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A Way With Words

Music hath charms... 
But the words have the power.
 
Each selection has this format:
  • Title
  • Author(s), w/m
  • Perfomer(s) chiefly associated with the song
  • Lyric
  • Discussion
Don't you have a favorite line from some song? One that really hits home? Sends little shivers up your spine and raises the hairs on your arms? Vividly recalls a special moment, perhaps? Or, piques your envy by clever use of language? ("God! I wish I had written that!"). Perhaps it evokes an intense image -- or it just tickles your fancy. 

Maybe it's not even your favorite song -- you might even hate it -- but there is something absolutely witchy about that lyric, the way it gets under your skin. It could put your teeth on edge argh! or be a pure delight but, either way, it's effect is INTENSE!

This page presents some of the lyrics that affect me in those ways. Along the way, I hope that you will come to appreciate, as I have, how much rhetoric figures in making catchy lyrics. Please pardon the pun. And the alliteration...

The songs

  1. 1917
  2. Ain't No Woman (Like the One I Got)
  3. American Pie
  4. At Seventeen
  5. Bad, Bad Leroy Brown
  6. Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show
  7. Chug-A-Lug
  8. The Day Before You Came
  9. Dead Skunk
  10. Eleanor Rigby
  11. Fast Car
  12. Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah! (A Letter from Camp)
  13. Hotel California
  14. I Am A Rock
  15. I Started A Joke
  16. I'll Never Fall In Love Again
  17. In the Summertime (You Don't Want My Love)
  18. It's My Party
  19. Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)
  20. Killing Me Softly With His Song
  21. The Logical Song
  22. Margaritaville
  23. Me and Bobby McGee
  24. One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer
  25. One Tin Soldier (The Legend of Billy Jack)
  26. Paradise By the Dashboard Light
  27. Precious and Few
  28. These Boots Are Made For Walking
  29. Time In a Bottle
  30. Total Eclipse of the Heart
  31. You're the One That I Want


1. 1917
 
index
David Olney
Linda Ronstadt/Emmylou Harris

The strange young man who comes to me
A soldier on a three-day spree
Who needs one night's cheap ecstasy
And a woman's arms to hide him

He greets me with a courtly bow
And hides his pain by acting proud
He drinks too much and he laughs too loud
How can I deny him?

Let us dance beneath the moon
I'll sing to you "Claire de Lune"
The morning always comes too soon
But tonight the war is over
This strange, haunting song is about a Paris whore and her young, doomed clients, the cannon-fodder of the Great War. It's about the horrors of that war and, ultimately, all wars. And how even a whore can be a patriot, in her own small way.

2. Ain't No Woman (Like the One I Got)
 
index
Dennis Lambert, Brian Potter
The Four Tops
Dunhill 1973

Every drop of rain is glad it found her.
The rest of the song is superfluous.

3. American Pie
 
index
Don McLean (BMI)
Don McLean
American Artists 1972

But February made me shiver;
With every paper I'd deliver.
Bad news on the doorstep;
I couldn't take one more step.
More synechdoche. The whole song has a strong impact on me, having myself been a paperboy and having lived through the same epochal events McLean writes of, but these lines affect me the most.

4. At Seventeen
 
index
Complete lyrics
Janis Ian
Janis Ian
Columbia 1975

To those of us who know the pain
Of valentines that never came,
And those whose names were never called
When choosing sides for basketball.
It was long ago and far away
The world was younger than today
And dreams were all they gave for free
To ugly duckling girls like me.
We all play the game and when we dare
To cheat ourselves at solitaire
Inventing lovers on the phone
Repenting other lives unknown
That call and say, come dance with me
and murmur vague obscenities
At ugly girls like me
At seventeen.
Every time this song starts on the radio, I always stop what I'm doing to listen carefully. This song is just so full of powerful -- wrenching, even -- images that I should really put it all here. This is poetry at its best.

5. Bad, Bad Leroy Brown
  added: 2004-07-23
index
w/m Jim Croce
Jim Croce
ABC 1973

He got a .32 gun in his pocket for fun
He got a razor in his shoe
* * *
Badder than a old King Kong
And meaner than a junkyard dog
Phew! Forget Kong.
Forget the razor and the pop-gun.
It's the dog, man!

