Lyrical Geniuses

Throughout my years of observation, I’ve noticed that a lot of people like music for the way it sounds, for the lyrics, or for a combination of both. I’m the latter, and often I find a song that I truly like both sounds appealing and has some clever lyrics that go beyond the scope of “la” and “na” … though I’ll admit I enjoy a few of those songs as well.

The following is a list of possibly my top 20 favourite lines from songs, for various reasons. I’ve also added YouTube links where I could so you can enjoy these poetic/funny/meaningful lyrics in context.

5 lines that make me go “awwwww…” and quietly resolve that I’m going to marry the person singing the line.

"You told me I was like the Dead Sea; you'll never sink when you're with me." 

The Lumineers - Dead Sea

"I could write a thousand more songs about you - before this one's done the next one's begun."

The Drums - How it Ended

"Home is whenever I'm with you."

Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros - Home

"Cause when she sings, I hear a symphony, and I'm swallowed in sound as it echoes through me."

Death Cab For Cutie - Stay Young, Go Dancing

"Give me something fun to do, like a life of loving you."

Brooke Fraser - Something in the Water

5 lines that make me feel inspired… to change something, do something, or at least just sing along.

"I've heard it said that people come into our lives for a reason, bringing something we must learn. And we are led to those who help us most to grow, if we let them, and we help them in return."

Wicked the Musical - For Good

"If failure don't hurt, then failure don't work."

Boy & Bear - Big Man

"Pick your friends, forget the rest. You can't live your life being second best. The critics talk of 'stubbornness', but you're just passionate."

Two Door Cinema Club - You're Not Stubborn

"May your past be the sound of your feet upon the ground."

Fun. - Carry On

"On my knees and out of luck; I look up."

Mumford & Sons - After the Storm

5 lines that make my smile muscles go into action… and then satisfy my heart, knowing my smile muscles have had a bit of a workout for the day.

"I've been waiting to smile, been holding it in for a while. I'll take you with me if I can, been dreaming of this since I was a child - I'm on top of the world!"

Imagine Dragons - On Top Of The World

"'What's your style and who do you listen to?' Who cares!"
Foster The People - Call It What You Want

"Want to break the door down, just to greet the day."

Gotye - In Your Light

"I had some brand new shoes. They were all red, but they gave me the blues."

She & Him - Brand New Shoes

"The greatest trick that the devil ever pulled was convincing women that they look better in their makeup."

Macklemore & Ryan Lewis - Thin Line

5 lines that make me think “totally…” and then sometimes… wait, what? Often I wonder if lines in songs are made to sound clever but don’t actually mean anything. Some of these lyrics I’m still undecided on, but they sound poetic so who cares, right?

"I was raised up believing I was somehow unique, like a snowflake distinct among snowflakes, unique in each way you can see. And now after some thinking, I'd say I'd rather be a functioning cog in some great machinery serving something beyond me."

Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues

"You've got to cry without weeping, talk without speaking, scream without raising your voice."

U2 - Running to Stand Still

"I don't have a choice, but I still choose you."

The Civil Wars - Poison & Wine

"Love is like a letter wrote, and life is like an envelope. You can choose who you give it to, but you can't choose who will it give it to you."

Matt Corby - Letters

"No one likes a puzzle too easy to solve."

Josh Pyke - Follow Me Down

I'm sure you all have your own preferences on song lyrics, which is why these are just some of my favourites, not the absolute gospel on which are the best in the world. I also know they're quite cheesy, but as someone wise once told me, sometimes you've got to "embrace the cheese".

Pun the Unbelievers

Discrimination. It's a big word, 14 letters in fact, but also metaphorically big with the weight that it bears. Discrimination has, for many years, caused me to hide away a major part of myself, too ashamed to be completely truthful with everyone in the world for fear of what they might think, what they might say. What might truly be lurking behind those polite "I accept you for who you are" responses.

But not anymore.

I would like to take this opportunity to admit to the world once and for all that I, Melinda Jennings, am a Punaholic.

It may not surprise all of you, I think even my mother has been in denial about the extent of my corny humour since my first day of school, when she told me I wasn't allowed to take my teddy with me and I told her I couldn't "bear to leave it". But for those who have been in the dark, allow me to shed some light on the affliction that is my addiction...

I'm the type of person who enjoys nothing more than pondering puns, conjuring cliches and trying to think of a third alliterative example. I could spend hours upon hours entertaining myself with the personal pun library that is my brain (proven fact, I'm not willing to divulge how I proved it though). Unfortunately, the kind of things I orchestrate and believe to be clever are usually met by a chorus of moans and groans.

So for all of you hay-ters out there and neigh sayers, here's some arguments for why you should embrace this pun colt. And for all of you people out there like me, here's a leg to stand on when you're trying to pun the unbelievers.

1. Puns make the world go round. Literally. Don't get sucked into the myth that it's caused by some gravitational pull, or attracted by the notion that love does the trick. It's puns, puns, and more puns.

2. The greats used puns. When it comes to literary geniuses, no one can argue that William Shakespeare isn't among them. In one of his most famous plays, Romeo and Juliet, there are not one but several instances of puns. This includes my personal favourite, which was uttered by Mercutio after being fatally stabbed, "tomorrow, you shall find me a grave man." If it's good enough for my main man Will S, it's good enough for me!

3. Puns make you better looking. And by better looking, I mean better AT looking. And by puns, I mean an eye doctor. And by a third point, I mean I only had two and this one is a complete waste of everyone's time.

Now I know that puns aren't going to be everyone's cup of tea, and I know my attempt to prove how great they are is coffee-niently short. But all I want you to know is that love them or hate them, this is who I am, and nothing you say or do will ever change that. They run in my blood, and you'd have to try in vein to make me stop using them - pun intended.








Bonus points for anyone who can accurately tell me how many puns are in this post. Make a guess using the comments.

New Year's Febr-olutions

January is an extremely popular time of the year to make New Year's Resolutions, most likely because of it's close correlation with the beginning of the year. However, as someone who likes to colour outside the lines, I decided to create what I call a New Year's Febr-olution. Basically, it's all the resolve of promising to do something at the turn of the year, without the restrictions of having to stick to them in January!

All of that is a complete lie, but it makes me sleep better about the fact that I've started this blog in February, a whole month after I intended to. Then again, it was either face the shame of a missed-by-30-days deadline or wait another 11 months to try again, because it's common knowledge that no serious commitment can begin in any other month than the first one of the year.

Anyway, for those of you who haven't been completely disappointed by my lack of discipline and blatant disregard for the stone-set New Year's Resolution rules, welcome to Between Born & Buried. This blog will be a collection of random thoughts, musings and reflections of things that I encounter in the period of time between being birth and burial called life.

I hope anyone reading this (even if it's just my mum) enjoys it almost half as much as I know I will writing it!

A World Of Me

Have you ever thought about what the world would be like if everyone were identical to you?
Boring? Strange? Incomprehensible? I'm sure there's even more things that spring to your mind too.

To be honest, though I feel I have a healthy self-esteem, I wouldn't want to live in a world full of me.
Yet I, and others I'm sure, take it upon myself to judge almost everyone and everything I see.

We admit that we need difference in the world, but people who are too different we cannot take.
It's like we want everyone to be the kind of different we approve of - but is that our decision to make?