Sometimes (not often), a song lyric grabs me and resonates with one or more of my stories.

Often it’s just the title. Looking at the the table of contents of U-town, I see a Television song, an Elvis Costello song, a Hole album, and a Feelies song (and one song that I co-wrote myself), plus quotes from lyrics by Television and Patti Smith, and a song Tori Amos covered.

(Plus the title of an episode of The Prisoner, and quotes from The Time of Your Life and Cerebus).

But sometimes it’s whole stanzas from song lyrics. When I was working on my (semi-permanently shelved) third novel, it was going to end with this:

Sometimes we live no particular way but our own
Sometimes we visit your country and live in your home
Sometimes we ride on your horses; Sometimes we walk alone
Sometimes the songs that we hear are just songs of our own

“Eyes of the World” (Hunter/Garcia)

I confess that “Eyes of the World” is far from my favorite Grateful Dead song, but that’s how it is when things catch your attention. It’s not because they’re the best – it’s because some sort of sympathetic vibration gets set off.

Well, this has happened with another song recently:

We live in cities you’ll never see on screen
Not very pretty, but we sure know how to run things
Living in ruins of the palace within my dreams
And you know, we’re on each other’s team

“Team” (Yelich-O’Connor/Little)

It’s particularly the first two lines, and it’s partly because Lorde is the same age (sixteen) as a character in my stories, who sure knows how to run things, too (she runs a very small country, which you won’t see on screen).

The difference from my first example is that “Team” is indeed one of my favorite Lorde songs. It’s especially nice when it works out that way.

So, does this happen to you?