They’ve used someone good, too – Richard Preddy, who wrote Green Wing. And they’ve got Tony ‘Baldrick’ Robinson to help coach their announcers in how to deliver them.

It simultaneously makes me think two things:

1. Oh good, that’s interesting. Rail announcements have always been a joke – but for all the wrong reasons. It’s nice to see a train company do something imaginative with their language.

1. Oh, god: that’s excruciating. There’s nothing worse than Organised Fun. Off-the-cuff quips get a smile. Forced humour gets a grimace. (At best.)

The whole thing is a link-up with a comedy TV channel, so presumably it’ll run for a few weeks and then all be over. The real opportunity, though, is for a rail company which realises that there’s a middle ground between funny ha-ha and the weird formal/bureaucratic gibberish of ‘de-training’ and ‘alighting’ that announcements are usually full of.

So, if you’re on a Chiltern train and you hear one of these announcements, do email us and tell us what you think.

If you’re a train company who actually wants to change your language for better, for good, email us for a chat.

By Nick Parker

Thing one:

The same values come up again and again. Everyone is ‘open’ and/or ‘honest’ and/or ‘trustworthy’. Why does everyone use the same language to describe what they stand for?

Thing two:

It’s all ‘tell’ and no ‘show’. Brand value documents tend to be stuffed with statements about ‘we are committed to this’ and ‘we’re dedicated to that’ and ‘people are at the heart of our business’ or ‘we leverage the talent of our employees’. I always want to see the proof. Show me how you make the most of your employees’ talents, don’t just tell me.

So, it was really refreshing to stumble on to the Wells Fargo ‘vision and values’ page and see this as an introduction:

Our progress has not been perfect. We learn just as much from failure (perhaps more) as we do from success. Companies are made up of human beings who make mistakes. When we make them we admit them, learn from them, then we keep moving forward with even more understanding, guided by the same values toward the same vision.

They sound open, honest and trustworthy. They don’t have to tell me they are.

And these are their values:

People, ethics, ‘what’s right for customers’, diversity and leadership.

It’s a bit of an odd collection of words admittedly, but I think ‘what’s right for customers’ is an interesting one.

So well done Wells Fargo. I could do with an American bank account. I think I know where I’ll go.

By Charli – representing The Writer in NYC.

‘Karl Marx squeezed his carbuncles while writing Das Kapital / And Gaugin, he buggered off, man, and went all tropical / While Philip Larkin stuck it out in a library in Hull / And Dylan Thomas died drunk in St Vincent’s hospital’

There She Goes My Beautiful World, by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds is ultimately about a writer’s muse deserting him. And yet it has quite the opposite effect on me.

Often when I have writer’s block, or I simply need to clear my head before tackling the next section of a proposal or the next chapter of my book, I go for a run. And always, this track is on my playlist.

There’s something about being reminded of those great writers’ and artists’ hardships that really helps to put my own writer’s block in perspective. (‘What do you mean you can’t think of an opening line for that shampoo bottle? John Wilmot penned his poetry riddled with the pox!’)

And frankly, anyone who can squeeze Karl Marx’s carbuncles into a song is an inspiration to us all.

By Anelia

I like songs with lists in: REM’s End of the World As We Know It; Rodgers & Hammerstein’s A Few of My Favourite Things; Paul Simon’s Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover.

I also like songs that use English place names for mild comic effect: Billericay Dickie by Ian Dury and the Blockheads, and the classic Darleydale, Meesham and Droitwich by Charlie Says to name just two. (Much better than the American habit of using place names like they possess a mystical aura: Georgia on My Mind; Sweet Home Alabama; California Dreamin; LA Woman and so on.

Which of course means that I find songs which contain both lists and funny-sounding place names completely irresistible. I give you Billy Bragg’s A13 Trunk Road to The Sea. Genius:

‘It starts down in Wapping / There ain’t no stopping

By-pass Barking and straight through Dagenham / Down to Grays Thurrock / And rather near Basildon

Pitsea, Thundersley, Hadleigh, Leigh-On-Sea, / Chalkwell, Prittlewell / Southend’s the end

If you ever have to go to Shoeburyness / Take the A road, the okay road that’s the best / Go motorin’ on the A13’

By Nick P

‘Slooshy sloshy slooshy sloshy / Get that dirty shirty clean / Slooshy sloshy slooshy sloshy

Make those cuffs and collars gleam / Everything clean and shiny / Washing machine’

That’s Kate Bush singing about a woman watching her clothes go round and round in a washing machine in Mrs Bartolozzi.

