…2..3..4 – An Xperience Column

…2..3..4 – An Xperience Column – by Chris Busone.

Words.

They are such an integral part of all our day-to-day. Yes, I know, you can speak volumes with a look, and a picture says a thousand of them, but come on. We all know the best way to spill the beans, or tea, or whatever consumable people are using to describe it these days.

Words.

They come in the form of pearls, either of wisdom or before swine, words of love, words of sympathy, words of encouragement, or them-thar-fightin’-words. Even the dreaded daily Wordle (damn you Wordle!)

They are our best, most expressive form of communication. So it is in conversation, and even more so in song.

Lyrics can stick with us for a lifetime, so I thought that this month, rather than kvetch about the impending onslaught of pumpkin everything, I would talk about lyrics to songs that have left an indelible imprint on my life, and possibly yours. Now, the scratch I make on the surface of the incredible number of meaningful lyrics throughout the ages that deserve mentioning will be so small it can be buffed out with a handkerchief and some spittle. So, I encourage anyone who reads this to pipe up with their own faves.

Speaking of faves, I want to start with one of mine. It will come as no shock to most of you that it’s a Springsteen song (ya, ok, whatever you guys), but when Bruce’s “Thunder Road” opens with “The screen door slams, Mary’s dress waves,” I defy you not to paint that picture in your head. That image is so effortlessly, almost involuntarily, conjured in the mind that you can close your eyes and you’re there, on that porch, feeling that breeze.

Staying with the balladeer genre, how about John Prine’s, “If dreams were thunder, lightning was desire, this old house would’ve burned down a long time ago.” Or Warren Zevon’s introspective, “We contemplate eternity beneath the vast indifference of heaven.”

To my mind, one of the simplest but most visually evocative lyrics ever penned is in Paul Simon’s “American Tune.” “And the moon rose over a golden field.” I mean like … wow, now THAT’S America to me. And I know we all associate Don McLean with “American Pie,” but for my money, his line in Vincent, “Catch the breeze and the winter chills, in colors on the snowy linen land,” just slays me.

With a harder edge, I just have to mention Chrissie Hynde’s, “When you own a big chunk of the bloody third world, the babies just come with the scenery.” And while most remember the line in “God Save the Queen,” “she ain’t no human being,” when Rotten John emphatically proclaims after the title lyric, “We mean it man!!!” that’s the one that hits home for me.

It’s right about here where I have to reenforce my disclaimer that I don’t have the space or wherewithal to trot out even a portion of the memorable lines in my head that I’ve forgotten, let alone all that deserve mentioning. So, I’m just gonna cram in as many as I can.

Spoon’s “It can’t all be wedding cake, ” Counting Crows’ “It’s all a lot of oysters, but no pearls,” Jimmy Webb’s “And I need you more than want you, and I want for all time,” from “Wichita Lineman,” and another personal fave, Jellyfish describing cigarettes as “Tobacco swords, behind smoky shields.” There’s Biggie’s “Either you’re slingin’ crack rock or you got a wicked jump shot,” and Squeeze’s “He wakes to find the fire’s dead and arrows in his hats, and Davey Crockett rides around and says it’s cool for cats.” Ya it is! Those cats are cool.

How about some Beatles?

“And when the brokenhearted people, living in the world agree. There will be an answer. Let it be.” Yeah.

Or, “Thoughts meander like a restless wind inside a letterbox. They tumble blindly as they make their way across the universe.”

And lest we forget, “Somewhere in her smile she knows. That I don’t need no other lover. Something in her style that shows me …”

Three of the best lyricists of our time in the same band … how’s that fair?

Ok, I know some of you must be asking, “What about Dylan??!!” So let’s … just.

Although we’ve probably become emotionally numb to it over the decades, “The answer is blowin’ in the wind,” is such an incredible turn of phrase, it still mesmerizes me. And how’s this for a declaration “Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command; your old road is rapidly changing.” And dig this, “The handmade blade, the child’s balloon, eclipses both the sun and moon to understand you know too soon there is no sense in trying.” Yikes! That’s some sh!t right there.

Oh, and by the way, “My weariness amazes me, I’m branded on my feet. I have no one to meet. And the ancient empty streets, too dead for dreaming.” Just a little ditty about a dude and his tambourine … that’s all.

What about the unconditional love of, “She walked up to me so gracefully and took my crown of thorns, come in she said I’ll give you, shelter from the storm.” And then the break-up song to end all break-up songs, “I ain’t saying you treated me unkind. You coulda done better but I don’t mind. You just kinda wasted my precious time, but don’t think twice, it’s alright.” Don’t give another thought, it’s alright. No Bob, it’s more than alright. It’s all just too good, too great, too Dylan. God bless Bob.

Sliding not so gracefully from that brilliance, we lower the bar considerably to my own efforts. I am actually asked, from time to time, which of my songs or lyrics are my favorites. I have two that always stick with me.

My second record has a song called “Daylight,” and one simple lyric, “If you help me stand, I’ll break your fall,” was one that, after I wrote it, made me stop and think, “Did I just say that?”

The other is the opening lines from a tune called “I Mean Love,” “We had to lose to learn how to win. I watch the night as it falls around your skin.” I like the idea of the night falling around this beautiful woman’s skin, and I always imagine my wife as that beautiful woman whose skin the night is falling around. It’s the romantic in me.

So, as I’m “Bringin’ it all back home” here, I for one will keep listening, keep delving deeper in the lyrical pastiche of time, because “He not busy being born is busy dying.”

I love the inspiration that these words give me to write, to create, to sing, to record, and to take it all with me when I get up on a stage and count it off, 2…3…4.

More from Chris Busone…