Lyrics to
Sweet Painted Lady

This version of Sweet Painted Lady was released by Elton John in 1973.

Our About Elton John page at Decade Lyrics includes the lyrics for Sweet Painted Lady from 1973 as well as all of the other lyrics from Elton John that we have in our lyrics database.

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

I’m back on dry land once again
Opportunity awaits me like a rat in the drain
We’re all hunting honey with money to burn
Just a short time to show you the tricks that we’ve learned

If the boys all behave themselves here
Well there’s pretty young ladies and beer in the rear
You won’t need a gutter to sleep in tonight
Oh the prices I charge here will see you alright

So she lays down beside me again
My sweet painted lady, the one with no name
Many have used her and many still do
There’s a place in the world for a woman like you

Oh sweet painted lady
Seems it’s always been the same
Getting paid for being laid
Guess that’s the name of the game

Forget us we’ll have gone very soon
Just forget we ever slept in your rooms
And we’ll leave the smell of the sea in your beds
Where love’s just a job and nothing is said

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Want more lyrics and songs by Elton John?

Elton John has released many songs over the years besides Sweet Painted Lady. Elton John released songs from 1969 to 2004 spanning across albums like Empty Sky, Tumbleweed Connection, Elton John, Madman Across The Water, 11/17/2010, Honky Chateau, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, Don't Shoot Me (I'm Only The Piano Player), Caribou, Captain Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy, Rock Of The Westies, Blue Moves, A Single Man, Victim Of Love, 21 At 33, The Fox, Jump Up!, Too Low For Zero, Breaking Hearts, Ice On Fire, Leather Jackets, Reg Strikes Back, Sleeping With The Past, The One, Duets, Reg Dwight's Piano Goes Pop, Made In England, The Big Picture, One Night Only, Songs From The West Coast, and Peachtree Road. Decade Lyrics has over lyrics & songs by Elton John.

If you're a fan of 1970s music looking for more songs from 1973 or the 1970s overall, you've come to the right place!

About Lyrics and Sweet Painted Lady by Elton John

The lyrics for Sweet Painted Lady are made up of the words, verses and background chorus for the popular 1973 song by Elton John. Like a lot of songs, the lyrics to Sweet Painted Lady 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 Sweet Painted Lady - Elton John 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 Sweet Painted Lady by Elton John 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 Sweet Painted Lady" means the words set to the music of Sweet Painted Lady, or poetry accompanied by the lyre played by Elton John. 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 Sweet Painted Lady and the lyrics to Sweet Painted Lady are both one and the same thing. None of this talk about the word Lyrics is really relevant to fans of Elton John who came here looking just for the lyrics to Sweet Painted Lady, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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