Best song about modern times.

[Blazer]

We live in a world where the pace seems to be increasing every day. There are plenty of artists picking up on that. Let's put down the songs that discribe modern day everyday life the best.


"57 Channels (And Nothin' On)" - Bruce Springsteen

I bought a bourgeois house in the Hollywood hills
With a truckload of hundred thousand dollar bills
Man came by to hook up my cable TV
We settled in for the night my baby and me
We switched 'round and 'round 'til half-past dawn
There was fifty-seven channels and nothin' on

Well now home entertainment was my baby's wish
So I hopped into town for a satellite dish
I tied it to the top of my Japanese car
I came home and I pointed it out into the stars
A message came back from the great beyond
There's fifty-seven channels and nothin' on

Well we might'a made some friends with some billionaires
We might'a got all nice and friendly
If we'd made it upstairs
All I got was a note that said "Bye-bye John
Our love is fifty-seven channels and nothin' on"

So I bought a .44 magnum it was solid steel cast
And in the blessed name of Elvis well I just let it blast
'Til my TV lay in pieces there at my feet
And they busted me for disturbin' the almighty peace
Judge said "What you got in your defense son?"
"Fifty-seven channels and nothin' on"

I can see by your eyes friend you're just about gone
Fifty-seven channels and nothin' on...

[genelovesjez]

I'm not sure Bruce Springsteen watching TV reflects modern times to me, but here's something that connected with my experiences of modern times:

Weak Become Heroes by The Streets

Turn left up the street
Nothing but grey concrete and dead beats
Grab something to eat
Maccy D's or KFC
Only one choice in the city
Done voicing my pity, now let's get to the nitty gritty
Tune reminds me of my first E
Polite, unique, still sixteen and feelin horny
Point to the sky, feel free
A sea of people all equal, smiles in front and behind me
Swim in the deep blue sea, cornfields sway lazily
All smiles all easy, where you from what you on and what's your story?
Mesmerizing tones risin pianos this is my zone so stop clonin
Pick paper scissors or stone
'Cause me and you are same, I've known you all my life I don't know your name
The names European Bob, sorted, anyway
Gonna have dance now see you later, pleased to meet you
Likewise, a pleasure

We were just standin there minding our own
And it went on and on
We all smile we all sing
The weak become heroes then the stars align
We all sing we all sing all sing

We were just standin there minding our own
And it went on and on
We all smile we all sing
The weak become heroes then the stars align
We all sing we all sing all sing

The night slowly fades and goes slow motion
All the commotion becomes floatin emotions
Same piano loops over
Arms wave eyes roll back and jaws fall open
I see in soft focus
Chattin to this bloke in the toilets
Dizzy new heights blinded by the lights
These people are for life, it's all back to his place at the end of the night
Yo, they could settle wars with this
If only they will, imagine the worlds leaders on pills, then imagine the morning after
Wars causing disaster, don't talk to me I don't know ya
But this ain't tomorrow and for now I still love ya
Hours fly over, sail round diamonds and pearls, never seen so many fit girls
Discover new worlds, look at my watch can't focus
Last two hours I lost, every move fills me with lust
All of life's problems I just shake off
Mad little events happen, things map out and a few blue maddens alight the toilets
Big beefy bouncers out to reveal us, geezers on e's and first timers, kids on whizz, darlings on Charlie
They've all come together for this party
All races, many faces from places you never heard of
Where you from, what's your name and what you on?
Sing to the words flex to the fat ones
The tribal drums, the sun's risin' we all smile we all sing

We were just standin there minding our own
And it went on and on
We all smile we all sing
The weak become heroes then the stars align
We all sing we all sing all sing

We were just standin there minding our own
And it went on and on
We all smile we all sing
The weak become heroes then the stars align
We all sing we all sing all sing

Then the girl in the cafe taps me on the shoulder
I realize five years went by and I'm older
Memories smoulder, winter's colder
But that same piano loops over and over and over
The road shines and the rain washes away
The same Chinese takeaway selling **** in a tray
It's dark all round I walk down, same sight same sounds new beats though
Solid concrete under my feet
No surprises no treats, the world stands still as my mind sloshes round the washing up bowl in my crown
My life's been up and down since i walked from that crowd

We were just standin there minding our own
And it went on and on
We all smile we all sing
The weak become heroes then the stars align
We all sing we all sing all sing

