'Cause I know you were dying to know.  :) 
Lyrics are hard, man!  This game makes me think of those old (yes, I'm dating myself terribly) radio shows with Casey Kasem where someone would recite song lyrics in a deliberately arrhythmic fashion and I NEVER EVER GOT THEM.  Even when they were songs I knew well.  Stripping lyrics loose of music... it changes things drastically.

That, and I listen to a lot of random music. 

So the key.

1) Teacher says that I've been naughty
I must learn to concentrate.
Sohodolls -Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang. 
So cheerfully grim!  So wonderful to listen to!  I used to listen, fairly exclusively, to hard rock, but I've come to really like pop for the cheery quality of it. 

2) We don't cry for the gods that die by our hands
We throw stones if our gods take a stand.
Abney Park - Stigmata Martyr. 
I'm really quite fond of this group, though it has less to do with their steampunk sensibilities and more to do with ridiculously catchy tunes that are great work music.  When my fence was graffitied for the third time, I took out a bucket of white paint, my iPod, and painted the entire back of it.  And enjoyed myself.  Moral?  If Tom Sawyer had an iPod that played Abney Park, he wouldn't have conned kids into whitewashing the fence for him. 

3) Once when I was all alone I could not find the telephone
so instead I burned your pretty home to the ground.
Johnny Hollow - Worse Things
Guessed successfully by teacup_carousel

4) This is my life, my own, right or wrong
Bring it on back to be.
Syntax - Destiny 
Total wild card song that I discovered on youtube while looking for something else.  It came attached to the best Supernatural fanvid I think I've ever seen.  I watched it about a thousand times and then went looking for the song.  Like the whole album, but Destiny is still my favorite.  If I knew how to link vids, I'd include a link here!  As it is, I will just tell Supernatural fans to go hunt it down themselves.  Though not if flashing lights bother them. 

5) It's all fire and brimstone, baby, so let's go outside.
It's all fire and brimstone, baby, I got my brand new pistol, baby.
Puscifer - The Mission with Milla Jovovich
Guessed by stillsostrange

6) If you come back around I may not let you in
Cause I don't understand what this pretty is.
Kidneythieves - Pretty. 
Really amazing song, people.  Really amazing singer.  I love pretty much everything they put out.  Another of their songs "Black Bullet" is Sylvie's personal theme song.  But this is mine. 

7) If I lose myself to rhythm
Doesn't mean I lose control.
Sophie Ellis-Bextor - If I Can't Dance.
You guys!  So hard to find interesting lyrics from this song!  That's the downside of pop.  The tunes are catchy, danceable, so much fun, but the lyrics are often... not so hot.  This one starts off telling the listener that a new day dawns tonight.  Which makes my internal editor scream and flail.  Despite that, this is one of my go-to songs. 

8) Our love story reads like a book of lies
Good Intentions, better alibis.
Christian Kane - Making Circles (yes, the actor from Leverage). 
I'd heard him sing on Angel (man, Lindsey is STILL my favorite character from that show) so I knew he could carry a tune and had an interesting voice, then when I was looking for country music for the romance novel, I heard he had a country album out.  To my shame, I loved it.  So much that I bought copies for two of my long-suffering friends. 

9) Cause everybody's trying to get into heaven
but nobody's dead so far.
Shivaree - Flycatcher
My friend Nannette got me into Shivaree.  They've become, of all things, my so-stressed-I'm-gonna-DIE music.  Partly because I don't think the lead singer could sound stressed out no matter what she does.  Listening to her songs is often like listening to an old-fashioned torch singer dropping the lyrics word by word, note by note at whatever pace she wants while the band attempts to keep up.  Their song "I Will Go Quietly" is another favorite, even with the bleakness of it. 

10) Blame me for the rocks and baby bones
and broken lock on our garden
Iron & Wine - Evening on the Ground
Guessed by stillsostrange

11) blind, oh now I see
Truth, Lies, and in between
Kenny Wayne Shepherd - Blue on Black
I've been listening to this song off and on for the better part of ten years and I still find it easy, pleasing, and good to hear.  Since I'm fickle, that's saying something. 

12) take an eye for one eye, a tooth for one tooth
just like they say in the bible
Tom Waits - Black Wings
Guessed by stillsostrange

13) Fire & Brimstone, Dirt & a headstone
bury them baby, all of our sins
Miranda Lambert - Sin for a Sin
More country.  Trying to fill out the soundtrack for Renovation.  This is the song that my hero likes to sing along to, cheerfully, and out of tune, get caught dancing gracelessly to, get harassed over by his older brother, and just generally enjoys.  Until he's immersed in his first real relationship and then starts to think that cheating on your partner might be a great song subject, but is a terrible example of how love can go wrong.  Um, no one cheats on anyone in the book.  He's just an emo bastard.  What can I say?

14) I'm nobody's wife, and I'm nobody's baby
I like it that way but then again maybe
Voices of the Beehive - Monsters and Angels
An older song brought to my attention by pandora radio.  I loved it.  It's got that clear sweetness that a lot of pop singers have, but doubled because this is a sister act.  Sort of in the same vein as The Pierces. 

15) The soles of my shoes are shot full of holes
and it's all downhill with a bullet.
Nick Cave - Do You Love Me part 2
Trauma in aural form.  The lyrics are lifted piecemeal from Peter Straub's Houses without Doors (I think).  I listen to this when I'm really horrifyingly unhappy and want a reason to be.  Of course, a lot of Nick Cave is like that.  Cathartic stuff!  This song can be triggery.

16) If everything is just the way it should be
why am I still hungry?
Sarah Fimm - Be Like Water
Another Nannette song.  She sent it to me and I got enchanted by it.  Again, a clear voice, simple musically, slightly chanty, and tough lyrics hiding under sweet sound. This is the theme song of a character called Z Pendrach who thinks he has his life arranged just the way he wants.  He doesn't.  Someday I'll look up more of her songs.

17) Don't cry, there's always a way
here in November, in this house of leaves, we'll pray. 
Poe - Haunted
Guessed by teacup_carousel

18) The arrow goes straight through my heart
without you everything just falls apart
NIN - The Perfect Drug
Guessed by stillsostrange

19) Another day in this carnival of souls
another night's sands end as quickly as it goes.
Five Finger Death Punch - Far from Home
Melancholy rock ballad that has a genuinely poignant sound.  I'm not wild about the rest of their songs, but this one is a winner to me.  It's one of the few non-country songs on the Renovation soundtrack.  This is the main character's justified emo.  He keeps trying for normal and missing. 

20) aftermath in an amber glow
a vodka bath for this shipwrecked soul
The Creatures - 2nd Floor
Guessed by teacup_carousel