Lyrics to
City Lights

This version of City Lights was released by Lou Reed in 1979.

Our Lou Reed Songs profile has City Lights lyrics from 1979 and most if not all of the lyrics by Lou Reed that we have here at Decade Lyrics.

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

Don’t these city lights
light these streets to life
Don’t these crazy nights
bring us together
Any rainy day
you can dance those blues away
Don’t these city lights
bring us together

Charlie Chaplin’s cane
well it flicked away the rain
Things weren’t quite the same
after he came here
But then when he left
upon our own request
Things weren’t quite the same
after he came here

Don’t these city lights
bring the streets to life
Don’t these crazy nights
bring us together
Any rainy day
you can dance those blues away
Don’t these city lights
bring us together

We’re supposed to be
a land of liberty
And those city lights
to blaze forever
But that little tramp
leaning on that street corner lamp
When he left us
his humor left forever

We’re supposed to be
a land of liberty
And those city lights
to blaze forever
But that little tramp
leaning on that street corner lamp
When he left us
his humor left us forever, ever

Don’t these city lights
bring the streets to life
Don’t these crazy nights
bring us together
Any rainy day
you can dance those blues away
Don’t these city lights
bring us together
Together

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Want more lyrics and songs by Lou Reed?

Lou Reed has released many songs over the years besides City Lights. Lou Reed released songs from 1972 to 2000 spanning across albums like Transformer, Lou Reed, Berlin, Sally Can't Dance, Rock 'n' Roll Animal, Coney Island Baby, Rock And Roll Heart, Street Hassle, The Bells, Growing Up In Public, The Blue Mask, Legendary Hearts, New Sensations, Mistrial, New York, Magic And Loss, Set The Twilight Reeling, and Ecstasy. Decade Lyrics has over lyrics & songs by Lou Reed.

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

About Lyrics and City Lights by Lou Reed

When you decide to study the lyrics to City Lights, you're looking at the words, verses and background chorus from the 1979 song by Lou Reed. Some of the lyrics to City Lights have clear meanings and some contain metaphorical references. Like most songs, only Lou Reed and their collaborators know the full story behind any of the their songs.

You can understand the lyrics to City Lights if you take apart the structure of the words. 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 City Lights" means the words set to the music of City Lights, or poetry accompanied by the lyre played by Lou Reed. 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 City Lights and the lyrics to City Lights are both one and the same thing. None of this talk about the word Lyrics is really relevant to fans of Lou Reed who came here looking just for the lyrics to City Lights, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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