Lyrics to
Nobody Gives

This version of Nobody Gives was released by The Kinks in 1974.

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I can’t understand why everybody’s quarreling,
Nobody gives in case they lose face,
And everybody’s guilty and everybody’s innocent,
And the fact of it is nobody gives any more.

It’s the same throughout all history,
Nobody gives unless they receive,
And nobody trusts or is willing to believe
And nobody gives or is willing to concede.

Back in nineteen hundred and twenty-five
There were thousands of people struggling to survive.
There was hunger, unemployment and poverty,
Then in 1926 they decided to be free
So they all went on strike and
The workers told the unions, who blamed it on the government,
The politicians blamed it on the strikers and the militants,
Everybody’s guilty and everybody’s innocent,
But the fact of it is nobody gives any more.

Back in nineteen hundred and thirty-nine
There were scores of German military waiting in a line,
And the Fatherland wanted what the world wouldn’t give,
And then Hitler decided he could take what was his,
So they all went to war and said
Kill all the left-wing intellectuals,
Annihilate the Jews and wipe out their race,
Eliminate the weak because they’re ineffectual,
And the fact of it is nobody gives any more.

I’m only sitting here watching it all go on
And listening to both sides.
Yeah, why can’t we talk it out,
Why can’t we sort it out,
We’ll work it out if we try.
Why can’t we sit down and work out a compromise,
Why not negotiate and try to be civilised?
I’ll tell you why, because nobody gives a damn.
Nobody listens and no one will understand.
Yet I’m wondering, sitting here wondering,
And listening to both sides.
Why can’t we work it out?
Why can’t we sort it out?
We’ll work it out if we try.
Why can’t we sit down and work out a compromise,
Why not negotiate and try to be civilised?
I’ll tell you why, because nobody gives a damn.
Nobody listens and no one will understand.
Yet, I’m wondering, sitting here wondering,
Yet I’m wondering, sitting here wondering
Listening to both sides.
Nobody gives, nobody gives, nobody gives.

The workers told the unions who blamed it on the government,
The politicians blamed it on the strikers and the militants,
Everybody’s guilty and everybody’s innocent.

Nobody gives. Nobody gives a damn any more.
The politicians, unions, workers and the militants,
The fact of it is nobody gives any more.

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The Kinks has released many songs over the years besides Nobody Gives. The Kinks released songs from 1964 to 1993 spanning across albums like Kinks, Kinda Kinks, The Kink Kontroversy, Face To Face, Something Else, The Village Green Preservation Society, Arthur (Or The Decline And Fall Of The British Empire), Lola Versus Powerman And The Moneygoround, Part One, Muswell Hillbillies, Percy, Everybody's In Show-Biz, Preservation Act I, Preservation Act II, Soap Opera, Schoolboys In Disgrace, Sleepwalker, Misfits, Low Budget, Give The People What They Want, State Of Confusion, Word Of Mouth, Think Visual, UK Jive, and Phobia. Decade Lyrics has over lyrics & songs by The Kinks.

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About Lyrics and Nobody Gives by The Kinks

When you decide to study the lyrics to Nobody Gives, you're looking at the words, verses and background chorus from the 1974 song by The Kinks. Some of the lyrics to Nobody Gives have clear meanings and some contain metaphorical references. Like most songs, only The Kinks and their collaborators know the full story behind any of the their songs.

You can understand the lyrics to Nobody Gives 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 Nobody Gives" means the words set to the music of Nobody Gives, or poetry accompanied by the lyre played by The Kinks. 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 Nobody Gives and the lyrics to Nobody Gives are both one and the same thing. None of this talk about the word Lyrics is really relevant to fans of The Kinks who came here looking just for the lyrics to Nobody Gives, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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