Lyrics That Establish A Story Immediately

Parent Cafe
41

In the heart of the night
In the cool southern rain
There’s a full moon in sight
Shining down on the Pontchartrain

(POCO)

The wind is in from Africa
Last night I couldn’t sleep
Oh, you know it sure is hard to leave here Carey
But it’s really not my home
My fingernails are filthy, I got beach tar on my feet
And I miss my clean white linen and my fancy French cologne

(Joni Mitchell)

And of course…

Nibblin’ on sponge cake,
watchin’ the sun bake;
All of those tourists covered with oil.
Strummin’ my six string on my front porch swing.
Smell those shrimp
They’re beginnin’ to boil.

(Jimmy Buffett)

42

Whoops, guess those establish mood and place more than story! Fun thread!

43

“I met her in a club down in old Soho
Where you drink champagne and it tastes just like Coca cola
C-O-L-A cola”

44

I started my life in an old, cold, rundown tenement slum
My father left, he never even married Mom
I shared the guilt my mama knew
So afraid that others knew I had no name.

I started school in a worn torn dress that somebody threw out.
I knew the way it was to always live in doubt,
To be without the simple things.

–Supremes, “Love Child”

Just the other night at a hometown football game
My wife and I ran into my old high school flame
And as I introduced them the past came back to me
And I couldn’t help but think of the way things used to be.

–Garth Brooks, “Unanswered Prayers”

45

Practically anything by Simon and Garfunkel

My favorite, For Emily wherever I may found her

What I dream I had:
Pressed in organdy;
Clothed in crinoline of smoky Burgundy;
Softer than the rain.
I wandered empty streets
Down past the shop displays.
I heard cathedral bells
Tripping down the alley ways,
As I walked on.

And when you ran to me
Your cheeks flushed with the night.
We walked on frosted fields of juniper and lamplight,
I held your hand.
And when I awoke and felt you warm and near,
I kissed your honey hair with my grateful tears.
Oh I love you, girl.
Oh, I love you.

46

Not quite such an oldie, Wilco’s Heavy Metal Drummer:

I sincerely miss those heavy metal bands
I used to go see on the landing in the summer
She fell in love with the drummer
She fell in love with the drummer
She fell in love

Shiny, shiny pants and bleach-blond hair
A double kick drum by the river in the summer
She fell in love with the drummer
Another and another
She fell in love

I miss the innocence I’ve known
Playing KISS covers, beautiful and stoned

Unlock my body and move myself to dance
Moving warm liquid, flowing blowing glass
Classical music blasting masks the ringing in my ears

I sincerely miss those heavy metal bands
I used to go see on the landing in the summer
She fell in love with the drummer
She fell in love with another
She fell in love

I miss the innocence I’ve known
Playing KISS covers, beautiful and stoned
Playing KISS covers, beautiful and stoned
Playing KISS covers, beautiful and stoned

47

Kip Moore’s “Something 'bout a truck” is on S2’s regular rotation. It always makes us laugh, but it does evoke the world of country music!

Somethin’ ‘bout a truck in a farmer’s field
A no trespass sign, and time to kill
Nobody’s gonna get hurt, so what’s the big deal
Somethin’ 'bout a truck in a farmer’s field

Somethin’ ‘bout beer, sitting on ice
After a long hard day, makes it taste just right
On that dropped tailgate, on a summer night
Somethin’ 'bout beer sitting on ice

And there’s somethin’ ‘bout a girl, in a red sun dress
With an ice cold beer pressed against her lips
In that farmer’s field, will make a boy a man
There’s somethin’ 'bout a girl in a red sundress

And there’s somethin’ ‘bout a kiss, that’s gonna lead to more
On that dropped tailgate, back behind the corn
The most natural thing you’ve ever felt before
There’s somethin’ 'bout a kiss that’s gonna lead to more

And there’s somethin’ 'bout a truck in a field
And a girl in a red sundress with an ice cold beer to her lips

Begging for another kiss
And there’s somethin’ ‘bout you and me and the birds and the bees
And Lord have mercy it’s a beautiful thing
Ain’t nothin’ ‘bout it luck, there’s somethin’ 'bout a truck

Somethin’ 'bout a creek, around 2 a.m.
After a few of those beers, you wanna dive on in
You don’t need no clothes, so just hang ‘em on a limb
There’s somethin’ 'bout a creek around 2 a.m.

And there’s somethin’ ‘bout a truck in a field
And a girl in a red sundress with an ice cold beer to her lips
Begging for another kiss
And there’s somethin’ ‘bout you and me and the birds and the bees
And Lord have mercy, it’s a beautiful thing
Ain’t nothin’ ‘bout it luck, there’s somethin’ ‘bout a truck
Ain’t nothin’ ‘bout it luck, there’s somethin’ 'bout a truck

48

How about the Decemberists?

