Lyrics to
Hateful

This version of Hateful was released by The Clash in 1979.

Our About The Clash page at Decade Lyrics includes the lyrics for Hateful from 1979 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.

Well, I got a friend who’s a man
Who’s a man? What man?
The man who keeps me from the lovely

He gives me what I need
What you need? What you got?
I need it all so badly

Oh, anything I want he gives it to me
Anything I want he gives it, but not for free
It’s hateful
And it’s paid for and I’m so grateful to be nowhere

This year I’ve lost some friends
Some friends? What friends?
I dunno, I ain’t even noticed

You see, I gotta go out again
Again? My friend
I gotta see that mainman

I killed all my nerves
My nerves? What swerves?
And I can’t drive so steady
And already

I’ve lost my memory
My mind? Behind!
I can’t see so clearly

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The Clash has released many songs over the years besides Hateful. 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.

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About Lyrics and Hateful by The Clash

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

You can understand the lyrics to Hateful 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 Hateful" means the words set to the music of Hateful, 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 Hateful and the lyrics to Hateful 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 Hateful, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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