Songs which evoke mental images

Subject: Songs which evoke mental images
From: Shack
Date: 23 Jun 99 - 05:07 PM

Good songs like good writings sometimes make you feel that you're there. I can think of many examples. In "Folsome Prison Blues," for example, I can always see the "...rich folks eating in a fancy dining car; they're probably drinking coffee and smoking big cigars." In "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry," I always see the lit-up purple sky and even the robin weep. When I see these images I sing with more feeling. I always see them and they always look the same. Do you agree, and what are some songs that make you feel that you're there?

Subject: RE: Songs which evoke mental images
From: Peter T.
Date: 23 Jun 99 - 05:39 PM

"Please Come to Boston" does the most visual painting of different scenes with the fewest words of almost any song I know (at least Willie Nelson's version does).
For a single floating set of images has anyone ever beaten Simon and Garfunkel's evocation of a Greyhound bus crossing "America"?yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Songs which evoke mental images
From: Mark Roffe
Date: 23 Jun 99 - 05:49 PM

Listening to Joni Mitchell's The Last Time I Saw Richard is like watching a movie.

Bark

Subject: RE: Songs which evoke mental images
From: Matthew B.
Date: 23 Jun 99 - 06:20 PM

Just about every sea shanty I ever heard, fills my mind with images. Here's an example

Up aloft amid the rigging
Blows the loud exalting gale
Like a bird's wide outstrecthed pinions
Spreads on high each swelling sail

And the wild waves cleft behind us
Seem to murmur as they flow
There are loving hearts that wait you
In the land to which you go

Or how about the image from this one?

Oh dark and dreary was the day
When last I saw my Meg
She'd a government band around each hand
And another one on each leg

Now that's what I call imagery!

Subject: RE: Songs which evoke mental images
From: Allan C.
Date: 23 Jun 99 - 07:57 PM

I don't sing all of these songs; but the lines I quote here always bring up the same pictures, the same emotions.

"When rain has hung the leaves with tears..." Donovan
"Couched in our indifference..." Paul Simon
"Like the trembling heart of a captive dove..." Trad.
"He had an eighty-weight of Spanish iron between his neckbone and his knee..." Trad.
"This ol' hammer rings like silver..." Trad. "See Him at the temple talkin' with the elders who marveled at His wisdom..." from "Amen", Trad.? "Windshield wipers slappin' time..." Kris Kristofferson
"Not a shirt on my back; not a penny to my name..." Trad.
"And they're all made of ticky-tacky and they all look just the same." Pete Seeger
"And the rain keeps falling. And the train is drawing near. And Laurie, Laurie, Laurie's going away while I'll be staying here." Don't know the author
"...But I can show you morning upon a thousand hills, and kiss you and give you seven daffodils." Trad.??
"...misty, moisty morning..." Trad.
"I remember when you were lookin' up at me as though I was the only one you'd ever want to see." Richard Weissman
"Then "Dive," said the captain and we held our breath. A sound like she'd broken in two. That was the last we ever heard of her. Last word we had of her crew." Allen/Nielsen/Donald
"In the days of the old covered wagon, when they camped on the flats for the night, With the stars growing dim on the old high gorge rim, they would watch for the Brown Mountain Light." Scott Wiseman
"Through the years we all will be together, If the Fates allow. Hang a shining star upon the highest bough. And have yourself a merry little Christmas now." Hugh Martin, Ralph Blane

SOMEBODY STOP ME!! "Hear the mighty engines roar. See the silver wing on high..." Gordon Lightfoot
"One word more, a signal token, Whistle of the Marchin' Tune, With your pike upon your shoulder, At the rising of the moon." Don't know the author
"Say don't you remember, you called me Al..." Don't know the author

"And when the earth has turned her season, And her love has brought the grain. If you find that love inside you, Come and live with me again." Gary Shearston "I went into my kitchen, fetched him a bowl full of meat A drink and a pan of cold biscuits, that's what I gave him to eat Though he was tired and hungry a bright light came over his face. He bowed his head in the moonlight, he said a beautiful grace." Jimmy Diftwood

Okay, I'll go peacefully now.

