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Lyrics Most Expressive of Vulnerability

Posted: Fri Aug 02, 2013 6:03 am
by Steven
Hi,

Which lines do you find are most expressive of vulnerability (within the context of a song(s), not necessarily
of the songwriter)? I've a couple of lines from a song in mind. Wonder if anyone will respond with those.
Will acknowledge if someone does. :)

Re: Lyrics Most Expressive of Vulnerability

Posted: Fri Aug 02, 2013 9:11 am
by abby
Take this Longing comes to mind but it has the attitude of inauthentic vulnerability, vulnerability as a means of seduction:
You're faithful to the better man,
I'm afraid that he left.
So let me judge your love affair
in this very room where I have sentenced mine to death.
I'll even wear these old laurel leaves
that he's shaken from his head.

Leonard might agree, no? A singer must die for the lie in his voice.

At the end of Leaving Green Sleeves, Leonard's voice has a quality I might call vulnerable. One of Us Cannot be Wrong too. The original album versions I mean. And There for You, though it's not impossible that what I'm hearing in the line 'making objects out of thoughts' is not on the part of the writer but of a voice daring itself out of its comfortable range.

If it be Your Will? Is that what you were thinking of? The surrender?

What does it mean to be vulnerable? To be open, undefended in the general location of the heart?

Re: Lyrics Most Expressive of Vulnerability

Posted: Fri Aug 02, 2013 9:26 am
by mnkyface
The first one that comes to mind:
"Dance me through the panic til I'm gathered safely in..."

Re: Lyrics Most Expressive of Vulnerability

Posted: Fri Aug 02, 2013 2:41 pm
by musicmania
"If it be your will, that I speak no more and my voice be still as it was before" and "And draw us near and bind us tight" from If It Be Your will, actually all of the lyrics from this song.

Re: Lyrics Most Expressive of Vulnerability

Posted: Fri Aug 02, 2013 8:19 pm
by holydove
Sooo many of Leonard's lyrics express vulnerability. At the moment, this one comes to mind:

For now I need your hidden love.
I'm cold as a new razor blade.

Edit: This one too:

Then they bend over the bed
And cover me up
Like a baby that is shivering.

Re: Lyrics Most Expressive of Vulnerability

Posted: Fri Aug 02, 2013 8:32 pm
by Steven
Hi holydove,

The lyrics you posted from "Because Of" were the ones I had in mind.

Re: Lyrics Most Expressive of Vulnerability

Posted: Fri Aug 02, 2013 8:38 pm
by holydove
Steven wrote:Hi holydove,

The lyrics you posted from "Because Of" were the ones I had in mind.
Cool! thanks for letting me know. Methinks one would be hard pressed to come up with an image more vulnerable than that. . .

Re: Lyrics Most Expressive of Vulnerability

Posted: Fri Aug 02, 2013 8:45 pm
by Cate
From the Butcher, I was thinking of answering that song for the 'male sensibility' question as well.
Well, I found a silver needle,
I put it into my arm.
It did some good,
did some harm.
But the nights were cold
and it almost kept me warm,
how come the night is long?
Do not leave me now,
do not leave me now,
I'm broken down

Re: Lyrics Most Expressive of Vulnerability

Posted: Sat Aug 10, 2013 4:17 am
by imaginary friend
"I said, Mother, I'm frightened
the thunder and the lightening;
I'll never come through this alone.'"

Re: Lyrics Most Expressive of Vulnerability

Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2025 8:32 am
by abby
Maybe the beginning of Hallelujah. Isn't that why what happened to that song happened to it?