I can see him. Leaping at the gate, digging under the fence, tearing at it with his huge teeth, drool flying.
How strong is chain-link, d'ya think?

Oh, yeah! He crazy mean!

An' Leroy, he meaner than that!

Thus Croce coins a phrase that instantly becomes a permanent part of the lexicon.

6. Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show
 
index
Neil Diamond
Neil Diamond
Uni 1969

Room gets suddenly still
And when you'd almost bet
You could hear yourself sweat, he walks in
Eyes black as coal
And when he lifts his face
Every ear in the place is on him
Never one to be overly subtle with an image, Diamond socks us with some of his best in this song. Nor does he stint here at the denouement, although the image that I have in my mind perhaps differs in the details from what Diamond probably had in his mind. I see a man cross the stage to the podium. A severe man, lean and true. Rockwell Kent's Ahab with a shock of purest white hair, a little overlong and carelessly combed, dressed in a frock coat of deepest black -- with dozens of ears stuck all over him.

7. Chug-A-Lug
 
index
Roger Miller
Roger Miller
Smash 1964

Grape wine in a mason jar
Homemade and brought to school
By a friend of mine after class
Me and him and this other fool
Decide that we'll drink up what's left
Chug-a-lug...
Miller has a special place in my heart. I love his easy, rollicking rhymes and irreverent style. Picking one of his songs as a favorite wasn't easy -- so I picked two!

8. The Day Before You Came
 
index
Complete lyrics
Benny Andersson, Bjorn Ulvaeus (ASCAP)
ABBA
Epic 1983

And turning out the light
I must have yawned and cuddled up for yet another night
And rattling on the roof I must have heard the sound of rain
The day before you came.
This ABBA song touches me deeply -- and I'm not sure exactly why. It's about a girl recalling how her life was so very ordinary and predictable, even to the very day before she meets her true love, an event which has changed everything for her.

In the song she reflects on the tedious details of her humdrum routine on the day before he came, and her clueless innocence of how her life was about to change.

Oh yes, I'm sure my life was well within it's usual frame
The day before you came.

9. Dead Skunk
  added: 2003-01-11
index
Loudon Wainwright III (ASCAP)
Loudon Wainwright III
Columbia 1973

You got yer
Dead skunk in the middle of the road
Dead skunk in the middle of the road
You got yer dead skunk in the middle of the road
Stinkin' to high Heaven!
This charming little ditty is a favorite of a local radio DJ, so I get to hear it rather often.

Every time I hear it, I imagine how it came to be: In the small hours after the show, Wainwright and crew are bantering big talk around the bar. Wainwright boasts that he can write a song about anything, anything at all. Someone replies, "Oh, yeah?" ...

(Well, it could have happened like that!)

10. Eleanor Rigby
 
index
John Lennon, Paul McCartney (BMI)
The Beatles
Capitol 1966

Wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door
This is true synechdoche, in a slightly different form: "matter for what is made from it". In these few words a complex ritual is evoked in the listener's mind: The Putting On Of Makeup.

11. Fast Car
  added: 2003-01-12
index
Complete lyrics
Tracy Chapman (ASCAP)
Tracy Chapman
Elektra 1988

You got a fast car
And we go cruising to entertain ourselves
You still ain't got a job
And I work in a market as a checkout girl
I know things will get better
You'll find work and I'll get promoted
We'll move out of the shelter
Buy a big house and live in the suburbs
This song, like Chapman herself, came out of nowhere in 1988. I first heard it while driving in my own fast car, a 1986 Dodge Conquest. "Cool!", said I, "A song about me and my car!"

It wasn't until our lesbian paper-hanger clued me in that I took the time to really listen to the words. That's when I realized: This song isn't about a car at all. The car is a mere plot device, providing continuity in this pathetic story of failed trickle-down economics.

The singer is one of the disadvantaged, to use the PC terminology. Abandoned by her mother, with an alcoholic father to care for, her shiftless husband cruises the bars with his pals, leaving her with the kids.

But she knows things will get better.

Nowadays, whenever I hear this song, it brings me back to 1988. I'm cruising in my Conquest — and wondering if she ever got her big house in the suburbs.

12. Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah! (A Letter from Camp)
 
index
Allen Sherman, Lou Busch (adaptation)
Allen Sherman
Warner Bros. 1963

Wait a minute, it's stopped hailing; 
Guys are swimming, guys are sailing; 
Playing baseball; gee that's bettah; 
Muddah, Faddah kindly disregard this letter.
This enduring little ditty is a testament to Sherman's genius as poet-commentator on the  travails of youth. Is there any Baby-Boomer who doesn't instantly think of Camp Grenada's alligator-filled lake on hearing Ponchielli's "Dance of the Hours"?

13. Hotel California
  added: 2000-11-06
index
Don Felder, Don Henley, Glenn Frey
The Eagles
Asylum 1963

You can check out any time you like,
But you can never leave.
I'm sorry. I can't help it. I just love songs with clever lyrics, especially involving plays on words. This is a fine example, playing on the two meanings of "check out", one being what you do when you leave a hotel, in California or elsewhere, the other meaning "to die", or to:
croak, go west, kick the bucket, (pop, drop, step, knock, pipe, kick, or shove) off, go to the wall, pass or peg out, go for a burton (Brit?), take the last count, (check, cash, pass or hand) in one's (hand, checks or chips), turn up one's toes, slip one's cable, have one's time, (have or buy) (it or the farm), meet one's Maker, drop dead, bite the dust, come to an untimely end or go home feet first.

14. I Am A Rock
  added: 2004-11-06
index
w/m Paul Simon
Simon and Garfunkel
Columbia 1966

I have my books
And my poetry to protect me;
I am shielded in my armor,
Hiding in my room, safe within my womb.
I touch no one and no one touches me.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

And a rock feels no pain;
And an island never cries.
Here is a soul, so psyche-rent that total retreat is the only solution. As the burnt hand shuns the stove, so love and friendship are denied.
I have no need of friendship; friendship causes pain.
If I never loved I never would have cried.
It's a survival thing.

15. I Started A Joke
  added: 2003-01-13
index
Complete lyrics
Barry Gibb, Robin Gibb, Maurice Gibb (BMI)
The Bee Gees
Atco 1969

I looked at the skies running my hands over my eyes
And I fell out of bed hurting my head from things that I said
'Till I finally died which started the whole world living
Oh If I'd only seen that the joke was on me
Oh no that the joke was on me
Maurice Gibb died yesterday. I suddenly realized that I had not gotten 'round to including any of the Bee Gees' wonderfully quirky lyrics that I so enjoy.

I won't claim to understand all of their songs. Who does? Their songs are often true poetry, requiring us to imagine the flesh and bone from the marrow served us.

Poetry like this is not easy. It makes us work to understand it. I think that's why many folks are not overly fond of poetry. They're unwilling to invest the study required for understanding. More's the pity, because several layers of meaning may be hidden within.

I confess that I suspect the Bee Gees sometimes tucked in a line or two just because they sounded right, without regard for meaning. How else to explain some of the really inscrutable stuff? "Red chair, fade away" is readily explained, but what of this:

Just my dog and I
at the edge of the universe.
Well, I didn't wanna bring her
and I know it'll make her worse.

They sure made some beautiful, memorable music!
Like Words.
Like Islands in the Stream.
And the wonderfully multi-textured Odessa (City on the Black Sea). (review) Then there is their little-known instrumental work, like Seven Seas Symphony or With All Nations (both also from album Odessa.)

Beautiful music, indeed!

Trivia
Maurice Gibb's first wife was the Scottish singer/actress, Lulu (To Sir With Love, 1967).

16. I'll Never Fall In Love Again
 
index
Hal David, Burt Bacharach (ASCAP)
Dionne Warwick
Scepter 1970

What do you get when you kiss a guy?
You get enough germs to catch pneumonia
After you do, he'll never phone ya
I'll never fall in love again
I'll never fall in love again
That's probably the best rhyme in popular music! Every time I hear it, I have to chuckle.

17. In the Summertime (You Don't Want My Love)
 
index
Roger Miller
Andy Williams

In the summertime, when all the trees and leaves are green
And the redbird sings, I'll be blue
'Cause you don't want my love ...
Miller has a way with inner rhymes and meter -- not to mention imagery: three colors in two lines! Williams has one of the best voices in the business, and his handling of these lyrics is perfection.

