The Best Lyrics of 2020

Quarantine Life, Pondering The End Of Times, Fuck These Cops- Here’s Who Said It Best

• Tristan Young @talltristan

Lists are easy when you’re ranking the best songs or albums of the year. Okay, this is absolutely not true but it’s sure as hell a smoother process than documenting something far more subjective like lyrics. One can look at song holistically and point to myriad reasons why they are good or not in purely abstract terms; examining solely the lyrics of a song and determining their value is far more skeletal and specific. With that in mind I’ve put together what I think is some of the best writing of the year, but in no particular order. Ranking such a thing seems beyond my purview or qualifications, but drawing attention to them still seemed like time well spent. In the shit sandwich that was 2020 musicians continued to exoriate the institutional corruption and systemic racism that plagues modern society. More interestingly, matters of personal oblivion were complemented by surprisingly robust and thoughtful examinations of what the end of life as we know it looks like, what it feels like. Some of the passages here feel not only truly endemic of 2020, but like the kind of things that could only be written now, in what at one point or another for many of us this year felt like the end of times. Let’s dig in.

You never believed in the robber/ you thought a robber must hate you to wanna take from you/ the robber don’t hate you/ you never believed in the robber/ but the robber never believed in you- Tamara Lindeman, The Weather Station

For am I not your necromancer/ your lover in the end of time/ in the end of days/ a savior/ won’t you take my wise rough hands- Ali Logout, Special Interest

IF YOU HAVE TO GO TO THE BOTTOM OF A HOLE, TO FIND WHAT’S BROKE/ JUST LET IT GO- ELA MINUS

I’m gonna kill you, if you don’t beat me to it/ dreaming of Tokyo skies/ I wanted to see the world, then I flew over the ocean/ and I changed my mind- Phoebe Bridgers

Swing till it’s dark, hit the block/ run from cops, don’t get knocked/ by the ops, fuck these cops, fuck these cops, fuck these cops- Princess Nokia

I got one round left, a hundred cops outside/ I could shoot at them or put one between my eyes/ chose the later, it don’t matter, it aint suicide/ and if the news say it was that’s a goddamn lie- Killer Mike, Run The Jewels

I resent you for being raised right/ I resent you for being tall/ I resent you for never getting any opposition at all/ I resent you for having each other/ I resent you for being so sure/ I resent you for presenting your life like a fucking propaganda brochure- Fiona Apple

My favourite ballads and sad movies/ don’t do nothing for me now/ unfamiliar ending and sound/ If I thought I could be standing at your door/ listen, I just don’t know who I am anymore- Jane Penny, Tops

Walking to the lake, getting in my car/ folding up the laundry, taking it too hard/ everybody knows that’s how we fall apart- Half Waif

Rebekah gave up on the Rhode Island set forever/ Flew in her Bitch Pack friends from the city/ filled the pool with champagne and swam with the big names/ and blew through the money on the boys and the ballet- Taylor Swift

Murder was the case they gave us/ manipulate the system so prison can save us/ nothing can save us/ foot locker, liquor stores, undercover bringing hordes- Denzel Curry

Windows down, scream along, to some America first rap country song/ a slaughter house, an outlet mall, slot machines, fear of god- Phoebe Bridgers