Subject: RE: Songs which evoke mental images
From:
Date: 23 Jun 99 - 08:18 PM

ALLAN, ALLAN.... Did you explode???

annap

Subject: RE: Songs which evoke mental images
From: Allan C.
Date: 23 Jun 99 - 08:23 PM

No. But I did go into mental image overload!

Subject: RE: Songs which evoke mental images
From: katlaughing
Date: 23 Jun 99 - 09:13 PM

"Please don't break my heart of glass" - Donovan, from Sutras

"I sit in long contentment in his house
Wrapped in fire heat and sun heat
The trees break the sun into long lines
Which cross the floor
To meet the steady warmth of the coals
I lie on the sofa
A rug tucked around me by his gentle hands
Was never lover's bed so surely warm
I see him pass the window -- bowed, slow, sure
Carrying plants, seeds, weeds
All these he can still attend
But when he comes into the kitchen
He puts his hand on my head and says
"The beasties are looking fine"
"Tomorrow," I say "Tomorrow I'll come look"
Though I know he sold them all
A dozen years ago.
- Jean Mackie - from A Little Piece of Earth copyrighted 1983, as done by Jean Redpath on A Woman of Her Time

Sobbed my eyes out the first time I heard it and it still gets to me everytime. Jean's delivery and inflections are perfect.

From "THe Pattern" by Kim McKee, about a pattern of family names which were knit into sailor's sweaters:

"And this man shall not be nameless
When the claim him from the swell
There is so much more to this man"s life...
That the partten does not tell.

and,

"Of the loving nights with tallow lights
the laughter and the tears
It speaks his name but does not sing
the songs of all our years.

Subject: RE: Songs which evoke mental images
From: bseed(charleskratz)
Date: 23 Jun 99 - 09:37 PM

"...with her feet already dusty from the pathway to the levee, and her little blue jeans rolled up to her knees..." Kris Kristopherson, "Jodie and the Kid."

"...now you wear your skin like iron, your breath as hard as kerosene," Townes Van Zandt (sp?), "Pancho and Lefty." (not all images are visual)

I feel a bunch more at the periphery of my consciousness, but I'll have to stop thinking about the Hokey Pokey to get ahold of them (By the way, I keep getting "The Hokey Pokey" and "Ballin' the Jack" mixed up--is there a difference?)

Subject: RE: Songs which evoke mental images
From: Peter T.
Date: 24 Jun 99 - 08:51 AM

Just to be pedantic, "Ticky Tacky" is by Malvina Reynolds.
Mustn't forget the great lady.
Yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Songs which evoke mental images
From: Bert
Date: 24 Jun 99 - 09:34 AM

For 'A Song for a winter's night' by Gordon Lightfoot (I think Peter)

The lamp is burning low upon my table top
snow is softly falling
the air is still, and in the silence of my room
I hear your voice softly calling.

You can actually feel that cold silence of snow falling at night. Magic!

Actually one of the greatest compliments I received for my songwriting was when someone said to me "When I hear your songs I can see the places". So now I try to draw a picture for every verse. Helps a lot with finding rhymes as well 'cos you can add 'props' to your picture which gives you more ideas.

I study comic strips to get ideas for adding props to pictures and still keep the picture simple. F'rexample, When 'Frank and Ernest' are in a cafe there is always a coffee urn on the counter which sets the scene but has nothing to do with the joke.

Great thread! very important concept.

Bert.

Subject: RE: Songs which evoke mental images
From: HåvardR
Date: 24 Jun 99 - 09:42 AM

I friend of mine wrote "When the end of the COndom went POP!", allegedly not based on a true story, but easy to picture all the same. I posted it some time back

Håvard

Subject: Lyr Add: BIRCHES (Bill Morrisey)
From: Jeremiah McCaw
Date: 24 Jun 99 - 10:40 AM

Got two fer ya...

