Like we always say here at The Mountain, the beauty of listening to music is that it's a completely individual experience, but it's something we can all share. You know, if you played the same song for 100 different people you'd find that some really like the song because of the lyrics, and some because of the music. Some might be drawn to the combination of both, and some others might not like the song at all. Again, it's all about the individual experience, right?

As a general rule, I'm a person who's most often moved by lyrics. So just for the heck of it, I picked out 3 lyrics I've always been especially fond of and jotted down a few thoughts about where I find the brilliance in them. Feel free to chime in with your own thoughts or question/comment on mine. Of course, at the end of the day, it's all just opinion right? And when it comes to opinions, I tend to think that more is better, don't you?

1. Bob Dylan: "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go"- Blood On The Tracks 1975

I'll look for you in old Honolulu,
San Francisco, Ashtabula,
Yer gonna have to leave me now, I know.
But I'll see you in the sky above,
In the tall grass, in the ones I love,
Yer gonna make me lonesome when you go.

Obviously, "The Bob" is one of the master lyricists, if not THE master lyricist of the modern age and I'm sure that scholars the world over have done Doctoral Theses that examine the intricate nature of his songwriting. Lots of Dylan songs are like puzzles that were never meant to be figured out or interpreted literally (think "Subterranean Homesick Blues" or "Leopard Skin Pill Box Hat" or even "Like A Rolling Stone" for that matter) and certainly there's an appealing challenge in those kinds of songs. But I think the reason I always gravitate back to the lyrics of "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome" is precisely because they're not typical Dylan. They're not cryptic or shrouded in mystery. They're honest, and simple and straightforward, and yet wonderfully expressive. And if you just say the lines out loud you'll notice that there's almost a melodic quality to the words themselves and the way they play off of each other.

The kicker for me is two-fold. First, I'm a sucker for well-used geographic references of any kind so I'm fond of the seemingly unrelated locational references to Honolulu (which is just a fun word to say), San Francisco, and obscurity points for Ashtabula which is a sub-town in Northeastern Ohio, as I remember. I'm at a loss to fully explain the appeal, but I like to consider it the "Route 66" syndrome ("you'll see amarillo/gallup new mexico/flagstaff arizona/don't forget winona etc., etc.)

Second, I'm also a sucker for what songwriters call "slant rhymes" or "near rhymes". By way of example, "fly" and "high" are exact rhymes. "Fly" and "Night" or "Fly" and "Sign" are slant rhymes. There's nothing terribly tricky about the concept, but using slant rhymes in a lyric is usually a bit more challenging and requires a bit more work than taking the obvious route. I can always appreciate that.

"Honolulu" and "Ashtabula" isn't even really a slant rhyme, but the way Dylan slurs his vocals on this line makes it a masterful combination of writing and performance.

And of course, in these lines, Dylan has found yet another brilliant way to say "I love you, I'm going to miss you, but you'll always be a part of me" without sounding trite or cliché.

As a side note, the majority of Blood On The Tracks was put together when Dylan was separating from his wife Sara Lowndes. As you'd imagine there are parts of the record that are bitter, and angry, and regretful and then there's the lines I referenced above which are both sad and hopeful at the same time. Consider the context next time you hear the song and see if it changes your perspective on it at all.

2. Bruce Springsteen: "Thunder Road"- Born To Run 1975

"like a vision she dances across the porch as the radio plays/roy orbison singing for the lonely/hey that's me and I want you only/don't turn me home again/I just can't face myself alone again"

There are too many great things about these lines to cover all the angles in one sit-down, but the obvious thing that makes them so great is the wonderfully subtle (and subtlety is key) reference to rock n' roll history…Roy Orbison's big 60s hit, "Only The Lonely". In 6 words, Springsteen has told us all we need to know about the time, the place, the setting, and to a certain extent, the characters in the song. If you listen closely you can almost hear the crackles coming through the one speaker of this beat up old radio, can't you? It's a hint about the characters in the song and what they're feeling. And it shows us an awful lot about the introductory mood of "Thunder Road" without coming right out and saying "there's this girl, and she's waiting for a guy, and she's lonely". Now that wouldn't be especially interesting, would it? Main rule of songwriting? "Show, don't tell". And Springsteen is one of the best ever at doing that.

