Best Lyricist In Music and Their Best Lyrics (2005 - 2010)

There's some older threads on this - none from the timeframe mentioned here that I noticed.

Include a couple of lines from a song that prove your point.

Peter Hammill – a few lines from his most recent album Thin Air:

And, for example, if I’d spent a lifetime in pursuit of miraculously common sense, I’d still feel stupid now. I’m waiting on a final clue, a final validation of what I did, of what I hid, of all I called my own.

i'm sort of late to get on the jamey johnson train, but he's a good lyricist. like, "high cost of living" is sort of a standard addict's lament, but it's done well and balances its grim details with a bit of classic country wordplay in the chorus.

Three days straight was no big feat
Could get by with no food or sleep
And crazy was becoming my new norm

I’d pass out on the bedroom floor
And sleep right through the calm before the storm

My life was just an old routine
Every day the same damn thing
I couldn’t even tell I was alive

I tell you
The high cost of livin’
Ain’t nothing like the cost of livin’ high

bill callahan wrote some of the best lyrics of his career on his last album "sometimes i wish i were an eagle."

from Eid Ma Clack Shaw -

Love is the king of the beasts
And when it gets hungry it must kill to eat
Love is the king of the beasts
A lion walking down city streets

Cover's goin' sick tonight
I'm like Superman without kryptonite
Phat as hell without cellulite
And I look well sick in a UV light

I vote Ghostface

Neil Hannon (The Divine Comedy) remains in top form:

Back in the day you had been part of the smart set
You'd holidayed with kings, dined out with starlets
From London to New York, Cap Ferrat to Capri
In perfume by Chanel and clothes by Givenchy
You sipped camparis with David and Peter
At Noel's parties by Lake Geneva
Scaling the dizzy heights of high society
Armed only with a cheque-book and a family tree

You chased the sun around the Cote d'Azur
Until the light of youth became obscured
And left you on your own and in the shade
An English lady of a certain age
And if a nice young man would buy you a drink
You'd say with a conspiratorial wink
"You wouldn't think that I was seventy"
And he'd say,"no, you couldn't be!"

my favorites

• Craig Finn (of The Hold Steady)
• GhostFace
• John Darnielle (of The Mountain Goats)
• Sam Beam (of Iron & Wine)
• Alasdair MacLean (of The Clientele)
• Dan Bejar (of Destroyer)
• Alan Sparhawk and/or Mimi Parker (of Low, not sure which is lyricist, tho I think Sparhawk)
• M.I.A.
• Mark Kozelek (of Sun Kil Moon)

and if we're throwing in old favorites, dylan wrote some good songs in this period. but interesting how few of the people being named so far actually debuted in the last 5 years.

I'm struggling to think of any worthwhile artists who debuted in the last 5 years period.

in before gucci