Lyrically speaking
Jun. 6th, 2003 01:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
slipjig3While driving from point A to point B, I was trying to decide what my five favorite lyrics of all time are. Not the entire lyric, mind you, but just the line or verse that makes me go, "Ooo! Now why can't I write stuff like that?" Here's what I came up with, in no particular order:
"I swear you look like you're in jail
Then all at once you're halfway out the door
One foot dancing,
One foot nailed to the floor."
-- "Trouble," Shawn Colvin
"Now I've always been puzzled by the yin and the yang
That comes out in the wash, but it always leaves a stain"
-- "2:19," Tom Waits (same song has "Are you drying your nails or waving goodbye?")
"Well, you wish, but don't wish for me
As if the wish could cheat the fall
Just believe, and leave it be
There's beauty in what's brief
There's beauty in what's small
That's all"
-- "That's All, Amen, Close the Door," Richard Thompson
"They squeezed and the edged and they glared
Half of the clearly impaired
By rage or exhaustion
The rest were just touchy as hell."
-- "Transit," Richard Shindell
"You fondle my trigger, then you blame my gun"
-- "Limp," Fiona Apple
Honorable mention, because it's too new to include:
"I had a brain that felt like pancake batter."
-- "The Hardest Button to Button," The White Stripes
So, what are yours?
"I swear you look like you're in jail
Then all at once you're halfway out the door
One foot dancing,
One foot nailed to the floor."
-- "Trouble," Shawn Colvin
"Now I've always been puzzled by the yin and the yang
That comes out in the wash, but it always leaves a stain"
-- "2:19," Tom Waits (same song has "Are you drying your nails or waving goodbye?")
"Well, you wish, but don't wish for me
As if the wish could cheat the fall
Just believe, and leave it be
There's beauty in what's brief
There's beauty in what's small
That's all"
-- "That's All, Amen, Close the Door," Richard Thompson
"They squeezed and the edged and they glared
Half of the clearly impaired
By rage or exhaustion
The rest were just touchy as hell."
-- "Transit," Richard Shindell
"You fondle my trigger, then you blame my gun"
-- "Limp," Fiona Apple
Honorable mention, because it's too new to include:
"I had a brain that felt like pancake batter."
-- "The Hardest Button to Button," The White Stripes
So, what are yours?
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(no subject)
Date: 2003-06-06 09:04 pm (UTC)Where can you take me to make me understand
The wind can shake me, brothers forsake me
The rain can touch me, but can I touch the rain"
--"Wherefore and Why," Gordon Lightfoot
"Across the evening sky, all the birds are leaving
But how can they know it's time for them to go?
Before the winter fire, I will still be dreaming
I have no thought of time"
--"Who Knows Where The Time Goes?" Sandy Denny
"I don't want to dance
I just want to jump from the prison of circumstance"
--"Labour of Love," Frente!
"I could just pretend that you love me
The night would lose all sense of fear
But why do I need you to love me
When you can't hold what I hold dear"
--"Leather," Tori Amos
"I've become the beggar now
and you've become the saint somehow"
--"Hand Me Downs," Indigo Girls