Waterboys, The - Long Strange Golden Road Lyrics

HE TRIED TO DO WHAT DYLAN DID YEARS AGO M HE GOT LUCKY WITH ONE SONG HO;E IN THE ASS , SO WHAT

Incredible lyrics

“victim of the beautiful deception “.. A lifetimes work..

Mike Scott reminds me of Dylan. He's that good

If I had the means to go, I would make a road trip on motorbikes with few of my buddies, driving on endlessly long straight roads of the U.S.A. and played this song on a very loud speaker as we drove to God knows where.

This gets better the more I hear it

I've just started listening to this and I thought ''Damn, it's Mike Scott but old' :( But then I listened, and, well, it's still Mike Scott, he is older and better for it :)

About the music writed of the Waterboys this recent years - i've been listening theyr songs since the fall 1985- this is a gorgeous tune

Songs one of my top five easy

it is my best time last years alone listen to get, is she say a true? she hef by boring.I hef no ride,are you lisent to bullshit?

Man this song is it for me

awesome! can't get enough with this song, tkx to make me travel around earth

.''... my dear.... ''priceless mike-priceless

Great long song 😀

If that's not poetry I don't know what.

Mike is one of the last real troubadours. Just saw them in Wexford. Uplifting, passionate, polished yet raw. 👍
Go brother Paul 😀

The boys played this last night in Dublin and tore the house down. Fucking magical!

If I had to choose one living artist to have dinner with it would be Mike Scott. No hesitation. The Waterboys just get better and better. Out of all this blue is stunning and original, and yet I can't help coming back to Modern Blues. Anyone who says they just aren't as good as once they were must be drunk. This is a band you can come to now

Great song!!

This is incredible live!

Long strange
golden cow

Saw The Waterboys recently at York and they were rubbish - totally crap and boring. However this song is great and although it didn't make up for the dross before it, it meant the night wasn't a total wash-out. Whole of the Moon and this song are the only tracks worth listening to, and the new album "Out of all this blue" is possibly the worst album ever released by any band in the whole history of modern popular music.

Ha ha ha, say what you see Kev.

I have but one word for you. Psilocybin = Kevin's mind opened

Damn, that organ solo. Whew....

This is the best Waterboys' song I have heard in ages.

"Long Strange Golden Road"

I was longing to be wooed
I was ready to be humbled
By the words that you had written
By the syllables you mumbled
Yeah, I was ready in my heart
To have my heart invaded
By the fervour of your passion
Yes, I came to be persuaded

But when I heard your ragged voice
Something switched in my perception
And I knew I was the victim
Of a beautiful deception
All my once exact beliefs
Like tangled threads unravelled
I walked out, stunned and liberated
And so began my travels

Keep the river on your right
And the highway at your shoulder
And the front line in your sights, pioneer
Keep your eye on the road
Remember what you told her
This is all in code, my dear

You better get yourself a coat
Said the handsome taxi driver
And he sighed like seven bridges
Like a natural-born survivor
As we drove into the night
I could feel the forest jangling
All the choices laid before me
And their consequences dangling

We came upon a stricken ship
That must have once been splendid
The captain as he died said "Boys
Our revels now are ended"
I heard a wild holy band
Playing jazz that was outrageous
That recalled the days of rapture
When our love was still young and contagious

Keep the river on your right
And the highway at your shoulder
And the front line in your sights, pioneer
Keep your eye on the road
Remember what you told her
This is all in code, my dear

In a dim-lit motel room
Two sad lovers were discoursing
On the dignity of exile
And the merits of divorcing
She said "all certainty is gone"
But he leapt up, still denying
Cried "I won't believe the flame I lit
Is dead or even dying"

She left him drooling in the dust
And with rucksack packed begun her
Bitter journey to the border
Which is where I wooed and won her
She was Aphrodite, Helen, Thetis
Eve among the satyrs
She was Venus in a v-neck sweater
She was all that ever mattered

Keep the river on your right
And the highway at your shoulder
And the front line in your sights, pioneer
Keep your eye on the road
Remember what you told her
This is all in code, my dear

Like Dean Moriarty's ghost
I came in quest of secret knowledge
In the winter of my journey
To a crumbling Druid college
There I read the books of lore
And contemplated in seclusion
But I took my leave embittered
Still in love with my illusions

