What's your favorite line from a song

Subject: What's your favorite line from a song
From: GUEST,lefthanded guitar
Date: 06 Jul 17 - 05:40 PM

It can be trad/roots oriented, etc. or for that matter leaving your heart in San Francisco, if you like.

Mine is:

" I'm going up the country
where the cold wind doesn't blow,
Ain't telling how much further I may go."

(from: Make me a Pallet on the Floor)

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: Joe_F
Date: 06 Jul 17 - 06:05 PM

Isn't that three lines?

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Jul 17 - 06:10 PM

"It's all right"

(from Here Comes The Sun)

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: GUEST,Richard
Date: 06 Jul 17 - 06:38 PM

Impossible question - but possibly one of these:-
The eponymous "All you need is Love"
"Time is short and the days are sweet" From Dylan's Dark Eyes
"What makes you go abroad, fighting with strangers?" from Our Captain Cried All Hands.
"Amoebas are very small" Mike Heron - A Very Cellular Song
"There is a crack in everything, that's where the light gets in" might just win by a nose (Anthem - Leonard Cohen)
But I'll probably change my mind by tomorrow!

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: RTim
Date: 06 Jul 17 - 08:10 PM

The cork is in the bottle - but the whisky is in me!

Tim Radford

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: GUEST,Sol
Date: 06 Jul 17 - 09:10 PM

"As the dish outside the window fills with rain" Time by Tom Waites.

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: mg
Date: 07 Jul 17 - 12:22 AM

a lot of people in previous threads have mentioned if it weren't for the alligators i'd sleep out in the swamp from lakes of ponchatrain.

i love i put my head into a cask of brandy from peggy gordon

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 07 Jul 17 - 12:56 AM

"It was just too true to be good" Just Like Jim Brown, Pierce Pettis

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: rich-joy
Date: 07 Jul 17 - 01:01 AM

OMG! ya can't have just one, eh!! I'll start with these two though :

"She'd a smile like an acre of Sunflowers" from "Alongside of the Santa Fe Trail" (Lisa Null, and many more)

and

"There is a crack, a crack in everything; that's how the Light gets in" (from Leonard Cohen's "Anthem")

Cheers!
R-J

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 07 Jul 17 - 02:15 AM

From A Pub With No Beer, ' Theres a far away look on the face of the bum '

Dave H

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: Joe Offer
Date: 07 Jul 17 - 02:17 AM

Here in California, fruit hangs heavy on the vines;
There's no gold, I thought I'd warn you;
And the hills turn brown in the summertime.

Kate Wolf, "Here In California"

-Joe Offer, suffering through a hundred-degree week-

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 07 Jul 17 - 02:34 AM

From 'Rambling Boys of Pleasure' - the greatest description of youth in oral literature: after the singer has been rejected by his lover because of his poverty; "For I am young and the world is wide"
A description of pregnancy from the ballad, 'Gil Morris' by a woman confessing to her husband that the youth he has just killed is not her lover but her illegitimate son:
"I once was full of Gil Morris as the hip is of the stone"
(the rose hip is a berry made up of a large stone surrounded by a thin layer of flesh)
A bad weather omen from, 'Sir Patrick Spens':
"I saw the new moon yester-e'en with the old moon in her arms"
A declaration of love by a defiant young woman from 'Bonny Peggy':
"It's I would lie in Jimmy's arms 'though his grave was growing green"
They don't write them like that any more!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: Howard Jones
Date: 07 Jul 17 - 03:36 AM

"If it weren't for the alligators I'd sleep out in the wood"

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: GUEST,SteveT
Date: 07 Jul 17 - 04:13 AM

From The Bonny Bunch of Roses "If I'd lived I might have been clever"

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: IanW
Date: 07 Jul 17 - 04:40 AM

Keith Marsden from Prospect Providence - "and the blame gets passed right down the line till the gaffer goes and kicks the sheep"

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: meself
Date: 07 Jul 17 - 05:01 AM

With their goblin brains,
They could spell their names:
G-O-B! L-I-N!
G-g-g-goblins!

- Fred Penner

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 07 Jul 17 - 06:34 AM

From ''The Little Pot Stove'' sung by Nic Jones ''Where the chill seeps in your soul''       https://youtu.be/Nj0phYz38NU?list=PL5B538B7C3C7BA03C

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: Snuffy
Date: 07 Jul 17 - 06:45 AM

With a smile upon her countenance
She answered "Jack Munro"

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: GUEST,matt milton
Date: 07 Jul 17 - 06:55 AM

"little birdie, little birdie, come sing to me your song
got a short time to be here, and a long time to be gone"

Manages to crystallise what existentialism - indeed, most philosophy full stop - is trying to say, in just two lines.