From Creedence, the song "Lodi" 'bout a down-on-his-luck stranded musician:
"Things got bad and things got worse,
Oh God, stuck in Lodi again."


From Bill Morrisey's "BIRCHES," hell, the whole damn song:

They sat at each end of the couch, watched as the fire burned down
So quiet on this winter's night, not a house light on for miles around.
Then he said, "I think I'll fill the stove; it's getting time for bed."
She looked up, "I think I'll have some wine, how 'bout you?" she asked and he declined.

"Warren," she said, "maybe just for tonight,
Let's fill the stove with birches and watch as the fire burns bright.
How long has it been? I know it's quite a while.
Pour yourself half a glass. Stay with me a little while."

And Warren, he shook his head, as if she'd made some kind of joke
"Birches on a winter night, no, we'll fill the stove with oak.
Oak will burn as long and hot as a July afternoon
And birch will burn itself out by the rising of the moon.

"And you hate a cold house, same as me, am I right or not?"
"All right, all right, that's true," she said. "It was just a thought,
'Cause," she said, "Warren, you do look tired; maybe you should go up to bed.
I'll look after the fire tonight." "Oak," he told her. "Oak," she said.

She listened to his footsteps as he climbed up the stairs
And she pulled a sweater on her, set her wine glass on a chair.
She walked down cellar to the wood box—it was as cold as an ice-chest—
And climbed back up with four logs, each as white as a wedding dress.

And she filled the stove and poured the wine and then she sat down on the floor.
She curled her legs beneath her as the fire sprang to life once more
And it filled the room with a hungry light and it cracked as it drew air
And the shadows danced a jittery waltz like no one else was there.

And she stood up in the heat, she twirled around the room,
And the shadows they saw nothing but a young girl on her honeymoon,
And she knew the time it would be short; the fire would start to fade.
She thought of heat. She thought of time. She called it an even trade.

Subject: RE: Songs which evoke mental images
From: Dan
Date: 24 Jun 99 - 12:26 PM

"Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream" (Kingston Trio)evokes the most powerful mental images of any song I've ever heard. The men in the room. The signing. The million copies. The prayer. But must of all the rousing final verse: "And the people in the streets below were dancing round and and round; and guns and swords and uniforms were scattered on the ground." I can see them now.

Subject: RE: Songs which evoke mental images
From:
Date: 24 Jun 99 - 01:22 PM

Jeremiah, the song "Birches" was beautiful. It brought tears to my eyes. Please let me know who sings it and what album I can find it on. I need to have it.

Dan, I remember hearing Buffy St. Marie do "Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream" , but I don't remember it from the Kingston Trio. I've always loved that song. It always gives me chills. I'll have to go thru our KT collection and try to find it.

To me, the strongest mental images were from anything written by Mickey Newbury. I have been trying to recall some of the lines, but it's been so long since I listened to him. His records were all wrecked by a small pet skunk I used to have. JoJo liked to pull out our records and pull each one out of it's sleeve. He was a real little stinker ;-) We eventually had to give him to someone who had a big farm. Last time I saw him, he was rooting around in a wood on the farm. Well, anyway. Mickey Newbury.

annap

Subject: RE: Songs which evoke mental images
From: Matthew B.
Date: 24 Jun 99 - 01:33 PM

Norweigan Wood by John Lennon

Subject: RE: Songs which evoke mental images
From: Tom May
Date: 24 Jun 99 - 01:38 PM

Eric Bogle's "No Man's Land" always gets me (especially June Tabor's rendition). I've been around one or two of those cemeteries and that song always bring the memories back.

Regards

Tom

Subject: Lyr Add: EARLY (Greg Brown)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 24 Jun 99 - 02:28 PM

Just about every song ever written by Greg Brown brings images to my mind. It's hard to choos, but I suppose my favorite is "Early."

