Lyrics to
Powderfinger

This version of Powderfinger was released by Neil Young in 1979.

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

Look out, Mama,
there’s a white boat
comin’ up the river
With a big red beacon,
and a flag,
and a man on the rail
I think you’d better call John,
‘Cause it don’t
look like they’re here
to deliver the mail
And it’s less than a mile away
I hope they didn’t come to stay
It’s got numbers on the side
and a gun
And it’s makin’ big waves.

Daddy’s gone,
my brother’s out hunting
in the mountains
Big John’s been drinking
since the river took Emmy-Lou
So the powers that be
left me here
to do the thinkin’
And I just turned twenty-two
I was wonderin’ what to do
And the closer they got,
The more those feelings grew.

Daddy’s rifle in my hand
felt reassurin’
He told me,
Red means run, son,
numbers add up to nothin’
But when the first shot
hit the docks I saw it comin’
Raised my rifle to my eye
Never stopped to wonder why.
Then I saw black,
And my face splashed in the sky.

Shelter me from the powder
and the finger
Cover me with the thought
that pulled the trigger
Think of me
as one you’d never figured
Would fade away so young
With so much left undone
Remember me to my love,
I know I’ll miss her.

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Neil Young has released many songs over the years besides Powderfinger. Neil Young released songs from 1969 to 2007 spanning across albums like Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, Neil Young, After The Goldrush, Harvest, Journey Through The Past, Time Fades Away, On The Beach, Tonight's The Night, Zuma, Long May You Run, American Stars & Bars, Comes A Time, Rust Never Sleeps, Hawks And Doves, Re-ac-tor, Trans, Everybody's Rockin', Old Ways, Landing On Water, Life, This Note's For You, Eldorado, Freedom, Ragged Glory, Harvest Moon, Lucky Thirteen, Sleeps With Angels, Mirror Ball, Broken Arrow, Silver & Gold, Prairie Wind, and Chrome Dreams II. Decade Lyrics has over lyrics & songs by Neil Young.

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 Powderfinger by Neil Young

The lyrics for Powderfinger are made up of the words, verses and background chorus for the popular 1979 song by Neil Young. Like a lot of songs, the lyrics to Powderfinger 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 Powderfinger - Neil Young 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 Powderfinger by Neil Young 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 Powderfinger" means the words set to the music of Powderfinger, or poetry accompanied by the lyre played by Neil Young. 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 Powderfinger and the lyrics to Powderfinger are both one and the same thing. None of this talk about the word Lyrics is really relevant to fans of Neil Young who came here looking just for the lyrics to Powderfinger, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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