Since I’m in a a Fray/Middlebrow/Dr.Write/High Touch Megastore mood today, I’ve decided to offer up a bit of interactive blogittiness. A while ago (I don’t recall when) a friend and I were talking about a lyrics and lyricism. I don’t recall the exact context but it got us onto a discussion of the poetic merits of lyrics, and why lyrics are ill-received in poetic circles. (You know those poetic circles, always with their exclamations of “that’s not poetry!” while they chain smoke cigarettes and drink espresso in dark bistros.)
The whole conversation lead me to realize that there are many lyrics that I couldn’t do with out and they sometimes run in my head as songs should. Since I recently mis-treated some lyrics, I thought I would make amends and celebrate them.
Your task, oh reader, is to quote some lyrics that have some merit for you—whether poetic, philosophic, pathetic (in the rhetorical use of the world, not the disparaging) or whatever reason something might have merit. Include the lyricist, group/singer, title, and album title, if you don’t mind, as applicable. Obey fair use, please. You may explain the significance of your choice as you see fit.
I shall respond as a regular customer.
You know this all depends on the mood of the moment. Another one will be going through my head tomorrow. I only have the Maura OConnell and Linda Ronstadt versions.
ReplyDeleteBlue Train by Dolly Parton
Watching the long faces
Riding this run down track
And the lost places
From a dream that never brings them back
And the sad truth is
Nothing but a cold hard fact
I'm riding the blue train
Over the miles yet to cover
A ghost in a hurry to fade
I'm taking it one way to nowhere
Afraid you might be there
Counting the burned bridges
Trailing this rusted wreck
As our back pages
Scatter in the dust we left
Like a pearl necklace
Falling from around my neck
Away down the low road
A ticket to an empty room
A rendezvous unknown
To find me inside this blue train
This was more difficult than I thought. I got caught up in listening to a bunch of different songs anywhere from Pixies to Pavement to Jeff Buckley to the Ramones, so I'll just stick with the first thing that came to mind (and is pretty motivated by my emotional reaction) Elliott Smith's XO (Waltz #2) from his album XO:
ReplyDeletefirst the mic then a half cigarette
singing cathy's clown
that's the man that she's married to now
that's the girl that he takes around town
she appears composed, so she is, i suppose
who can really tell?
she shows no emotion at all
stares into space like a dead china doll
i'm never gonna know you now, but i'm gonna love you anyhow
now she's done and they're calling someone
such a familiar name
i'm so glad that my memories remote
'cos i'm doing just fine hour to hour, note to note
here it is the revenge to the tune
"you're no good,
you're no good you're no good you're no good"
can't you tell that it's well understood
i'm never gonna know you now, but i'm gonna love you anyhow
i'm here today and expected to stay on and on and on
i'm tired
i'm tired
looking out on the substitute scene
still going strong
xo, mom
it's ok, it's alright, nothing's wrong
tell mr. man with impossible plans to just leave me alone
in the place where i make no mistakes
in the place where i have what it takes
i'm never gonna know you now, but i'm gonna love you anyhow
i'm never gonna know you now, but i'm gonna love you anyhow
i'm never gonna know you now, but i'm gonna love you anyhow
(http://www.sweetadeline.net/lxo.html.)
I will say I like the way the words of the poem play off one another and am particularly struck by the image of a dead china doll.
I just read what I wrote about Smith's last show ever here in good old SLC: here.
ReplyDeleteSad and all, I should think. His fan-maintained web site has images of the play list from the here and here.
I've learned to no longer be ashamed that I'm a Prince fan ;-)
ReplyDeletePrince's Wherever U Go, Whatever U Do
Whatever U play, it’s okay 2 lose
Ooh sometimes (sometimes...)
As long as U learn from every game U choose
If one thing is sure, U’ll always endure
If U try your best at everything U do
Say what U mean and mean what U say
The price 4 a broken heart - it‘s 2 much 2 pay
And nothing is worth it, if U don’t have 2 try
The higher the stakes - the higher the sky
Jim Morrison wanted to be a poet before he wanted to be a rock star, so in honor of him here's a bit from Moonlight Drive:
ReplyDeleteLet's swim to the moon,
Let's climb through the tide
Penetrate the evenin' that the
City sleeps to hide
Let's swim out tonight, love
It's our turn to try
Parked beside the ocean
On our moonlight drive
--Kim
Imagine, if you will, the suburban desert wasteland post-apocolyptic intellectual nightmare that is Pocatello, Idaho. Then imagine that M-TV lands here, say, in the fall of 1983. It's not Kant, but it will do. While one supposedly does her Algebra homework and chews on a pencil, one is actually watching M-TV until she hears her mother's car in the driveway and then she acts as if she'd been making dinner, like, the whole time.
ReplyDeleteThis is how I met Elvis Costello. He was/is so sexy in a completely nerdy and smart way. And perhaps this song foreshadowed my future life as a (failed) novelist. In any case, I thought he was dreamy. Smart AND dreamy. I loved that he wore suit jackets and the way he swayed with his guitar.
Everyday I Write The Book (from Punch the Clock, 1983)
Don't tell me you don't know what love is
When you're old enough to know better
WHEN YOU FIND STRANGE HANDS IN YOUR SWEATER
When your dreamboat turns out to be a footnote
I'm a man with a mission in two or three editions
And I'm giving you a longing look
Everyday, everyday, everyday I write the book
Chapter One we didn't really get along
Chapter Two I think I fell in love with you
You said you'd stand by me in the middle of Chapter Three
But you were up to your old tricks in Chapters Four, Five and Six
The way you walk
The way you talk, and try to kiss me, and laugh
In four or five paragraphs
All your compliments and your cutting remarks
Are captured here in my quotation marks
Don't tell me you don't know the difference
Between a lover and a fighter
With my pen and my electric typewriter
Even in a perfect world where everyone was equal
I'd still own the film rights and be working on the sequel
Funny, I didn't even think of Dolly Parton, Prince, Jim Morrison or Elvis Costello, although they are all fine choices. Perhaps they are a fucked-up kind of dream-team line up we could persuade to go on American Idol? Now that is fucked up.
ReplyDeleteI really like lyrics, however, and use them continually as titles, if you haven't noticed.
Thank you, Clint for that visual. The all new American Idol Dream Team. It made me smile.
ReplyDeleteI woke up with this in my nogging:
ReplyDelete"Keep a movin' Dan, don't you listen to him Dan, he's a devil not a man
and he spreads the burnin' sand with water.
Dan can't you see that big green tree where the waters runnin' free
and it's waiting there for me and you.
Water, cool water." (Sons of the Pioneers, "Cool Water")
Now that's some lyrcizing.
I think I've listened to that Sons of the Pioneers album a million times, thanks to my dad. Eliot Smith? Wilco? Sons of the Pioneers? Is this an episode of "Twins: Separated at Birth"?
ReplyDelete(cool, water, water, water)
(Do you happen to be a fan of Allen Sherman?)
No, I hadn't heard of Allan Sherman before.
ReplyDeleteMy Dad too listened to the Sons of the Pioneers. He was of old cowboy stock, after all.