River
Liz Longley Lyrics

The song "River" by Liz Longley is a reflective piece on the nature of the holiday season, loneliness, and self-reflection. The opening lines, "It's coming on Christmas, cutting down trees, putting up reindeer, singing songs of joy and peace," create a sentimental and traditional atmosphere of the holiday season. It is clear, however, from the next lines that the singer is missing something, "I wish I had a river, I could skate away on, it don't snow here it stays pretty green." Here, the singer longs for an escape, a separation from the commercial and superficial nature of the Holidays, and a way to find peace in the isolation of nature.

The following lines suggest money as a source of unhappiness, "I'm gonna make a lot of money, then I'm gonna quit this crazy scene." The money is a temporary solution for the singer to "quit this crazy scene." Thus, the singer's longing for nature is grounded in a realization of the emptiness of material gain. The singer wishes for a powerful, long river, one that would allow her to "teach my feet to flyyy." Here, the singer imagines a kind of escape where she'd be lighter, one that will relieve her of the burden of her life.

The final verse concludes with a confession of a mistake, "I made my baby cry, so hard to handle, I'm selfish, and I'm sad. Now I've gone and lost the best baby that I ever had." The honesty and rawness of the statement reveal much about the singer's life. Wisdom comes from self-awareness, and in this song, the singer is reflecting on past mistakes and how they've affected her life. The singer wishes for an escape route, a river, that could help her escape the consequences of her mistakes. In one final plea, the singer sings, "I wish I had a river, I could skate away on, I made my baby say goodbye," emphasizing the finality of the situation.