John Delach

Recently, I wrote about the lyrics near the beginning of Billy Joel’s Piano Man, “Son, won’t you play me a memory…”  as being my favorite from his prolific mind. Another is from the less popular Ballad of Billy the Kid,  near the end of the song:

Well, one cold day a posse captured Billy,

And a judge said, “String him up for what he did.”

And the cowboys and their kin

Like a sea came pouring in,

To watch the hanging of Billy the Kid.

Kelly Willis really grabbed me with the first verse of her title song , Talk Like That:

Talk like that

Well, I don’t know where you’re from

But, oh how it takes me back

When you talk some

Well, I can hear my father

And his Oklahoma drawl

I hear my grandmother

I can hear them all

Paul Simon, another genius wordsmith has given us so many. I begin with Verses 5 and 6 from The Boxer 

And I’m laying out my winter clothes and

Wishing I was gone

Where the New York winters aren’t bleeding me

Leading me

Going home

In the clearing stands a boxer

And a fighter by his trade

And he carries the reminders

Of every glove that laid him down

Or cut him till he cried out in anger and his shame

“I am leaving, I am leaving”, but the fighter still remains

Whenever I play a collection of Paul Simon’s songs, I end up with America:

Cathy, I’m lost, I said though I knew she was sleeping

I’m empty and aching and I don’t know why

Countin’ the cars on the New Jersey turnpike

They’ve all come to look for America, all come to look for America.

Depression has its place in music and Dorey Previn addresses that in Lady with the Braid:

Would you like to stay till sunrise

It’s completely your decision

It’s just that the night cut through me like a knife

Would you care to stay awhile

And save my life?

I don’t what made me say that

I’ve got this funny sense of humor

You know I could not be downhearted if I tried

It’s just that going home is such a ride

Going home is such a ride

Going home is such a ride

Isn’t going home a low and lonely ride?

This brings me to my last song, one written and sung by a Canadian by the name of Lyn Miles accompanied only by a single guitarist. Its name is self-evident: Loneliness:

Loneliness is an envelope that you can seal yourself into

And send out to a stranger in a place across the sea

Loneliness is a tired old friend

Who carries your baggage to airports and train station for free

Loneliness wears a suit and tie to big city streets

And makes you cry at parties filled with people that you know

Loneliness will take you to the shoreline

On a fogey day to find an undertow

It is the hurt that hurt’s the deepest

It is the ache that you can’t cure

It is the desperation of a late-night call

It is the lover in the shadow

It is the one who got away

It is the cry of the southbound bird in the fall

(On the Outside Looking In will not publish next week and will return on August 7. )