Lyrics to
Speed Kills

This version of Speed Kills was released by Gil Scott-Heron in 1972.

Our Gil Scott-Heron Songs profile has Speed Kills lyrics from 1972 and most if not all of the lyrics by Gil Scott-Heron that we have here at Decade Lyrics.

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

Speed on by, don’t seem to have the time
What about this life?
What about this life?
Can I come by?

Issues in the paper (somehow I’m not concerned)
Seems that I’ve been here before
Here before, but I never learn

Children
Slowly turn

Time stay gone, we never saw it go
Now what do we have?
Now what do we have, that we may show?
Friends you swore you’d never lose (melted from your style)
Down the tunnels of your youth, of your youth,
Now you never smile
Children
Learn to smile

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Want more lyrics and songs by Gil Scott-Heron?

Gil Scott-Heron has released many songs over the years besides Speed Kills. 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 popular 1970s songs looking for more songs from 1972 or the 1970s overall, you've come to the right place!

About Lyrics and Speed Kills by Gil Scott-Heron

The lyrics for Speed Kills are defined as the words making up the song released by Gil Scott-Heron in 1972. It also includes the verses and words used by the background chorus in the song. Like many hit songs, the lyrics to Speed Kills have different meanings to different people. While it is clear in some of the lyrics what the artist is trying to really say, only Gil Scott-Heron and those working with them know all of the meanings behind all of the lyrics to their songs.

Some folks are interested in word and phrase etymology. It is easy to understand the lyrics to Speed Kills by Gil Scott-Heron if you think through it. 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 Speed Kills" means the words set to the music of Speed Kills, 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 Speed Kills and the lyrics to Speed Kills 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 Speed Kills, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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