We were just standin there mindin our own
And it went on and on
We all smile we all sing
The weak become heroes then the stars align
We all sing we all sing all sing

Out of respect to Johnnie Walker, Paul Oakenfold,
Nikki Hollaway, Danni Rampling
And all the people who gave us these times
And to the government I stick my middle finger up
With regards to the criminal justice bill
For all the heroes an' that along the way

The weak become heroes then the stars align
We all sing we all sing all sing

The weak become heroes then the stars align
We all sing we all sing all sing

We were just standin there minding our own
And it went on and on
We all smile we all sing
The weak become heroes then the stars align
We all sing we all sing all sing

[kamera1133]

The Hand that Feeds - Nine Inch Nails


You're keeping in step
In the line
Got your chin held high and you feel just fine
Because you do
What you're told
But inside your heart it is black and it's hollow and it's cold

Just how deep do you believe?
Will you bite the hand that feeds?
Will you chew until it bleeds?
Can you get up off your knees?
Are you brave enough to see?
Do you want to change it?

What if this whole crusade's
A charade
And behind it all there's a price to be paid
For the blood
On which we dine
Justified in the name of the holy and the divine

Just how deep do you believe?
Will you bite the hand that feeds?
Will you chew until it bleeds?
Can you get up off your knees?
Are you brave enough to see?
Do you want to change it?

So naive
I keep holding on to what I want to believe
I can see
But I keep holding on and on and on and on

Will you bite the hand that feeds you?
Will you stay down on your knees?

[maestrovert]

We Didn't Start the Fire
Billy Joel hit (unsure about actual writer's credits etc)

[jz63]

What's So Funny About Peace Love and Understanding
or
A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall

[raisindot]

I still think "Shangri-la" by the Kinks captures the vacuity of modern suburban life perfectly, even 30 years later it was written [lyrics truncated a bit]:

Now you have found your paradise
Here's your kingdom to command
You can go outside and polish your car
Or sit by the fire in your Shangri-la...

Put on your slippers and sit by the fire
You've reached your top and you just can't get any higher
You're in your place and you know where you are
In your Shangrila...



The little man who gets the train
Got a mortgage hanging over his head
But he's too scared to complain
'Cos he's conditioned that way
Time goes by and he pays off his debts
Got a TV set and a radio...
For seven shillings a week

And all the houses in the street have got a name
'Cos all the houses in the street they look the same
Same chimney pots, same little cars, same window panes
The neighbors call to tell you things that you should know
They say their lines, they drink their tea, and then they go
They tell your business in another Shangri-la
The gas bills and the water rates, and payments on the car
Too scared to think about how insecure you are ...

One of the saddest songs ever written...

Jeff in Boston

[guit145]

This one speaks volumes to me:

The Little Man
-Alan Jackson

I remember walkin’ round the court square sidewalk
Lookin' in windows at things I couldn't want
There's Johnson's Hardware and Morgan’s Jewelry
And the ol' Lee King's Apothecary
They we’re the little man, The little man

I go back now and the stores are all empty
Except for an old coke sign dated 1950
Boarded up like they never existed
Or renovated and called historic districts
There goes the little man, There goes the little man

Chorus:
Now the court square's just a set of streets
That the people go round but they seldom think
Bout the little man that built this town
Before the big money shut em down
And killed the little man, Oh the little man

He pumped your gas and he cleaned your glass
And one cold rainy night he fixed your flat
The new stores came where you do it yourself
You buy a lotto ticket and food off the shelf
Forget about the little man, Forget about that little man

He hung on there for a few more years
But he couldn't sell slurpees, and he wouldn't sell beer
Now the bank rents the station to a man down the road
And they sell velvet Elvis and second-hand clothes
There goes little man, There goes another little man

Now the stores are lined up in a concrete strip
You can buy the world with just one trip
And save a penny cause it's jumbo size
They don't even realize
They'er killin' the little man

It wasn't long when I was a child
An old black man came with his mule and his plow
He broke the ground where we grew our garden
Back before we'd all forgot
About the little man
Long live the little man
God bless the little man

[Doug 54]

"Helpless Dancer" -- The Who

Off of Quadrophenia

[David Barnett]

20th Century Man:

