Lyrics to
Madison Avenue

This version of Madison Avenue was released by Gil Scott-Heron in 1978.

Our About Gil Scott-Heron page at Decade Lyrics includes the lyrics for Madison Avenue from 1978 as well as all of the other lyrics from Gil Scott-Heron that we have in our lyrics database.

Here's more interesting things in songs and lyrics tied to Gil Scott-Heron or about the 1970s in general.

Pretty pictures in your favorite magazines
span the distance between you and Mr Clean(?)
You can take part in the All-American dream
just fill your house up with a million
products you don’t need.

You don’t ever have to use them.
Buying is all that’s asked of you.
But if it’s so Goddamn incredible
you can’t believe it’s true
it’s Madison Avenue

Make it all commercial
there ain’t nothin’ folks won’t buy
New fuel to fire up the monsters of Free Enterprise
Gizmos and gadgets, batteries to make them run
Just give your check up at the first of every month

And don’t wake up to the uselessness
’till your whole life is overdue.
‘Cause if it’s so Goddamn incredible
you can’t believe it’s true
it’s Madison Avenue

They can sell sand to a man livin’ in the desert.
They can sell tuna to the chicken of the sea…
You are surrounded and confounded and
dumbfounded by the happenings yes it’s true
it’s Madison Avenue

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Gil Scott-Heron has released many songs over the years besides Madison Avenue. Gil Scott-Heron released songs from 1970 to 2005 spanning across albums like Small Talk At 125th And Lenox, Pieces Of A Man, Free Will, Winter In America, The First Minute Of A New Day, It's Your World, From South Africa To South Carolina, Bridges, Secrets, The Mind Of Gil Scott-Heron, 1980, Real Eyes, Reflections, Moving Target, Spirits, and Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson - Messages (Anthology). Decade Lyrics has over lyrics & songs by Gil Scott-Heron.

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

About Lyrics and Madison Avenue by Gil Scott-Heron

The lyrics for Madison Avenue are made up of the words, verses and background chorus for the popular 1978 song by Gil Scott-Heron. Like a lot of songs, the lyrics to Madison Avenue 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 Madison Avenue - Gil Scott-Heron 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 Madison Avenue by Gil Scott-Heron 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 Madison Avenue" means the words set to the music of Madison Avenue, or poetry accompanied by the lyre played by Gil Scott-Heron. 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 Madison Avenue and the lyrics to Madison Avenue are both one and the same thing. None of this talk about the word Lyrics is really relevant to fans of Gil Scott-Heron who came here looking just for the lyrics to Madison Avenue, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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