It’s also Kate Bush wresting the right to be a fully fledged member of the outlandish, barmy, eccentric, Artist-with-a-capital-A brigade away from the sole domain of men.

I love her for opening that door – and leaving it open for the next generation of bonkers women in pop music.

By Ana

Are you still with us? Here are the final two.

‘Girl, I’m in love with you, this ain’t the honeymoon, we’re passed the infatuation phase / Right in the thick of love, at times we get sick of love / It seems like we argue every day’

Ordinary People by John Legend, co-written by Will.i.am.

This song’s a real, honest take on being in love. It makes a change to the two-dimensional fell-in-love-on-the-dancefloor message we get from every other pop song today. Those songs put the concept of love on a pedestal (probably in the middle of a nightclub).

Ordinary People is a raw depiction of love. It scraps the versions we get fed in romcoms and pop songs. Instead, it brings a realistic element to the surface, the we-don’t-know-what’s-going-to-happen feeling that keeps us awake at night.

And there are some less ordinary rhymes you don’t hear in everyday ballads, like ‘thick’ and ‘sick’, that suggest the all-consuming nature of love. And the loose line ‘I know I misbehaved and you made your mistakes’ shows that every word was thought about and not just stuck in for rhyme’s sake.

By Jo

Write about your favourite lyrics, our Harry said.

Well ‘favourite’ is a big word. I couldn’t pick. So in a hopelessly stereotypically male way, I came up with some categories (OK, I made up some categories to fit a few front-runners). And these were the winners.

Best rhyme

It can only be Hal David’s line in I’ll Never Fall In Love Again, can’t it?

‘What do you get when you kiss a guy? / You get enough germs to catch pneumonia / After you do, he’ll never phone ya’

Genius. (I recommend the smoky Bobbie Gentry version.)

Slyest put-downs

Two belters in one song here, Want You Gone, by Jonathan Coulton:

‘She was a lot like you / Maybe not quite as heavy’

Ouch. If that didn’t sting enough, he tops it off with this:

‘Goodbye my only friend / Oh, did you think I meant you?!’

I guess we like the songs that say the things we’d never dare utter in real life.

By Neil

‘She handed me a heart-shaped locket that said, “To thine own self be true’”/ And I shivered as I watched a roach crawl across the toe of my high-heeled shoe / It sounded like somebody else that was talking, asking, “Mama, what do I do?”/ “Just be nice to the gentlemen, Fancy, and they’ll be nice to you.”‘

Fancy, written and performed by Bobbie Gentry.

A young woman escaping poverty by turning to prostitution: not the most obvious subject for a funky little blue-eyed soul ditty. But Bobbie Gentry’s richly descriptive – and, at times, darkly funny – lyrics tell an intriguing and evocative story.

The plucky heroine, Fancy, reminds me of Scarlett O’Hara: she’s got sass and gumption – those quintessentially Southern qualities – and she’s a little bit shameless, too. I love how the grotesque image of the cockroach crawling across her shoe sums up the contrast between her humble origins in a ‘one-room, run-down shack on the outskirts of New Orleans’ and her rather more glamorous situation at the end of the song: having ‘charmed a king, a congressman and an occasional aristocrat’, she’s managed to bag herself ‘a Georgia mansion and an elegant New York townhouse flat’.

Thankfully, I can’t say I really identify with the subject matter. But I’ve got to hand it to Bobbie Gentry for creating a three-dimensional character and a proper, gripping storyline in the space of four and a half minutes. Most writers can only dream of that kind of economy.

By Laura C

‘C’mon let me show you just what you need honey (I got what you need) / You need a man with sensitivity (a man like me)’

Sensitivity, by Ralph Tresvant.

The first time I heard this song (and these lyrics) I was in my cousin Greg’s blue Ford Fiesta. He was driving my brother and me back from his parents’ house and playing this song at full blast. I was in the back seat next to the speakers – probably not the best place for a ten-year-old girl – and the bass was so loud I couldn’t hear the words (which was probably a good thing considering their sexy content). I remember feeling like the coolest little girl in the world as we drove down Kilburn High Road.

