Songs With Great Imagery

[sabre14]

I had this idea for this thread yesterday but I never got around to it. There's plenty of songs in this genre that I feel have vivid imagery from it's descriptive lyrics. Here's a few I thought of. :)

"Isn't She" - Carolina Rain ("selling margaritas from a tiki hut on the beach". "One the other side of the rockies")
"Almost Home" - Craig Morgan
"Jackson Hole" - James Wesley (any song that features snow is great)
"Til Summer Comes Around" - Keith Urban (now the winter wind is the only sound)
"I'll Wait For You" - Joe Nichols ("snow Montana was three feet high")
"Talk Me Out Of Tampa" - Joe Nichols
"Sunny And 75" - Joe Nichols
"Dixie Lullaby" - Pat Green
"Lipstick" - Rockie Lynne
"The Secret Of Life" - Faith Hill
"8th Of November" - Big & Rich ("said goodbye to his mama, as he left South Dakota, to fight for the red, white, and blue")
"Anything But Mine" - Kenny Chesney
"19 You + Me" - Dan + Shay
"You'll Be There" - George Strait
"There Is No Arizona" - Jamie O'Neal
"Trying To Find Atlantis" - Jamie O'Neal
"Shiloh" - Darryl Worley (civil war song)
"She Couldn't Change Me" - Montgomery Gentry
"Only In America" - Brooks & Dunn
"Austin" - Blake Shelton
"Ol Red" - Blake Shelton
"The Baby" - Blake Shelton (remember the Blake that sang these songs?)
"Suds In The Bucket" - Sara Evans
"Backseat Of A Greyhound Bus" - Sara Evans
"When I Get Where I'm Going" - Brad Paisley f/Dolly Parton ("I'm gonna land beside a lion, and run my fingers through his mane")
"Paper Angels" - Jimmy Wayne
"Anywhere With You" - Jake Owen
"Home Sweet Home" - The Farm
"Hello" - Sugarland ("fall asleep in a big bed of fresh fallen leaves")

[Deleted]

Rascal Flatts- These Days

Carrie Underwood- Two Black Cadillacs

Reba- Fancy, The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia

Dixie Chicks- Travelin' Solider, Goodbye Earl, You Were Mine

Miranda Lambert- The House That Built Me, Mama's Broken Heart, All Kinds Of Kinds

Zach Brown Band- Colder Weather

Tim McGraw- If You're Reading This

[someguy]

Trisha Yearwood - "Georgia Rain", "On A Bus To St. Cloud"
Dolly Parton - "Home"
Reba McEntire - "All Dressed Up (With Nowhere To Go" (and I agree on "Fancy", too - you can just picture that filthy shack with roaches crawling all around)
Martina McBride - "Independence Day"

[gonecountry]

My top 4:

Carolina - Eric Church

There's a cabin in a valley my grandpa built on your land
Your mountains are a canvas for the Maker's hand
Tonight I'm fishing up a river if only in my mind
No, I haven't seen her banks in such a long, long time

A Man On A Tractor - Rodney Atkins

I woke up the same way this mornin'
Like a stranger in my own life
Tired and confused with too much to do
Nothin' left for my kids and my wife

Oh, I clung to that first cup of coffee
Praying, 'God, won't you show me what's real?'
Then out in the distance I saw through the window
A man on a tractor with a dog in a field

Oh, the dog walked just like he was smilin'
The man drove like the world was all right
The tractor hummed on like a part of a song
That you sing to your children at night

You Had to Be There - Tim McGraw

He sat down, picked up the phone
And said, "Boy, I'm your old man"
He touched the glass between the two
As if to shake his hand

The boy, he didn't budge
Not even so much as a blink
The man said, "Oh, come on
Better late than never, don't you think?
.....,

"And you'd have to go back
And teach me how when I was nine
'Cause my mama couldn't throw a ball
Even if she had the time"

"And I should have been learnin' how to fish
Instead of learnin' how to smoke
I bet if you'd have whooped my tail
I'd never thought it was a joke
......

