# Lines in Your Favorite Songs that You Can't Explain **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 22, 2018, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lines-in-your-favorite-songs-that-you-cant-explain/814636 "2018-05-22T22:16:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2018, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lines-in-your-favorite-songs-that-you-cant-explain/814636/41 "2018-05-25T14:06:08Z")
Not my _favourite_ song, but one I like, is [_The Wreck Of The Old Ninety-Seven_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLOcNOSBp9g) there’s a math error. ‘The first 46 are reserved for the majors, the captains have the next 49. There’s only one other ship at the end of the apron. Said the shavetail, “Then that one is mine.”’ That’s only 96. Why couldn’t Oscar Brand sing ‘The first 47 are reserved for the majors’? In [_I Wanted Wings_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uC-8vPJo9OE) Brand sings, ‘I’d rather be a terrier, than a flyer on a carrier, with my hand around a bottle. You can keep your god-damned throttle, buster.’ This lyric doesn’t make sense, and I think he should have used the original lyrics ‘I’d rather be a bellhop, than a flyer on a flat-top, with my hand around a bottle…’ I (personally) have never seen a terrier with its hand around a bottle. Indeed, I’ve never seen a terrier with hands. But it’s perfectly natural for a bellhop to be carrying a bottle, and ‘flat-top’ was a common term for an aircraft carrier. ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2018, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lines-in-your-favorite-songs-that-you-cant-explain/814636/42 "2018-05-25T22:18:39Z")
Not a favorite song, but I’ve always been bugged by this line in “Happy Together”: - So happy together How is the weather \* Weather? This is one of those lines that makes me think “that’s the only line he could come up with that rhymes”? ---
**Author:** ![DavidwithanR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3bc359/32.png) [@DavidwithanR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidwithanR)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2018, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lines-in-your-favorite-songs-that-you-cant-explain/814636/43 "2018-05-25T23:19:59Z")
> [@markn\_1](#): > > Not a favorite song, but I’ve always been bugged by this line in “Happy Together”: > > - > > So happy together > How is the weather > \* > > Weather? This is one of those lines that makes me think “that’s the only line he could come up with that rhymes”? He could have used “Homage to Heather” or “Wearing fake leather” or “Dogs of a feather”… ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2018, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lines-in-your-favorite-songs-that-you-cant-explain/814636/44 "2018-05-26T01:36:48Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > “The Best is Yet to Come” > > First line: _ **Out** of the tree of life I just picked me a plum._ > > 😕 WTF? > > You don’t pick plums _out_ of a tree; you pick them _off_ of a tree… > [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > I think you may have missed the second level of meaning here. > > At its simplest, the lyric is saying that he picked a plum off the tree. But he’s also using the term plum as in “plum assignment”, i.e. something preferable to other choices. He’s saying that there were many possible choices available but he picked the best one. In that context, the phrase “picked out” makes more sense. But then it would be _“Out of **an assortment of things** I just picked me a plum.”_ ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2018, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lines-in-your-favorite-songs-that-you-cant-explain/814636/45 "2018-05-26T01:50:40Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > In and around the lake > Mountains come out of the sky and they stand there > One mile over we’ll be there and we’ll see you > Ten true summers we’ll be there and laughing too > Twenty four before my love you’ll see > I’ll be there with you… > > And they took so many drugs. Duh! > [@Green\_Bean](#): > > _In the white room with black curtains near the station. > Black-roof country, no gold pavements, tired starlings. > Silver horses run down moonbeams in your dark eyes. > Dawn-light smiles on you leaving, my contentment._ > [@buddha\_david](#): > > _“All praise > He’s found the awful truth > Balthazar, he’s found the saucer news.”_ :smack::smack::smack: You had to be therel ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2018, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lines-in-your-favorite-songs-that-you-cant-explain/814636/46 "2018-05-26T03:51:39Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > A few years ago, I saw Jon Anderson doing a one-man Unplugged/Storytellers show here in Austin. After he did “Yours Is No Disgrace,” someone yelled out, “What does that song mean?” Anderson grinned and said, “People always ask what my songs mean. I don’t know what they mean.” He then giggled and puffed on an imaginary joint. I’ve been a big Yes fan for 35 years, and the two things I’ve come to realize about Jon’s lyrics: 1. He’s writing poetry, not prose 2. He really does like pot 😃 ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2018, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lines-in-your-favorite-songs-that-you-cant-explain/814636/47 "2018-05-26T04:10:14Z")
