This verse of Stairway to Heaven I have always found so poetic!

And as we wind on down the road
Our shadows taller than our soul.
There walks a lady we all know
Who shines white light and wants to show
How evrything still turns to gold.
And if you listen very hard
The tune will come to you at last.
When all are one and one is all
To be a rock and not to roll.

That's all anyone can want isn't it - to be a rock and not to roll!

Here's a song I think most of you will never have hear of or the band that wrote it. It is very sweet. I really love the lines:

We were walking, I was walking her home
Middle of February, I shivered in the cold
and thought
'If I could only walk more slowly,
tonight wouldn't end so fast

So, my song goes to anyone who has or would gladly have endured a minor discomfort just to be with someone a little longer. It happened to me just last night.

"Ellen's Telling Me What I Want To Hear:" - Scotland Yard Gospel Choir

I was driving (yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah)
She sat beside me just the way that you now are
And I never wanted anything
more than Ellen telling me the things she did
She told me of the boy she used to love
Said she'd stayed at home until she 'd had enough
Now she's living in the city
and that's allright by me!

We were walking, I was walking her home
Middle of February, I shivered in the cold
and thought
'If I could only walk more slowly,
tonight wouldn't end so fast
It could last for hours and hours'
And if when we finally got there, she said
'Would you like some tea?'
I'd glanced at my watch and say
'Sounds allright by me!'

I've got a song and a poem in my heart. I love poetry set to music, here is one of my favs, from my favorite singer/song writer, Rob Thomas.

"Ever The Same"

We were drawn from the weeds
We were brave like soldiers
Falling down under the pale moonlight
You were holding to me
Like a someone broken
And I couldn't tell you but I'm telling you now

Just let me hold you while you're falling apart
Just let me hold you and we'll both fall down

Fall on me
Tell me everything you want me to be
Forever with you forever in me
Ever the same

We would stand in the wind
We were free like water
Flowing down
Under the warmth of the sun
Now it's cold and we're scared
And we've both been shaken
Hey, look at us
Man, this doesn't need to be the end

Just let me hold you while you're falling apart
Just let me hold you and we'll both fall down

Fall on me tell me everything you want me to be
Forever with you
Forever in me
Ever the same
Call on me
I'll be there for you and you'll be there for me
Forever it's you
Forever in me
Ever the same

You may need me there
To carry all your weight
But you're no burden I assure
You tide me over
With a warmth I'll not forget
But I can only give you love

Fall on me tell me everything you want me to be
Forever with you
Forever in me
Ever the same
Call on me
I'll be there for you and you'll be there for me
Forever it's you
Forever in me
Ever the same

Gem wrote:This verse of Stairway to Heaven I have always found so poetic!

And as we wind on down the road
Our shadows taller than our soul.
There walks a lady we all know
Who shines white light and wants to show
How evrything still turns to gold.
And if you listen very hard
The tune will come to you at last.
When all are one and one is all
To be a rock and not to roll.

That's all anyone can want isn't it - to be a rock and not to roll!

I love, love, love this verse, both lyrically and musically -- it is the climax, afterall, and a climax that certainly doesn't disappoint. There's a reason this song is legendary, you know.

I'll submit the song in my heart soon -- there are so many to choose from!

Saffron wrote:I love this!! It is my new favorit song.

Love Minus Zero/No Limit
Bob Dylan

My love she speaks like silence,
Without ideals or violence,
She doesn't have to say she's faithful,
Yet she's true, like ice, like fire.
People carry roses,
Make promises by the hours,
My love she laughs like the flowers,
Valentines can't buy her.

I feel like this was exactly what I needed to see/read/hear.. jeez! I can't get this smile off my face. Yay!!

missyannlala wrote:

Saffron wrote:I love this!! It is my new favorit song.

Love Minus Zero/No Limit
Bob Dylan

My love she speaks like silence,
Without ideals or violence,
She doesn't have to say she's faithful,
Yet she's true, like ice, like fire.
People carry roses,
Make promises by the hours,
My love she laughs like the flowers,
Valentines can't buy her.

I feel like this was exactly what I needed to see/read/hear.. jeez! I can't get this smile off my face. Yay!!

