Lyrics to
Cheat

This version of Cheat was released by The Clash in 1977.

Our About The Clash page at Decade Lyrics includes the lyrics for Cheat from 1977 as well as all of the other lyrics from The Clash that we have in our lyrics database.

Here's more interesting things in songs and lyrics tied to The Clash or about the 1970s in general.

i get violent when i’m fucked up
i get silent when i’m drugged up
want excitement, don’t get none, i go wild

i don’t know what can be done about it
if you play the game you get nothing out of it
find out for yourself try bein’ a goody goody

you better cheat cheat
no reason to play fair
cheat cheat or don’t get anywhere
cheat cheat if you can’t win

nobody knows what they are doing
it’s beyond your control, an’ friday night’s a ruin
if you wanna survive you better learn how to lie

don’t use the rules
they’re not for you, they’re for the fools
and you’re a fool if you don’t know that
so use the rule you stupid fool

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The Clash has released many songs over the years besides Cheat. The Clash released songs from 1977 to 1993 spanning across albums like The Clash, Give 'em Enough Rope, London Calling, Sandinista!, Combat Rock, Cut The Crap, and Super Black Market Clash. Decade Lyrics has over lyrics & songs by The Clash.

If you're a fan of the music of the 1970s looking for more songs from 1977 or the 1970s overall, you've come to the right place!

About Lyrics and Cheat by The Clash

The lyrics for Cheat are made up of the words, verses and background chorus for the popular 1977 song by The Clash. Like a lot of songs, the lyrics to Cheat have both direct meanings and metaphorical context hidden within the song's words. All of the meanings are only truly known by the creators of the lyrics for Cheat - The Clash and any of the writers who worked with them on the song.

If you have an interest in the structure of words and phrases, you can dissect the lyrics to Cheat by The Clash in multiple ways. The word "lyric" itself derives from the Latin word lyricus, with the actual English word lyrics applied to the definition "words set to music" listed in Stainer and Barrett's 1876 Dictionary of Musical Terms. Continuing the chain, the Latin word lyricus derives from the Greek word λυρικός or lyrikós. This somewhat means "poetry accompanied by the lyre" or "words set to music." You can easily see that by looking at the background of the word lyric, that the "lyrics to Cheat" means the words set to the music of Cheat, or poetry accompanied by the lyre played by The Clash. The singular form "lyric" is still used to mean the complete words to a song. However, the singular form lyric is also commonly used to refer to a specific line (or phrase) within a song's lyrics. Hence, by this analysis of word structure, you could say that the lyric to Cheat and the lyrics to Cheat are both one and the same thing. None of this talk about the word Lyrics is really relevant to fans of The Clash who came here looking just for the lyrics to Cheat, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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