During last week’s big show, I remembered a bit that I thought would be a fun game for a music magazine or website: Is this a Beck lyric or an At the Drive-In/Mars Volta lyric?  Both Beck and Cedric Bixler-Zavala (singer and wordsmith for the latter groups) are known for their lines that when read in isolation have little to no literal meaning, yet each can still captivate the listener due to their ability to craft a memorable phrase and use of bizarre imagery.  With that in mind, we here at Rust Is Just Right are proud to just go ahead and do the game ourselves.

Here are a few of our favorite lyrics, and while we won’t reveal the artist, we will include a link to a video so you can confirm your guess.  These should be relatively well-known songs if you’re familiar with the artist–we’re not going to try to stump you too hard.

1. “In the company of wolves was a stretcher made of cobblestone curfews; the federales performed their custodial customs quite well.“

2. “She’s got a carburetor tied to the moon; pink eyes looking to the food of the ages.“

3. “When they dance in a reptile blaze, you wear a mask, an equatorial haze; into the past, a colonial maze, where there’s no more confetti to throw.“

4. “This is the pocket-sized edition; rapid sleep through benediction; let’s just paint you a pretty face.“

5. “Past, present, and future tense, clip-side of the pink-eye fountain.“

6. “Heads are hanging from the garbage-man trees; mouthwash, jukebox, gasoline; pistols are pointing at a poor man’s pockets, smiling eyes with ’em out of the sockets.“

7. “Can’t you hear those cavalry drums hijacking your equilibrium?  Midnight hags in the mausoleum where the pixelated doctors moan.“

8. “With a noose she can hang from the sun, and put it out with her dark sunglasses.“

9. “But have they kissed the ground?  Pucker up and kiss the asphalt now.“

10. “He’s got fasting black lungs, made of clove-splintered shards; they’re the kind that will talk through a wheezing of coughs.“

Hope that was fun; maybe we can do it again some time.