I do love this song -- when I listen to it, it makes me feel like no other song.

There is an innate ability some people have and others lack, to understand what song lyrics say--I mean literally. I'm terrible at this have made some howlers such as the CCR song in which Fogerty sings about a bathroom on the rise. I couldn't have written down the "Stairway" lyrics that Gem posted, so thanks.

One of my favorite Dylan songs is "Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands." In one part of the chorus Dylan says something that sounds to me like "My warehouse hides my Arabian drums." Now I'm going to look up the lyrics and post them to see how close I am. (This used to be a thing in Dave Barry's old columns, by the way. One of his mysteries was Steve Miller's "Some call me the space cowboy...'cause I speak of the pompatus (?) of love." This was pre-internet, when you couldn't easlily find these things out.)

With your mercury mouth in the missionary times,
And your eyes like smoke and your prayers like rhymes,
And your silver cross, and your voice like chimes,
Oh, who among them do they think could bury you?
With your pockets well protected at last,
And your streetcar visions which you place on the grass,
And your flesh like silk, and your face like glass,
Who among them do they think could carry you?
Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands,
Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes,
My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums,
Should I leave them by your gate,
Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?

With your sheets like metal and your belt like lace,
And your deck of cards missing the jack and the ace,
And your basement clothes and your hollow face,
Who among them can think he could outguess you?
With your silhouette when the sunlight dims
Into your eyes where the moonlight swims,
And your match-book songs and your gypsy hymns,
Who among them would try to impress you?
Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands,
Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes,
My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums,
Should I leave them by your gate,
Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?

The kings of Tyrus with their convict list
Are waiting in line for their geranium kiss,
And you wouldn't know it would happen like this,
But who among them really wants just to kiss you?
With your childhood flames on your midnight rug,
And your Spanish manners and your mother's drugs,
And your cowboy mouth and your curfew plugs,
Who among them do you think could resist you?
Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands,
Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes,
My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums,
Should I leave them by your gate,
Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?

Oh, the farmers and the businessmen, they all did decide
To show you where the dead angels are that they used to hide.
But why did they pick you to sympathize with their side?
Oh, how could they ever mistake you?
They wished you'd accepted the blame for the farm,
But with the sea at your feet and the phony false alarm,
And with the child of a hoodlum wrapped up in your arms,
How could they ever, ever persuade you?
Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands,
Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes,
My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums,
Should I leave them by your gate,
Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?

With your sheet-metal memory of Cannery Row,
And your magazine-husband who one day just had to go,
And your gentleness now, which you just can't help but show,
Who among them do you think would employ you?
Now you stand with your thief, you're on his parole
With your holy medallion which your fingertips fold,
And your saintlike face and your ghostlike soul,
Oh, who among them do you think could destroy you
Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands,
Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes,
My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums,
Should I leave them by your gate,
Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?

Hey, I wasn't that far off. Good for me. I also looked up lyrics to Steve Miller's "The Joker." The word he uses really is "pompetous"! Does he mean "pompousness"? Hope not, as his coinage works better.

This Saul Williams verse gives me chills everytime I hear it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3bz326qVls

