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  #1  
Unread 04-11-2017, 08:22 PM
Andrew Szilvasy Andrew Szilvasy is offline
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Default Metaphors/Images in Songs You Wish Were Yours

I was listening to the most recent Wilco album, Schmilco, and really enjoy the song "If I Ever Was a Child."

There's a line: "And I cry like a window pane."

When I heard it, my reaction pleasure to seething. It's simple, so simple even someone like me could come up with it, but I hadn't. It's evocative of a rainy day, blurred vision, and the homonym even works well. I don't feel like my metaphors are always the strong suit of my writing, but this sort of feels like something I might have written in another life.

Another is from Dylan's "It's All Over Now Baby Blue" (oddly, also about crying): "Crying like a fire in the sun." It's a compelling image to me of contrast (tears and fire), and of futility. Similarly, it's a simple image that surprised me and made me mad.

At least my excuse with the Dylan lyric is that I wasn't even born when he wrote this. Hell, it was released a few weeks before my mom was born. But I've got no excuse for not beating Tweedy to that line.

There are others, but these two have been ringing in my head for a while, and I'm curious--keeping this to music, and pop music more generally--are there snatches of popular music that feel like they could have been yours stylistically but, sadly, are not?
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  #2  
Unread 04-11-2017, 08:43 PM
John Isbell John Isbell is offline
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Paul Simon's song "Graceland", from 1996, has the line "As if I didn't know my own bed." That's a line I'd be glad to have written.

NB 1986.

Last edited by John Isbell; 04-12-2017 at 01:30 AM. Reason: date
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  #3  
Unread 04-12-2017, 12:30 AM
William A. Baurle William A. Baurle is offline
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I am green with envy over Carly Simon's You're So Vain.

It's a perfect, can't-possibly-fail song.

As for images, just take that epic first verse:

You walked into the party
Like you were walking onto a yacht
Your hat strategically tipped below one eye
Your scarf, it was apricot
You had one eye in the mirror as
You watched yourself gavotte...


In an interview I recently watched, Simon says (ha!) that each verse referred to a specific person. Two she doesn't identify, except vaguely. But the first verse (above) is about Warren Beatty.

Edit* I'm wrong. It's the second verse that refers to Beatty. So the gavotting guy with the apricot scarf is still not certain, though it could be David Geffen.

Or me. Yeah, it's probly about me. (Yes, some Americans say "probly". I say "probly" probly way more than I say "probably".)

You go Carly!

Last edited by William A. Baurle; 04-12-2017 at 12:46 AM.
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  #4  
Unread 04-12-2017, 07:15 AM
Gregory Palmerino Gregory Palmerino is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by William A. Baurle View Post
You watched yourself gavotte...[/i]
I've been singing this song incorrectly for 42 years. I always thought the line was "watched yourself go by" to rhyme with "eye." Gees! Well, now I'm off to the "favorite words" thread" Ha!

Thanks, Bill.
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  #5  
Unread 04-21-2017, 01:18 PM
Julie Steiner Julie Steiner is offline
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Speaking of "Graceland":

Quote:
The Mississippi Delta
Was shining like a National guitar
I've always liked that the image works whether or not "National guitar" is understood as a brand name associated with chrome resonators (photo), or more geopolitically.

And the multiple meanings of "turn down" at the beginning of Bonnie Raitt's "I Can't Make You Love Me" are simply fabulous:

Quote:
Turn down the lights
Turn down the bed
Turn down these voices inside my head
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  #6  
Unread 04-21-2017, 01:27 PM
Roger Slater Roger Slater is offline
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Bonnie's rendition gives goosebumps (as I can attest, having heard her sing it in person just last year) but it was written by Mike Reid and Allen Shamblin.

Lots of great images in Graceland, apart from the one you mentioned. Graceland itself, as a literal place and a sort of heavenly state. And I love the human trampoline. And throughout the album. (Think of the boy in the bubble or the baby with the baboon heart).

BTW, have a listen to Alison Krauss doing Graceland. Here, starting at 5:50.

Last edited by Roger Slater; 04-21-2017 at 01:29 PM.
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  #7  
Unread 04-22-2017, 06:27 PM
Gregory Palmerino Gregory Palmerino is offline
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I dunno nuthin bout nuthin, but if I could write a poem the way Kay and Gordon write lyrics and then sing it like Sinatra, I'd die a happy man. My, my....

