Soundtrack of My Life: My Private Nation

This album is still comfortably in my top ten. The lyrics are so catchy they sometimes come back to my mind like lines of Elizabethan poetry should. This album will be forever linked in my mind with the year I was madly in love with Tom Welling's portrayal of Clark Kent, perhaps because the first single from the album, "Calling All Angels," was featured on Smallville, perhaps because one of the best songs is called "Save the Day." But after the Welling has faded, the lyrics have remained.

Half the fun with Train lyrics is the incorporation of pop culture references and sophisticated syncopation or rhyme. For instance:

From "All American Girl": My dad used to tell me I was lazy / I got dance moves like Patrick Swayze / I'm the leftover turkey for the world's mayonnaise / Yeah, the star next to the moon

From "Save the Day": I get the crowd goin' when I sing the hokey pokey / I shake it to the left and then I shake it to the right / What's not to love, man I'm on tonight

But in between all the lyrical fun, Train employs unique turn-of-phrase to be glad for people in our lives.

Also from "Save the Day": I know you don't see me like a movie star / But you're my favorite thing by far / That's gotta count for something

From "Counting Airplanes": I don't spend my time with anyone who doesn't think I'm wonderful

From "Your Every Color": You wear the day around you / Like it's yours to stay around you / Maybe I could stay around you, too / If that's all right with you

And later: You look like my first day of summer / When the spring is on the run

As a writer, there's one Train lyric that every time I hear it seems like it contains an entire story in just twelve words. Brevity is the soul of good writing.

From "Lincoln Avenue": This feels like the place between what is and might have been

Finally, having saved the best for last, I'll admit that I had a hard time choosing just one lyric from the following song. To me, this song could be about an everyday relationship that's still going on, a long-lost love that never got started properly, or a requiem for a departed friend. The images and scenes it present are beyond words--at least beyond mine. They speak for themselves.

From "When I Look to the Sky": And every word I didn't say, caught up in some busy day / And every dance on the kitchen floor we didn't have before / And every sunset that we'll miss, I'll wrap them all up in a kiss / And pick you up with all of this when I sail away