Lyric of the week

July 25, 2012

Rosemary started drinkin’ hard and seein’ her reflection in the knife
She was tired of the attention, tired of playin’ the role of Big Jim’s wife
She had done a lot of bad things, even once tried suicide
Was lookin’ to do just one good deed before she died
She was gazin’ to the future, riding on the Jack of Hearts

(Bob Dylan, “Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts”)

July 18, 2012

This Is no time for congratulations
This is no time to turn your back
This Is no time for circumlocution
This Is no lime for learned speech

This is no tlme to count your blessings
This Is no time for private gain
This Is the time to put up or shut up
It won’t come back this way again

(Lou Reed, “There Is No Time”)

July 11, 2012

And when will I cash in my lottery ticket
And bury my past with my burdens and strife?
I want to shake every limb 
in the garden of Eden
And make every lover the love of my life

I figure that once upon a time I was an ocean
But now I’m a mountain range
Something unstoppable set into motion
Nothing is different, but everything’s changed

(Paul Simon, “Once Upon a Time There Was an Ocean”)

July 4, 2012 (for Independence Day, quotation replaced lyric)

The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of earnest struggle.

If there is no struggle, there is no progress.

Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning.

— Frederick Douglass