I'm just saying...

I read a quote recently by Death Cab for Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard, "Poems are poems. Song lyrics are for songs." I was sort of struck by that. I guess I always thought of some song lyrics like poetry but not necessarily in a sense of a schematic structure of words, or "poetry" according to its Webster's Dictionary meaning...they are those things in a literal sense, but I see them as something broader....as emotion. It's that thing, regardless of whether you read it or hear it, where you actually feel your body chemistry alter and your heart speed up, and you find yourself holding your breath for a second more so that you don't miss anything. It's in those few last notes of Flamenco Sketches, the writing of John Donne, well-written erotic literature (oh yes I did go there heh), Ellen Burstyn's character in Requiem for a Dream, or that moment just before your lips touch on that first kiss....artistic endeavors, be it writing or music or art or movies...they're all just ways of capturing and conveying that *thing* we all feel in our heads, in our chests, in our hearts, in our guts when we somehow connect to that universal feeling of vulnerability that reminds us that "autopilot" is no way to live a life.