It was late in December, the sky turned to snow…
“They’re selling postcards of the hanging
They’re painting the passports brown …”
How does that start again?
'New York I love you, but you’re bringing me down." - **LCD Soundsystem **
“Lord, please don’t forsake me in my Mercedes Benz” - *Strange Apparition, *Beck
“Got a blank space where my mind should be” - *Stealing Time from the Faulty Plan, *Phish
My favorite opening line…
“This week dragged past me so slowly, the days fell on their knees.”
Stay by David Bowie
“This is the story of a girl
Who cried a river and drowned the whole world”
Absolutely by Nine Days.
“Look out, mama, there’s a white boat comin’ up the river”
Neil Young, Powderfinger
“I read the news today, oh boy”
Beatles, A Day in the Life
The Long And Winding Road
Allow me to introduce you to yourself,
I believe you two have never met.
Edgar Winters White Trash
Hello darkness my old friend…
I saw a werewolf with a Chinese menu in his hand
Walking through the streets of Soho in the rain-Warren Zevon
Virgil Kane is the name
And I served on the Danville train-The Band
Lookin’ out at the road rushin’ under my wheels-Jackson Browne
He came dancin’ across the water
With his galleons and guns-Neil Young
Pickin’ up the pieces of my sweet, shattered dream
I wonder how the old folks are tonight-Gordon Lightfoot
I look at you all
See the love there that’s sleeping
While my guitar gently weeps . . .
She wears a wedding ring her sister lent
To throw them off the scent
- Sulky Girl, Elvis Costello
What does it for me is not just his wordsmithing, but his phrasing married to the tune. Ol’ Declan has somethin’ goin’ for him, alright.
I can’t believe I forgot my favorite from Bruce:
Bobby said he’d pull out/Bobby stayed in
Teddy sniffin’ glue he was 12 years old, fell from a roof on East Two Nine. -
JIm Carroll -People Who Died
Dylan has so much gold. Two of my favourites:
Johny’s in the basement / Mixing up the medicine
I married Isis on the fifth day of May / But I could not hold on to her very long
Raven hair, ruby lips, sparks fly from her fingertips…
Leonard Cohen has a lot of good ones. For example:
“We’re drinking and we’re dancing and the band is really happening and the Johnny Walker wisdom’s running high.”
“Everybody knows the dice are loaded; everybody rolls with their fingers crossed.”
I came upon a child of God, he was walking along the road
There’s a lady who’s sure, all that glitters is gold, and she’s buying the stairway to heaven
Holly came from Miami, F.L.A., hitch-hiked her way across the U.S.A.
Wanna tell you a story, bout the house-man blues. I come home one Friday, had to tell the landlady I done lost my job. She said that don’t confront me, long as I get my money next Friday. Now next Friday come I didn’t get the rent, and out the door I went.
One more:
Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Caught in a landslide. No escape from reality.