Lyrics to
Shattered

This version of Shattered was released by The Rolling Stones in 1978.

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Shattered, shattered
Love and hope and sex and dreams
Are still surviving on the street
Look at me, I’m in tatters!
I’m a shattered
Shattered
Friends are so alarming
And my lover’s never charming
Life’s just a cocktail party on the street
Big Apple
People dressed in plastic bags
Directing traffic
Some kind of fashion
Shattered
Laughter, joy, and loneliness and sex and sex and sex and sex
Look at me, I’m in tatters
I’m a shattered
Shattered
All this chitter-chatter, chitter-chatter, chitter-chatter ’bout
Shmatta, shmatta, shmatta — I can’t give it away on 7th Avenue
This town’s been wearing tatters (shattered, shattered)
Work and work for love and sex
Ain’t you hungry for success, success, success, success
Does it matter? (Shattered) Does it matter?
I’m shattered.
Shattered
Ahhh, look at me, I’m a shattered
I’m a shattered
Look at me- I’m a shattered, yeah
Pride and joy and greed and sex
That’s what makes our town the best
Pride and joy and dirty dreams and still surviving on the street
And look at me, I’m in tatters, yeah
I’ve been battered, what does it matter
Does it matter, uh-huh
Does it matter, uh-huh, I’m a shattered
Don’t you know the crime rate is going up, up, up, up, up
To live in this town you must be tough, tough, tough, tough, tough!
You got rats on the west side
Bed bugs uptown
What a mess this town’s in tatters I’ve been shattered
My brain’s been battered, splattered all over Manhattan
Uh-huh, this town’s full of money grabbers
Go ahead, bite the Big Apple, don’t mind the maggots, huh
Shadoobie, my brain’s been battered
My friends they come around they
Flatter, flatter, flatter, flatter, flatter, flatter, flatter
Pile it up, pile it high on the platter

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The Rolling Stones has released many songs over the years besides Shattered. The Rolling Stones released songs from 1964 to 2005 spanning across albums like 12x5, The Rolling Stones, Out Of Our Heads, December's Children (And Everybody's), The Rolling Stones, Now!, Aftermath, Their Satanic Majesties Request, Between The Buttons, Flowers, Beggar's Banquet, Let It Bleed, Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out, Sticky Fingers, Exile On Main St., Goats Head Soup, It's Only Rock 'N' Roll, Black And Blue, Some Girls, Emotional Rescue, Tattoo You, Undercover, Dirty Work, Steel Wheels, Voodoo Lounge, Stripped, Bridges To Babylon, Forty Licks, Rarities 1971-2003, and A Bigger Bang. Decade Lyrics has over lyrics & songs by The Rolling Stones.

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About Lyrics and Shattered by The Rolling Stones

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

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

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