OPO: Blue Öyster Cult lyric

haha, but seriously, Jody stole mine right at the top. The video for "Joan Crawford" is glorious.

"Even though our skulls rot in our flesh. We can build a laser, tear the mesh."

"Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! You poor fucking humans"

"Three men in black said, "Don't report this""

Go nuts here

"Archie Bell vs. Archie Bell
(hint: check which way the mustard fell)"

Is that really what the actual lyric is? I've been listening to that song periodically for years, and always thought it was "Even though our skulls rot in our flesh, we can build a maze of tenderness..."

JOAN CRAWFORD HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAAAAAAAAAAVE!"

Oh no, there goes Tokyo/
go-go-Godzilla!!

This is a great thread!

HAW @ "Your constant undertone is making me toothless."

"Well Ive opened up my veins too many times
And the poisons in my heart and in my mind"

What's funny is I think I always assumed I was mishearing most of these. But I see I wasn't.

Some of it's truly bizarre, what the fuck is a "Mistress of the Salmon Salt" otherwise known as the "Quicklime Girl"? What does that even mean?

I thought that said "Somersault"!

Blackened out eyes scratched on the wall
Stoned-out looks from the crowd
The king will not know
On the wall it was said
The flash of his cards was sprayed with red

("Hot Rails To Hell")

No idea what they're talking about.

With satan's hog no pig at all, and the weather getting dry
We'll head south from altamont in a cold blooded travelled trance
So clear the road my bully boys and let some thunder pass
We're pain, we're steel, a plot of knives,
We're transmaniacon MC

I'm living for giving the devil his due

Hot Rails to Hell is about a guy getting blown away at a card game. I only know that from some story I read about it. I thought it was about the subway.

Can't believe no one has said:

History shows again and again
How nature points out the folly of men

Not whacked-out like some of their other lyrics, but completely OTM.

My heart is black, and my lips are cold
Cities on flame with rock and roll
Three thousand guitars they seem to cry
My ears will melt, and then my eyes

Well, I'll wrap myself in cities I travel
I'll wrap myself in dreams
I'll wrap myself in solitude
But I wish I could wrap myself
In thee.

I forgot about Cities on Flame. Awesome

What I need is a kiss from you babe
Before it’s hangover time

Fireworks going off in her hair

"Before The Kiss, A Redcap" is all awesome.

Yes I know the secrets of the iron and mind
They're trinity acts, a mineral fire
Yes I know the secrets of the circuitry mind
It's a flaming wonder telepath

On each and all those Holy Nights
Where duster's dust becomes the sale and Lucifer, the light

There are few bands for making the universe seem open, and ripe, and strange, and fabulous, like BOC can.

Thank you for writing this.

Many of my faves have been checked upthread, but

A mirror is a negative space with a frame

time to play B-sides

He sings it so exquisitely

OPO BOC guitar solo

All! Praise!
He's found the awful truth
Balthazar!
He's found the saucer news

OPO BOC guitar solo

― Trip Maker, Tuesday, April 20, 2010 5:10 PM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Last Days of May, On Your Feet... version.

Hornswoop me bungo pony, dogsled on ice

"Red and the Black" for the win!

― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, April 20, 2010 2:36 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

I second this line in particular.

of things not mentioned:

Just last week I took a ride
So high on eyes I almost lost my way

or

World - I love darkness
Without end - and I love light

or

With threats of gas and rose motif
Their lips apart like a swollen rose
Their tongues extend, and then retract

Three thousand guitars
They seem to cry
My ears will melt
And then my eyes!

treat her gently, treat her kind,
tenderloin will last all night

You can have my autograph
I think I'll sign it good health to you
Upon the cast, your broken arm

JOAN CRAWFORD HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE

Blackened-out eyes
Scratched on the wall
Stoned-out looks from the crowd
The King will not know

I'm after rebellion
I'll settle for lies

Come Susie dear, let's take a walk just out there upon the beach
I know you'll soon be married, and you'll want to know where winds come from

Hot Rails to Hell is about a guy getting blown away at a card game. I only know that from some story I read about it. I thought it was about the subway.

― Bill Magill, Monday, March 24, 2008 12:02 PM (4 years ago)

Day's okay, and the sun can be fun
but I live to see those rays slip away

always struck me as a really sweet lyric

Time everlasting
time to play b-sides

By salamander, drake and the power that was undine
Rise to claim Saturn, ring and sky

By those who see with their eyes closed
You'll know me by my black telescope

This ain't the garden of eden
There ain't no angels above
And things ain't like what they used to be
And this ain't the summer of love

Thought for sure I answered this one (By silverfish imperetrix...) during one of its revivals.

So many B. O'Cult lyrics I never woulda deciphered had I not sent $0.50 and a SASE to that Long Island address back in the mid-80s...

So ladies fish and gentlemen
Here's my angled dream
See me in the blue sky bag
And meet me by the sea

my party mix ended on this song last night

Don't put your tongue on the bloody tooth mark place
Don't put your tongue on the bloody tooth mark place
Her face changing now, a guernsey cow

I think "Before the Kiss, a Redcap" might be my favorite. Great lyrics of course, but they sound absolutely perfect when delivered in the kind of boogie part towards the end.

