The top 500 best music and songs from the 1960s. Song meanings, lyrics and interpretations from your favorite artists. The Beatles, Beach Boys, Simon and Garfunkel, Dylan. See who rates the highest!
In this world I lock out all my worries and my fears/ In my room, in my room.
The Beach Boy’s “In My Room” was the song that marked the beginning of the glory days of their band. No longer were they a surfer and car band- now they were a rival to The Beatles and Stones. These are interesting lyrics from Brian Wilson—who would later become agoraphobic, essentially holing himself up in his room for years. Why? It made him feel safe.
The Beach Boys
The harmonies in “In My Room” are amazing—like all Beach Boys songs. They are unmatched in rock. The instrumentation is actually very minimal, even though it sounds like a wall of sound. The most distinctive instruments are the arpeggiated guitar throughout along with the harp at the very beginning. There appears to be an organ mixed very low. The only percussion appears to be a light high-hat or tambourine every four or so measures that is barely perceptible.
In My Room Lyrics
There’s a world where I can go and tell my secrets to
In my room, in my room
In this world I lock out all my worries and my fears
In my room, in my room
Do my dreaming and my scheming
Lie awake and pray
Do my crying and my sighing
Laugh at yesterday
Now it’s dark and I’m alone
But I won’t be afraid
In my room, in my room
In my room, in my room
In my room, in my room
How do you thank someone who has taken you from crayons to perfume?
Lulu’s “To Sir With Love” is one of the best soundtrack songs. The song manages to capture what is great about the movie in only a couple verses. The lyrics and the melody are incredible. The title of the movie is in the song! With a title like “To Sir With Love”, that is hard to pull off.
Lulu
There are so many classic lines that describe a young woman’s love/admiration for her male teacher (like the above). Think of all the less poetic ways someone might try to express that in a song. There are so many ways to screw that up but Black & London nail every line.
10000 Maniacs
Both the Lulu original version and the 10,000 Maniacs version with Natalie Merchant singing lead and featuring Michael Stipe from REM is really good. I suspect if you like one, you’ll like the other. Lulu enunciates better but I think Merchant has a better voice. Great movie too.
To Sir With Love Lyrics
Those schoolgirl days of telling tales and biting nails are gone.
But in my mind, I know they will still live on and on.
But how do you thank someone who has taken you from crayons to perfume?
It isn’t easy, but I’ll try.
If you wanted the sky I would write across the sky in letters
That would soar a thousand feet high ‘To Sir, With Love’.
The time has come for closing books and long last looks must end.
And as I leave, I know that I am leaving my best friend.
A friend who taught me right from wrong, and weak from strong;
That’s a lot to learn, but what can I give you in return?
If you wanted the moon I would try to make a start,
But I would rather you let me give my heart ‘To Sir, With Love’
We note our place with book markers/ That measure what we’ve lost.
The couple in Simon and Garfunkel’s “A Dangling Conversation” are intellectuals. Not just intelligent people, but the stuffy intellectual types who don’t own a TV, who talk about talking about intellectual conversation. They read literature because it is known it is “good literature”. You know the type.
High Society might look at these two and think they have it all: they speak of important matters like theater and philosophy and they are voracious readers—though it almost seems like a contest. But they seem out of sync.
Simon and Garfunkel
It also appears that the couple in “Dangling Conversation” is slightly older: Simon speaks of kissing a shadow of a former person and how they are living the ‘border of our lives’. Was this once a young, passionate couple? Is Simon fretting about growing older and the superficiality of life once the passion in a relationship is gone? Or is he commenting– in particular–on the intellectual classes’ seemingly sterile relationships?
I like that this is a somewhat unique concept for a rock/folk song. It explores love and relationships from a new angle. All the while it still has the requisite Simon melodies and S&G harmonies that we have come to expect from the group. The orchestration sounds different than most of their other work. It sounds like it is going for a more classic sound. Note the large array of instruments used such as the timpani, harp and xylophone. It feels stuffy and uptight…like something the couple would be into.
The Dangling Conversation Lyrics
It’s a still life watercolor
Of a now-late afternoon
As the sun shines through the curtain lace
And shadows wash the room
And we sit and drink our coffee
Couched in our indifference, like shells upon the shore
You can hear the ocean roar
In the dangling conversation
And the superficial sighs
The borders of our lives
And you read your Emily Dickinson
And I my Robert Frost
And we note our place with book markers
That measure what we’ve lost
Like a poem poorly written
We are verses out of rhythm
Couplets out of rhyme
In syncopated time (in syncopated time)
And the dangling conversation
And the superficial sighs
Are the borders of our lives
Yes, we speak of things that matter
With words that must be said
“Can analysis be worthwhile?”
“Is the theater really dead?”
And how the room is softly faded
And I only kiss your shadow, I cannot feel your hand
You’re a stranger now unto me
Lost in the dangling conversation
And the superficial sighs
In the borders of our lives
Songwriters: Paul Simon
The best pop, folk, punk & rock songs. Song Meanings, Lyrics, & Rankings.
