I'm trying to just be the "icebreaker".
It surprised me when the poet Les Murray recently died, there was no comment on it here. A bit more digging and I barely found any mention of stuff resembling the thread title. The reference in another thread to Pentridge Prison's makeover, made me think of Bruce Dawe's poem about the hanging of Ronald Ryan.
That's just two bits of vernacular Australiana, I admit this genre (including the visual arts) is a particular favourite.
Surely others here have favourite lyrics that stand without music, favourite artists, authors?