This post is a follow-up to “Bird Vocabulary,” which we hope you liked. We know that it’s exciting to learn English with popular songs because that’s one of the ways to see relevance of the material studied. So, if you haven’t memorized the names of all the birds we recently wrote about, don’t worry. This post should help. Read on, enjoy the music and study at the same time.

Emeli Sande. “Sparrow”

The lyrics are here.

• to make it – to not die as a result of an illness or accident: 1) I think this time I’m gonna make it till morning. 2) The doctors say he’s going to make it.
• to take sth. by storm – to be very successful in a particular place or among a particular group of people: 1) I’m gonna take the world by storm. 2) Jazz took London and Paris by storm in the 1920s.
• to bring sb. down – to make someone or something move or fall to the ground: 1) With a heart of a sparrow, what arrow could ever bring you down? 2) Strong winds brought down power lines across the region.
• (to have) a narrow escape – to avoid being killed or seriously injured only because you were lucky or made a very big effort: 1) The escape, it was narrow, but what gift of courage you felt! 2) I had a narrow escape, since the bullet came within inches of my head. 
• the dust settles – if you say that something will happen when the dust settles, you mean that a situation will be clearer after it has calmed down; if you let the dust settle before doing something, you let a situation calm down before you try to do anything else: 1) I think the dust is gonna finally settle. 2) When the dust had settled, I made up my mind. 3) Let the dust settle before you make a decision.

The Beatles. “Blackbird”

The lyrics are here.

• in the dead of night (literary) – if something happens in/at the dead of night, it happens in the middle part of the night, when it is darkest: 1) Blackbird singing in the dead of night, take these broken wings and learn to fly. 2) We buried it in the garden at the dead of night.
• sunken eyes – sunken eyes curve inwards, often showing that someone is ill or old: 1) Take these sunken eyes and learn to see. 2) Her eyes were sunken and black-ringed.

Demi Lovato. “Nightingale”

The lyrics are here.

• wide awake – completely awake: 1) I can’t sleep tonight, wide awake and so confused. 2) I was already wide awake before the alarm went off.
• in line – in agreement or conformity: 1) Everything’s in line. 2) A pay increase is in line with inflation.
• (sb. can’t) see the forest for the trees – said to mean that someone is so involved in the details of something that they forget or do not realize the real purpose or importance of the thing as a whole: 1) I never see the forest for the trees. 2) The staff here are working so hard and are so tired that they can’t see the forest for the trees.
• to cut through – to go straight through: 1) Your words are like a whisper cutting through. 2) You have cut through the jamming signals.

Dolly Parton. “Eagle when she flies”

The lyrics are here.

• to dish sth. out – to give things to a number of people: 1) She knows how to dish it out and take it all. 2) The nurses are dishing out pills. 
• to weather the storm – to not be badly harmed or damaged during a difficult period of time: 1) Her heart’s as soft as feathers, still she weathers stormy skies. 2) The government appears to have weathered the storm.
• shoulder (to cry on) – someone who listens to you with sympathy when you talk about your problems: 1) She’s an everlasting shoulder. 2) She was always a shoulder to cry on for her friends.

Scorpions. “White dove”

The lyrics are here.

• land of milk and honey – a place where you think that life is extremely good and easy: 1) A place without a name under a burning sky, there’s no milk and honey here… 2) The land of milk and honey does not make the best crème caramel. (Times, Sunday Times (2012))
• to go by – to move past a place or stop there for a short time during a journey: 1) While the sun goes down, the world goes by. 2) The people are just going by.
• to leave sth. behind – to deliberately not think about something, especially an unpleasant experience, and not let it affect what you do in the future: 1) Leave it all behind, start again. 2) She is a young woman trying to leave behind a difficult adolescence.

Kate Perry. “Hummingbird heartbeat”

The lyrics are here.

• buzzing – very excited: 1) Under the sun we are one buzzing energy. 2) I’m still buzzing with the wonder of Alaska.
• to come naturally – to be easy for someone to do, without them needing to try hard: 1) This evolution with you comes naturally. 2) With football, it was just something that came naturally to me.
• chemistry – the emotional relationship between people, especially when they are strongly attracted to each other: 1) Some call it science, we call it chemistry. 2) The chemistry between them was obvious.
• the birds and the bees (humorous) – the facts about sex, when they are explained to children for the first time: 1) This is the story of the birds and the bees. 2) It would be many years yet before she could talk about the birds and the bees with her son. (Related: “Euphemisms“)
• to flutter – if something light such as a small bird flutters somewhere, it moves through the air with small quick movements: 1) You’re so exotic, make my whole body fluttering. 2) The birds were fluttering among the trees.
• to crave for sth. – to want something very much and in a way that is very hard to control: 1) I’m constantly craving for the taste. 2) Lewis still craves for the recognition he feels he lacks in America.
• on the brink of sth. – in a situation in which something bad is very likely to happen: 1) I’m always on the brink of a heart attack. 2) The organization is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. (= it’s very likely to go bankrupt)

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