Before the boy hung up the phone
He said, "They say I'm out of time"
And it hit the man right there and then
"My God, son, so am I"

When I Get Where I'm Going - Brad/Dolly

When I get where I'm going
On the far side of the sky
The first thing that I'm gonna do
Is spread my wings and fly

I'm gonna land beside a lion
And run my fingers through his mane
Or I might find out what it's like
To ride a drop of rain

......…

I'm gonna walk with my grand daddy
And he'll match me step for step
And I'll tell him how I missed him
Every minute since he left
Then I'll hug his neck

But when I get where I'm going
And I see my Maker's face
I'll stand forever in the light
Of His amazing grace

Yeah, when I get where I'm going
Oh, when I get where I'm going
There'll be only happy tears
Hallelujah
I will love and have no fear

[sbp17]

Indian Summer - Brooks & Dunn
Something In Red - Lorrie Morgan

[Markus Meyer]

I really enjoyed the imagery in Lee Brice's "I Drive Your Truck".

[someguy]

Trisha Yearwood - "The Song Remembers When"

[fe_lipeoliveira]

The first two that came to mind are "Beige" by The Pistol Annies and "Stealing Kisses" by Lori McKenna, but you can pretty much add any Lori McKenna song to the list.

[zjames]

"Lightning" - Eric Church

These four walls of Farnworth
Are closin' in on me
My final meal's over
They're gonna set me free
I can feel the fire's a burnin'
As the devil guards my door
I hit my knees in search of Jesus
On a cold jailhouse floor

"Mississippi in July" - Charlie Worsham

These delta roads, everyone I know
By the cotton fields and railroad tracks.
It's more than just the heat, most folks
Who would get the chance to leave but don't come back.
Last time I thought about you in a wedding dress
I would've been holding your hand.
But at seventeen you promise things
That you don't really understand

"Neon" - Chris Young

The sky in Cheyenne, Wyoming
Is just about as blue as it gets
And if you ain't seen a Santa Fe sunset,
You ain't seen red
Texas sunflower yellow
Can take your breath away
I've seen it all
From the orange of the fall
To the green of the summer,
But my favorite color is neon

"Merry Go 'Round" - Kacey Musgraves

We get bored, so, we get married.
Just like dust, we settle in this town.
On this broken merry go 'round and 'round and 'round we go
Where it stops nobody knows and it ain't slowin' down.
This merry go 'round

[gonecountry]

[quote author="zjames" source="/post/4893763/thread"
"Neon" - Chris Young

The sky in Cheyenne, Wyoming
Is just about as blue as it gets
And if you ain't seen a Santa Fe sunset,
You ain't seen red
Texas sunflower yellow
Can take your breath away
I've seen it all
From the orange of the fall
To the green of the summer,
But my favorite color is neon



Ummmm, Neon. Forgot that gem. Great imagery with that song. Lightning is good too

[renee75]

I was just about to say "Neon." :) Also "Whiskey Lullaby" and "Amarillo Sky."

[someguy]

Aug 5, 2014 19:47:06 GMT -5 fe_lipeoliveira said:

The first two that came to mind are "Beige" by The Pistol Annies and "Stealing Kisses" by Lori McKenna, but you can pretty much add any Lori McKenna song to the list.

"Stealing Kisses" is a great example. Another one is "Fireflies" (both Lori songs recorded by Faith Hill).

Mary Chapin Carpenter also has some ("I Take My Chances", "Only A Dream", "Stones In The Road", etc.).

[jamesmckee]

"Turning Home" - David Nail
"Me and Emily" - Rachel Proctor

Many more...but those are a couple of phenomenal examples of the last decade+

[sabre14]

"Midnight In Montgomery" - Alan Jackson

"See the stars, light up the purple sky. Feel that lonesome chill. Cause when the wind is right, you'll hear his songs, smell whiskey in the air. Midnight in Montgomery, he's always singing there".