Inner breathlessness, outer restlessness
By the time I caught up to freedom I was out of breath
Grandma asked me what I'm running for
I guess I'm out for the same thing the sun is sunning for
What mothers birth their youngens for
And some say Jesus coming for
For all I know the earth is spinning slow
Suns at half mast 'cause masses ain't aglow
On bended knee, prostrate before an altered tree
I've made the forest suit me
Tables and chairs
Papers and prayers
Matter versus spirit
A metal ladder
A wooden cross
A plastic bottle of water
A mandala encased in glass
A spirit encased in flesh
Sound from shaped hollows
The thickest of mucus released from heightened passion
A man that cries in his sleep
A truth that has gone out of fashion
A mode of expression
A paint splattered wall
A carton of cigarettes
A bouquet of corpses
A dying forest
A nurtured garden
A privatized prison
A candle with a broken wick
A puddle that reflects the sun
A piece of paper with my name on it
I'm surrounded
I surrender
All
All that I am I have been
All I have been has been a long time coming
I am becoming all that I am
The spittle that surrounds the mouth-piece of the flute
Unheard, yet felt
A gathered wetness
A quiet moisture
Sound trapped in a bubble
Released into wind
Wind fellows and land merchants
We are history's detergent
Water soluble, light particles, articles of cleansing breath
Articles amending death
These words are not tools of communication
They are shards of metal
Dropped from eight story windows
They are waterfalls and gas leaks
Aged thoughts rolled in tobacco leaf
The tools of a trade
Barbers barred, barred of barters
Catch phrases and misunderstandings
But they are not what I feel when I am alone
Surrounded by everything and nothing
And there isn't a word or phrase to be caught
A verse to be recited
A man to de-fill my being in those moments
I am blankness, the contained center of an "O"
The pyramidic containment of an "A"
I stand in the middle of all that I have learned
All that I have memorized
All that I've known by heart
Unable to reach any of it
There is no sadness
There is no bliss
It is a forgotten memory
A memorable escape route that only is found by not looking
There, in the spine of the dictionary the words are worthless
They are a mere weight pressing against my thoughtlessness
But then, who else can speak of thoughtlessness with such confidence
Who else has learned to sling these ancient ideas
like dead rats held by their tails
so as not to infect this newly oiled skin
I can think of nothing heavier than an airplane
I can think of no greater conglomerate of steel and metal
I can think of nothing less likely to fly
There are no wings more weighted
I too have felt a heaviness
The stare of man guessing at my being
Yes I am homeless
A homeless man making offerings to the after-future
Sculpting rubber tree forests out of worn tires and shoe soles
A nation unified in exhale
A cloud of smoke
A native pipe ceremony
All the gathered cigarette butts piled in heaps
Snow covered mountains
Lipsticks smeared and shriveled
Offerings to an afterworld
Tattoo guns and plastic wrappers
Broken zippers and dead eyed dolls
It's all overwhelming me, oak and elming me
I have seeded a forest of myself
Little books from tall trees
It matters not what this paper be made of
Give me notebooks made of human flesh
Dried on steel hooks and nooses
Make uses of use, uses of us
It's all overwhelming me, oak and elming me
I have seeded a forest of myself
Little books from tall trees
On bended knee
Prostrate before an altered tree
I've made the forest suit me
Tables and chairs
Papers and prayers
Matter vs. spirit, through meditation
I program my heart to beat breakbeats and hum basslines on exhalation

I have many songs in my heart, but this one has been feeling particularly revelant lately. In proper theater nerd fashion, it's from a musical.

I've never been a real "joiner," often to the extent that I don't even understand the dynamics of close-knit groups and how people can be so close all the time, even within my own circle of friends. I've always been sort of a loner, and even when I was a kid I lacked a sense of belonging, because I was different from everyone else at school in many ways, even different from my family. It's only gotten stronger over the years. I've also always had a struggle to find meaning in life, something to tell me why I'm here and what I'm supposed to be doing and how a world that is so cruel and mundane could show me something worth living for. You know. The really deep stuff.

This song pretty much explains how I feel, and is beautiful musically and lyrically. It's from Pippin, a self-conscious musical about a young prince who tries pretty much everything in life in a search for meaning. Needless to say, it struck a chord with me.

Corner of the Sky
from Pippin

Everything has its season, everything has its time;
show me a reason and I'll soon show you a rhyme.
Cats fit on the windowsill, children fit in the snow,
why do I feel I don't fit in anywhere I go?

Rivers belong where they can ramble,
eagles belong where they can fly.
I've got to be where my spirit can run free --
gotta find my corner
of the sky.

Every man has his daydreams, every man has his goal;
people like the way dreams have of sticking to the soul.
Thunderclouds have their lightning, nightingales have their song,
and don't you see I want my life to be something more than long?

Rivers belong where they can ramble,
eagles belong where they can fly.
I've got to be where my spirit can run free --
gotta find my corner
of the sky.

So many men seem destined to settle for something small,
but I won't rest until I know I'll have it all.
So don't ask where I'm going, just listen when I'm gone,
and faraway you'll hear me singing softly to the dawn:

Rivers belong where they can ramble,
eagles belong where they can fly.
I've got to be where my spirit can run free --
gotta find my corner
of the sky.

What about this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ds8ryWd5aFw