18. It's My Party
argh!  
index
W. Gold, H. Wiener, J. Gluck (ASCAP)
Lesley Gore
Mercury 1963

Judy and Johnny just walked thru' the door,
 like a queen with her king.
Oh, what a birthday surprise,
 Judy's wearing his ring.
Hey! If you had his ring, he couldn't give it to her, now could he? Obviously, there was no commitment there, so GET OVER IT!

19. Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)
 
index
Mickey Newbury (BMI)
Kenny Rogers & The First Edition
Reprise 1968

I just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in
There are two figures of speech at work here. First, and most visible, is antanaclasis (repetition of a word in two different senses), a form of pun. More subtle is the symbolic allusion in reverse in the words "dropped in" to the "dropping out" of the Psychedelic Era through the use of drugs. The allusion is of a return during an acid-fueled out-of-body experience to the scene of the crime, as it were, to check on things.

20. Killing Me Softly With His Song
 
index
Norman Gimbel, Charles Fox (BMI)
Lorri Lieberman
RCA 1973

Strumming my pain with his fingers,
Singing my life with his words,
Killing me softly with his song,
Killing me softly with his song,
Telling my whole life with his words,
Killing me softly with his song.
This entire song is about the effect that I'm describing. The singer hears about a new songster who "has a style", but is stunned by the profound connection of his words with her life, feeling as if "he found my letters and read each one out loud."

The legend is that Lorri Lieberman was inspired to record this song after seeing a performance by Don McLean.

21. The Logical Song
 
index
Rick Davies, Roger Hodgson
Supertramp
A&M 1979

But then they sent me away to teach me how to be sensible,
    logical, responsible, practical.
And they showed me a world where I could be so dependable,
    clinical, intellectual, cynical.
Aside from the plaintive lament, and stripped of meaning, the lyrics of The Logical Song have a special sound, a cadence, a music all their own: Adjectives on Parade!

22. Margaritaville
 
index
Jimmy Buffet
Jimmy Buffet
ABC 1977

Nothing to show but this brand new tattoo.
  But it's a real beauty
  A Mexican cutie
How it got here, I haven't a clue.
God! I'm glad I've never been that drunk! Have I?

23. Me and Bobby McGee
 
index
Complete lyrics
K. Kristofferson, F. Foster (BMI)
Janis Joplin
Columbia 1971

But I'd trade all of my tomorrows,
for one single yesterday
Could there be a better example of lamentation?

I like this line for its use of a subtle figure of speech to good effect. The figure is catachresis, which is incorrect or paradoxical word usage. At any given point in time, there can only be one day called "tomorrow" and one called "yesterday", yet a multiplicity of them is inferred. 

One can almost find another figure, synechdoche (use of a part for the whole), in the use of "tomorrow" to stand for the whole future -- except for the plural form.

This is a fine example of the way song lyrics, and poetry in general, often make use of rhetorical devices to heighten the effect of the language -- to pack more meat in it.

Freedom's just another word
for nothin' left to lose
I'm not sure what that means, but I do like the way it sounds!

I've just had it explained to me by someone who I think has been there. Loosely paraphrased:

Posit, if you will, someone who has lost parents, spouse, child, home -- everything. There remains only the ultimate freedom -- to slip the earthly bonds of this mortal coil -- because all of importance is already lost. This wretched individual,  wrenched by the despair of those losses, drenched by the loss of hope, might even believe that the ultimate freedom would be a preferable alternative to her current miserable condition.

24. One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer
 
index
John Lee Hooker
George Thorogood

So I go down the streets, people.
Down to my good friend's house.
I say "Look man. I'm outdoors, you know.
Can I stay with you maybe a couple days?"
He say "Let me go ask my wife."
He come out the house,
I could see in his face,
I know it was "No"!
He say "I don't know, man. She kinda funny, you know"
I say,
  "I know!
  Ever'body funny.
  Now you funny, too!"
This is from Thorogood's long, spoken introduction -- and I just like the pithy pathos from a down and out guy, rejected by his last friend in the world, with nowhere left to turn for solace but to the bottle.

25. One Tin Soldier (The Legend of Billy Jack)
 
index
Dennis Lambert, Brian Potter
Coven
Warner Bros. 1970

On the bloody morning after
One tin soldier rides away.
For an anti-violence flick, Billy Jack sure had plenty of it, and this was its theme song. OK, it was not great cinema, but I loved it anyway. And I had to have that hat! I wore it camping for years -- until our little bitch schnauzer ate it! I hated her for that.

