“Poverty-stricken” is a bit extreme. College students and single working men and women often live alone in bedsits. They’re not the Ritz, but they’re normally not hovels either.
I lived in one in Cambridge (England) in the '70s. It was cheap, but perfectly fine. Mr Bean lives in one too, albeit a bit larger than the ones I’ve been in.
Speaking of Genesis, a line in “All in a Mouse’s Night,” where a cat is about to pounce on a mouse and eat it—
“Hard luck, mouse, this is the end of your road.
The signpost says inside me ‘Let me bear your heavy load’”
Most likely, the lyrics are by Phil, but this line is so clumsy I think Tony must have written it. I get the road/sign metaphor they were attempting, thinking it clever, but it failed with a clunk.
A few passages from Leonard Cohen’s Bird on a Wire are like biting a metal fork. (But I feel like we can’t mention them in polite company because, hey, it’s Leonard).
Like a bird on the wire
Like a drunk in a midnight choir
Like a worm on a hook
Like a knight from some old-fashioned book
For like a baby, stillborn
Like a beast with his horn
mmm
Thinking Out Loud by Ed Sheeran is an ok song but I hate the line about the evergreen soul. Gah, drives me batty
When my hair’s all but gone and my memory fades
And the crowds don’t remember my name
When my hands don’t play the strings the same way
I know you will still love me the same
**Cause honey your soul could never grow old, it’s evergreen
**And baby, your smile’s forever in my mind and memory
And I’m thinking 'bout how
That whole song is one big tangle of bad lines . . .
“Will your mouth still remember the taste of my love
Will your eyes still smile from your cheeks”
I know this is meant as a sweet, romantic sentiment but the first one sounds vaguely dirty and the second one sounds like she’s an alien with her eyes on the sides of her face. Or worse, on her arse.
As to the evergreen line, it’s always bothered me because being “an old soul” is usually meant as a positive. Saying it will never grow old sounds like she’ll never grow up. And “mind” and “memory” are synonyms in this case, Ed; no need to use both of them.
As much as I enjoy Mr. Sheeran’s music, it’d be easier to name a song of his that doesn’t have at least one awkward line.