That's life (that's life) that's what people say
You're riding high in April
Shot down in May
But I know I'm gonna change that tune
When I'm back on top, back on top in June

I said, that's life (that's life) and as funny as it may seem
Some people get their kicks
Stompin' on a dream
But I don't let it, let it get me down
'Cause this fine old world it keeps spinnin' around

I've been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate
A poet, a pawn and a king
I've been up and down and over and out
And I know one thing
Each time I find myself flat on my face
I pick myself up and get back in the race

That's life (that's life) I tell ya, I can't deny it
I thought of quitting, baby
But my heart just ain't gonna buy it
And if I didn't think it was worth one single try
I'd jump right on a big bird and then I'd fly

I've been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate
A poet, a pawn and a king
I've been up and down and over and out
And I know one thing
Each time I find myself layin' flat on my face
I just pick myself up and get back in the race

That's life (that's life) that's life
And I can't deny it
Many times I thought of cuttin' out but my heart won't buy it
But if there's nothing shakin' come here this July
I'm gonna roll myself up in a big ball and die
My, my
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  #8  
Unread 04-22-2017, 11:46 PM
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Tony Barnstone Tony Barnstone is offline
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For me, Tom Waits, esp the red stuff in the song below

The Ghosts of Saturday Night

A cab combs the snake,
Tryin' to rake in that last night's fare,
And a solitary sailor
Who spends the facts of his life like small change on strangers

Paws his inside pea coat pocket for a welcome twenty-five cents,
And the last bent butt from a package of Kents,
As he dreams of a waitress with Maxwell House eyes
And marmalade thighs with scrambled yellow hair


Her rhinestone-studded moniker says, Irene
As she wipes the wisps of dishwater blonde from her eyes
And the Texaco beacon burns on,
The steel-belted attendant with a ring and valve special
Cryin' fill'er up and check that oil
You know it could be a distributor and it could be a coil

The early mornin' final edition's on the stands,
And that town cryer's cryin' there with nickels in his hands
Pigs in a blanket sixty-nine cents
Eggs, roll 'em over and a package of Kents
Adam and Eve on a log, you can sink 'em damn straight
Hash browns, hash browns, you know I can't be late

And the early dawn cracks out a carpet of diamonds
Across a cash crop car lot filled with twilight Coupe Devilles
Leaving the town in a-keeping
Of the one who is sweeping
Up the ghost of Saturday night
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Unread 04-22-2017, 11:49 PM
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Tony Barnstone Tony Barnstone is offline
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I also like the first two stanza's of "Kathy's Song" by Paul Simon, and, bonus, it's in iambic tet:



I hear the drizzle of the rain
Like a memory it falls
Soft and warm continuing
Tapping on my roof and walls

And from the shelter of my mind
Through the window of my eyes
I gaze beyond the rain-drenched streets
To England where my heart lies

My mind's distracted and diffused
My thoughts are many miles away
They lie with you when you're asleep
And kiss you when you start your day

And a song I was writing is left undone
I don't know why I spend my time
Writing songs I can't believe
With words that tear and strain to rhyme

And so you see I have come to doubt
All that I once held as true
I stand alone without beliefs
The only truth I know is you

And as I watch the drops of rain
Weave their weary paths and die
I know that I am like the rain
There but for the grace of you go I
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Unread 04-23-2017, 12:46 AM
Mark McDonnell Mark McDonnell is offline
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Far too numerous to mention and many good ones already (Tony -- Waits' lyrics are extraordinary and I think got even better than that Chandleresque Beat pastiche, good as it is. And I love Paul Simon's 'National guitar' too)

I listened to The Smiths again recently and my 80s adolescence came roaring back. Nothing beats the song 'Rusholme Ruffians', a tale of the danger and romance of travelling fairgrounds, for taking me back to those days of terror and wonder. Sample lyrics:

The last night of the fair
By the big wheel generator
A boy is stabbed
And his money is grabbed
And the air hangs heavy like a dulling wine...

The last night of the fair
From a seat on a whirling waltzer
Her skirt ascends for a watching eye
It's a hideous trait (on her mother's side)

Then someone falls in love
And someone's beaten up
And the senses being dulled are mine...

This is the last night of the fair
And the grease in the hair
Of a speedway operator
Is all a tremulous heart requires
A schoolgirl is denied
She said : "How quickly would I die
If I jumped from the top of the parachutes ?"


All set to a '(Marie's the Name) Of his Latest Flame' rockabilly beat.

Note: For US people, 'Rusholme' is a working class inner-city area of Manchester and 'waltzer', 'speedway' and 'parachutes' are fairground rides.
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