In the drizzling Irish rain
As a tender dawn was breaking
In a doorway I stood spellbound by
The ancient music they were making
I took my breakfast with the Gods
On a blushing summer morning
Till a wind blew them all away
I had misread every warning

Keep the river on your right
And the highway at your shoulder
And the front line in your sights, pioneer
Keep your eye on the road
Remember what you told her
This is all in code, my dear

Under cold electric light
I watch the scenes mutating
Like an old time frontier ballad
Or a carousel rotating
As if in a moment from a film
With astonishing precision
The camera zooms in close
And a figure comes into vision

I'm in Tokyo, it's dawn
And it's raining hallelujahs
Down the bright-lit neon canyons
Along the sidewalks of Shibuya
I'm trying to take a stance
And rise above my contradictions
But I'm just a bunch of words in pants
And most of those are fiction

Keep the river on your right
And the highway at your shoulder
And the front line in your sights, pioneer
Keep your eye on the road
Remember what you told her
This is all in code, my dear

Tex Tone another boring bastard x

Absolutely briliant

Maravillosos estos chicos del agua, con un Mike Scott sublime

Radio Paradise plays this about four times a day, and it's STILL NOT ENOUGH! Any song with "our revels here are ended" in the lyrics and a strong bass line... (sighs and melts)

Every sentence sends  the listener into another  thought frame and direction ...the Waterboyed journey of Mike Scott ...you take the low road .. ?  Mike Scott puts you on a interesstial safari ...??  beem me  up Scotty  !

O por dios estoy hablando español

Mike Scott, un portento musical

who does a 10 min track now a days? fu so called singers.

IF We are destined to colonise new world....lets do so with the like of Mike Scott..........someone true and honest in their beliefs and the balls to see it through in his own way. Rock on you legend

This is just amazing!

Mother of mercy

Incrivelmente lindoooooooo..... Bravo Waterboys

one of the best songs i have heard in a long time, it sends you on a journey

we never here songs like this on the radio. The best long song in years come on you so called music lovers give it some air time

Fucking brilliant!!!

GRAZIE and GREAT. Just Thanks Mike and the Waterboys. THANKS. WOW.

Oh yeah! There still is some good rockin' rock'n'roll out there! Great sounds. The organ is great.

great stuff

This has got me...it's got me! :)

É por isto que eu gosto desta banda desde 1986 ( This is the sea )

Just when you think Mike Scott has run out of tunes and great lyrics he comes up with this!

Brilliant song, fantastic lyrics and well done Mike & The Waterboys, you've nailed it again and will never cease to amaze me........Namaste xx

I love ittt

Yes! Great story line. Driving song for sure.

I don't drive yet. But I agree!!

Shit hot

Brilliant!

Great song!!

ΑΠΙΘΑΝΟΙ.Ακομα βγαζουν υπεροχα κομματια!!!!!!

Bands like them water dudes make you feel truly alive(give me a small percentage of the energy of brother Paul)

I owned a record store in a college town in the early 70's, and thought I'd listened to a lifetime of music, but this is absolutely the best song I've heard in years and keeps replaying in my head! Thanks Waterboys. Love the closing with the Hammond.

PMMG4HYBRID fabulous isn't it?

I can’t stop playing also , amazing !!

I totally agree. I can't stop listening to it. It's great when a band can be around for 30+ years and still be putting out great music. Not just always doing greatest hits tours.

Brother Paul on the Hammond... saw them in 2016 in Berlin - what a devil of a musician!!

Brother Paul ROCKS !!!

Mike Scott είσαι μεγάλη παιχτουρα!!! respect!!!

It's certainly a long time since I listened to what was one of my favorite sounds many years ago. Really enjoyed listening to them once more. I think it's rekindled an interest. Fantastic! ATB Mark.

My god this is a brilliant song!!! And the whole new album 'Modern Blues' is fantastic!! The tour (I saw them in Malmö and Copenhagen) is as good as it ever gets. Probably the best show I've ever been to!!! An incredible intensity and energy!! (although Mike's solo visits were also in that league). Don't miss the Modern Blues tour!

Great music another bang in the ear from Waterboys pleace continue...

Wonderful!!!!!

Very strong tune. I digging it.

Great song!

Great! One of the best Waterboys songs

Heard this today. Addicted!

I can't quit playing this song at home, in the car, and now on you tube.  This is Good, good stuff and I grew up in the 60's.  Only someone who truly has experienced the ups and downs of life and yet kept going could of written this.