The Shankill butchers ride tonight
You better shut your windows tight
Theyre sharpening their cleavers and their knives
And taking all their whisky by the pint
Cuz everybody knows
If you dont mind your mother’s words
A wicked wind will blow
Your ribbons from your curls
Everybody moan everybody shake
The shankill butchers wanna catch you
Awake

49

Proving how old I am–Gordon Lightfoot

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they called ‘gitche gumee’
The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead

When the skies of November turn gloom

There was a time in this fair land when the railroad did not run
When the wild majestic mountains stood alone against the sun
Long before the white man and long before the wheel

When the green dark forest was too silent to be real

If you could read my mind, love
What a tale my thoughts could tell
Just like an old-time movie
‘Bout a ghost from a wishin’ well
In a castle dark or a fortress strong

With chains upon my feet

The last time I saw her face
Her eyes were bathed in starlight
And her hair hung long
The last time she spoke to me
Her lips were like the scented flowers
Inside a rain-drenched forest

But that was so long ago that I can scarcely feel
The way I felt before
And if time could heal the wounds
I would tear the threads away

That I might bleed some more

And many more…really a good songwriter

50

^You left out the one I listened to non-stop sophomore year in college

I can see her lyin’ back in her satin dress
In a room where ya do what ya don’t confess
Sundown you better take care
If I find you beenn creepin’ ‘round my back stairs
Sundown ya better take care
If I find you been creepin’ ‘round my back stairs
She’s been lookin’ like a queen in a sailor’s dream
And she don’t always say what she really means
Sometimes I think it’s a shame
When I get feelin’ better when I’m feelin’ no pain
Sometimes I think it’s a shame
When I get feelin’ better when I’m feelin’ no pain
I can picture every move that a man could make
Getting lost in her lovin’ is your first mistake
Sundown you better take care
If I find you been creepin’ ‘round my back stairs
Sometimes I think it’s a sin
When I feel like I’m winnin’ when I’m losin’ again

51

Quite old, but my current favorite song:

"Oh well, I’m the type of guy who’ll never settle down
Where pretty girls are well, you know that I’m around
I kiss 'em and I love 'em 'cause to me they’re all the same
I hug 'em and I squeeze 'em they don’t even know my name

They call me the wanderer
Yeah, the wanderer
I roam around, around, around,around…

Oh well, there’s Flo on my left and then there’s Mary on my right
And Janie is the girl well that I’ll be with tonight
And when she asks me, which one I love the best-
I tear open my shirt an’o’a Rosie on my chest

'Cause I’m a wanderer
Yeah, a wanderer
I roam around, around, around,around…

Well, I roam from town to town
I go through life without a care
And I’m as happy as a clown
With my two fists of iron but I’m goin’ nowhere

Yeah I’m the type of guy that likes to roam around
I’m never in one place, I roam from town to town
And when I find myself a-fallin’ for some girl
Yeah I hop right into that car of mine I drive around the world

Yeah I’m the wanderer
Yeah, the wanderer
I roam around, around, around,around…

(saxophone part)

Oh yeah, I’m the type of guy that likes to roam around
I’m never in one place, I roam from town to town
And when I find myself a-fallin’ for some girl
I hop right into that car o’ mine-drive around the world

Cause I’m the wanderer
Yeah, the wanderer
I roam around, around, around,around, around, around…

'Cause I’m a wanderer
Yeah, a wanderer
I roam around, around, around, around, around, around, around…

52

A long time ago came a man on a track
Walking thirty miles with a pack on his back
And he put down his load where he thought it was the best
Made a home in the wilderness
He built a cabin and a winter store
And he ploughed up the ground by the cold lake shore
And the other travellers came riding down the track
And they never went further, no, they never went back
Then came the churches then came the schools
Then came the lawyers then came the rules
Then came the trains and the trucks with their loads
And the dirty old track was the telegraph road

Then came the mines - then came the ore
Then there was the hard times then there was a war
Telegraph sang a song about the world outside
Telegraph road got so deep and so wide
Like a rolling river. . .

Telegraph Road, Dire Straits

53

Dan Fogelberg – Another Auld Lang Syne

Met my old lover in the grocery store
The snow was falling Christmas Eve
I stood behind her in the frozen foods
And I touched her on the sleeve

She didn’t recognize the face at first
But then her eyes flew open wide
She went to hug me and she spilled her purse
And we laughed until we cried…

54

My father was a gambler down in Georgia, wound up on the wrong end of a gun…
I was born on the backseat of a Grayhound bus, rolling down Highway 41…

55

@mathmom …but that’s the Cathy Smith song…and the less said about her the better, I think. (Google Lightfoot and cathy Smith if you don’t recall the story.)

56

Oh, it’s in wikipedia… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathy_Smith

57

It was the third of June, another sleepy, dusty Delta day
I was out choppin’ cotton, and my brother was balin’ hay
And at dinner time we stopped and walked back to the house to eat
And mama hollered out the back door, “y’all, remember to wipe your feet!”
And then she said, “I got some news this mornin’ from Choctaw Ridge
Today, Billy Joe MacAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge”

(Bobbie Gentry - Ode To Billie Joe)

(I never was particularly fond of that song… but it still drives me nuts not to know what the singer & Billy Joe were throwing off the bridge).

58

There is a house in New Orleans
They call the Rising Sun
And it’s been the ruin of many a poor boy
And God, I know I’m one

59

Another Auld Lang Syne is a perfect example of what I mean. Not just a song that tells a story - there are boatloads of those - but establishes time, place, characters immediately and distinctively. Thanks to all! Fun thread!

60

^yes. all good lyrics, but I thought this was supposed to be the opening lines only. Which is a much more interesting challenge! :slight_smile: