Without a doubt, my favourite band lyrically would have to be Augie March. Nothing else comes to mind as, for me, there is no competition. Glenn Richard's lyrics are pure poetry, he's studied English (literature and poetry) at University, and he uses intricate words and phrases in his lyrics.
Some of my favourites of theirs:
This Train Will Be Taking No Passengers
"We will adjust to this new condition of living like a man with his entrails now out him not in,
after certain techniques of torture accustoms himself to a new condition of living...train.
Thoughtful godless men find god in them at the age of twenty-five
but in a year death gains favor and they think themselves the more alive,
You'll find them in the loose caboose where the pills are kept and the stupid juice,
This one has a sleeping wheel, this one has a willing noose
- Onward and on to the ends of love, pricked vanity, habit and ruse.
Onward and on to a premature silence where death finds too much use. "
Just Passing Through
"At ten o'clock is when I rise from my grave, and cast my eyes over the ideas that I couldn't save, become regret and break upon me now wave after wave, bid me remember what I done. "
One Crowded Hour
"Now should you expect to see something that you hadn't seen in
somebody you've known since you were sixteen,
If love is a bolt from the blue then what is a bolt but a glorified screw,
And that doesn't hold nothing together. "
Lupus
"As the cold comes to claim up I take the air and know your pink aroma,
And I should haunt your very vestibules and hover like the smoke over Tecoma,
If I could dive my hands to the roots of your tallest trees,
And it was all I ever do...
Never feed from the hand, never beg, never stand on two feet. "
I've just linked to the lyrics on their official site and copied across the paragraph from each song. I love these songs instrumentally, but really, I think the lyrics really add another layer to the songs and adds a charm and depth that I've yet to see from any other band.
