Which poems and song lyrics do you find philosophically meaningful?

Question

While there is a philosophical tradition that conspues poets as meaningless fools (Plato wanted them out of his republic), there's also the classic argument of poets that they approach universal truths via their art, that without poets, elements of the human conditions would go entirely unexplored.

I agree with the latter argument. Poetry haters like Plato would not be allowed in my republic... I value song lyrics, in particular, as the modern incarnation of this poetic effort to describe the human condition via art. To me, a good song is always a form of wisdom literature.

So I want to ask a very open question: What song lyrics have been meaningful to you, personnally? You are welcome to post the lyrics here and explain why they mattered to you.

It does not need to be 'intellectual' or 'sophisticated'. Popular music must speak to us masses, and that's fine IMO. So you're welcome to post anything: Bob Marley, Sinatra, Gilberto Gill, Joe Dassin or Public Enemy, Dylan or Shakespeare, Brassens or Verlaine, as long as the verses matter to you.

Answer 1

My entry today is a poem by Francis Jammes, written in French and translated into English by your humble servant. It was sung by Brassens.

A Prayer

By the little boy who dies next to his mother

While the other kids play in the courtyard

And by the wounded bird who doesn't know how

Its wing suddenly bleeds and falls from the sky

By thirst and hunger, fever and delirium

Hail to you, Mary

By the child beaten by the drunk returning home

By the donkey kicked in the belly

And by the humiliation of innocents punished

By the virgin sold and undressed

By the son whose mother has been insulted

Hail to you, Mary

By the old woman who stumbles under too much weight

Exclaiming "My God!"

By the unfortunates whose arms

Could never rest on human love

Like the cross of the Son on Simon of Cyrene

By the horse fallen under the chariot it drags

Hail to you, Mary

By the four horizons that crucify the world

By all those whose flesh is torn or killed

By those who are without feet, those who are without hands

By the sick who’s operated on and moans

And by the just put on death row

Hail to you, Mary

By the mother learning that her son is healed

By the bird calling the fallen bird back to the nest

By the thirsty grass that welcomes the rain

By the lost kiss, by love returned

And by the beggar who finds the coins he'd lost

Hail to you, Mary

Answer 2

Following upon @josephwhiteman's suggestion:

The Waters of March (Portuguese: "Águas de Março") is a Brazilian song composed by Antônio Carlos Jobim in 1972. He wrote the lyrics both in Portuguese and in English. He sang the Portuguese version in a duo with Elis Regina. The English version was covered by Simon and Garfunkel. There are French and Italian versions as well.

It has been voted the best Brazilian song of all time.

The inspiration for Águas de Março comes from the rainiest month in Rio de Janeiro with its sudden storms with heavy rains and floods. The lyrics are a collage of images about streams of rain that run down the gutter and pull things like sticks, stones and broken glass with them.

Jobim and Elis Regina singing Àguas de Março

It's a stick, a stone, it's the end of the road It's the rest of a stump, it's a little alone It's a sliver of glass, it is life, it's the sun It is night, it is death, it's a trap, it's a gun

The oak when it blooms, a fox in the brush The nod of the wood, the song of a thrush The wood of the wind, a cliff, a fall A scratch, a lump, it is nothing at all

It's the wind blowing free, it's the end of a slope It's a beam, it's a void, it's a hunch, it's a hope And the riverbank talks of the Waters of March It's the end of the strain, it's the joy in your heart

The foot, the ground, the flesh and the bone The beat of the road, a sling-shot stone A truckload of bricks in the soft morning light The shot of a gun in the dead of the night

A mile, a must, a thrust, a bump It's a girl, it's a rhyme, it's a cold, it's the mumps The plan of the house, the body in bed And the car that got stuck, it's the mud, it's the mud

Afloat, adrift, a flight, a wing A cock, a quail, the promise of spring And the riverbank talks of the Waters of March It's the promise of life, it's the joy in your heart

A point, a grain, a bee, a bite A blink, a buzzard, a sudden stroke of night A pin, a needle, a sting, a pain A snail, a riddle, a wasp, a stain

A snake, a stick, it is John, it is Joe A fish, a flash, a silvery glow And the riverbank talks of the Waters of March It's the promise of life in your heart, in your heart

A stick, a stone, the end of the load The rest of a stump, a lonesome road A sliver of glass, a life, the sun A night, a death, the end of the run

And the riverbank talks of the Waters of March It's the end of all strain, it's the joy in your heart