Lyrics to
Cities

This version of Cities was released by Talking Heads in 1979.

Visit the Talking Heads Lyrics profile at Decade Lyrics - it has the Cities lyrics as well as the rest of the songs by Talking Heads.

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

Think of London, a small city
It’s dark, dark in the daytime
The people sleep, sleep in the daytime
If they want to, if they want to

I’m checking them out
I’m checking them out
I got it figured out
I got it figured out
There’s good points and bad points
Find a city
Find myself a city to live in.

There are a lot of rich people in Birmingham
A lot of ghosts in a lot of houses
Look over there!…A dry ice factory
A good place to get some thinking done

Down el Paso way things get pretty spread out
People got no idea where in the world they are
They go up north and come back south
Still got no idea where in the world they are.
Did I forget to mention, to mention Memphis
Home of Elvis and the ancient greeks
Do I smell? I smell home cooking
It’s only the river, it’s only the river.

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Talking Heads has released many songs over the years besides Cities. Talking Heads released songs from 1977 to 1988 spanning across albums like Talking Heads 77, More Songs About Buildings & Food, Fear Of Music, Remain In Light, Speaking In Tongues, Little Creatures, True Stories, and Naked. Decade Lyrics has over lyrics & songs by Talking Heads.

If you're a fan of 1970s music looking for more songs from 1979 or the 1970s overall, you've come to the right place!

About Lyrics and Cities by Talking Heads

The lyrics for Cities are defined as the words making up the song released by Talking Heads in 1979. It also includes the verses and words used by the background chorus in the song. Like many hit songs, the lyrics to Cities have different meanings to different people. While it is clear in some of the lyrics what the artist is trying to really say, only Talking Heads and those working with them know all of the meanings behind all of the lyrics to their songs.

Some folks are interested in word and phrase etymology. It is easy to understand the lyrics to Cities by Talking Heads if you think through it. 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 Cities" means the words set to the music of Cities, or poetry accompanied by the lyre played by Talking Heads. 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 Cities and the lyrics to Cities are both one and the same thing. None of this talk about the word Lyrics is really relevant to fans of Talking Heads who came here looking just for the lyrics to Cities, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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