Early
Greg Brown, © 1980 Love Breeze Publishing

Early one morning I walked out alone,
I looked down the street; no one was around.
The sun was just comin' up over my home,
On Hickory Street in a little farm town. And

[chorus:]
Oooo-ee, ain't the mornin' light pretty,
When the dew is still heavy, so bright and early.
My home on the range; it's a one-horse town,
And it's alright with me.

Plow broke the prairie, the prairie gave plenty,
The little towns blossomed and soon there were many.
Scattered like fireflies across the dark night,
And one was called Early, and they sure named it right. 'Cause

[repeat chorus]

Many dry summers parched all the fields,
They burnt the fine colors and cut down on the yield.
But the rain has returned to wash away our tears,
It's the fullest green summer that
We've seen for years. And

[repeat chorus]

Anna, you'll find "Birches" on a Bill Morrissey CD called "Night Train," Philo CD PH1154 - click here.

Subject: RE: Songs which evoke mental images
From: Jeri
Date: 24 Jun 99 - 02:34 PM

Anna, the song "Birches" was written and recorded by Bill Morrissey on Night Train," Philo 1154. It's also on "Philo So Far" the 20th anniversary folk sampler, Philo 1161.

Subject: RE: Songs which evoke mental images
From: Joe Offer
Date: 24 Jun 99 - 02:55 PM

Say, Jeri, can you suggest a recording of the song by somebody else for those of us who don't like Morrissey's singing? I like the album he did with Greg Brown, and I like the "Birches" song, but generally I can't stand his singing. Greg, if you're listening, sorry....
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Songs which evoke mental images
From: Dan
Date: 24 Jun 99 - 03:27 PM

Apavao, it's on "Time to Think." Great album. Hope you have it.

Subject: RE: Songs which evoke mental images
From: Peter T.
Date: 24 Jun 99 - 04:15 PM

If my memory serves me, "Birches" is an old Robert Frost poem.
Yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Songs which evoke mental images
From: Steve Latimer
Date: 24 Jun 99 - 04:46 PM

Everytime I hear Bob Dylan's Lilly, Rosemary and The Jack of Hearts it's as if I'm actually watching a movie in my mind. The sets are always the same, the characters always look the same, it's quite a phenomenon. I get the same reaction to Willy Nelson's Red Headed Stranger album, but not as crystal clear.

Subject: RE: Songs which evoke mental images
From: Jeri
Date: 24 Jun 99 - 05:19 PM

Joe, no sorry. I know what you mean about Morrissey's voice - I can only take so much of it. I was going to suggest getting the Philo sampler because it only had the one Morrissey song on it, but I was afraid I'd get into trouble :-)

Subject: Lyr Add: BIRCHES (Robert Frost)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 24 Jun 99 - 05:34 PM

Different "Birches," Peter, but thanks for mentioning Frost's poem.
-Joe Offer-

Birches by Robert Frost (1874-1963)

When I see birches bend to left and right Across the lines of straighter darker trees, I like to think some boy's been swinging them. But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay. Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning After a rain. They click upon themselves As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel. Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust-- Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen. They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load, And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed So low for long, they never right themselves: You may see their trunks arching in the woods Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair Before them over their heads to dry in the sun. But I was going to say when Truth broke in With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm (Now am I free to be poetical?) I should prefer to have some boy bend them As he went out and in to fetch the cows-- Some boy too far from town to learn baseball, Whose only play was what he found himself, Summer or winter, and could play alone. One by one he subdued his father's trees By riding them down over and over again Until he took the stiffness out of them, And not one but hung limp, not one was left For him to conquer. He learned all there was To learn about not launching out too soon And so not carrying the tree away Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise To the top branches, climbing carefully With the same pains you use to fill a cup Up to the brim, and even above the brim. Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish, Kicking his way down through the air to the ground. So was I once myself a swinger of birches. And so I dream of going back to be. It's when I'm weary of considerations, And life is too much like a pathless wood Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs Broken across it, and one eye is weeping From a twig's having lashed across it open. I'd like to get away from earth awhile And then come back to it and begin over. May no fate willfully misunderstand me And half grant what I wish and snatch me away Not to return. Earth's the right place for love: I don't know where it's likely to go better. I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree, And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more, But dipped its top and set me down again. That would be good both going and coming back. One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

Subject: RE: Songs which evoke mental images
From: Tony Burns
Date: 24 Jun 99 - 06:02 PM

I'll submit just 2 from Stan Rogers (there are hundreds)

From Lies
She looked up in that weathered face that loved hers line for line and saw the maiden shining in his eyes.

