The Best Rock Lyrics...ever

By a long shot these are the best rock lyrics ever. If they were not, they would have lost their mystery and potency upon the millionth listen. They can't wear out.

I woke up with a few of the lyrics in my mind and I rolled them around in my mouth while peeling myself out of bed, showering, making coffee, emptying the dishwasher, getting the kids ready, making 3 poached eggs with toast (split with my wife), and riding my bike in to work. Here are the lyrics.

Oh
Oooh yeah
Ah
Ziggy played guitar, jamming good with Weird and Gilly,
and the spiders from Mars. He played it left hand
But made it too far
Became the special man, then we were Ziggy's band

now Ziggy really sang, screwed up eyes and screwed down hairdo
Like some cat from Japan, aww he could lick 'em by smiling
He could leave 'em to hang
'came on so loaded man, well hung and snow white tan.

So where were the spiders, while the fly tried to break our balls
With just the beer light to guide us,
So we bitched about his fans and should we crush his sweet hands?

Oh
Ooh oh

Ziggy played for time, jiving us that we were voodoo
The kid was just crass, he was the nazz
With God given ass
aww He took it all too far but boy could he play guitar

Making love with his ego Ziggy sucked up into his mind
Like a leper messiah
When the kids had killed the man I had to break up the band.

Oh yeah
Ooooooo
Ziggy playyyyed guitaarrrrrr

The words that were on my mind and in my mouth this morning were initially "Ziggy played for time, jiving us that we were voodoo, the kids were just crass..." I don't know if it is supposed to be the 'kid was just crass' (referring to Ziggy) or the 'kids were just crass' referring to the fans. I like to say the kids were just crass.

The other really stingingly beautiful and godly stanza is this:

now Ziggy really sang, screwed up eyes and screwed down hairdo
Like some cat from Japan, aww he could lick 'em by smiling
He could leave 'em to hang
'came on so loaded man, well hung and snow white tan

I like how he says "now Ziggy really sang..." as if he's conversationally, poignantly recounting this man and how he sang. The rest of the words here would make Shakespeare's pancreas swell. They are so natural - it is in the parlance of drug talk but with such idiosyncratic style - it is as if many words have been boiled down so that just the essence remained. Then that essence was strained through a jive strainer to catch all the jive. Then only the jive part that was caught in the strainer actually was sung. All the "meaning" was composted and only the strange heightened feeling tone was conveyed.

These lyrics created a world and then sealed it shut but not completely. It was an organic membrane that can still be passed through but only with genuine surrender, the religious derangement of teenage soul thirst and/or Quaaludes and sparkling sweet wine. Many bands and artists sprung/spring from the fountain of this song.

Making love with his ego Ziggy sucked up into his mind

I took this advice to heart when I first heard this song in elementary school. It was some derranged advice but I understood it and tried to live this out more or less in Junior High and High School. I worked on making love with my ego and getting sucked up into my mind. That is the coolest advice you can give a young man. Dangerously vague and nonsensical advice but very cool.