This section:

Doors like flint and window panes
An endless shadow bar
The owner's boys have gone to work
To stop big deals behind the bar

While outside on the turnpike
They got this new hit tune
Where thrills become as cheap as gas
And gas as cheap as thrills

One thrill and mundane here at last
Expect the cross one more
Lecherous invisible
Beware the limping cat

Whose black teeth grip between loose jaws
Still ripe and fully bloomed
A rose that's not from anywhere
That you would know or I would care

And the owners boys act most cheerfully
Back home at Conry's bar
When their patrons' thoughts at last
Grow too big for their skulls

And awful things are happening
We've let this drama fold
And now the time has come at last
To crush the motif of the rose.

And then it loops back around to the first verse. LOVE IT.

Where thrills become as cheap as gas... man!

Kinda stunned a few days ago to hear "Cities On flame" being played at MSG during a stoppage in the Rangers game a few days ago

This was a few days ago

A few days ago?

That's awesome. I would've probably had to stop myself from headbanging.

Hot rails to hell would have been the most apt

(Isn't that the one j Bouchard wrote while taking the lirr into the city?)

Lotsa references to ice/blades in the BOC catalog that would fit nicely

Blasts from clustered R4/M quartets in my snout

BUT IT'S SO LONELY IN THE STATE OF MAINE!

It’s the nexus of the crisis, and the origin of storms

Jim says some destinies should not be delivered
But you and I see now
Baby
That still they are

Hot Rails to Hell is about a guy getting blown away at a card game. I only know that from some story I read about it. I thought it was about the subway.

― Bill Magill, Monday, March 24, 2008 12:02 PM (4 years ago)

― does Red Stripe work like poppers? (Abbbottt), Sunday, April 15, 2012 6:25 PM (eleven years ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is correct, it was an associate of the band who'd gotten into gambling trouble (i don't know if it was an actual card game but the guy was murdered due to gambling)

Some of it's truly bizarre, what the fuck is a "Mistress of the Salmon Salt" otherwise known as the "Quicklime Girl"? What does that even mean?

it's about a sex worker who murders her tricks when they're through and buries them locally.

OPO is really hard but "i know you'll soon be married and you'll want to know where winds come from" is a rip in the fabric of spacetime

Ballin' all night, ballin' all day
She won't ball on me

Mistress of the Salmon Salt is undervalued and a masterpiece, def one of my favorite BOC songs. It's set in a wormhole where Iron Age burial practices and magico-religious plant worship coexist with juke joints and naval officers on leave, all in one random access lyric.

one of my favorite songs by anyone tbh

Hot Rails to Hell is about a guy getting blown away at a card game. I only know that from some story I read about it. I thought it was about the subway.

― Bill Magill, Monday, March 24, 2008 12:02 PM (4 years ago)

― does Red Stripe work like poppers? (Abbbottt), Sunday, April 15, 2012 6:25 PM (eleven years ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is correct, it was an associate of the band who'd gotten into gambling trouble (i don't know if it was an actual card game but the guy was murdered due to gambling)

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, May 11, 2023 10:24 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

It was written on the subway though.

Hot Rails to Hell

Singer: Joe Bouchard
Words: Joe Bouchard
Music: Joe Bouchard

JB: Yeah that's all me. We worked up that song pretty quickly at our house on Eaton's Neck. It had no title and after a particularly spirited run though, Sandy Pearlman suggested Hot Rods to Hell, taken from an old B movie title. I think Donald said it should be Hot Rails to Hell. And that's what I remember about how that title was chosen. Not much real thought behind it....

Hot Rails was written about a slick promoter in the early days, Phil King. He and I lived in the Dix Hills house with assorted other freaks. He first introduced me to Alice Cooper back in 1971. He booked the band when nobody else would. He was shot to death in a gambling dispute. We were on tour in Rochester, NY doing a week-long stint at a club at a gig he booked for us called The Funhouse at the time - it was mostly mostly bikers and pool players... It was a shock. I guess we never paid his commission. ;-(

Fact: 1277 was the number of a subway car I rode in with Bill Gawlik coming back from NYC after a jazz concert. And indeed it had "KING" sprayed in red paint on the inside of the train car. Graffiti was rampant in those days. Pretty scary sight when Phil King had only been murdered only a few days before.

http://www.hotrails.co.uk/blueskybag/joebouchard/song_credits.htm

well, maybe not written on the subway but

^that's great.

i'm partial to the b&w era and the pearlman/a bouchard compositions in particular.

the thing i love so much about that work is how elusive it is and how the harder you try to pin it down the more confusing it becomes. i never thought this was by design until i picked up a physical copies of Imaginos recently and read the liner notes.

holy shit, Sandy Pearlman was... a genius? how the fuck did he do that??

i hate to use the word "genius", strike that obv.

i'm astonished and very impressed tho.

I wish Pearlman had written a memoir, but he's just too enigmatic for it. IHis wiki bio is one of the best...

In a fair and just world, fledgling recording artists would fight to the death to be signed to a label called Popular Metaphysics.

They’re okay, the last days of May, but I’ll be breathin’ dry air
I’m leaving soon, the others are already there

daredevil she devil printer's devil evil
I love you like sin, but I won't be your pigeon

Veins in my eyeballs
Damage that I've done

BUT IT'S SO LONELY IN THE STATE OF MAINE!

― insufficiently familiar with xgau's work to comment intelligently (BradNelson), Tuesday, October 20, 2015 4:45 PM (eight years ago) bookmarkflaglink