The Lyrics Thread

[DSJR]

ZZ Top

It's three o'clock in the morning and the rain begin to fall
But I know what I'm needin' but I don't have it all

I'm needin' someone like you that I just wanna do love to
Baby, baby, I need you tonight

Outside my window it's lonely and cold
Inside my heart there's a fire burning out of control

Burning for someone like you I just wanna do love to
Baby, baby, I need you tonight

Your love's coming to me like a wolf howling at the moon
But that just doesn't do me if I can get you soon

I'm calling for someone like you that I just wanna do love to
Baby, baby, I need you tonight

[The Grand Wazoo]

'Ode To Billy Joe' by Bobby Gentry

I love the way this song is written - a family discussing the death of a neighbour while carrying on the everyday business of eating lunch together. That coupled with the music which perfectly evokes the setting of 'a sleepy, dusty Delta day' make this a masterpiece of storytelling.


It was the third of June, another sleepy, dusty Delta day
I was out choppin' cotton and my brother was balin' hay
And at dinner time we stopped and walked back to the house to eat
And Mama hollered out the back door "y'all remember to wipe your feet"
And then she said "I got some news this mornin' from Choctaw Ridge"
"Today Billy Joe MacAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge"

And Papa said to Mama as he passed around the blackeyed peas
"Well, Billy Joe never had a lick of sense, pass the biscuits, please"
"There's five more acres in the lower forty I've got to plow"
And Mama said it was shame about Billy Joe, anyhow
Seems like nothin' ever comes to no good up on Choctaw Ridge
And now Billy Joe MacAllister's jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge

And Brother said he recollected when he and Tom and Billie Joe
Put a frog down my back at the Carroll County picture show
And wasn't I talkin' to him after church last Sunday night?
"I'll have another piece of apple pie, you know it don't seem right"
"I saw him at the sawmill yesterday on Choctaw Ridge"
"And now you tell me Billie Joe's jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge"

And Mama said to me "Child, what's happened to your appetite?"
"I've been cookin' all morning and you haven't touched a single bite"
"That nice young preacher, Brother Taylor, dropped by today"
"Said he'd be pleased to have dinner on Sunday, oh, by the way"
"He said he saw a girl that looked a lot like you up on Choctaw Ridge"
"And she and Billy Joe was throwing somethin' off the Tallahatchie Bridge"

A year has come 'n' gone since we heard the news 'bout Billy Joe
And Brother married Becky Thompson, they bought a store in Tupelo
There was a virus going 'round, Papa caught it and he died last Spring
And now Mama doesn't seem to wanna do much of anything
And me, I spend a lot of time pickin' flowers up on Choctaw Ridge

And drop them into the muddy water off the Tallahatchie Bridge

[Barry]

An excellent example, Chris, of the power and poetry of lyrics.

I think the following information about Bobby Gentry and her comments on the song are interesting and pertinent (courtesy of Wikipedia):

“Gentry (after high school) moved to Los Angeles to enter UCLA as a philosophy major.

In 1967, Gentry produced her first single, the country rock "Mississippi Delta"; however, it was the flipside, "Ode to Billie Joe" with its sparse sound and controversial lyrics that started to receive airplay in the U.S. Capitol's shortened version added to the song's mystery. Questions arose among the listeners: what did Billie Joe and his girlfriend throw off the Tallahatchie Bridge, and why did Billie Joe commit suicide? Gentry herself has commented on the song, saying that its real theme was indifference:

‘Those questions are of secondary importance in my mind. The story of Billie Joe has two more interesting underlying themes. First, the illustration of a group of peoples' reactions to the life and death of Billie Joe, and its subsequent effect on their lives, is made. Second, the obvious gap between the girl and her mother is shown when both women experience a common loss (first Billie Joe, and later, Papa), and yet Mama and the girl are unable to recognize their mutual loss or share their grief.’ “


Furthermore, as there is an important distinction to be made between poetry and lyrics, I will if you don’t mind, add a YouTube clip wherein you can ‘hear’ the dispassionate discussion of the sad news of Billie Joe MacAllister’s death at the dinner table.



There are many questions raised by the elliptic nature of the lyrics; possibly involving a taboo subject: http://www.filibustercartoons.com/billyjoe.htm .

Still sends shivers up my spine - absolutely superb!

Regards

[Alex_UK]

Strange, one of those songs I know really well, but to my knowledge don't own a copy and don't remember ever consciously listening to it - but what a song! (And how many covers of it!)

On Spotify, if you are

Thanks Chris & Barry for giving it some exposure.

[Barry]

Following Chris’s (The Grand Wazoo) example of a song that might be described by the late, great Janis Joplin as a “song of social import”: I offer for your consideration Ralph McTell’s 'Streets of London'.




We all have times when we ought to think: “There but for the Grace of God, go I”, times when we can easily ‘whinge’ about “our lot in life” -

So, think about what you do have, and about what others do not.


