Billie Jean is not my lover She’s just a girl who claims that I am the one – Michael Jackson, Billie Jean. You could fill an entire ledger with unforgettable Cohen lyrics – couplets that cut you in half like a samurai blade so that you don’t even notice what’s happened until you suddenly slide into pieces. Bob Dylan – “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)”, “Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn/ Suicide remarks are torn/ From the fool’s gold mouthpiece/ The hollow horn plays wasted words/ Proves to warn that he not busy being born/ Is busy dying.”. “It’s Alright Ma” is a cornerstone in Dylan’s career that marks his shift from scrutinising politics to sardonically exposing all the hypocrisy in Western culture. “War, children, it’s just a shot away/ It’s just a shot away”. “Why is the bedroom so cold turned away on your side?/ Is my timing that flawed, our respect run so dry?”. “So Long, Marianne” was devoted to his lover, Marianne Jensen, whom he met on the Greek Island of Hydra in 1960. St Vincent – aka Texas songwriter Annie Clark – was singing about how social media fed our narcissism and gave us a fake sense of our place in the world. Many artists have tried to speak to the asphyxiating conformity of life amid the manicured lawns and two-cars-in-the-drive purgatory of life in the sticks. You know I can’t believe it when I hear that you won’t see me Don’t, don’t you want me? He’s gushing all right, but like lava from a volcano, about to burn all before it. But though Cave had worn his heart on his sleeve previously (the “Ship Song” etc) it was on the standout from Boatman’s Call that he finally felt able to stand unadorned before the world. RO, “Digital witnesses/ what’s the point of even sleeping?/ If I can’t show it, if you can’t see me/ What’s the point of doing anything?” One of the best songs written about the illusory intimacy fostered the internet. But far from a ghoulish dispatch from the brink “Love Will Tear Us Apart” unfurls like a jangling guitar sonnet – sad and searing. EP, "War, children, it's just a shot away/ It's just a shot away." “Jesus died for somebody’s sins but not mine/ Meltin’ in a pot of thieves/ Wild card up my sleeve/ Thick heart of stone/ My sins my own/ They belong to me.”. Piano-man Wainwright can be too ornate for his own good, but he lands his blows here in this soul-baring recounting of a violent disagreement with his father. Before that, there is poetry. Please continue to respect all commenters and create constructive debates. There is shameless revisionism and then there is claiming that Noel Gallagher is a great lyricist. – Katy Perry, Firework, #67. Rhyming “Elsa” with “Alka Seltzer”, as Noel does on this Morning Glory smash, is a gesture of towering vapidity – but there’s a genius in its lack of sophistication. But we do have to question your sanity. Yet there is no denying the glorious ache of this bittersweet groover – or the punch of Karl Hyde’s sad raver stream-of-consciousness wordplay. The uncanny last will and testament that was the entirety of Blackstar – a ticking clock of a record that shapeshifted into something else entirely when Bowie passed away three days after its release? Ah, push it, push it good Ah, push it, push it real good – Salt-N-Pepa, Push It, #83. Rah, rah, ah, ah, ah, roma, roma, ma. The gang members were constantly in and out of prison and the song imagines one of their reunions – even name-checking their favourite hangout of Dino’s Bar and Grill where “the drink will flow and the blood will spill”. “She done it with a doctor on a helicopter/ She’s sniffin in her tissue/ Sellin’ the Big Issue.”. EP, “They heard me singing and they told me to stop / Quit these pretentious things and just punch the clock.” Locating the dreamy underside of suburban ennui was perhaps the crowning achievement of Arcade Fire and their finest album, The Suburbs. But your booty don’t need explaining – Jason Derulo, Talk Dirty, #96. 98 : Kiss A World Without Hero's There are hundreds of great songs about epic, romantic love, and there are hundreds of other Beatles songs that could have made this list. Oh, I wanna dance with somebody I wanna feel the heat with somebody – Whitney Houston, I Wanna Dance With Somebody, #7. By the tail-end of the decade the Eagles were thoroughly fed up of one another and jaundiced by fame. In the name of love – Diana Ross & The Supremes, Stop! It’s that rare dance track which reveals hidden depths when you sit down with the lyrics. Few artists use surrealism as successfully as Kate Bush – or draw inspiration from such unusual places. He sings – with a gently swaying, almost resigned delivery – surrealist lyrics that likens a past relationship to a brief high, from the perspective of the comedown that follows. True, the lyrics spew and coo and, written down, resemble something Robbie Williams might croon on his way back from the tattoo parlour (“And I don't believe in the existence of angels /But looking at you I wonder if that's true”). But these are nonetheless amongst the most hypnotic lines in pop.