Years later as a teenager I listened to this song again. It was a little shocking as I knew these lyrics were similar to the things that he must’ve been saying to the ladies at the time. I never really looked at him the same way again. I guess these lyrics show that the direct approach is sometimes the best way to get what you want.

By Ify

‘I have waited with a glacier’s patience / Smashed every transformer with every trailer / Til nothing was standing / 65 miles wide / Still you are nowhere / Still you are nowhere / Nowhere in sight’

This Tornado Loves You, by Neko Case.

This song is full of metaphors about love, nature and destruction (lots going on then). But there’s one line in particular that gets me:

‘I have waited with a glacier’s patience.’

It’s a brilliant image: a graciously grumpy glacier. Maybe it’s the idea of such a powerful thing being restrained by something as intangible as patience. Whatever it is, it stays with me every time I hear it.

By Ed

So we’ve been wracking our brains to choose our most loved lyrics – ones that really mean something to us. It’s a great way for the not-so-regular bloggers to get involved. Here’s today’s dosage, and there’s plenty more where that came from.

‘One day my dad said, “Find someone new” / I had to tell my Jimmy we’re through / (whatcha mean when ya say that ya better go find somebody new?) / He stood there and asked me why / But all I could do was cry / I’m sorry I hurt you (the leader of the pack)’

The Leader Of The Pack, by The Shangri-las.

Ah, teenage love. This is definitely up there as one of the most traumatic songs I’ve ever heard. It’s just devastating. I love songs that literally tell a story. And this does just that.

It starts at the beginning, with Betty chatting to her pals about her new boy, Jimmy. And as the story progresses, you know it’s going to all end in tears. It’s even got motorbike sounds effects in the song to really paint the picture of that dark, rainy night when Jimmy dies. Terrible, I know. I really couldn’t pick my favourite line from this song, so here’s a little taster. But you really should listen to it all (the whole way through, on full volume) to truly appreciate it. Listen and weep.

By Alex

‘No-one laughs at God in a hospital / No-one laughs at God in a war’

Laughing With, written and performed by Regina Spektor.

I wouldn’t call myself religious. But I guess I’d never rule it out, either. The way I’ve always put it is I believe in something. I just don’t know what yet.

But this song, and these lyrics, always make me feel a bit humble. I don’t think they’re necessarily just about God. I think they’re about the need, every so often in your life, to believe in something and have faith. No matter how much of an atheist you think you are, I don’t think there are many people who can honestly say there’s never been a time when they’ve prayed to something.

The whole song works with this hypnotic repetitiveness: ‘No-one laughs at God when their airplane starts to uncontrollably shake / No-one’s laughing at God when they see the one they love hand in hand with someone else, and they hope that they’re mistaken’. It teeters between shorter sentences and longer lines, stitching this reliable rhythm, that gets broken up by the chorus every so often.

This song and these lyrics. They make you think about just how many times you’ve prayed to something. Atheist or not.

By Bee

‘No money in our jackets and our jeans are torn / Your hands are cold but your lips are warm’

Down to the Waterline, by Dire Straits.

Much to my frustration, I’m the type of person who doesn’t normally absorb lyrics. I appreciate them, no doubt. But for me the stamp of a good song is the way it sounds; the organised cacophony of cadences and lilts and riffs and bass. It’s probably why I like hip-hop, because the voice forms the rhythm more than anything else.

So I decided to choose lyrics to a song whose tune I can’t remember. (There’s logic in that somewhere.)

I have no idea what Down to the Waterline sounds like. I heard it once when I was eighteen and impressionable, and a dreamy boy from school played it to me. I completely melted, and I’ve remembered the line ‘Your hands are cold but your lips are warm’ since. Probably because it’s the most ridiculously cool and sexy line ever. (And I still fancy the pants off the boy.)

By Abby

‘Turn left up the street / Nothing but grey concrete and dead beats / Grab something to eat / Maccy D’s or KFC / Only one choice in the city / Done voicing my pity, now let’s get to the nitty-gritty’

Weak Become Heroes, by The Streets.

