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Tuesday, February 23, 2021

Words For The Ages, Line Seventeen

 Reflections From The Bell Curve: Words For The Ages, Line Sixteen 

Last November I requested help from readers in the post above. I did so after realizing the first sixteen lyricists I'd quoted to that point in my series called Words For the Ages were not only all white, but not one was under sixty years old. Talk about musical myopia!

Most of the suggestions I subsequently received didn't quite hit the mark, although I appreciate the effort folks made. Some of the suggested lyrical phrases were not terse enough while others didn't strike me as having enough aphoristic bang for the buck. But my patience paid off.

"You dream of walls that hold us imprisoned."

Using just eight words, that phrase from White Ferrari by thirty three year-old Frank Ocean is a concise description of the traps many of us build, traps that can end up limiting the builder as much as the others imprisoned by walls. And it clearly fits my criteria for words for the ages because of its wide applicability. The metaphorical walls Ocean writes of could limit a relationship as easily as they could an entire culture.

p.s. A big shoutout to MB for the effort he put into helping me get Words For The Ages into the twenty-first century.  


2 comments:

  1. Never thought of these FO lyrics being applicable to culture as a whole. Cool interpretation :)

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    1. Anonymous; Thanks for comment AND compliment. From its outset, the main intent behind "Words For the Ages" has been to highlight lyrical phrases that have wide applicability, regardless of what the lyricist actually intended. This FO phrase fits that bill.

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