the most cleverest song written ?

[steve56]

we didnt start the fire,american pie,a whiter shade of pale.

[Deano!]

Since you want clever rather than outright fabulous, I would go with the late Ian Drurys' Hit me with Your Rythym Stick. And although its a bit shmaltzy, John Lennons' Imagine has still got something to say.

I didn't think "You put your left foot in. You put your left foot out..." was all that clever though. I'd leave that one out.

[diplodocus]

we didn't start the fire is just a list of events, not really clever IMO

i'd go for 'one' metallica and 'me and a gun' by Tori Amos, both tell stories that are pretty deep, quite impressive to put them to music

[Guilbert]

>John Lennons' Imagine has still got something to say.

Much of the idea for imagine came from Yoko Ono. She is/was
an artist, and produced an 'art' book with text like 'imagine you
are cloud' and so on.

John always said she should have got half the writing credit.

I always find it strange that on the video for Imagine John is shown
singing 'imagine no possessions' while being filmed in his huge house
with a rolls royce in the background.

I do not think he ever saw the irony of that.

Guilbert

[Pervert]

I'd argue that We Didn't Start The Fire is clever---a history lesson of 50 years told in tabloid headlines/doundbites. And what can be more terrifying that following Psycho with "Belgians in the Congo"?

Clever works or it doesn't. You can make a case for Morrisey and Marr, Elvis Costello, Paddy McAloon, Roddy Frame and dozens of others, but few of those are known to the public at large. Lyrically perfect are McCartney's For No One and Here, There And Everywhere. Michael Stipe's songs are usually so clever that no bugger understands them.

[steve56]

i put this topic on the fru site bob dylan has taken it over.

[Buckley]

Picky bit first: Either; The Cleverest...or....The Most Clever..

That aside
Stan Ridgway's: The Big Heat

Keep posting Steve.....at least inertia won't win

[jj]

If you mean musically and lyrically clever (or complicated), Bohemian Rhapsody would have to be near the top.
'Clever' could be applied to any 3-minutes' worth that nets its penner a fortune, or a marketing hype that does likewise, or to a song that has brililant and profound lyrics, so perhaps the q needs rephrasing......

[spider]

She said she'd like to bathe in milk
He said alright sweetheart
And when he finished work one night
He loaded up the cart
He said you wanted pasturised
Coz pasturised is best
She says Ernie I'll be happy
If it comes up to me chest

[Lizard]

Very near the top of the list...............

The rangers had a homecoming in Harlem late last night
And the Magic Rat drove his sleek machine over the Jersey state line
Barefoot girl sitting on the hood of a Dodge
Drinking warm beer in the soft summer rain
The Rat pulls into town rolls up his pants
Together they take a stab at romance and disappear down Flamingo Lane

Well the Maximum Lawman run down Flamingo chasing the Rat and the barefoot girl
And the kids round here look just like shadows always quiet, holding hands
From the churches to the jails tonight all is silence in the world
As we take our stand down in Jungleland

The midnight gang's assembled and picked a rendezvous for the night
They'll meet 'neath that giant Exxon sign that brings this fair city light
Man there's an opera out on the Turnpike
There's a ballet being fought out in the alley
Until the local cops, Cherry Tops, rips this holy night
The street's alive as secret debts are paid
Contacts made, they vanished unseen
Kids flash guitars just like switch-blades hustling for the record machine
The hungry and the hunted explode into rock'n'roll bands
That face off against each other out in the street down in Jungleland

In the parking lot the visionaries dress in the latest rage
Inside the backstreet girls are dancing to the records that the D.J. plays
Lonely-hearted lovers struggle in dark corners
Desperate as the night moves on, just a look and a whisper, and they're gone

Beneath the city two hearts beat
Soul engines running through a night so tender in a bedroom locked
In whispers of soft refusal and then surrender in the tunnels uptown
The Rat's own dream guns him down as shots echo down them hallways in the night
No one watches when the ambulance pulls away
Or as the girl shuts out the bedroom light

Outside the street's on fire in a real death waltz
Between flesh and what's fantasy and the poets down here
Don't write nothing at all, they just stand back and let it all be
And in the quick of the night they reach for their moment
And try to make an honest stand but they wind up wounded, not even dead
Tonight in Jungleland



Copyright ? Bruce Springsteen