This is the start of the story. Each song on the album tells a different story, and together they make up the novel. To me, it just feels real. Maybe it’s because of the brummie accent. Maccy D’s just feels so familiar. Even though I’m not a brummie. (But I do a good brummie accent.)

The sound of the tune doesn’t seem to fit the words, it’s all plinky-plonky and quite upbeat. And then you listen to what he’s saying. He paints a picture and doesn’t use any artistic licence to make it prettier or brighter – he tells it like it is, and does it in his own words.

It reminds me of my brother too. He’s a teacher, and everyone calls him Mr Chavitt (instead of Chris Davitt). He’s not a deadbeat or anything. But he is a bit like Mike Skinner.

By Mel

‘Human, human of the year / And you’ve won’

Human Of The Year, by Regina Spektor.

This is from Regina Spektor’s fifth album, Far. I don’t know why I like it so much – probably because Regina’s vocals soar straight into the rafters with the piano on this line, smacking the accusatory tone of the song right in your face. But, putting aside her incredible vocal ability for a minute:

How does someone become human of the year?

Is it the human of the year? Or is it a human of the year?

Is it like the Nobel Prize, but for everyone?

…In fact, what constitutes a human? What makes this particular human a special human?

If you’re naming an award the ‘Human of the Year Award’, then what’s it celebrating, exactly? Is it an award that’s even worth anything? We’re all humans after all, right?

I smell her sarcasm, sense her disbelief, feel her confusion. ‘Human of the year? And you won?’ she seems to say. Or is it: ‘Human of the year, what a stupid award. Great that you won.’ Maybe she’s even releasing a sigh before muttering, angrily under her breath (hoping that no one hears), ‘Human of the year, and you won. Of course you did.’

Resignation. An admission. A rejection of what’s happening.

Who knows? And that’s the beauty of it.

By Jess

‘Yeah, I got more records than the KGB’

Paper Planes, by MIA.

I love this. As puns go, it’s remarkably non-groan-inducing and cleverer than your average puntastic quip.

I studied history at university. The Cold War’s plethora of big brother intelligence agencies, with records on everyone and everything, is one of the era’s defining features that really sticks out in my mind.

This song was also fairly ubiquitous when I was student. So it was always a bit of a cheap thrill hearing this 20^th-century referencing lyric in the middle of a busy dance floor. And it still brings a smile to my face.

By Rebecca

‘You can’t always get what you want / You can’t always get what you want
But if you try sometimes well you just might find / You get what you need’

You Can’t Always Get What You Want, by The Rolling Stones.

Written in 1964 by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, most people interpret this song as a slightly jaded look at the end of the swinging 60s – how the big peace and love movement maybe wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

Whereas I find it quite reassuring and comforting. The melody’s brilliant and every time I hear the words I think – yes Jagger, so true. It’s a good reminder that sometimes the things we really want aren’t the best for us. But in the end we get what we need and everything works out fine.

By Michelle

‘So I broke into the palace / With a sponge and rusty spanner
She said “Eh I know you, and you cannot sing” / I said “That’s nothing you should hear me play piano”’

The Queen is Dead, by The Smiths. Written by Morrissey and Johnny Marr.

There’s comfort in melancholy, said Joni Mitchell (on Hejira). She’s right. Songs about life’s trips, stumbles and disappointments are much richer than the rictus-grin, chest-beating ones. Sure, I’ve fallen into the trap of getting up to dance to Dancing Queen (with its sneakily undanceable tempo). And if you get me tipsy, I’ll admit liking That’s the Way I Like It and Jump. But, to get all Tina Turner for a moment, Private Dancer beats Simply the Best all day long.

Melancholy isn’t about slitting your wrists. It’s any sort of regret, loss or longing. Coming second, being wistful, not belonging. Things we all experience. To namecheck a few of my faves, it’s there in the outsiders, fantasists and has-beens loafing through Steely Dan’s often jaunty jazz-blues-rock catalogue. It’s all over Joni’s stuff, from Case of You and Edith and the Kingpin to People’s Parties and Chinese Cafe. Nick Drake did it exquisitely. I think Bon Iver does too, but can’t make out the words. You can’t feel sad listening to music like that.