This is the age of machinery,
A mechanical nightmare,
The wonderful world of technology,
Napalm hydrogen bombs biological warfare,
This is the twentieth century,
But too much aggravation
It's the age of insanity,
What has become of the green pleasant fields of Jerusalem.
Ain't got no ambition, I'm just disillusioned
I'm a twentieth century man but I don't wanna be here.
My mama said she can't understand me
She can't see my motivation
Just give me some security,
I'm a paranoid schizoid product of the twentieth century.
You keep all your smart modern writers
Give me William Shakespeare
You keep all your smart modern painters
I'll take Rembrandt, Titian, Da Vinci and Gainsborough,
Girl we gotta get out of here
We gotta find a solution
I'm a twentieth century man but I don't want to die here.
I was born in a welfare state
Ruled by bureaucracy
Controlled by civil servants
And people dressed in grey
Got no privacy got no liberty
Cos the twentieth century people
Took it all away from me.
Don't wanna get myself shot down
By some trigger happy policeman,
Gotta keep a hold on my sanity
I'm a twentieth century man but I don't wanna die here.
My mama says she can't understand me
She can't see my motivation
Ain't got no security,
I'm a twentieth century man but I don't wanna be here.
This is the twentieth century
But too much aggravation
This is the edge of insanity
I'm a twentieth century man but I don't wanna be here.

[Doug 54]

Who--- "Helpless Dancer"

When a man is running from his boss
Who holds a gun that fires 'cost'
And people die from being cold
Or left alone because they're old

And bombs are dropped on fighting cats
And children's dreams are run with rats
If you complain you disappear
Just like the lesbians and queers

No one can love without the grace
Of some unseen and distant face
And you get beaten up by blacks
Who though they work still got the sack

And when your soul tells you to hide
Your very right to die denied
And in the battle on the streets
You fight computers and receipts

And when a man is trying to change
But only causes further pain
You realize that all along
Something in us going wrong--

You stop dancing.

[JoeAArthur]

Whinest bunch of lyrics I ever read.

Heck, I got 139 some odd channels with nothing on, but I don't write whiny songs about it.

Suck it up, move on, do something useful.

[genelovesjez]

Originally Posted by JoeAArthur

Whinest bunch of lyrics I ever read.

Heck, I got 139 some odd channels with nothing on, but I don't write whiny songs about it.

Suck it up, move on, do something useful.

I agree with you, except for the song I submitted.

Yes, the old "isn't technology awful" thing has pretty much run its artistic course (a long time ago, I might add).

[dean]

Celebrity - Brad Paisley


Someday I'm gonna be famous, do I have talent, well no
These days you don't really need it thanks to reality shows
Can't wait to date a supermodel, can't wait to sue my dad
Can't wait to wreck a Ferrari on my way to rehab

[1st Chorus]
'Cause when you're a celebrity
It's adios reality
You can act just like a fool
People think you're cool
Just 'cause you're on TV
I can throw a major fit
When my latte isn't just how I like it
When they say I've gone insane
I'll blame it on the fame
And the pressures that go with
Being a celebrity

I'll get to cry to Barbara Walters when things don't go my way
And I'll get community service no matter which law I break
I'll make the supermarket tabloids, they'll write some awful stuff
But the more they run my name down the more my price goes up

[2nd Chorus]
'Cause when you're a celebrity
It's adios reality
No matter what you do
People think you're cool
Just 'cause you're on TV
I can fall in and out of love
Have marriages that barely last a month
When they go down the drain
I'll blame it on the fame
And say it's just so tough
Being a celebrity

[Bridge]
So let's hitch up the wagons and head out west
To the land of the fun and the sun
We'll be real world bachelor jackass millionaires
Hey hey, Hollywood, here we come

[3rd Chorus]
'Cause when you're a celebrity
It's adios reality
No matter what you do
People think you're cool
Just 'cause you're on TV
Being a celebrity
Yeah celebrity

[ye olde fretmonkey]

not just 'modern' ones


Don't Look Now (It Ain't You Or Me)
John Fogerty


Who will take the coal from the mine?
Who will take the salt from the earth?
Who'll take a leaf and grow it to a tree?
Don't Look Now, it ain't you or me.

Who will work the field with his hands?
Who will put his back to the plough?
Who'll take the mountain and give it to the sea?
Don't Look Now, it ain't you or me.

CHORUS:
Don't Look Now, someone's done your starvin';
Don't Look Now, someone's done your prayin' too.

Who will make the shoes for your feet?
Who will make the clothes that you wear?
Who'll take the promise that you don't have to keep?
Don't Look Now, it ain't you or me.