[Deleted]

Heartbreak Town- Dixie Chicks

Honked the horn when we crossed the state line, woke up the baby and she started to cry

Miranda Lambert- Famous In A Small Town

They say life is so much sweeter through the telephoto lens of fame, around here you get just as much attention, cheerin ' at the high school football game

Rascal Flatts- Why

Now here we are gathered in our little hometown, this can't be the way you meant to draw a crowd

Two black Cadillacs drivin' in a slow parade, headlights shinin' bright in the middle of the day/one's for his wife, the other for the woman who loved him at night

Carrie- Two Black Cadillacs

[Uncle Lumpy]

Angels Like Her Trent Tomlinson

"The sunbeam hit the Jim Beam
And ricocheted off a bottle of Coke
Cut through the still smoulderin'
Second-hand night before smoke
The whisky's half-empty
Half in me, my enemy and my friend
Well, last night drowned my sorrows
But today is tomorrow again "


And I could literally spend all day on how descriptive Kris Kristoffersons lyrics were. But heres one of my favorites.

Sunday Morning Comin Down

"In the park I saw a daddy
With a laughin' little girl who he was swingin'
And I stopped beside a Sunday school
And listened to the songs they were singin'
Then I headed down the street
And somewhere far away a lonely bell was ringin'
And it echoed thru the canyon
Like the disappearing dreams of yesterday."

[someguy]

Trisha Yearwood - "Your Husband's Cheating On Us"

The details that the song provides really makes you feel like you're in the room with the characters.

[Todd]

Willie Nelson - City of New Orleans

All along the southbound odyssey the train pulled out at Kankakee
And rolls along past houses, farms, and fields
Passing trains that have no names and freight yards full of old black men
And the graveyards of the rusted automobiles



Kris Kristofferson - Darby's Castle

See the ruin on the hill
Where the smoke is hanging still
Like an echo of an age long forgotten
There's a story of a home
Crushed beneath those blackened stones
And the roof that fell before the beams were rotten

[zjames]

"In Color" - Jamey Johnson

And this one is my favorite one
This is me and grandma in the summer sun
All dressed up, the day we said our vows
You can't tell it here but it was hot that June
And that rose was red and her eyes were blue
And just look at that smile, I was so proud
That's the story of my life
Right there in black and white

[Dustin J.]

"Cherokee Highway" by Western Flyer tops the list for me.

Mississippi, in '61
They watched his daddy die
Guided by the light of a burnin' cross
That lit the Delta sky
Kevin and Willie, 10 years old,
They were best of friends
The only way you could tell 'em apart
Was the color of their skin
"C'mon Willie!," Kevin screamed,
"Let's get out of here!" Willie's numb,
Can't even run, frozen there with fear
So Kevin takes off through the woods
Yelling "I'll be back for you!"
Running fast, out of breath, can't stop and rest
His daddy would know what to do
But rushing through the door
He sees the eyes of a man
His daddy's washing the blood out of a sheet
But it won't come off his hands

Chorus:
And the blood still runs down Cherokee Highway
A senseless river filled with all they've shed
Just two dark sides to Cherokee Highway
But black or white, the blood still runs red

Now the fire is at the fuse
In a town that just won't learn
Word is out, "make the white man pay,"
Gonna watch his farm house burn
Midnight, the flames begin,
Kevin's daddy's the first to rise
So he grabs his gun and he grabs his wife,
But Kevin's still inside
From the shadows comes a boy with darker skin
Though they killed his daddy, gonna save his friend,
He runs through the door as the house falls in

Chorus

Staning in the ashes, he sees what hate really is
Two little bodies, both burned black,
Can't tell which child is his

Chorus

[Deleted]

Miranda Lambert- Dead Flowers

[Andy]

How did I miss this topic?