I've been a fan of the Waterboys since the early/mid 80's when a work colleague introduced me. To this day I still sell them to friends and relatives. So many of their songs feel as if they/he knows me and write songs based on my life story. I cannot listen to Fishermans Blues with out tears welling in my eyes since my Partner lost our son,stillborn on his due date. The music is much more than notes and chords played in succession. They tug at your heartstrings and associate your own life within the lyrics time after time. For many years I knew I liked them but in recent times I have come to realise they have probably been my favourite band without recognition. Maybe now i have the life experience to appreciate Mike Scott's song writing and I have grown into them.....Can't wait to see them in Manchester in November.....9 of us going this year and still counting!!!!!

Really need to do a live video of this song, its that fucking good! The Glastonbury performance was nice, but that whole video is gone now, which was great live performance of this song. MIKE MIKE MIKE please!!!!!!

Such complex lyrics and fantastic music, still can not get over how great this song is. Still listening, Peace and Love to you Mike and all the Waterboys!

That solo is just so dirty...melts the soul, then redeemed by Bro. Paul for the outro...so nice

some may differ...i'd say the best song on a truly amazing album.

Doesn't get much better than this

this was the best number of this years Glastonbury by a mile sheer class

Mike...please don't ever stop making music!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Fantastic song from a fantastic album!!!

My teacher was listening to this in maths today and I liked it xD

cool teacher

Wow, saw this on the BBC @Glastonbury just minutes ago...what an amazing return for one of my 3 favourite songwriters (with LLoyd Cole and Roddy Frame) from the 80s. Brilliant.

good tunes come to those who wait.

Great song. I sort of lost track of mike and the boys for a while. Super to find them with this new album.  Amazing as always!!!

This is an epic which Mike Scott could not have written 30 years ago. I love how the lyrics here bridge the gap between his youthful attempts to mesh Christianity with ancient paganism during the 1980s-90s, to a leaner, mature honesty about how the true strength of all that imagery didn't come from God or gods, but instead came from the power of his own will and imagination. "I'm just a bunch of words in pants, and most of those are fiction" is an astonishing phrase to hear him sing, and I'm excited to know that the road hasn't come to an end yet for this man and his band. It was a pleasure to witness this song performed live this week at the Showbox; it's a great track on the record, but it's taken to a whole other level when you hear it in concert.

Epic and great it is ... but I'm pretty sure he has written this song before. The story and many of the images don't remind you of "Let it happen" from his 2000 album "A Rock in the Weary Land"? But as for songs of spiritual search and " honesty about how the true strength" coming from his own imagination, I'd say he's been saying it all along ... Glastonbury song has a structure not unlike this one too. Most of them ... actually, but check out Let it happen.

I was at that show! Seattle.

Mike?🕵

Jaysthename eloquently put 💕

I was at that show !

This tune changes everything on the album.

Great collection of songs and musicians. Always reinventing themselves and with an album like this thank fuck they do. Brilliant.

Heard this for the first time today. Have listened to it a dozen times since. It will definitely become part of the collection. If anyone wants to know where they can find some great music tell them to...keep the the river on their right and the highway at their shoulder.

Brilliant! Mike Scott invokes Kerouac, and "so begin his travels".

One  flight over the Cuckoos nest  egg ....in audio   ??

Caught that eh ?!!

I miss all the horns they use to have..... still love Mike Scott though

Fucking amazing track....

I'm Japanese, can't understand english well, but, his voice and this song's keeping songline feeling hit my soul

THATS ABSOLUTLY AMAZING

It's a perfectly smooth, rollicking and deeply satisfying song.

Yes my friend

YE Gods, this track IS Incredible. Buying this record ASAP. Incredible. Incredible

Have only listened to the album a couple of times, but it is pure class. So far, this and Destinies Entwined are my favourite songs.

τελειο    !!!!!

brilliant :)

My favourite song from this record (y)

Wow. Magnificent. Best song of the album.

Magnificent fabulous dynamic dynamite altogether solid vibe sound quality excellent spin it.

Great!!

Can't stop playing this song ... One of the best Waterboys songs of recent years.

The ONLY decent song by the Waterboys of recent years!

One of the top ten songs I have EVER heard.. bar none. !

One of the best Waterboy's tracks ever, and that's saying something. Awesome.