3. John Prine: "Angel From Montgomery"- John Prine 1971

There's an old adage about writing that says a writer can only write about what they know from first hand experience. I can't imagine there's a song in the world that contradicts that old adage better than "Angel From Montgomery". (Unless of course John Prine was, in some other life, a middle aged woman living somewhere in rural Alabama. I'm not discounting that possibility, I'm just saying Prine isn't on record as claiming to have lived the particular experience he writes about in this song. That's all.)

Okay, for starters, it's an adventurous proposition for a male songwriter to attempt to write directly from the perspective of a female character and make it utterly and totally convincing. I suppose it's something that literary writers do a lot, but they have the luxury of using up 500 or more pages to develop and shade characters and convince the reader of a particular character's "legitimacy" (for lack of a better word.) Songwriters have to accomplish the same thing much, much more quickly…and then set it to music, to boot.

How does John Prine do it so convincingly in only 12 lines plus a 4-line chorus? I'll tell you how - he's an unbelievably creative and talented songwriter. That's how. (If I really knew, wouldn't I be writing songs myself???) He's not just writing about a character in this song, he actually becomes the character. And actually, his portrayal of her is so convincing that we all probably become, or at least relate, to the character when we hear it. That's a big part of its brilliance right there.

Another rule of successful songwriting? Take what's personal and make it universal so everyone understands it. If he hasn't written a book on that already, John Prine should put that on his list of things to do.

There's flies in the kitchen I can hear 'em there buzzing
And I ain't done nothing since I woke up today.
How the hell can a person go to work in the morning
And come home in the evening and have nothing to say.

Granted, the whole song is an absolute masterpiece, but the 4 lines that really encapsulate everything "Angel From Montgomery" is about and make it a song that everyone, man or woman, urban or rural, black or white, whatever, can understand, are the last 4.

"Flies in the Kitchen"? See "Show, Don't Tell" rule above. What's Prine saying? He's saying it's so damn quiet in the house that the silence is oppressive almost to the point of being maddening. There's flies in the house because the windows are open and the windows are open because wherever this character is, (presumably somewhere in Alabama?) it's hotter than hell. Hot, oppressive, silence. Paints quite a picture, don't it?

"Ain't done nothin'…." Notice Prine's use of incorrect grammar and double negative. Why? Because he's telling us something else about the character without coming right out and saying it. She's probably a rural woman who never had the benefit of much formal education and in that sense, she's not only trapped in this relationship and in this house, in the bigger sense, she's been trapped by circumstances that were somewhat beyond her control. She's a middle-aged woman but she feels like she's 200 years old.

To stretch things a bit more, the character says "I ain't done nothin' since I woke up today" but really what she's saying is, "I didn't do nothing the day before or the day before that 'cept sit around this house with some sour old man that I probably won't ever leave, and you know what, now that I think about it, I ain't done nothing in my whole life, really." Complete and total hopelessness in 10 words. That's what that line is.

And then the last two lines ask the big question, the one that's been on this woman's mind for the better part of her life. But the question is bigger than just "how come we don't have anything to say to each other?"

What she's really asking is, "What the hell have I done wrong?", "What's wrong with me?", "What's wrong with him?", "How did we end up here?", and "When did we stop talking to each other?".

Again, you don't have to be a middle-aged woman from Alabama to have some understanding of those lines. Even if you've never lived them, you've seen them. Maybe from a distance, maybe from close up, but we've all seen them. And that's part of why these lines, simple as they are, strike such a powerful chord with the listener, or at least, with this listener.

I could probably write for days and days about lyrics that are important to me but I think I'll close for now and maybe save a little bit for the next go-round, you know?

If there's a song with a particular line that's always meant a lot to you, feel free to send me your thoughts. (Email me at mcasey@995themountain.com) I'm always curious about what particular songs move people and why. It's the main reason I do what I do.

Thanks for reading!

Mike Casey
On-Air Mountain Guide
9a-2p