“I don’t listen to songs…I read their lyrics.” –Melissa Indria Pertiwi

Truth be told, I didn’t really perceive myself as a ‘lyrics-reader’ until I read such sentence on a friend’s blog. By that time, I realized why, most of the times, my friends don’t enjoy songs that I dearly do. I mean, I feel good listening to Bruno Mars, Michael Buble, or Rihanna, and more to follow, but I’m not necessarily absorbed by the song. I just don’t. Then I discovered the reason: it’s the lyrics!

So, in a quest of geeks-with-similar-thoughts, I’ll share my five best songs (all of them are pretty much induced with perplexing metaphors):

1. A Beautiful Mess – Jason Mraz

You are strong but you’re needy, humble but you’re greedy
Based on your body language and shoddy cursive I’ve been reading
Your style is quite selective, though your mind is rather reckless
Well I guess it just suggest that this is just what happiness is

Hey, what a beautiful mess this is
It’s like picking up trash in dresses

The lyrics itself–can’t find a better phrase to describe–is a beautiful mess. Some people may need to take another angle in ‘seeing’ these lines in order to understand their truest beauty (if not handsomeness), yet once they do, they’ll get intoxicated. Like a maze in which you wish to get trapped forever.

2. Like A Star – Corinne Bailey Rae

Just like a star across my sky
Just like an angel off the page
You have appeared to my life
Feel like I’ll never be the same
Just like a song in my heart
Just like oil on my hands
Honored to love you

I always admire Corinne and how she puts clouds that I have in mind into vivid, concrete lines. From all possible personification you may use to describe a guy you fall in love with, ‘oil in my hands’ would hardly pop up. Yet this amazing British girl is simply different.

3. The Man Who Can’t Be Moved – The Script

Going back to the corner where I first saw you
Gonna camp in my sleeping bag, I’m not gonna move
Got some words on cardboard, got your picture in my hands
Saying if you see this girl, can you tell her where I am

People talk about the guy
Who’s waiting on a girl, oh whoa
There are no holes in his shoes
But a big hole in his world

One of the hardest thing that a man should do, to my shallow observation, is to admit that they’re weak. So weak that they’re afraid to move on from a girl they used to be in so very love with. Yet The Script wrapped it all subtly in a song that tells the listener (or I’d prefer reader) how they really feel without actually showing how soft their heart is. A gentle warrior holding on in a battle they know they already lost. Deep.

4. Thinking of You – Katy Perry

Comparisons are easily done once you’ve had a taste of perfection
Like an apple hanging from a tree, I picked the ripest one I still got the seed
You said move on, where do I go?
I guess the second best is all I will know

You’re like an Indian summer in the middle of the winter
Like a hard candy with a surprise center
How do I get better once I’ve had the best
You said there’s tons of fish in the water so the water I will test

Even without the strong story (of a woman whose husband died in a war and had to struggle with a new man in her life) attached to this song, I can already sense the ‘grandiose-ness’ of its lyrics. So far this is the best potion-of-words Katy can ever come up with. The soft images it stimulates your mind with, the pain it induces your heart with, and the relieved feeling you’ll get afterwards. Priceless.

5. My Today – D’Sound

And I love you, my today
And I love you, my tomorrow
And I forgive you, yesterday
For the treachery and evil ways
I love you my, I love you my today

A song I dearly treasure for days when I doubt if I deserve what I have and if I deserve to wish for things I don’t have. A plainly beautiful song to let go. To love your today, tomorrow, and to forgive yesterday. Indescribable.

That’s it for now. Make sure you have these songs on your playlist!