verbatim: Real Fine Love

Most pop/rock love songs are about young love, or at least first love. That's probably one reason John Hiatt's song "Real Fine Love" (off the just-about-perfect CD "Stolen Moments") is one of my favorites. It's about a guy who still loves his wife after all these years. The last verse, when they're looking in on their sleeping kids, gets me every time.

Well now, I never went to college, babe.
I did not have the luck.
Stole out of Indiana in the back of a pickup truck.
With no education higher
Than the streets of my hometown,
I went looking for a fire
Just to burn it all down.

Chorus:
You've got a real fine love.
You've got a real fine love,
One I am unworthy of.
You've got a real fine love, baby.

Yeah, I thought I had a line on something,
Maybe no one else could say.
And they couldn't find it in their hearts
To just get out of my way.
Then out of nowhere, and for nothing,
You came into my life.
I'd seen an angel or two before
But I'd never asked one to be my wife.

(Chorus)

Well you can sprinkle all your teardrops
Across the evening sky,
But you cannot hide that twinkle
Of starlight in your eye.
Well, I left my map way back there, baby.
I don't know where we are.
But I'm gonna pull my pony up
And hitch my wagon to your star.

(Chorus)

Well now the babies are all sleeping
And the twilight's giving in.
She looks like you, he looks like her,
And we all look like him.
Well, maybe it's just a little thing,
The way I feel tonight,
A little joy, a little peace, and a whole lot of light.

(Chorus...fade out)

Comments

He always gets me at the end of "Your Dad Did" from Bring the Family:

As the two year old says grace
She says help the starving children to get well
But let my brother's hamster burn in hell
You love your wife and kids
Just like your dad did

Posted by: Mark | January 25, 2005 at 04:09 PM

Man, what's with you and my other blogging friends being all into this roots rock thing? I myself have been exploring electronic stuff recently.

Posted by: Scott D. Feldstein | January 25, 2005 at 05:31 PM

i love John Hiatt. another one of my favorites is "Bring Back Your Loving To Me". those songs never get old. :)

Posted by: mundaneDan | January 27, 2005 at 05:10 PM

"Seven Little Indians" always makes me cry. But then "Tennessee Plates" always makes me laugh.

Posted by: ricky | January 28, 2005 at 05:59 PM

Ditto on "Seven Little Indians." Can't you just see the old man dancing around with his mukluks, his sealskin gloves, and his coat with beads around the collar?

Posted by: Karen | January 28, 2005 at 06:28 PM