More Lyrical Phrases by Andy Scheer

If you want to write powerfully but don't feel up to poetry, draw your inspiration from some well-crafted lyrics.

Last week I wrote how the opening line of W. C. Handy's “St. Louis Blues” made me wish that more writers would craft evocative phrases. But such figures of speech aren't limited to those who sing the blues. Even cowboys can be powerful wordsmiths.

A few years back I heard a concert by music historians Mark Gardner and Rex Rideout of songs that genuine cowboys would have sung in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Among the most memorable was a 1911 song by James Grafton Rogers called “The Santa Fe Trail.”

The singer is searching for a girl he glimpsed on a wagon train. Specifically:

A tow-headed gal on a pony,

A-janglin' for old Santa Fe.

Need more specifics?

I seen her ride down the arroyos,

Way back in the Arkansas sand,
With a smile like an acre of sunflowers ...

And how she did ride:

She straddled the pinto so airy,
And rode like she carried the mail ...

And those eyes:

And her eyes near set fire to the prairie,
'Long side of the Santa Fe Trail.

I hope he found her. But I wish he had written more.

Fresh Expressions by Andy Scheer

“My man's got a heart like a rock cast in the sea ...”

The opening line from W. C. Handy's “St. Louis Blues” grabbed me last week as a watched an installment of the Ken Burns film Jazz. Whether those words are sung by Bessie Smith, Billie Holliday, or Ella Fitzgerald, they grab me every time. I'm not quite sure what they mean, but they carry an emotional punch.

Last week I was editing a lengthy nonfiction book by a writer who never met a cliché he didn't like. Page after page I encountered worn-out figures of speech.

Not having the assignment to rewrite the book, I could only apply Sol Stein's advice that “one plus one equals one-half.” So when the cliché pared two terms (above and beyond) I picked one. While the resulting expression wasn't fresh, at least it was no longer stale.

Listening to W. C. Handy's lyrics reminded me how much more effectively we can communicate when we make the effort to craft an original word picture.

A later line in “St. Louis Blues” says, “I love that man like a schoolboy loves his pie.” Nothing exotic, but certainly evocative. Perhaps even on the same wavelength with Jesus' parables, drawing on a distinctive but common experience.

Would that more writers craft phrases that make daisies seem stale.