The Smiths, though. Depressing, say the naysayers. But look at those words up top – funny aren’t they? Actually, nearly all Morrissey is funny, albeit a bit mordant. Even the sublimely, dangerously grave That Joke isn’t Funny Anymore is kind-of amusing. (It dug me out of a hangover when I first heard it anyway.) So there’s the comfort in melancholy. You can have it with fun.

By Jan

‘When I had you to myself, I didn’t want you around / Those pretty faces always make you stand out in a crowd
But someone picked you from the bunch, one glance is all it took / Now it’s much too late for me to take a second look’

I Want You Back, by The Jackson Five.

A party classic. A floor-filler. Surely every wedding DJ has it on their playlist. I’ve loved this song since the first time I heard it as a child. I couldn’t listen to the joyful intro without breaking into a cheesy grin. (Followed closely by an embarrassing dance.)

As I got older I started to understand what the pre-teen MJ and his brothers were singing about. Everybody’s inner child can relate to this, right? We want what we can’t have. The grass is always greener on the other side.

As a child (and an only child for the first eight years of my life) I threw the odd tantrum over something I wasn’t allowed to have. I didn’t care, or understand, if I was being unreasonable. As far as I was concerned, someone else had stopped me from having what I wanted. It wasn’t my fault. End of story.

These days, I’m more likely to reflect on a missed opportunity in my life. Something I once had, but didn’t appreciate.

Woah. What happened there? Suddenly my mood’s changed. I think I read way too much into those lyrics.

At the end of the day it’s a catchy pop song. I preferred the way it sounded when I was a child. And that’s the way I’ll keep listening to it.

By Gem

‘Shadows, tapping at your window / Ghostly voices whisper will you come and play / Not for all the tea in China, or the corn in Carolina, never, never ever’

Land of Make Believe, by Bucks Fizz.

Excuse me while I lose all my credibility. For those of you not of, ahem, a certain age, Bucks Fizz were one of the bestselling groups of the 80s, famously winning the Eurovision Song Contest in 1981 (helped in no small part by the now infamous Velcro skirt rip, which many a child of the 80s re-enacted).

They were all over the radio when I was growing up and as a child I absolutely loved Land of Make Believe. It may still be on my iPod. I always liked the evocative imagery of the child safe in her bedroom, trying to ignore the ghostly voices trying to lure her outside for god knows what (‘to have her heart’, we find out later). For a child who spent many long hours looking for the doorway to Narnia – and still harbours a small hope that it might turn up one day – it was the perfect theme song.

By Emma

‘And I need you now tonight / And I need you more than ever
And if you’ll only hold me tight / We’ll be holding on forever’

Total Eclipse Of The Heart, by Bonnie Tyler – written by Jim Steinman.

Yep, you read right. It’s not the cheesy lyrics that do it for me. In fact, they’re pretty awful. But it’s my absolute favourite karaoke song. I’ve even been known to hit repeat. Shameful.

With all of its two lines, repeated to make up the entire song, it’s nothing inspirational. But those simple rhyming couplets and dramatic vocals do it for me. It’s so bad that it’s actually good.

And it’s a real belter of a song. Give it a go.

By Ally

‘Gloomy is Sunday / With shadows I spend it all
My heart and I / Have decided to end it all’

Gloomy Sunday, by Laszlo Javor. Translated by Sam M Lewis.

In the wrong hands this song is a melodramatic stinker (that means you, Serge Gainsbourg). But when I first heard it whispered over an intricate guitar, it was perfectly bleak and very beautiful.

Banned by the BBC for its effect on WW2 morale, Gloomy Sunday already had a bad rep for encouraging suicides in 1930s Hungary. With its sparse statements and simple cadence, it’s florid yet to-the-point. You could do a lot worse in a ready-made suicide note.

What’s interesting is the idea that death could enter through the ears; that a pop song could have such power over the listener.

Seven mildly-obsessed years, 60 or so versions and several languages later, I’ve whittled it down to Billy Holliday for heartache, Paul Robeson for rumbling gravitas and Diamanda Galas channelling sheer unhinged morbidity. Believe me, you don’t want her singing this about you.