Lots and lots for me. I love a song that lets your imagination run wild and allows you to create the setting in your head. Some favorites:

Alan Jackson - The Sounds
Alan Jackson - Who Says You Can't Have It All
Garth Brooks - The Cowboy Song
Garth Brooks - Ireland
Lyle Lovett - This Ol' Porch
Rodney Crowell - Glasgow Girl
Townes Van Zandt - Snowin' on Raton
Townes Van Zandt - Tecumseh Valley (let's just say pretty much every Townes song)

[jesster]

Not the most elegant choice certainly but first thing that came to mind for me -- "we'll put a boot in your ass it's the American way."

[tim]

Somehow I've missed this one too, Andy. And as someguy (kudos for the "On a Bus to St. Cloud mention...personal fav of mine) mentioned a while back, Mary Chapin Carpenter has some and she is actually the first one that came to mind for myself. I'm more of a fan of her album cuts, and these are the ones that I think of:

I Am A Town, Holding Up the Sky, I Was A Bird, A Place In the World, Between Here and Gone, and 10,000 Miles

Don Williams would be the next artist I think of, more specifically his albums during his American Harvest Records period between 1995 and 1996 (Flatlands and Borrowed Tales). In fact, when I'm feeling introspective I'll often put on both MCC and Don Williams. Here's some from Don during that period that come to mind with some of my favorite lines included:

Shadow Land ("Funny how the stars down there shine so bright, breeze comes in just like a prayer")
What Does it Matter To Me ("On winter's eve, my soul has soared with desert's evening sky...but never seen the beauty I see in her eyes")
This Side of the Sun ("I thought I'd be an angel and fly on astral skies")
Crying in the Rain ("If I wait for cloudy skies you won't know the rain from the tears in my eyes")

[sabre14]

Big & Rich - "Leap Of Faith"

"And I walk to the edge, throw my hands to the sky
Oh I'm not afraid
I'm not afraid to live this life, though my dreaming eyes"

"I'm a raging burning ring of fire and I get hotter as I get higher
And I'm tearing a hole right through the sky of blue"

[Uncle Lumpy]

Andy reminded me of Townes Van Zandt , who I'm kind of embarrassed to admit I only started to explore earlier this year. My partner got a little worried about me when I first discovered "Waitin' Around To Die" & obsessed over it for a few months.



"Now I'm out of prison, I got me a friend at last,
He don't steal or cheat or drink or lie.
His name's codeine, he's the nicest thing I've seen.
Together we're gonna wait around and die"

[Ten Pound Hammer]

Jennifer Hanson, "Beautiful Goodbye"

It's like the most amazing sunset you've ever seen
There's never another quite the same, it just falls into some eternal sea
Like the end of a movie that makes you cry
You're sad when it's over but you're glad you had that moment that moved you deep inside

[zjames]

"Dime Store Cowgirl" - Kacey Musgraves

I've had my picture made with Willie Nelson
Stayed in a hotel with a pool
Driven through New Mexico where the saguaro cactus grow
And I felt really small under Mount Rushmore

And I made it all the way past Austin City Limits
And maybe for a minute, I got too big for my britches

---

Slept in a room with the ghost of Gram Parsons
Drank some wine I can't afford
Went to San Antonio to the riverwalk and rodeo
Seen the white cliffs of Dover from the shore

And I kinda fell in love with a Palm Springs trailer park
But those California stars could never steal my heart

[zjames]

Kip Moore - "Everything But You"

There's a pathway to the ocean, a salty breeze blowing
And this old man down the street makes damn good wine
It's got stars that shine like diamonds on the black canvas behind 'em
And there's a sun out here that seems to always shine
And I've never seen water quite so blue
It's got everything but you

[defying gravity]

Kenny Chesney - "The Boys of Fall"

When I feel that chill, smell that fresh cut grass
I'm back in my helmet, cleats, and shoulder pads
Standin' in the huddle listenin' to the call
Fans goin' crazy for the boys of fall