> [@markn\_1](#): > > Not a favorite song, but I’ve always been bugged by this line in “Happy Together”: > > - > > So happy together > How is the weather > \* > > Weather? This is one of those lines that makes me think “that’s the only line he could come up with that rhymes”? I call that the “Hot dog bun, my sister’s a nun” effect. From John Prine’s _Illegal Smile:_ And you may see me tonight with an illegal smile… It don’t cost very much, but it lasts a long while. Won’t you please tell the man I didn’t kill anyone? No I’m just tryin’ to have me some fun… Well done, Hot dog bun, My sister’s a nun… ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2018, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lines-in-your-favorite-songs-that-you-cant-explain/814636/48 "2018-05-26T18:17:15Z")
But Prine did that as a joke, as an intentional bad rhyme. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2018, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lines-in-your-favorite-songs-that-you-cant-explain/814636/49 "2018-05-26T18:25:42Z")
> [@Two\_Many\_Cats](#): > > What the hell, I’ll throw in these two from _Gentle on my Mind_: > > _It’s not clingin’ to the rocks and ivy planted on their columns now that bind me._ > > Ooookayyyy, some BDSM in the garden I guess. But the same verse says, > > _It’s just knowing that the world will not be cursing or forgiving when I walk along some railroad track and find…_ > > I’m guessing he’s glad people won’t bitch about how long he’s away from his girlfriend, because she lets him come and go and never complains? It’s a song about a hobo and a free spirit. He’s saying that the reason he loves her is because she understands him and his need to keep moving and stay free. The columns and Ivy could be a reference to tradition, or perhaps an Ivy-league background the character is walking away from. These are the kinds of shackles (tradition, expectations of college grads, relationships, etc) that keep people tied up and unfree in the narrator’s story. In the song he’s assuring her that even though she let him go, he will continue to love her. Or more to the point, he continues to love her _because_ she let him go. The character may be a dipshit, but the lyrics are pretty awesome. They capture the hobo spirit pretty well. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2018, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lines-in-your-favorite-songs-that-you-cant-explain/814636/50 "2018-05-29T13:03:24Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > But then it would be _“Out of **an assortment of things** I just picked me a plum.”_ That’s why I wrote “second level”. The line was intended to work on two levels, and it was imperfectly phrased for the one level in order to fit better the second. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2018, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lines-in-your-favorite-songs-that-you-cant-explain/814636/51 "2018-05-29T13:22:21Z")
The Glory of Love We’ll live forever… No, you won’t. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2018, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lines-in-your-favorite-songs-that-you-cant-explain/814636/52 "2018-05-29T15:40:24Z")
I _love_ Dylan’s “Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again,” probably _because_ the whole thing is inspired nonsense: _Oh, the ragman draws circles Up and down the block I’d ask him what the matter was But I know that he don’t talk And the ladies treat me kindly And they furnish me with tape But deep inside my heart I know I can’t escape_ ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2018, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lines-in-your-favorite-songs-that-you-cant-explain/814636/53 "2018-05-29T15:46:42Z")
> [@nightshadea](#): > > im told that one person you don’t ask what a particular lyric means is elvis Costello ……his peevish answer was “half the time the words don’t mean a damn thing in a song and if you like the song what the hell does it matter anyways?” I’ve got to side with Costello on this one. Of course, growing up listening to songs on AM radio in the 1960s as I did, you were lucky to understand more than half the lyrics anyway, so if the parts you could understand more or less hung together, and you liked the music, that was about as good as it got. 🙂 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lines-in-your-favorite-songs-that-you-cant-explain/814636.md?page=2)