Lyrics to
The Card Cheat

This version of The Card Cheat was released by The Clash in 1979.

Our Decade Lyrics The Clash profile has all of the The Card Cheat lyrics from 1979 and many more songs from the The Clash discography that we have on file.

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

There’s a solitary man crying, “Hold me.”
It’s only because he’s a-lonely
If the keeper of time runs slowly
He won’t be alive for long!

If he only had time to tell of all of the things he planned
With a card up his sleeve, what would he achieve?
It means nothing!

To the opium den and the barroom gin
In the Belmont chair playing violins
The gambler’s face cracks into a grin
As he lays down the king of spades

But the dealer just stares
There’s something wrong here, he thinks
The gambler is seized and forced to his knees
And shot dead

He only wanted more time
Away from the darkest door
But his luck it gave in
As the dawn light crept in
And he lay on the floor

From the Hundred Year War to the Crimea
With a lance and a musket and a Roman spear
To all of the men who have stood with no fear
In the service of the King

Before you met your fate be sure you
Did not forsake your lover
May not be around anymore

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The Clash has released many songs over the years besides The Card Cheat. The Clash released songs from 1977 to 1993 spanning across albums like The Clash, Give 'em Enough Rope, London Calling, Sandinista!, Combat Rock, Cut The Crap, and Super Black Market Clash. Decade Lyrics has over lyrics & songs by The Clash.

If you're a fan of the music of the 1970s looking for more songs from 1979 or the 1970s overall, you've come to the right place!

About Lyrics and The Card Cheat by The Clash

The lyrics to The Card Cheat are just the words, phrases, verses and chorus that The Clash used when the song was created in 1979. The lyrics to The Card Cheat have both easy-to-spot meanings and hidden metaphors that have been discussed by the music press and fans, but only The Clash 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 The Card Cheat by The Clash. 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 The Card Cheat" means the words set to the music of The Card Cheat, or poetry accompanied by the lyre played by The Clash. 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 The Card Cheat and the lyrics to The Card Cheat are both one and the same thing. None of this talk about the word Lyrics is really relevant to fans of The Clash who came here looking just for the lyrics to The Card Cheat, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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