but what redemption i can offer, girl, is beneath this dirty hood
So apparently on that writer's block question thingy on LJ that I never do, today's question is "What's your favorite line from a song, and why?"
And I could come up with at least a dozen answers, lines that have meant something to me or that I think are really clever or funny or smart, and I'm tempted to do so, but I think that would just be dancing around the issue, because I'm pretty sure anyone who's read this journal for any period of time could guess the answer:
And I know you're lonely for words that I ain't spoken / tonight, we'll be free, all the promises will be broken
(I know, you thought it was going to be "you ain't a beauty, but hey, you're all right, and that's all right with me," which is definitely on the list, along with most of the lyrics from the song, and various lyrics from other Springsteen songs - "and after all this time to find we're just like all the rest / stranded in the park and forced to confess to / hiding on the backstreets." "For the ones who had a notion / a notion deep inside / that it ain't no sin to be glad you're alive." [actually, nearly anything from either "Badlands" or "Backstreets" is a possibility.] "We learned more from a three minute record, baby, than we ever learned in school." "No retreat, baby, no surrender." "Is a dream a lie that don't come true, or is it something worse?""Everything dies, baby, that's a fact, but maybe everything that dies someday comes back." "Hit 'em in the funnybone, that's where they expect it least." "Nothing is forgotten or forgiven when it's your last time around / I got stuff running round my head that I just can't live down." "You're born into this life paying for the sins of somebody else's past." "You got to learn to live with what you can't rise above." "God have mercy on the man who doubts what he's sure of." "The highway's jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive. Everybody's out on the run tonight but there's no place left to hide.")
I just... for me, that line is the culmination of the song, and I love that of all the things he's offering if she goes with him, freedom from all the obligations that have kept them from leaving, from going somewhere or doing something better (and also the negative promises that keep them where they are, that tell them how they're failures and will never be able to have anything better) is right at the top of the list. He's not making any promises himself, either ("words that I ain't spoken") but the whole song is about the possibility of redemption, "the chance to make it good somehow."
This is a song that can make me stop whatever I'm doing to listen whenever it comes on, and these are the lines that send a chill down my spine every single time:
From your front porch to my front seat, / the door's open but the ride, it ain't free. / And I know you're lonely for words that I ain't spoken. / Tonight we'll be free, all the promises will be broken.
It lifts my heart out of my chest every damn time.
(Thunder Road)
***
This entry at DW: http://musesfool.dreamwidth.org/325445.html.
people have commented there.
And I could come up with at least a dozen answers, lines that have meant something to me or that I think are really clever or funny or smart, and I'm tempted to do so, but I think that would just be dancing around the issue, because I'm pretty sure anyone who's read this journal for any period of time could guess the answer:
And I know you're lonely for words that I ain't spoken / tonight, we'll be free, all the promises will be broken
(I know, you thought it was going to be "you ain't a beauty, but hey, you're all right, and that's all right with me," which is definitely on the list, along with most of the lyrics from the song, and various lyrics from other Springsteen songs - "and after all this time to find we're just like all the rest / stranded in the park and forced to confess to / hiding on the backstreets." "For the ones who had a notion / a notion deep inside / that it ain't no sin to be glad you're alive." [actually, nearly anything from either "Badlands" or "Backstreets" is a possibility.] "We learned more from a three minute record, baby, than we ever learned in school." "No retreat, baby, no surrender." "Is a dream a lie that don't come true, or is it something worse?""Everything dies, baby, that's a fact, but maybe everything that dies someday comes back." "Hit 'em in the funnybone, that's where they expect it least." "Nothing is forgotten or forgiven when it's your last time around / I got stuff running round my head that I just can't live down." "You're born into this life paying for the sins of somebody else's past." "You got to learn to live with what you can't rise above." "God have mercy on the man who doubts what he's sure of." "The highway's jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive. Everybody's out on the run tonight but there's no place left to hide.")
I just... for me, that line is the culmination of the song, and I love that of all the things he's offering if she goes with him, freedom from all the obligations that have kept them from leaving, from going somewhere or doing something better (and also the negative promises that keep them where they are, that tell them how they're failures and will never be able to have anything better) is right at the top of the list. He's not making any promises himself, either ("words that I ain't spoken") but the whole song is about the possibility of redemption, "the chance to make it good somehow."
This is a song that can make me stop whatever I'm doing to listen whenever it comes on, and these are the lines that send a chill down my spine every single time:
From your front porch to my front seat, / the door's open but the ride, it ain't free. / And I know you're lonely for words that I ain't spoken. / Tonight we'll be free, all the promises will be broken.
It lifts my heart out of my chest every damn time.
(Thunder Road)
***
This entry at DW: http://musesfool.dreamwidth.org/325445.html.
people have commented there.