Been listening to music while doing other stuff lately, and when lines I especially like come up in the songs, I've been posting them to Twitter.<\/p>\n
Due to the 140-character limit, I've had to truncate a few of them, and in some cases left off attributions. Figured I'd repost here, where I have a bit more space to work with. Dates and times are the timestamps of when I posted 'em.<\/p>\n
It started with a Vienna Teng<\/a> song. Don't know that I can explain the effects of her lyrics on me, but I like 'em.<\/p>\n Reach out<\/p>\n but hold back—<\/p>\n where is safety?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n —Vienna Teng, \"The Tower<\/a>\" (9:16 PM Feb 11th)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n And then a Brad Paisley song came on, and it seemed like a fitting pre-Valentine's-Day echo of that safety-vs-danger idea:<\/p>\n If love was a plane, nobody'd get on.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n —Brad Paisley, \"If Love Was a Plane<\/a>\" (9:28 PM Feb 11th)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Of course, it is, after all, a country song; by the end of the song, he says \"Even knowing our chances are small \/ We line up at the gate with our tickets\" and so on.<\/p>\n A little later, I found this one running through my head even though it hadn't come up in iTunes:<\/p>\n May the rain run off your shoulder when you're caught in a storm;<\/p>\n When the frost comes a-calling, may it find you safe and warm.<\/p>\n May your place be set; may your promises be kept;<\/p>\n May you never forget you are loved.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n —Fred Small, \"Willie's Song<\/a>\" (9:50 PM Feb 11th)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The next night, more Vienna Teng came along; this is my favorite bit of one of my favorite songs of hers:<\/p>\n It's the season of bowing our heads in the wind<\/p>\n And knowing we are not alone in fear,<\/p>\n Not alone in the dark.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n —Vienna Teng, \"The Atheist Christmas Carol<\/a>\" (1:05 AM Feb 13th)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n In perhaps somewhat the same vein, iTunes continued the next morning with a doubly seasonally appropriate song:<\/p>\n You stopped and pointed and you said, \"That's a crocus,\"<\/p>\n And I said, \"What's a crocus?\" and you said, \"It's a flower\";<\/p>\n I tried to remember, but I said, \"What's a flower?\"<\/p>\n You said: \"I still love you.\"<\/p>\n<\/div>\n —Dar Williams, \"February<\/a>\" (11:38 AM Feb 13th)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n (Even though I feel a little silly quoting that song in a California February; I didn't even know what a crocus was until I went off to college out East.)<\/p>\n (Morrisa's reply on Facebook cracked me up: \"Crocus? But you just met us!\")<\/p>\n That night, in a very different vein, came my favorite hip-hop song (he said, as if he knew enough about hip-hop to have a favorite). My favorite lines from it derive from Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye<\/cite>, but they were too long to fit in Twitter even abbreviated, so I went with a short punchy bit:<\/p>\n Your firearms are too short to box with God.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
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