Ten best most evocative lines from popular songs

Music is what inspired me, more than anything else, to think for myself. Some of the best music in the world are poetry, literature... So here's ten of my favorite "one liners" from my favorite artists. Hope you enjoy, let me know what you think and let me know what your favorite line is!

1. "All lies and jests till the man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest"
   "The Boxer", a Simon and Garfunkle classic. For me this line speaks of not being heard, not being taken serious.
   
   
2. "What do you know, you know just what you perceive"
   "Dreidel" is one of the lesser known songs by Don McLean. I think it's a great statement about the human condition, there's nothing you can be sure of, all is in the eyes of the beholder.
   
   
3. "Remember what they taught you, how much of it was fear. Refuse to hand it down, the legacy stops here."
   Silent legacy, a great song about the things we're taught as children that we hardly ever think about when we grow. Melissa Etheridge has had her own battle in that respect, making her biography a very interesting read.
   
   
4. "Happy I am, all on the new day. Happy I am, people and flowers are one and the same"
   Donovan has such a soft and gentle way of speaking about life and happiness. I honestly believe that the pursuit of happiness is what we're on this earth for.
   
   
5. "Yonder stands your orphan with his gun"
   An old Bob Dylan classic, It's all over now baby blue. What fascinates me is the concept of "your orphan". In two words he captures the way we have disowned our children.
   
   
6. "Do you remember days not so very long ago, when the world was run by people twice your size?"
   I use this line from "Catch another butterfly"by John Denver because it expresses clearly to me why there's no excuse for ever hitting a child. Imagine a 12 foot giant whooping you upside the head...
   
   
7. "Is a dream a lie if it don't come true"
   A sad epic song about life in the USA, "The river" by Bruce Springsteen. He's talking about the American dream of course, but I think it's more universal than that.
   
   
8. "Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose"
   The immortal Janis Joplin in Bobby McGee, to me she speaks of the loneliness in freedom without love and compassion.
   
   
9. "Will you be a friend of mine to remind me what is real"
   From the song "Out of my mind", by James Blunt. He speaks about the madness of sudden fame and the need for friends, but it goes way deeper than that for me. Our friends are there to confirm our vision of reality.
   
   
10. "Sitting on the dock of the bay, wasting time"
    Otis redding, hot sultry days, long nights of slow love, the imagery in just that one line, a complete philosophy of life. After all, none of us know why we're here, let's waste time...

They took the heart out of China.

This is part one of an ongoing series of people who at some point were an inspiration to me. Through their words, music, actions they inspired me to be the best I could be. It took me a long time to realize that the best I could be would have to be something to do with me: My personal strengths and what I want to put forth into the world. For the longest time being the best I could be had to do with emulating my heroes. Judging myself for not being as environmental as John Denver, or as compassionate as the Dalai Lama. Not as articulate as Jean Houston nor as joyful as Chungliang al Huang. As I grew through my association with these individuals I also learned to love myself.

I attended a seminar by Chungliang al Huang once during the Windstar Choices for the Future symposium in Aspen, back in 1989. He was one of the speakers at the inspiring three day meeting of the minds and a memorable one at that. He got the audience to stand up and do an exercise called: “Embrace tiger, return to the mountains”. At that time, I think very few people in audience had heard of Tai Chi much less done any.
Tai Chi means something like: "ultimate best" and it's art is evolved from Chinese fighting techniques. Most teachers of this art teach the form, the technique. Chungliang is different in this respect that he teaches the joy of the movement, tapping into the energy of the Hara, the gut. He got us all to belly laugh together, reach up to the sky to reel in all the sky’s energy. Reach down to the earth and draw in all the earths energy as well and then pat our bellies to blend it all together in our Center. It was absolutely magical to see 1500 people, mostly Americans join in this dance of energy.

Then he told us about China, and the audience got very quiet. This was only days after Tiananmen Square massacre had happened and Chungliang told us about what had been happening in the homeland in the past decades. He drew a Chinese character on a flip-over: the symbol meaning China. His writing was as joyful a dance as his Tai Chi had been. Then he explained the meaning of the different parts.

He explained that what he had written was in the traditional Chinese language, the first character meaning central, the second symbol country or nation. Inside the protective square is the symbol for the heart and the people.
Then he drew the new, simplified symbol for China. The people symbol had become more rigid and they had taken the heart out of China. A real heartbreak moment. The symbolism of this spoke more clearly about what was happening in China than any blurry newscasts about the massacre.

Language is what we have that separates us from other animals and here they changed the language, taking out the heart of China. The simplicity of his message, the sheer joy of this person in spite of his personal grief over the massacre in Tiananmen Square. I fell in love with the man from China. The old China, full of heart.

Helpful hint:
“Does your path have a heart? If it does, the path is good, if it doesn’t it is of no use.” ~ Carlos Castaneda