I heard once that Tim Rice, lyricist and cricket-lover once quoted as his favourite line in popular music: ‘I’d like to help you, son, but you’re too young to vote.’
That’s from Eddie Cochran’s Summertime Blues and I was reminded of it the other day when I heard Leonard Cohen on the radio talking about songwriting. He claimed that his own favourite line was ‘The moon stood still on Blueberry Hill.’ And who was it who said that the best line in all popular music was Johnny Cash’s ‘I killed a man in Reno, just to see him die?’
Naturally this led me to start jotting down some of my own favourites.
The first that came to mind was a line I’ve quoted before here is the one from Hank Williams’ I’m so Lonesome I Could Cry, namely ‘The moon just went behind a cloud to hide his face and cry,’ which I find terribly sad and evocative. To me, it’s all the more so, because Hank Williams does not strive to be ‘poetic’, in the way that Cohen himself, say, or Bob Dylan could be accused of doing.
I always liked Dylan’s line from Don’t Think Twice – ‘I gave her my heart, but she wanted my soul.’ As for Cohen, he wrote, in Bird on a Wire, about being like ‘a drunk at a midnight choir’ and ‘I have tried in my way to be free.’ That in turn reminds me of Kris Kristofferson’s Me and Bobby McGee with its wonderful line, ‘Nothing ain’t worth nothing, but it’s free.’
There was a time when I was always quoting Kristofferson. Sunday Morning, Coming Down is an all-time favourite, for I’ve endured many a long, lonely empty Sunday myself. And I wasn’t even ‘coming down’. ‘The beer I had for breakfast wasn’t bad; so I had one more for dessert.’
I’ve realised that this exercise can be very revealing. Not just that I don’t go for rock music, but that I seem to be stuck in the 1960s, nursing a rather pessimistic approach to life. What does it say about me when I cite Cohen again? ‘I was looking for someone with lines in her face.’
So, what about favourite lines that are a little more positive? How about:
‘I love a good bum on a woman. It makes my day.’
Thus Jake Thackray opens one of his wittiest songs, On Again. He goes on to use the expression ‘a posteriori’ to provide a very clever rhyme and pun. That sort of thing impresses me, simple soul that I am.
I’ll get round to being positive in a moment, but allow myself one more snatch of misogyny, namely ‘Why can’t a woman be more like me?’ Actually, that’s irony, not misogyny.
It’s always worth checking out ‘The Great American Songbook’. Before I do, though, I’ll mention the song I’m listening to at this very moment, ‘Je ne regretted rien', by Edith Piaf. How can you not respond to that voice, its tremulous strength and desperate defiance? They say the film about her, La Vie en Rose, is a disappointment, by the way.
What about the child-like exuberance of ‘You make me want to go and bounce the moon Just like a toy balloon’ from You Make Me Feel So Young; or, ‘I’ve got you under my skin;’ or ‘Pick myself up, dust myself off and start all over again.’
All of those are remarkable for their artful simplicity. Phrases that are used as clichés every day are made, with the aid of music, fresh and full of delight. In popular music, love is so often a meaningless concept, or a reason for despair, but here it’s fun and happiness. ‘Ho, ho, ho! Who’s got the last laugh now?’
Think of the sincerity in ‘Ah, but you’re lovely, Just the way you look tonight’; and ‘You look wonderful tonight. Even ‘I believe in miracles – you sexy thing,’ and ‘You’re simply the best.’
And, as I think of someone now, all I can say is, ‘Isn’t she lovely?’
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