Have you seen the old man
In the closed-down market
Kicking up the paper,
with his worn out shoes?
In his eyes you see no pride
And held loosely at his side
Yesterday's paper telling yesterday's news.

So how can you tell me you're lonely,
And say for you that the sun don't shine?
Let me take you by the hand and lead you through the streets of London
I'll show you something to make you change your mind.

Have you seen the old girl
Who walks the streets of London
Dirt in her hair and her clothes in rags?
She's no time for talking,
She just keeps right on walking
Carrying her home in two carrier bags.

[Chorus]

In the all night cafe
At a quarter past eleven,
Same old man is sitting there on his own
Looking at the world
Over the rim of his tea-cup,
Each tea last an hour
Then he wanders home alone.

[Chorus]

And have you seen the old man
Outside the seaman's mission
Memory fading with
The medal ribbons that he wears?
In our winter city,
The rain cries a little pity
For one more forgotten hero
And a world that doesn't care.

[Chorus]

[Alex_UK]

Played that track only yesterday, Barry - doubt I have played it in the last 20 years beforehand - social commentary in its finest form, and sadly, nothing changes regards to the "humanity" of the human race. As Agent Smith says, we are a virus...

[Barry]

Played that track only yesterday, Barry - doubt I have played it in the last 20 years beforehand - social commentary in its finest form, and sadly, nothing changes regards to the "humanity" of the human race. As Agent Smith says, we are a virus...

Good one Alex!

We all need to put things into perspective from time to time.

[s70rmp]

I got a sixty-nine Chevy with a 396
Fuelie heads and a Hurst on the floor
She's waiting tonight down in the parking lot
Outside the Seven-Eleven store
Me and my partner Sonny built her straight out of scratch
And he rides with me from town to town
We only run for the money got no strings attached
We shut 'em up and then we shut 'em down

Tonight, tonight the strip's just right
I wanna blow 'em off in my first heat
Summer's here and the time is right
For goin' racin' in the street

We take all the action we can meet
And we cover all the northeast state
When the strip shuts down we run 'em in the street
From the fire roads to the interstate
Some guys they just give up living
And start dying little by little, piece by piece
Some guys come home from work and wash up
And go racin' in the street

Tonight, tonight the strip's just right
I wanna blow 'em all out of their seats
Calling out around the world, we're going racin' in the street

I met her on the strip three years ago
In a Camaro with this dude from L.A.
I blew that Camaro off my back and drove that little girl away
But now there's wrinkles around my baby's eyes
And she cries herself to sleep at night
When I come home the house is dark
She sighs "Baby did you make it all right"
She sits on the porch of her daddy's house
But all her pretty dreams are torn
She stares off alone into the night
With the eyes of one who hates for just being born
For all the shut down strangers and hot rod angels
Rumbling through this promised land
Tonight my baby and me we're gonna ride to the sea
And wash these sins off our hands

Tonight tonight the highway's bright
Out of our way mister you best keep
'Cause summer's here and the time is right
For goin' racin' in the street



The lyrics are great on their own but you do need the music with it.
If my Cadillac hadnt got a broken front spring then tonight I'd be out for a drive with this playing with the winds down a bit to get the wind in my hair.

The live versions are stunning.

[Alex_UK]

Well, this thread should probably be nominated for a Beyond The Grave resuss - almost 10 months of inactivity... Oh well...

Listening to a song I know really well from a cover of it by Joan Osborne - but this time the original - always strange when the exposure is the wrong way round - if you get my drift!!!

Bob Dylan - Man In The Long Black Coat (From Oh Mercy (1989))

Crickets are chirpin' the water is high
There's a soft cotton dress on the line hangin' dry
The Windows wide open African trees
Bent over backwards from a hurricane breeze
Not a word of goodbye not even a note
She'd gone with the man in the long black coat.

Somebody seen him hangin' around
At the old dance hall on the outskirts of town
He looked into her eyes when she stopped him to ask
If he wanted to dance he had a face like a mask
Somebody said from the bible he'd quote
There was dust on the man in the long black coat.

Preacher was a talking there's a sermon he gave
He said every man's conscience is vile and depraved
You cannot depend on it to be your guide
When it's you who must keep it satisfied
It ain't easy to swallow it sticks in the throat
She gave her heart to the man in the long black coat.

There are no mistakes in life some people say
It is true sometimes you can see it that way
But people don't live or die people just float
She went with the man in the long black coat.

There's smoke on the water it's been there since June
Tree trunks uprooted beneath the high crescent moon
Feel the pulse and vibration and the rumbling force
Somebody is out there beating on a dead horse
She never said nothing there was nothing she wrote
She'd gone with the man in the long black coat.

[The Grand Wazoo]

Blimey, Alex, it's all a bit four horsemen of the apocalypse isn't it?
Strange but my shelves are spilling with Dylan albums & have been since I was about 15, but I don't own this one, nor have I ever heard it, to my knowledge.

Any word on those missing albums yet?