This line from Born To Be Wild has been lodged in my brain of late, which could have something to do with The Boy’s newfound infatuation with driving our parked car and the sense of parental duty I feel to provide him with a fitting soundtrack.
And while it may not be the best example of lyrical gold, it has at least inspired the idea of documenting some of my favourite lyrical moments in song.
This is in no way a Top Ten list, partly because it goes from one to six, but mostly because that would be an impossible task for a lyric lover like me.
So instead you could think of it in much the same way as you do of the ‘shuffle’ function on your Ipod, except that it won’t ‘randomly’ select tracks from the same five albums for six months in a row before it finally throws in a wild card from one of the other 8,458 songs on there.
So to kick it off, here are a few gems that have either been on my mind of late, or are lingering favourites…
1. Joni Mitchell singing “I could drink a case of you / darling / and I would still be on my feet / oh, I would still be on my feet”
This is like poetry for alcoholics. It’s one that the real drinkers amongst us get, and we think its beautiful. It’s like, filling your cup full of someone, 24 times over. And even though the demure and classy Joni Mitchell was no doubt referring to a case of wine, I like to localise the sentiment and think of it as, ‘I love you so much I could take you to an arvo barbie with all me mates and down a case of ya in one sitting, and not even fall ass over tit’.
Other highlights from the same song include, “if you want me I’ll be in the bar”, cuz where the fuck else would someone who likens not being able to get enough of someone to drinking a case of alcohol be found?
2. The entire lyrics of Dolly Parton’s Jolene, though in particular;
Jolene, Jolene, Jolene / I’m begging of you please don’t take my man / Jolene, Jolene, Jolene / please don’t take him just because you can…I cannot compete with you, Jolene / you can have your choice of man / but I could never love again, Jolene
I particular like the repetitive use of the name, Jolene. Because even though poor Dolly sounds like a downtrodden heartbroken lover, she manages to make, Jolene, sound like someone that must be spoken to as though they have a dangerous mental health condition.
I also think this track has the potential to bring women together everywhere, this is mainly based on the fact that one night at the pub when some girlfriends and I started singing a drunken rendition of this number some old bird (we nicknamed her MJ cuz she was rockin the black shoes and white socks look) got up and started belting it out with us, and we all knew all of the words.
3. Now, there is no shame here people, and so much to the dismay of The Yang (aka the Music Nazi) I am going to publicly admit that I know the words of a Garth Brooks song.
Bear with me on this one, and you just may understand, because this is a man who gets what’s its like to come from the wrong side of the tracks. He kicks things off by signing
“Blame it all on my roots / I showed up in boots / And ruined your black tie affair….”
And then goes onto cement his knowledge of the lower classes with
“Cause I got friends in low places / Where the Whiskey drowns / And the Beer chases my blues away / But I’ll be okay”
Its rationales like this that has saved my best friends and my entire family a lifetime of therapy bills, and you cant argue with logic like that.
The other highlight from the song (if you can bear to listen) is the cheers, whoops, whistles, and drunken revelry taking place in the background. Rockin.
4. In keeping with this lowbrow theme, another all time favourite is Fancy by Bobby Gentry, who sings
“I couldn’t see spendin’ the rest of my life / with my head hung down in shame / You know I mighta been born just plain white trash / but Fancy was my name”
Substitute ‘Fancy’ for ‘<RubyTwoShoes>’, ‘plain white trash’ for ‘Westie’, and the general theme of the song from ‘lady of the night rises from the depths of poverty and despair’ to ‘<RubyTwoShoes> moves from the Western suburbs to the inner city’, and this is pretty much the theme song of my life.
5. The ever delightful Gillian Welch crooning in Look At Miss Ohio that
“she wants to do right / but not right now”,
because this is something that I totally get. It captures my feelings on everything from doing the dishes, all the way up to ending world poverty and environmental destruction.
Like, how I would love nothing better than to contribute to the completion of such goals, if only we could just, push it back a little, until after dinner, or after this TV shows finished, or after I drink this beer, or eat one more tin of tuna, or have one more el-cheapo holiday in the third world, or go on one more gas guzzling holiday in my methane farting prehistoric vehicle….
6. And there is this;
“I can’t be precise, when people ask what I do with my life” by Kevin Renick.
I wish I had the rhyming genius of Kev and that I had have coined this winner myself so that when I was next presented with dilemma of how to answer the stock standard ‘so, what do you do?’ question that dominates social interactions (which I hate) I could just burst into song.
If only we all slipped into a little rhyming verse at these times, while I bags Kev’s line above, next time you’re at a party, or out to dinner, and someone asks you to define your life in one sentence, you could try something like;
“I wipe my kids bum, but it doesn’t make me glum, because I love being a mum!”
or
“I’m saving planet earth, to improve my feelings of self worth!”
The possibilities are endless.
Well, a list like this could go on forever, or it could go to six. I’m choosing six. But a word of advice before I depart, by the way of this little gem from Chic:
“Remember: the whole world is a circus, don’t you be the clown”.
RubyTwoShoes 