“What to leave in, what to leave out”
- Against the Wind/Bob Seger
I ran across this recently:
We all have that one specific line. The one that makes you pull the car over or stare at the wall for ten minutes while the rest of the album plays on without you. And it isn't always the deeper poetry either. Sometimes it's just the way a voice breaks at the exact right moment. So what's the line that stops you?
How much time ya got? Kendra bought me a pillow a while back that says “99.9% of my brain is song lyrics.” It's not exactly accurate in my case, though. Although a large percentage of my gray matter is clogged with lyrics, there's other stuff occupying the space too - lines from movies and TV, random and useless trivia, and our phone number from my childhood -- 665-2905.
As to naming favorite and beloved song lyrics, that is one of those endeavors that is fun but also maddening. If you're a music nerd, you understand. The minute you name one, you'll remember another one, and then another, and then another…It's like Pi, there is no end. For me, favorite lines from Dylan songs alone could fill pages and pages: Well, you know I need a steam shovel, mama, to keep away the dead/I need a dump truck, mama, to unload my head.
It's a good point, too, that things that stick aren't always profound and life-altering, sometimes they're just clever turns of phrase that make you go, "Man, how'd they come up with that?" Sometimes there's no particular explanation for why somethings lands with us. It just does.
So, I'll give it a go and submit three, although I'm straining at the leash to name a hundred. I feel like this should be a weekly exercise. Maybe Fridays would be good.
What have you got?
“Talkin' to you girl is like long division”
- Singular Girl/Rhett Miller
“And in the roar of dust a diesel, I stood and watched her walk away
I could have caught up with her easy enough, but something must of made me stay"
- Tunnel of Love/Dire Straits
“I got a girl out in Henrietta/Her love's like tornado weather”
- Bad Liver and a Broken Heart/Hayes Carll