Ahead of Blue Note show, here are 13 lines that show Craig Finn's lyrical genius

Rock 'n' roll is about turning heads and hearts. Sometimes that involves a great turn of phrase.

Leader of literary bar band The Hold Steady, and an accomplished solo artist, Craig Finn might just be our modern-day poet laureate of rock. The songwriter builds worlds that smolder and sigh, inhabited by seekers hoping to satisfy their aches through drugs, music, religion and romance. These are Springsteen legends for art-school dropouts and scene kids.

Finn pursues an "impressionistic, Kerouacian-Catholic approach to character and narrative," Bill McGarvey rightly wrote in America Magazine.

Finn doesn't always have to create lyrical rhapsodies to get his message over. On The Hold Steady's 2006 cut "Party Pit," he repeats the simple line "Gonna walk around and drink some more," varying it just enough to convey everything you need to know about his narrator.

But just as often, he creates black-and-blue poetry to meet rattling, glorious music.

Finn will play a solo set at The Blue Note this week, filling a triple bill with another of music's best storytellers, The Mountain Goats bandleader John Darnielle, and Alicia Bognanno's Bully — a project which easily made one of the best rock records of 2023. Ahead of the show, here are 13 great Finn lyrics that exhibit his talent as one of our great bards.

"Your Little Hoodrat Friend" (2005)

Furthering themes — and terms — that show up across Finn's catalog, this standout from The Hold Steady's "Separation Sunday" twines religion and humanism, pain and glory in the form of a lyrical tattoo: "Tiny little text etched into her neck / It said 'Jesus lived and died for all your sins' / She's got blue-black ink and it's scratched into her lower back / Says 'Damn right, I'll rise again' / Yeah, damn right, she'll rise again."

"Stuck Between Stations" (2006)

Nearly every line could be plucked from the song that opens The Hold Steady's "Boys and Girls in America" and studied like a proverb. One of Finn's best moments of characterization rings like this: "She was a really cool kisser, and she wasn't all that strict of a Christian / She was a damn good dancer, but she wasn't all that great of a girlfriend."

"Chips Ahoy!" (2006)

The next song from "Boys and Girls" digs into duality with a simple yet staggering turn: "She's hard on the heart and she's soft to the touch."

"First Night" (2006)

One more pick from a pitch-perfect album, a late lyric from this song shows off Finn's protective side, stepping into the gap between tender-hearted girls and the guys who might break them down: "Don't bother talking to the guys with the hot soft eyes / You know they're already taken / Don't even speak to all those sequencers and beats boys / When they kiss, they spit white noise."

"Stay Positive" (2008)

The title cut from this Hold Steady album harnesses the mythic energy the band is able to produce: "Because the kids at the shows / They'll have kids of their own / And the sing-along songs will be our scriptures."

"Hurricane J" (2010)

Finn's narrator describes Jessie — the main character of this Hold Steady song — in one line, and you have everything you need to know: "But they didn't name her for a saint / They named her for a storm."

"The Weekenders" (2010)

Another cut from the band's "Heaven is Whenever" record contains just a devastatingly funny turn of phrase: "She said the theme of this party is the industrial age / You came in dressed like a train wreck."

"Newmyer's Roof" (2015)

This cut, from the solo record "Faith in the Future," reminds us suffering comes in many forms: "No I've never been crucified / I've never suffered and died / I've never been shot / But I've been lied to a lot."

"Saint Peter Upside Down" (2015)

Another "Faith in the Future" jam, this one houses something like a prayer: "Can you hear me Mother Mary? / I'm unsteady in the lobby / Would you send someone to get me? / I'm barely hanging on / Like some claymation fawn / In the blue light of dawn."

"Blankets" (2019)

Heartbreaking and beautiful, this Finn lyric from his "I Need a New War" album reorients listeners to their proper place in the universe. "When you're lonely on the prairie / There's still a couple people you can call," he sings, "When it thunders in the canyon / You get the feeling you're too small."

"Family Farm" (2021)

Finn's big-hearted, brotherly tendencies show up again on a track from The Hold Steady's "Open Door Policy." Here's some good advice to bank: "Let your sins be of omission / I wish you wouldn't engage with all these creeps / 'Cause they're never gonna love you that one specific way / That you want 'em all to love you."

"The Amarillo Kid" (2022)

Finn delivers another signature take on the spiritual powers, here on his solo record "A Legacy of Rentals": "When the devil starts to show up in your dreams / Then it’s hard to get your dreams back."

"Messing with the Settings" (2022)

"We map where we've been by the scars on our skin / We can only sing the songs we've been taught to," Finn sings on this "Legacy" cut, a reminder we can only ever be ourselves.

Mountain Goats, Finn and Bully play The Blue Note at 7 p.m. Tuesday; tickets are $39.50-$49.50. Visit https://thebluenote.com/ for more information.

Aarik Danielsen is the features and culture editor for the Tribune. Contact him at adanielsen@columbiatribune.com or by calling 573-815-1731. He's on Twitter/X @aarikdanielsen.

This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: 13 lyrics that prove Craig Finn's place as rock's poet laureate