26. Paradise By the Dashboard Light
  added: 2003-01-11
index
Complete lyrics
Jim Steinman (BMI)
Meatloaf
Epic 1977

GIRL:
Ain't no doubt about it
We were doubly blessed
'Cause we were barely seventeen
And we were barely dressed

 •
 •
 •
Stop right there! I gotta know right now! Before we go any further! Do you love me? Will you love me forever?
 •
 •
 •
BOY: I couldn't take it any longer Lord I was crazed And when the feeling came upon me Like a tidal wave I started swearing to my god and on my mother's grave That I would love you to the end of time That I would love you to the end of time I swore that I would love you to the end of time!
Was Steinman listening through my radio or something? Is there any Boomer who doesn't connect with this miniature opera?

Again, the clever use of language: "barely" in two different senses is a sort of linguistic hook that reels me in every time. This song is loaded with double entendres. Take the Scooter's baseball play-by-play: In the dirt, indeed!

Trivia
The album, Bat Out Of Hell, was produced by Todd Rungren — who had a few other parts: Guitar, Percussion, Arranger, Keyboards, Vocals, Vocals (bckgr), Engineer, Mixing.

Female vocals on Paradise were by Ellen Foley — who co-starred in the American TV (NBC) series Night Court during the 1984-85 season as public defender Billie Young.

27. Precious and Few
argh!  
index
Walter Nims
Climax
Carousel 1972

Precious and few are the moments we two can share.
toucan A toucan is a tropical bird with an immense beak.
The Toucan Song! Get it? "... we toucans share."

I cannot listen to this song anymore. I have to change the station whenever it comes on the radio.

This is an example of a mondegreen -- a misunderstood song lyric with humerous effect.

28. These Boots Are Made For Walking
argh!  
index
Lee Hazelwood
Nancy Sinatra
Reprise 1966

You keep lyin' when you oughta be truthin'
Puh-leeese! And the whole song is like this! Although this is some kind of figure of speech, it is just too painfully sophomoric. Hazelwood should be have had his hands broken for inflicting this monstrosity on humankind! At least they found a perfect match in the performer.

And it was a #1 gold record! Go figure!

29. Time In a Bottle
 
index
Jim Croce
Jim Croce
ABC 1973

If I could save time in a bottle
The first thing that I'd like to do
Is to save every day 'til eternity passes away
Just to spend them with you
Perhaps the prettiest song in modern popular music, Time In a Bottle is itself an exquisite scarab in amber. And the main metaphor, of corking up time itself to allow replaying the good parts, is very appealing.

30. Total Eclipse of the Heart
  added: 2000-10-22
index
Jim Steinman
Bonnie Tyler
Columbia 1983

We're living in a powder keg and giving off sparks
What a powerful image of an explosive relationship on a short fuse. You can almost hear the crashing crockery! I am convinced that metaphor is a key player in most successful poetry -- and there's plenty of metaphor and other figures throughout this wonderful song. The bridge, in particular, really grabs me:
Once upon a time I was falling in love
    but now I'm only falling apart.
There's nothing I can do - a total eclipse of the heart

Once upon a time there was light in my life
    but now there's only love in the dark.
Nothing I can say - a total eclipse of the heart
I love the paired contrasting images drawn with similar words, a visual rhyme:

falling in love vs falling apart
light in my life vs love in the dark

Bonnie Tyler's slightly husky voice lends just the right note of anxious desperation in a perfect rendition.

31. You're the One That I Want
  added: 2005-02-07
index
w/m John Farrar
Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta
MCA 1978

If you're filled with affection you're to shy to convey, meditate in my direction. Feel your way.
Ooo, Sandy! Feel my way?

This lyric epitomizes the character change Sandy experienced, from a demure, proper girl to a passionate woman. Curiously, Ms Newton-John seems to have experienced a similar transformation in her personal life at that time! Just look at her recordings: before Grease they were typified by such tracks as I honestly Love You (1974), or Please Mr. Please (1975). After the Grease experience she gives us tunes like Totally Hot (1978) and Physical (1981).

Things that make you go hmmm!


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