A Toad's Favo(u)rite: 33-1/3 RPM

Friends, I was all set with another favorite poem to share. And then I found myself on a road trip, listening to music, ruminating about how people discovered new music years ago as compared with how we find it today. For me, it went like this:

Hear a tune on the radio

or read it in Rolling Stone

head off to National Record Mart

at the mall

to buy the album

zip off the shrink-wrap at home

place it oh-so-carefully

on the record player

of my father’s stereo

(nickel on the arm)

insert a cassette tape in the slot

press record/play

TURN UP THE VOLUME

settle cross-legged

in the oversized chair by the speakers

read the lyrics on the record liner

as the music plays. Repeat.

The artists to whom I gravitated as a young person were the lyricists, the storytellers, the poets. My young mind was blown, over and again, sitting there poring over the lyrics in the liner notes, reading the words, listening to them being sung, committing them to memory.

I am sharing today two musician-poets and the particular song-poems for which I have a specific memory of being blown away, hearing them for the first time as a teenager, and over and again to this day, whenever I hear or read these words. I’m guessing one or both will be familiar to many of you, so perhaps this will be a happy re-visiting. Or if these are new to you, so much the better. I am not including the audio, in order for us to focus on the words. (And you all know you to find them, anyway.) Enjoy!

Thunder Road

by Bruce Springsteen

The screen door slams, Mary's dress waves

Like a vision she dances across the porch as the radio plays

Roy Orbison singing for the lonely

Hey that's me and I want you only

Don't turn me home again

I just can't face myself alone again

Don't run back inside, darling you know just what I'm here for

So you're scared and you're thinking that maybe we ain't that young anymore

Show a little faith, there's magic in the night

You ain't a beauty, but hey you're alright

Oh and that's alright with me

You can hide 'neath your covers and study your pain

Make crosses from your lovers, throw roses in the rain

Waste your summer praying in vain for a saviour to rise from these streets

Well now I'm no hero, that's understood

All the redemption I can offer, girl, is beneath this dirty hood

With a chance to make it good somehow

Hey what else can we do now

Except roll down the window and let the wind blow back your hair

Well the night's bustin' open, these two lanes will take us anywhere

We got one last chance to make it real

To trade in these wings on some wheels

Climb in back, heaven's waiting down on the tracks

Oh oh come take my hand

Riding out tonight to case the promised land

Oh oh oh oh Thunder Road, oh Thunder Road, oh Thunder Road

Lying out there like a killer in the sun

Hey I know it's late, we can make it if we run

Oh oh oh oh Thunder Road, sit tight, take hold, Thunder Road

Well I got this guitar and I learned how to make it talk

And my car's out back if you're ready to take that long walk

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

There were ghosts in the eyes of all the boys you sent away

They haunt this dusty beach road in the skeleton frames of burned-out Chevrolets

They scream your name at night in the street

Your graduation gown lies in rags at their feet

And in the lonely cool before dawn

You hear their engines roaring on

But when you get to the porch they're gone on the wind, so Mary climb in

It's a town full of losers, I'm pulling out of here to win

Human Hands

by Elvis Costello

I've been talking to the wall and it's been answering me

Oh darling, how I miss you

I'm just the mere shadow of my former selfishness

I crave the silhouette of your kiss

With only the blue light of the TV on

Lip-reading threats and false alarms

There's a boy somewhere holding hands with himself

And a girl in a window on the Reeperbahn

Whenever I put my foot in my mouth and you begin to doubt

That it's you that I'm dreaming about

Do I have to draw you a diagram?

All I ever want is just to fall into your human hands

With the kings and queens of the dance hall craze

Checkmate in three moves in your heyday

But the girls don't listen to your line anymore

Now you're part of someone else

On the factory floor you still say "Where’s the action?"

Now you manufacture happiness

And get sold on the cheap for someone's satisfaction

Whenever I put my foot in my mouth and you begin to doubt

That it's you that I'm dreaming about

Do I have to draw you a diagram?

All I ever want is just to fall into your human hands

All you toy soldiers and scaremongers

Are you living in this world? Sometimes I wonder

In between saying you've seen too much

And saying you've seen it all before

Tighter and tighter, I hold you tightly

You know I love you more than slightly

Although I've never said it like this before

Whenever I put my foot in my mouth and you begin to doubt

That it's you that I'm dreaming about

Do I have to draw you a diagram?

All I ever want is just to fall into your human hands