Shake dulled-out readers and listeners of today out of the clouds and send them to the moon with writing that awakens every fiber in their souls!
Make them cry!
Make them laugh!
Make them take stock of where they stand right here… right now… on their own little piece of real estate they “occupy” on this planet.
Series: Keepin’ it real
The lyrics of Kris Kristofferson’s Sunday Morning Coming Down are a perfect example of how words have the power to immediately transport listeners or readers into a scene of another place and time. Once there, Kris keeps them there with every charged word of every line.
Here, in part, are those honed and sharpened words that will *if you will let them* touch your heart.
Sleeping city sidewalks
There ain’t nothing short of dying
Half as lonesome as the sound
On the sleeping city sidewalks (with)
Sunday morning coming down.
Okay, I’m there… I’m living these words already. I’m looking out a hotel window at a street with deserted sidewalks. No cars. No people walking around. Does anyone in this world even care about me? I reach for a brew.
The beer I had for breakfast
Well, I woke up Sunday morning
With no way to hold my head that didn’t hurt
And the beer I had for breakfast wasn’t bad
So I had one more for dessert
This guy party-hardied the night before, right? Ever do such a foolish thing yourself? Now we are caught up in his physical pain (a hangover) plus his emotional pain (being alone).
My cleanest dirty shirt
Then I fumbled through my closet for my clothes
And found my cleanest dirty shirt
And I washed my face and combed my hair
And stumbled down the stairs to meet the day
At least once in our lives, haven’t most of us rummaged through dirty clothes to find our cleanest “something” to wear? Kris’ description shows again the lonely existence of the person behind the words.
The Sunday smell of someone frying chicken
Then I crossed the empty street
And caught the Sunday smell of someone frying chicken
And it took me back to something
That I’d lost somehow, somewhere along the way…
I smell that chicken frying, the tantalizing aroma wafting through an open window and out to the sidewalk where I stand alone and lost. It stirs waves of regret, hollow loneliness bouncing off my soul and proclaiming something precious has slipped through my fingers.
I saw a daddy with a laughing little girl
In the park, I saw a daddy
With a laughing little girl who he was swinging
And I stopped beside a Sunday school
Listened to the song they were singing
I’m hearing the clatter of other people’s joy. Tears sting my eyes. Important parts of my life are lost and will never be recovered.
Disappearing dreams of yesterday
Then I headed back for home
And somewhere far away a lonesome bell was ringing
And it echoed through the canyons
Like the disappearing dreams of yesterday
Oh, the bitter taste of knowing it’s too late to chase my dreams… to realize my deepest desires! That far-away bell echoes through the words and straight into one’s own psyche.
The SOUND of the sleeping sidewalks…
There ain’t nothing short of dying
Half as lonesome as the sound
On the sleeping city sidewalks
Sunday morning coming down
The song is over. My mind rehashes the feelings those words have stirred inside me. Now I have to evaluate my own life and see if my dreams, my precious things in life, might also be disappearing on a sleeping city sidewalk with Sunday Morning Coming Down.
Writers and speakers have within their arsenal of words the power to change a life, a group, an edict, and in some ways, the world. The words you choose to use can build, destroy, incite, evoke, teach, terminate, change… and more. We, as a society, are dulled out. Asleep in the clouds. Let’s help break off the crust of boredom circling the globe and wake up our readers and listeners with words that send them to the moon.
Surgery to fix the heart requires the delicate precision of a top-notch surgeon.
Words that touch the heart require writers/speakers who care… and care deeply.
CLICK HERE for the full *and my favorite version* of Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down sung by Johnny Cash
I can’t listen to it without tearing up. Thanks, Kris Kristofferson for truly being an AUTHENTIC, PURPOSEFUL WRITER.
Jodi Lea Stewart is a fiction author who believes in and writes about the triumph of the human spirit through overcoming adversity via grit, humor, and stubborn tenacity. Her writing reflects her life beginning in Texas, Missouri, and Oklahoma, later moving as a youngster to an Arizona cattle ranch next door to the Navajo Nation, and, as a young adult, resuming in her native Texas. Growing up, she climbed petroglyph-etched boulders, bounced two feet in the air in the backend of pickups wrestling through washed-out terracotta roads, and rode horseback on the winds of her imagination through the arroyos and mountains of the Arizona high country. Her lifetime friendship with all nationalities, cowpunchers, and the southern gentry allows Jodi to write comfortably about anything in the Southwest, the South, and far BEYOND.
JODI’S LATEST INTERNATIONALLY AWARDED HISTORICAL FICTION NOVEL ~
Watch the Book Trailer for THE GOLD ROSE HERE.
I write historical fiction centered around the early to mid-twentieth century. My latest novel, THE GOLD ROSE, involves the Japanese invasion of China and the ensuing civil war that ushered in modern-day communism. No matter what the circumstances, eras, conflicts, or main plots entail… my goal is always to create characters everyone relates to. I believe that’s the kind of connective reading in which the reader and writer actually share a point in time. 😊 Happy reading, y’all!
Interesting read! I liked it.
Hi, Catherine! Sorry about the delay in answering your comments. We were having a bit of trouble with the website, but all is well now, thank goodness. Thank you so much for stopping by, and I appreciate your kind words. Come back often, okay?