See the Elephant Jump the Fence

Scottish 17th century politician Andrew Fletcher’s famous declaration: “Let me write the songs of a nation — I don’t care who writes its laws”, sounds more applicable today than during his time, when "songs of a nation" invade our ears everywhere and all the time.  Let me confess that so would I.

Which leads me to the images that songs have left in my mind over the years.   I think it must have started out with "pardon me boy, is that the Chattanooga Choo Choo",  then went on to "don't step on my blue suede shoes",  the Heartbreak Hotel "at the end of a lonely street",  the landlord who "rang my front door bell", and   "I let it ring for a long long spell", then Things like a walk in the park
(Things) like a kiss in the dark (Things) like a sailboat ride (yeah-yeah)  and on and on.  Even "Forty Miles of Bad Road", title of an instrumental left an indelible image. 

There are many of these images that I couldn't help but memorize, and I'm only recalling the strongest ones.   There was this:

A candy-colored clown they call the sandman
Tiptoes to my room every night
Just to sprinkle stardust and to whisper
"Go to sleep. Everything is all right."

(Roy Orbison, 'In Dreams')


Baby back, dressed in black
Silver buttons all down her back
High hose, tippy toes
She broke the needle and she can sew

I asked her mother for fifteen cents
 See the elephant jump the fence
He jumped so high, touched the skies
Didn't get back until Fourth of July


(Rufus Thomas "Walking the Dog".  In a Rolling Stones cover recorded before they visited the U.S. "Fourth of July" was replace by "a quarter to five".)

All the leaves are brown (all the leaves are brown)
And the sky is grey (and the sky is grey)
I've been for a walk (I've been for a walk)
On a winter's day (on a winter's day)
I'd be safe and warm (I'd be safe and warm)
If I was in L.A. (if I was in L.A.)

California dreamin' (California dreamin')
On such a winter's day

Stopped into a church
I passed along the way
Well, I got down on my knees (got down on my knees)
And I pretend to pray (I pretend to pray)
You know the preacher like the cold (preacher like the cold)
He knows I'm gonna stay (knows I'm gonna stay)

(Author John Phillips, Performer the Mamas and the Papas)

It won't be long before my ship comes in
Gonna sail right out of Colorado
Catch a ride on a warm trade wind
Where no one knows

(Clint Black, "When My Ship Comes In"

And finally:

Who's that woman on your arm
All dressed up to do you harm
And I'm hip to what she'll do,
Give her just about a month or two.

Bit off more than I can chew
And I knew what it was leading to,
Some things, well, I can't refuse,
One of them, one of them the bedroom blues.

(The Rolling Stones, "Let It Loose")