Lyrics to
Guitar And Pen

This version of Guitar And Pen was released by The Who in 1978.

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You’re alone above the street somewhere
Wondering how you’ll ever count out there

You can walk, you can talk, you can fight
But inside you’ve got something to write
In your hand you hold your only friend
Never spend your guitar or your pen
Your guitar or your pen
Your guitar or your pen
Your guitar or your pen
Your guitar or your pen

When you take up a pencil and sharpen it up
When you’re kicking the fence and still nothing will budge
When the words are immobile until you sit down
Never feel they’re worth keeping, they’re not easily found
Then you know in some strange, unexplainable way
You must really have something
Jumping, thumping, fighting, hiding away
Important to say

When you sing through the verse and you end in a scream
And you swear and you curse ’cause the rhyming ain’t clean
But it suddenly comes after years of delay
You pick up your guitar, you can suddenly play
When your fingers are bleeding and the knuckles are white
Then you can be sure, you can open the door
Get off of the floor tonight
You have something to write

When you want to complain, there’s no one can stop you
But when your music proclaims, there’s no one can top you
You are wearing you heart on your jumping feet
You’ve got a head start away from the street

But is that what you want, to be rich and be gone?
Could be there’s just one thing left in the end
Your guitar and your pen

When you sing to your mum, and you hum and you croon
And she says that she’d like it “with more of a tune”
And you smash your guitar at the end of the bed
Then you stick it together and start writing again
And you know that it won’t be too long ’til your back
To bring her some money, she’s calling you “honey”
Stashed in a bloody great sack
In your Cadillac

You’re alone
You’re alone

You’re alone above the street somewhere
Wondering how you’ll ever count out there

You can walk, you can talk, you can fight
But inside you’ve got something to write
In your hand you hold your only friend
Never spend your guitar or your pen
Your guitar or your pen
Your guitar or your pen
Your guitar or your pen
Your guitar or your pen
Your guitar or your pen
Your guitar or your pen
Your guitar or your pen
Your guitar or your pen

Never spend your guitar or your pen

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Want more lyrics and songs by The Who?

The Who has released many songs over the years besides Guitar And Pen. The Who released songs from 1965 to 1982 spanning across albums like The Who Sings My Generation, A Quick One / Happy Jack, The Who Sell Out, Tommy, Who's Next, Quadrophenia, The Who By Numbers, Who Are You, Face Dances, and It's Hard. Decade Lyrics has over lyrics & songs by The Who.

If you're a fan of 1970s songs looking for more songs from 1978 or the 1970s overall, you've come to the right place!

About Lyrics and Guitar And Pen by The Who

When you decide to study the lyrics to Guitar And Pen, you're looking at the words, verses and background chorus from the 1978 song by The Who. Some of the lyrics to Guitar And Pen have clear meanings and some contain metaphorical references. Like most songs, only The Who and their collaborators know the full story behind any of the their songs.

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

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