CHORUS

Who will take the coal from the mines?
Who will take the salt from the earth?
Who'll take the promise that you don't have to keep?
Don't Look Now, it ain't you or me.

[SteveY]

Concrete creepin' in the garden,
Rooting up another tree.
Need this space to plant more people,
Gotta change the scenery.

Eye to eye and hand to hand
Hard to find a place to stand
Just another grain of sand
Woa whoa whoa

The world is bulging at the seams
Stumbling on each other's dreams...

-Jake Holmes (also wrote "Dazed and Confused," which Zep had a hit with)

[SteveY]

And my personal favorite:

"I Ain't Drunk. Jus' Drinkin'!"

[Dana]

Originally Posted by JoeAArthur

Suck it up, move on, do something useful.

:D

[Durtdog]

I try to get you on the phone and I get stuck on hold
I guess you keep getting sidetracked
I've been faxing you love notes all day long
But you don't ever fax me back
I know you got your schedule and your keeping it tight
You got something going morning noon and night
But i got something here I think your gonna like
Honey can you squeeze me in

[tschommer]

The lyrics to the Don Henley song Dirty Laundry are classic. The words he speaks are more true now than they were when he wrote them. The same is true for the Black Sabbath song War Pigs.

[lobotomyactivist]

I think "Boy in the Bubble", the opener to Paul Simon's Graceland album, is the most cohesive and lyrically important song of this sort...

It was a slow day
And the sun was beating
On the soldiers by the side of the road
There was a bright light
A shattering of shop windows
The bomb in the baby carriage
Was wired to the radio
These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is the long distance call
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
The way we look to us all
The way we look to a distant constellation
That’s dying in a corner of the sky
These are the days of miracle and wonder
And don’t cry baby, don’t cry
Don’t cry

It was a dry wind
And it swept across the desert
And it curled into the circle of birth
And the dead sand
Falling on the children
The mothers and the fathers
And the automatic earth
These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is the long distance call
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
The way we look to us all
The way we look to a distant constellation
That’s dying in a corner of the sky
These are the days of miracle and wonder
And don’t cry baby, don’t cry
Don’t cry

It’s a turn-around jump shot
It’s everybody jump start
It’s every generation throws a hero up the pop charts
Medicine is magical and magical is art
The boy in the bubble
And the baby with the baboon heart

And I believe
These are the days of lasers in the jungle
Lasers in the jungle somewhere
Staccato signals of constant information
A loose affiliation of millionaires
And billionaires and baby
These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is the long distance call
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
The way we look to us all
The way we look to a distant constellation
That’s dying in a corner of the sky
These are the days of miracle and wonder
And don’t cry baby, don’t cry
Don’t cry

[jed]

Broke into you car last night
Took your stereo
Now you say you don’t know why
You live there anymore
The garage man didn’t see a thing
So I guess it was an inside job
You made a reservation
For a table for three
Said you had to wait
Someone must’ve bribed the maitre d
The boss got mad
And blamed it on you
The food was bad
The deal fell through

Out here in the middle
You can park on the street
Step up to the counter
Nearly always get a seat
Nobody steals
Nobody cheats
Wish you were here my love
Wish you were here my love


Also,
"Monster Truck" by Ramsey Midwood
"Middle of the Road" by Pretenders
several oldies by John Prine are still relevant.

[Fuzzyhead]

I'm delightet that Bruce got mentioned first. Still, not one of my favourites of his there....

I think this one's pretty good:

He got the latest software
He got the latest hardeware too
He got the latest gizmo
Up in his room
He's feeling so connected
But he don't talk to a soul
He got a stash of Twinkies
Up in his room

Nobody here anymore
Nobody mindin' the store
They've all gone
To another dimension
Nobody here anymore

She comin' 'round the corner
Ah in a SUV
She got the latest cell phone
Up in her ear
I'm running 'gainst the traffic
But she don't see me
One hand on the cell phone
One hand on the mirror

Nobody here anymore
Nobody mindin' the store
They've all gone
To another dimension
Nobody here anymore


He's sittin' back of the classroom
A million miles away
He's listenin' to the rock star on a CD
Up front the old teacher
She's too tired to snag his mind
He's lookin' at the future, she's looking way behind

Nobody here anymore
Nobody mindin' the store
They've all gone
To another dimension
Nobody here anymore

- John Fogerty (from his latest album; with Mark Knopfler on lead guitar!)