From Bluenose
She will range far south from the harbour mouth and rejoice in every wave.

Amazing! "rejoice in every wave" Is there a sailor, or wannabe sailor, anywhere who can read those words and not get shivers? All the beauty, power and majesty of sailing in 4 words.

Subject: RE: Songs which evoke mental images
From:
Date: 24 Jun 99 - 07:12 PM

I've heard the sound of the Indian drums, I've heard the bugles blow.
Before they rewrote history, into the Wild West Show.
My kin sailed toward America, to steal their Indian ground.
They passed Bill Cody's circus ships, European bound.

So lock up all your daughters, your whiskey, and your gold.
I have come to claim my bounty, for the lies that I've been told.
And as I look out on this crowd tonight, I see most of you don't care.
Come lift your glass, reveal your past, to the man from God knows where.

Tom Russell, from his 1999 Hightone CD release:
"The Man From God Knows Where."

Subject: RE: Songs which evoke mental images
From: katlaughing
Date: 24 Jun 99 - 09:23 PM

Can't remember the name of the song or artist, but it has a great line that is really catchy something like: it was me and something and the cat named Jake and the dog howling at the moon. Anybody recognise it? early 70's crossover country?

Subject: RE: Songs which evoke mental images
From: James Stanley
Date: 25 Jun 99 - 12:37 AM

A mental image a song for our times "Road rage on my block" "Robots are smart, that's why we had kids" "People make mistakes, we have lawyers" "You people should ski" "Money enters on the North and exits on the South" "I look great and feel good too" "I hate you, your rich, I hate you, your poor" "I have needs, now I'm needy" "The luxury of my innocence"

These songs are not copyrighted and can be song in any major and some minor keys.

PAX

Subject: RE: Songs which evoke mental images
From: Rita64
Date: 25 Jun 99 - 01:44 AM

Carole King's song "Tapestry" evokes many images ...

Once amid the soft, silver sadness in the sky There came a man of fortune, a drifter passing by Once he reached for something golden hanging from a tree But his hand came down empty

I haven't listened to it for a while so I might have mixed up my verses - but I'm sure you all gather the depth and significance of her lyrics. Love that woman.

Subject: Lyr Add: TAPESTRY (Carole King)
From: Rita64
Date: 25 Jun 99 - 02:11 AM

Whoopsie doodle! I did have the verses a little skewed. Here are the correct lyrics of TAPESTRY by Carole King:

-FYM-

TAPESTRY
(Carole King)

My life has been a tapestry of rich and royal hue,
An everlasting vision of the ever-changing view,
A wondrous woven magic in bits of blue and gold,
A tapestry to feel and see, impossible to hold.

Once amid the soft silver sadness in the sky,
There came a man of fortune, a drifter passing by.
He wore a torn and tattered cloth around his leather hide,
And a coat of many colors, yellow-green on either side.

He moved with some uncertainty, as if he didn't know
Just what he was there for, or where he ought to go.
Once he reached for something golden hanging from a tree,
And his hand came down empty.

Soon within my tapestry along the rutted road,
He sat down on a river rock and turned into a toad.
It seemed that he had fallen into someone's wicked spell,
And I wept to see him suffer, though I didn't know him well.

As I watched in sorrow, there suddenly appeared
A figure gray and ghostly beneath a flowing beard.
In times of deepest darkness, I've seen him dressed in black.
Now my tapestry's unraveling, he's come to take me back.
He's come to take me back.