Because there are countless ones of them.
6. Get Behind Me Satan, the White Stripes
This is conditional, because the title comes from lyrics in the first track, “Blue Orchid,” but the song never actually says the Satan part. It just goes:
Get behind me, get behind me now, anyway. Get behind me, get behind me now, anyway. Get behind me, get behind me now, anyway.
In true White Stripes fashion, it’s simple, but it’s there. And I’m all for implications and all that.
5. Fire Kite EP, Eisley
This one’s interesting for different reasons: the title of the EP comes from their song “The Valley,” which then went and had a proper album named for it later.
Fire kites drifting through the skies, up on high I see it all the time. And from the tip top of every mountain view, from the roof I spy on room to room. Take me home, I walk the night in the valley. Oh, oh, oh, ’til everything is fine.
It’s a lovely song, but not too many artists name an EP after a lyric and then an album after the same song. That’s pretty rare.
4. Fever to Tell, Yeah Yeah Yeahs
The title comes from the third track, “Man.”
We’re all gonna burn in hell, I said we’re all gonna burn in hell. Because we do what we gotta do yeah, well, and we got the fever to tell, I said we got the fever to tell.
It’s a pretty rocking, blunt admission. But calling the album Man would have been much less powerful and catchy.
3. Catching a Tiger, Lissie
The title comes from the fourth track, “Bully.”
Run, ragged and wrecked, catching a tiger, baiting the bully. Was this my idea? Is it a mistake? Why did you take me here?
I… might have chosen this particular list this week because I have been playing this album pretty much nonstop lately. It’s a neat image that’s buried in the lyrics there.
2. Down the Way, Angus & Julia Stone
The title comes from the second track, “Black Crow.”
Eyes from the free, take me down the way. Red riders of the dark, help me through this maze.
Another pretty subtle little one tucked in there.
1. Knives Don’t Have Your Back, Emily Haines and the Soft Skeleton
The title comes from the last track (not counting various bonus tracks on specific releases), “Winning.”
Knives don’t have your back. I wait and I count, but knives don’t have your back. I wait and I count to the last breath we take. What we made doesn’t make sense, what’s a wolf without a pack?
Possibly the most morbid of these collected lyrics, for which I commend it.
–your fangirl heroine.
