights from other islands / slow flashing / through blue dusk / across the water / seeing island shapes / "who is there?" I call / a small yelp on the wind / and then / more roaring
- "Pale Lights" |
| 22 | | The Devin Townsend Project
Epicloud
We know that it's only human / we know that it's only love / we know that it's far too close to home / to see it now / love all we can before / we learn all we came for / learn all we can before / the road leads to home
- "Grace" |
| 21 |  | Frank Ocean
Channel Orange
Chandeliers inside the pyramid, tremble / from the force / cymbals crash inside the pyramid, voices fill up the halls
- "Pyramids" |
| 20 |  | Joyce Manor
Of All Things I Will Soon Grow Tired
To one day miraculously be talkative and likable / to wake up as someone else, someone I know is inside of me / just waiting to be put to use by something much more sharp than us / they pry out every fucking piece and still they're coming around again
- "I'm Always Tired" |
| 19 |  | Loma Prieta
I.V.
Deliver ghosts to the crowd / the distant and sequestered emerge again / immorality / a small trace in half-light a dull relic / locked grooves emerge again / I materialize / a satire...
- "Diamond Tooth" |
| 18 | | Joyce Manor
Of All Things I Will Soon Grow Tired
Pour out on radio flyer color of fucked up and groovy
- "If I Needed You There" |
| 17 |  | Tenacious D
Rize of the Fenix
I mean, what? Yeah, we're gonna be, yeah, we're really good. We're like almost as good as Arcade Fire. Fuck that. We gotta leave those fuckers in the dust!
- "Classical Teacher" |
| 16 | | Love American
Disquiet
And as the sun broke at dawn there I lay at the last with your 30 pieces of silver clutched to my chest
- "Sink Your Teeth" |
| 15 |  | Animal Collective
Centipede Hz
You find something you believe that you should do / and sometimes it won't come so easy / but sometimes you've gotta go get mad
- "Today's Supernatural" |
| 14 |  | Say Anything
Anarchy, My Dear
I need a song meant to rally the devils / who dance on fields of brilliant treble
- "Burn a Miracle" |
| 13 |  | Tau Tau
OneWorld Star
In the end, we all are moths attracted to a flame / and in the end we're brought together and look exactly the same
- "Moths" |
| 12 | | State Faults
Desolate Peaks
Maybe I'm a wolf seeking blood in shepherd's skin / a lonely heart that breaks when the sky caves in / alone like the eyes of a wolf whose lost its pack / alone like the eyes of a wolf
- "Vespers" |
| 11 |  | Mount Eerie
Clear Moon
What is left of the dissipating dream world I made? / midday, in the light, quiet echoes of a freezing moon / distant bell, cold and clear
- "Lone Bell" |
| 10 | | Cursive
I Am Gemini
Out cold, run over by the boulder of Sisyphus
- "Double Dead" |
| 9 |  | The Gaslight Anthem
Handwritten
Hey hey, turn the record over / hey hey, and I'll see you on the flip-side / there you go, turn the key and engine over / let her go, let somebody else lay at her feet.
- "45" |
| 8 |  | Every Time I Die
Ex Lives
Against this / even boys fight violently in vain / what chance could we have stood? / we're the last of the lost / but now we're the first of the fashionably late / I refuse to be the only man / put to rest in a mass grave
- "Underwater Bimbos from Outer Space" |
| 7 | | Old Gray
Everything I Let Go & The Things I Refuse To
And my words collapsed like the lung you've overused
- "Winter '11" |
| 6 | | The Tallest Man on Earth
There's No Leaving Now
With your quiet devotion / to be lost like your child again / claim forever is a close and honest friend
To see through a fearless eye / and know that danger finally goes away / still you're trying / but there's no leaving now
- "There's No Leaving Now" |
| 5 | | Japandroids
Celebration Rock
So we down our drinks in a funnel of friends / and we burn our blends right down to the end / we don't cry for those nights to arrive / we yell like hell to the heavens
- "The Nights of Wine and Roses" |
| 4 |  | Minus the Bear
Infinity Overhead
Two become one / cacophony of a car crash / steel and blood, and it's over with the silence
- "Steel and Blood" |
| 3 |  | teen suicide
I will be my own hell because there...
I was sixteen / we drove around in your car / you were doing coke / and I said I never got a taste for it / I let something else kill my friends and my body
- "have you been eating that sandwich again" |
| 2 |  | Fucked Up
Year of the Tiger
Between the earth and the sun / a struggle on both sides / the tiger lives afraid as the tiger dies / chasing shadows across the sky / streaks of light he can't outrun / cut through the darkness like the shots from a hunter's gun
- "Year of the Tiger" |
| 1 | | The Menzingers
On the Impossible Past
I will fuck this up / I fucking know it
- "The Obituaries" |
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