By Jude

‘And I don’t think that I ever loved you more / Than when you turned away / When you slammed the door
When you stole the car and drove towards Mexico / And you wrote bad checks just to fill your arm / I was young enough, I still believed in war’

Poison Oak, by Bright Eyes.

It’s the lyrics of this song I love as the singing’s not the best. They’re poetic. And they tell a story. When looking up the words (to make sure I hadn’t had them wrong all these years) I came across a few sites that offered up the meaning of the song. I don’t want to know the real meaning; I’d rather imagine my own. It’s like not wanting to see your favourite book made into a film.

Every time I hear this song, a bit older and maybe a bit wiser, I decipher more of the words, and piece it together. I could listen to it over and over again, and each time unravel more of its secrets.

These lines speak of youthful impulsiveness. And the consequences of something decided in anger, and its finality. The rhyming structure leads you to expect a happy ending, but instead winds up with war. Having listened to it on repeat, I know this of course, but it still startles me every time.

By Sarah

‘I kissed the spikey fridge / And that’s the way she is’

I Kissed the Spikey Fridge, by King – written by Paul King.

It’s 1984. I’m 11. And I’m trying to figure women out. Duran Duran are not helping. Someone called Rio. And she’s dancing on the sand. I’m not getting it.

And then one cold night, I’m curled up in bed plugged into a large Telefunken valve radio – the one that my Dad used to use to hide bottles of rum in when he was in the navy, but which now conceals half-smoked cigarettes. And my treasure. Which I believe to be a) extremely important fossils, b) the philosopher’s stone and c) new elements I’ve discovered. Then these words squeeze their way out of the invisible radio world and attach themselves to my central nervous system: ‘I kissed the spikey fridge / And that’s the way she is’.

Goldfish are shimmering through my bloodstream. I know my destiny. I must find my own spikey fridge to kiss. And when I’ve found one, I won’t let her go. I’m going to be that man whose lover people gasp and point at: her spikeyness, her beautiful smooth sleek lines, her perfect freshness, her mind-bending ability to keep her cool and switch the lights on and off, her talent for humming, for making funny noises in the night (ahem), for staying plugged in and for just being there: solid, serene and hell, yeah, a prickly riddle with quills – and I’m going to be that man who stands there and says: that’s the way she is.

It took about 22 years.

By Alan

‘Being smart can make you rich and bring respect and reverence / But the rewards of being pleasant are far more incandescent’

Waiting for the beat to kick in, by Scroobius Pip.
I was tempted to champion some earth-crunchingly titanic rock anthem here. But instead I want to focus your eyes on an unassuming spoken thought from this backwater of a b-side.

The line is advice as much as lyricism. Which is always a dangerous route to go down with any art form. As a rule, people don’t want to be told what to do or how to act in their art: they want to get behind something. A movement like Punk perhaps. Or the culture the music or the artist panders to, like the darker, more gothic styles of rock. But for me, Scroobius Pip has risen above cultural propaganda with this slice of songery.

The fact is, being pleasant over being smart is wonderful advice for almost anyone to follow. Particularly if you take ‘smart’ to mean ‘pretentious’ or ‘smart-mouthed’. If you’re an investment banker, or you’re a surgeon, I’d probably prefer it the other way round. But if not, I think the more people that take this advice the better. That way you’ll be less likely to constantly try to impress your friends, colleagues and everyone in between, more likely to say what you mean, and (is that a segue I see on the horizon?) more likely to write like you speak.

So bravo Scroobius Pip. Great advice. Great song. And another sound reason to write in a really confident and effective way.

By George

So if you follow us on Twitter, you probably laughed at our ‘Nick looks a bit like Boris Johnson’ tweet. And the rant about how Azhar kept banging on about ‘strategy’ (there’s bound to be a video online by now).  Other than that, I wasn’t blown away by last night’s episode. It was mediocre. Apart from the narrator.

Normally, he bridges one team’s panic and faff with the other team’s panic and faff. And I tend to tune out. But last night, his alliteration made my ears prick up. ‘Locations locked down’ and ‘pretty penny’ were first up, followed by some loose rhymes: ‘smell what sells’ and ‘tins of tan’. Those linguistic treats jazzed up an otherwise mid-series lull. A timely reminder that borrowing a few poetic effects can make your writing more interesting and keep your reader engaged.

By Jo