Melancholy Lyrics

Three beautifully melancholic lyrics I’ve heard in the last 24 hours.

1.    Foy Vance from ‘Gabriel and the Vagabond’
“I’m thirty-two and I’ve got this one pair of shoes”

An image of the failed Western image of success. To reach 32 years of age and to be measured by the possession of just one pair of shoes.

2.    Bruce Springsteen from ‘The Promise’
“When the Promise was broken I was far away from home,
Sleeping in the back seat of a borrowed car”

Can alienation be more complete? Let down by broken promises, homeless in a borrowed car.

3.    Lou Reed from ‘Perfect Day’
“Just a perfect day you made me forget myself
I thought I was someone else, someone good

True love on a perfect day, obliterating memory of who I really am and imagining I’m someone good, someone better than I really am.