Lyrics to
Standards

This version of Standards was released by The Jam in 1977.

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

Oh we make the standards and we make the rules
And if you don’t abide by them you must be a fool
We have the power to control the whole land
You never must question our motives or plans –
‘Cause we’ll outlaw your voices, do anything we want
We’ve nothing to fear from the nation
We’ll throw you out of your houses if you get too much
If we have to we’ll destroy your generation

‘Cause we’ve built up a frontage and we’ve gained respect
There’s no one to endanger our position –

Standards rule OK
Standards rule OK
Standards rule OK
Standards rule OK

And we don’t like people who stand in our way
Awareness is gonna be redundant
And ignorance is strength, we have God on our side
Look, you know what happend to Winston

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The Jam has released many songs over the years besides Standards. The Jam released songs from 1977 to 1992 spanning across albums like This Is The Modern World, In The City, All Mod Cons, Setting Sons, Sound Affects, Dig The New Breed, The Gift, and Extras. Decade Lyrics has over lyrics & songs by The Jam.

If you're a fan of 1970s songs looking for more songs from 1977 or the 1970s overall, you've come to the right place!

About Lyrics and Standards by The Jam

The lyrics to Standards are just the words, phrases, verses and chorus that The Jam used when the song was created in 1977. The lyrics to Standards have both easy-to-spot meanings and hidden metaphors that have been discussed by the music press and fans, but only The Jam and any collaborators know all of the inspirations for the song.

If you like etymology or breaking apart phrases and words, it is easy to understand the lyrics to Standards by The Jam. 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 Standards" means the words set to the music of Standards, or poetry accompanied by the lyre played by The Jam. 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 Standards and the lyrics to Standards are both one and the same thing. None of this talk about the word Lyrics is really relevant to fans of The Jam who came here looking just for the lyrics to Standards, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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