Lyrics with double entendres, metaphors, imagery & puns that tickle your fancy

There are I believe quite a few blues tunes that mention being a woman's "back-door man," which can either mean he goes in the back door as the woman's husband leaves through the front or it can mean...something else.

 

no it is 'some of them used'; and the answer is "cause she nasty!'

i don't believe you. you're a liar!

 

Life is sad
Life is a bust
All ya can do is do what you must, Duane

 

If I can give an example that is a pun instead of a double entendre (the OP did ask for more than just dirty lyrics, after all!)
(I posted this recently in a thread about Van Dyke Parks' Song Cycle)
My favorite pun ever, from the song "Palm Desert":
Dreams are still born in Hollywood

 

"This is the worst trip I've ever been on"

 

Hoodoo Gurus - "Son-of-a-Gun" (The character in the song is in prison for murder)

I'm sick of the everyday grind
And in a world without women's about to make me go blind.

 

"Look I gotta go,..I'm running out of change
There's a lot of things...if I could, I'd re-arrange"

I love the double on 'change' - the vocal sounds already like it's coming down a pay-phone line and hence 'change' fits perfectly. But it's also about running out of the need to change oneself & laments his regrets at what he's not changed.

 

Smokey is a fine lyricist, but EC is the all time great at puns and witticism.

 

I agree 100%. Here's a few from the King of America album:
"She said she was working for the ABC News,
It was as much of the alphabet as she knew how to use." from "Brilliant Mistake."

And the one that always comes to my mind when I think of EC and his wordplay:
"The floors are there to walk over, the walls are there to climb." from "Our Little Angel."

I love Dylan and I have probably quoted him more than any other songwriter, but Costello is a close second. I am reading his autobiography and it is full of this type of writing as well - clever and very descriptive. The man is a genius when it comes to the English language.

 

It was one of my favourite autobios, just because of what you say. My fave? Chronicles Volume 1, of course!

 

Sorry if this has been noted already, but "Big 10 Inch" was not an Aerosmith original

Bull Moose Jackson - Big Ten Inch

 

Lots of great John Prine lyrics come to mind --

For I knew that topless lady
Had something up her sleeve ("Spanish Pipedream")

She's a shut-in without a home ("Come Back to Us Barbara Lewis Hare Krishna Beauregard")

 

Because several Christmas classics were mentioned, I present Ella Fitzgerald's "Santa Claus Got Stuck (In My Chimney)," which was released in the fall of 1950 on the Decca label. According to legend, she refused to allow the song to be reissued, and thus it remained mostly hidden until after she died in 1996, when she no longer had veto power.

 

Tom Lehrer, among many other things, was a master of clever wordplay.

From "Whatever Became of Hubert?"

As someone once remarked to Schubert,
"Take me to your Lieder!"

From "The Folk Song Army," which he played, appropriately, on an "88-string guitar":

The tune don't have to be clever
And it don't matter if you put a couple o' extra syllables into a line
It sounds more ethnic if it ain't good English
And it don't even gotta rhyme (excuse me, "Rhine")

Then there's "I Hold Your Hand in Mine," which is even more literal than you'd think by the title:

I hold your hand in mine, dear,
I press it to my lips.
I take a healthy bite
From your dainty fingertips.
My joy would be complete, dear,
If you were only here,
But still I keep your hand
As a precious souvenir.
The night you died I cut it off.
I really don't know why.
For now each time I kiss it
I get bloodstains on my tie.
I'm sorry now I killed you,
For our love was something fine,
And till they come to get me
I shall hold your hand in mine.

 

I am (thinking about it). I don't get it. Is Lola the person voicing the lyric?

 

Ferryboat Bill wont you please come home. Your wife has married a midget's son. And that's the short and long it it. That's the short and long of it....

Ferryboat Bill. Lou Reed in the VU

 

Here's to Mullberry Jane. She made jam when she came. Somebody cut off her feet and now jelly rolls in the street.

She's My Best Friend. Lou Reed in the VU

 

His horses were edgy sensin trouble ahead, but the trouble didn't start til' the men were in bed. Genesis - Ballad of Big

Always laugh at this one heh.

 

Yes.

John Prine is up there with the top tier when it comes to witty, often poignant lyrics. Really no one like him. From his first album to his latest...always the best.

"...The Singing Mailman Delivers"

Never lost his edge.

"Fair & Square" 2005 is such an amazing album...Clay Pigeons, Crazy As A Loon, Carousel Of Love...his song titles alone evoke some of the finest imagery known to song.

Illegal Smile.

 

No, Lola is the subject and the song is about a guy thinking he's picking up a girl (lola) but discovers Lola is actually a man, and is ultimately ok with it.

 

THIS WHOLE SONG IS FILLED WITH IMAGERY, PUNS, DOUBLE MEANINGS...& TRAGEDY

Sam Stone came home,
To the wife and family
After serving in the conflict overseas.
And the time that he served,
Had shattered all his nerves,
And left a little shrapnel in his knees.

But the morhpine eased the pain,
And the grass grew round his brain,
And gave him all the confidence he lacked,
With a purple heart and a monkey on his back.

There's a hole in daddy's arm where all the money goes,
Jesus Christ died for nothin I suppose.
Little pitchers have big ears,
Don't stop to count the years,
Sweet songs never last too long on broken radios.

Sam Stone's welcome home
Didn't last too long.
He went to work when he'd spent his last dime
And soon he took to stealing
When he got that empty feeling
For a hundred dollar habit without overtime.

And the gold roared through his veins
Like a thousand railroad trains,
And eased his mind in the hours that he chose,
While the kids ran around wearin' other peoples' clothes...

There's a hole in daddy's arm where all the money goes,
Jesus Christ died for nothin I suppose.
Little pitchers have big ears,
Don't stop to count the years,
Sweet songs never last too long on broken radios.

Sam Stone was alone
When he popped his last balloon,
Climbing walls while sitting in a chair.
Well, he played his last request,
While the room smelled just like death,
With an overdose hovering in the air.

But life had lost it's fun,
There was nothing to be done,
But trade his house that he bought on the GI bill,
For a flag-draped casket on a local hero's hill.

There's a hole in daddy's arm where all the money goes,
Jesus Christ died for nothin I suppose.
Little pitchers have big ears,
Don't stop to count the years,
Sweet songs never last too long on broken radios.

Written by John Prine • Copyright © Warner/Chappell Music, Inc

 

I always thought the line was:
I met her on Monday, ''twas my lucky bun day

But I'm with ya, re Tap

 

Which doesn't matter in regards to the point of this thread.

 

Yeah, got those from one of the many song lyric sites on the interwebs. God knows how accurate they are. Actually, that would be a good topic for another thread, the accuracy of those lyric websites

 

Well, the guy singing is glad that he himself is a man, and Lola also is glad that the singer is a man. Or, Lola is a man. The song deliberately makes Lola's gender unclear.