When the Lyrics Hit Home: Songs I’ll Never Forget

This post is part of the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge, hosted by Long and Short Reviews. Check out other bloggers at this week’s post.

This week’s prompt was, My Favorite Song Lyrics.

Man, I could probably go on forever on this one.

If I had to choose my top five songwriters, I’d go with Jimmy Buffett, Jim Steinman, and Bob Seger in the first three slots. Springsteen would be right up there, and I’m not sure who I’d put at number five.

I’ve said before that I don’t think I could ever write a song. I get 85,000 words to play with in an average novel. Songwriters have far fewer than 1,000 words. “Out of the Frying Pan” runs about 850 words, and that’s a long song. Seger used 135 words in “The Long Way Home.” That’s shorter than a lot of flash fiction pieces. It never fails to amaze me at the images they can craft in such a small space.

Buffett

Jimmy Buffett was an artist with words and music.

Lots of people only really knew him for “Margaritaville” or “Why Don’t We Get Drunk” and never got around to listening to anything else. But they miss out on his heartfelt songs, like “False Echoes (Havana 1921).” The penultimate (I’ve always wanted to use that word) track on 1996’s Banana Wind, the song talks about his father’s battle with Alzheimer’s. The song hit home for me because Jimmy’s father was a year younger than my dad.

The lines in this song paint such an intense visual for me.

“The skies over Cuba turned pink with the light
And the waterfront ridge wall began to ignite”

Later, in the chorus, he writes

“Chasing false echoes like a lost legionnaire
He waltzes on memories while he fades like a flare”

I loved those lyrics.

The previous album, Barometer Soup,has another one of my favorite Buffett lines, in “Barefoot Children in the Rain.”

“The wrinkles only go where the smiles have been.”

It’s almost a philosophical statement, a reminder to smile more and enjoy life.

Jim Who?

You know his music, even if you don’t know his name. Jim Steinman wrote songs for a lot of people but is probably best known for being the lyrical genius behind Marvin Lee Aday, better known as Meat Loaf.

Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart?” Steinman wrote that. He wrote almost as many songs for Tyler as he did for Meat Loaf, including “Holding Out For a Hero.”

Air Supply’s “Making Love Out of Nothing at All?” Yep, Steinman.

Barry Manilow’s “Read ‘Em and Weep?” (Yes, he sang it before Meat Loaf.) Also by Jim Steinman.

Celine Dion’s “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now?” That one, too. I heard Meat Loaf’s version first and always thought it was the original. I still like it better.

He also wrote “Tonight Is What It Means to Be Young” and “Nowhere Fast” for the Streets of Fire soundtrack (an underrated movie, IMO).

Jim Steinman was just an amazing lyricist and songwriter. In my books, I’ve used song lyrics once and tried one other time. In The Sad Girl, a Jim Steinman/Meat Loaf song, “Out of the Frying Pan (And Into the Fire).” The song goes, “And all around the city you see the walking wounded and the living dead,” then goes on to “I’ve seen you sitting on the steps outside, and you were looking so restless and reckless and lost.” Those lines were just perfectly powerful to me and created the ideal mental image of how Danielle Cunningham appeared in the photos her dad found. I ended up using them in the book.

Seger

I’ve been a Bob Seger fan for years, almost as long as I’ve listened to Buffett.

The short story I wrote for a lit class several years ago was inspired by Bob Seger’s “Roll Me Away,” from his 1983 album, The Distance. It was inspired, Seger says, by a motorcycle trip he took to Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

The lyrics here are so evocative.

He starts off in the first verse,

“I was tired of my own voice.”

The chorus goes:

“I too am lost; I feel double-crossed
And I'm sick of what's wrong and what's right”

The last chorus closes:

“Keep searchin' 'til I find what's right
And as the sunset faded I spoke
To the faintest first starlight
And I said next time
Next time
We'll get it right”

That song makes me miss my motorcycle days and floods me with regret that I never took a trip like that.

I’ve mentioned several times that I’ve got a bunch of ideas for stories set in Oklahoma as part of my “Red Dirt Justice” series. One of them was inspired by Seger’s “The Fire Inside,” the title track to his 1991 album. This one takes me back to my drinking days, when I was searching for lovers in the dark corners of the bars in southeastern Ohio. This one grabs hold of you from the get-go.

“There's a reckless feeling in your heart as you head out tonight
Through the concrete canyons to the midtown lights
Where the latest neon promises are burning bright”

The second verse is no less powerful:

“Well, you've been to the clubs and the discotheques
Where they deal one another from the bottom of a deck of promises
Where the cautious loners and emotional wrecks
Do an acting stretch as a way to hide the obvious
And the lights go down, and they dance real close
And for one brief instant, they pretend they're safe and warm
Then the beat gets louder, and the mood is gone
The darkness scatters as the lights flash on
They hold one another just a little too long
And they move apart and then move on”

Check it out.

I hope I’ve piqued your interest in some new singers and songwriters.

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