Neil's best lyrics / your favourites...

[Sandy Shaw]

I thought I'd start a positive thread!

[dylanww73]

I'll make a start with pretty much all of Being Boring - just beautiful, in all senses.

[Sandy Shaw]

I'll make a start with pretty much all of Being Boring - just beautiful, in all senses.

Thanks,

Another from the same album from me: Some of Neil's best:

I’m always hoping you’ll be faithful
but you’re not I suppose
We’ve both given up smoking ’cause it’s fatal
so whose matches are those?

[le petit corbusier]

I remember reading King of Rome when Neil's book was new and thinking what a good lyricist he is.

[Too Many Shadows]

“I never dreamt that I would get to be the creature that I always meant to be. But I thought, in spite of dreams, you’d be sitting somewhere here with me”. Is this his best line about friendship, loss, and the passing of time?

[MikeyC]

Not the best but I’ve always loved this moment from
I get along:

The morning after the night before
I'd been alerted
To your lies
I phoned you up
The calls were all diverted

[markus]

You drift into the strangest dreams
Of youthful follies and changing teams
Admit you're wrong, oh, no, not yet
Then you wake up and remember that you can't forget
She's made you some kind of laughingstock
Because you dance to disco, and you don't like rock
She made fun of you and even in bed
Said she was gonna go and get herself a real man instead

[ea39]

I never thought that I would get to be
The creature that I always meant to be
But I thought in spite of dreams
You'd be sitting somewhere here with me

Something transcendentally beautiful about that, only matched in my opinion by a fellow Neil:

And when we die
Oh, will we be that disappointed or sad?
If Heaven doesn't exist, what will we have missed?
This life is the best we've ever had

[ea39]

“I never dreamt that I would get to be the creature that I always meant to be. But I thought, in spite of dreams, you’d be sitting somewhere here with me”. Is this his best line about friendship, loss, and the passing of time?

Yes.

[Andie]

All of The way it used to be, but especially the line “then & there I knew that I’d lost you”

[nonesuch]

This whole song, but especially the way the chorus progresses throughout:

If life is worth living
it’s got to be run
as a means of giving
not as a race to be won
Many roads will run through many lives
but somehow we’ll arrive
Many roads will run through many lives
but somewhere we’ll survive

[Ramzy]

There's probably better ones, and ones I like more if I think about it, but one that's so good it sometimes makes me gasp is:

Will I always need you?
Would you want me to?
Can you love me for good
the way you thought you could
or will spring bring rain and summer burn?
Will tears at last precede the turn
from summer warmth to sudden cold
as certainly as growing old?

As well as the beautiful, desperate sadness of it, I love that "as certainly as growing old" is (the way I read it) part of the question rather than the answer. In other words, the question is: "is it certain that...?" It's a formulation that suggests the narrator knows the answer, if he's honest, but hopes that maybe just this once he's wrong.

[Eleven]

There's a crisis rumoured in the school
The boys have cut their hair short to look cool
Examination time is drawing near
Disintegration of the football team
No one seems to want to play for real
in classroom, club or pool
Hey, headmaster, what you gonna do?
There's an invitation in the post
to a reading party on the coast
Pack your bags up, you old bibliophile
Get together with your friends who will
give you time to think and time to kill
with independent hosts
Hey, headmaster, aren't you gonna go?

[Too Many Shadows]

I love the opening to It Always Comes as a Surprise.

I can't be cool or nonchalant

It’s not brilliant in isolation. However, considering the song is one magnificent, luxurious, extended sigh, the languid delivery is perfect. Even nonchalant, ironically.

[Gabby]

I think Neil's "best" outweigh his "worst" by some considerable margin.

There's just so much good stuff, some already listed here.

Have at it everyone, but I can't even begin.