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: GUEST,matt milton
Date: 07 Jul 17 - 07:02 AM

I also always thought that these opening lines were absolutely amazing:

"The trees they do grow high and the leaves they do grow green,
The day is past and gone, my love, that you and I have seen."

Never liked the rest of the song much, to be honest. I've sometimes wondered whether I could sing just those two lines, as a sort of haiku of a song... or maybe use them as the springboard for a song about getting old and handing over the real business of living to the next generation. (God that sounds depressing, ha ha!)

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: Mo the caller
Date: 07 Jul 17 - 07:10 AM

Depends on your mood when you hear them. And I suppose the lines that stick are the ones that echo a sad mood.

...died in the church and was buried along with her name -nobody came.

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: GUEST,DaveA
Date: 07 Jul 17 - 07:43 AM

Then I fumbled in my closet through my clothes
And found my cleanest dirty shirt

Sunday Morning Coming Down - Kris Kristofferson

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Jul 17 - 08:31 AM

One line from The Grand Coulee Dam by Woody Guthrie:


"In the misty crystal glitter of that wild and windward spray"


Sheer poetry. Beautiful alliteration. The rest of the verse is equally good but I'm only allowed one line!

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: fat B****rd
Date: 07 Jul 17 - 10:23 AM

"You know how many leaves there is on a tree
You know who killed the Dead Sea" Willie Harper "The Power Of Love"

"The pump don't work
'Cause the vandals took the handles" Guess Who?

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 07 Jul 17 - 10:29 AM

The Turtles

I really think you're groovy, let's go out to a movie

So bad it is good. They reckon it was ironic but I am not so sure :-)

DtG

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: Jackaroodave
Date: 07 Jul 17 - 10:31 AM

"New Jersey Turnpike in the wee, wee hours . . ."

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: Tiger
Date: 07 Jul 17 - 10:32 AM

"Bone and blood is the price of coal"

... The Ballad of Springhill — Ewan McColl & Peggy Seeger

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: andymac
Date: 07 Jul 17 - 10:47 AM

There's too many. My favourites change depending on the mood but some of the ones which always move me are

"Like waves the sheep rolled in as they drove us from the glenside". The dark Loch- Alistair Hulett

"Ah but ye're no the first that thon Scots have beguiled..".
Flooer O Northumberland- Trad.

But the sparkle of her laughter ever after I'll recall,
Like the linklin, trinklin jinklin as the mountain burns fall"
Bonnie Lass O the Morning- Jack Foley

"you must rise up with the dawn and trudge to the mill in the early morn"
Handweaver and Factory Maid- Trad

Ask me tomorrow and it'd probably be slightly different.

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: robomatic
Date: 07 Jul 17 - 02:42 PM

Acknowledged by NPR and Susan Stamberg:

Yip Harburg, "The Eagle and Me"

Ever since the day when the world was an onion

The first thing I think of when the subject is brought up:

Warren Zevon, "Jungle Work"

We parachute in....we parachute out

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: StephenH
Date: 07 Jul 17 - 06:57 PM

Impossible task! However, here's a line from "No Gods (and Precious Few Heroes)" by Brian McNeil. It's actually full of lines which could qualify as favourites, but I like the wry humour of this one:

"Try goin' down the broo with your claymore in your hand and count all
the Princes in the queue"

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: Gabriel
Date: 07 Jul 17 - 07:16 PM

My favourite line of any song (and a wonderful opening line) id from 'Sweet Carnlough Bay'.

"When winter was brawling, o'er high hills and mountains"

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: frogprince
Date: 07 Jul 17 - 07:17 PM

I tried to get this in last night, but the post wouldn't take. From "Zebra Dun", author unknown, sung by Cisco"

Then Shorty grabbed a lariat, and he roped the zebra dun,
and gave him to the stranger, and we waited for the fun.

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: Deckman
Date: 07 Jul 17 - 07:18 PM

"You could make me believe,
   By the falling of your arm,
      That sun, rose in the West"

From "Pretty Saro" as sung by Walt Robertson

bob(deckman)nelson

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: GUEST,GUEST Marcia Palmater
Date: 07 Jul 17 - 08:34 PM

From Robert Burns' My Love Is Like a Red, Red Rose:
"Till a' the seas gang dry, my love, and the rocks melt wi' the sun ...'

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: Effsee
Date: 08 Jul 17 - 05:24 AM

"But for two thousand years, he's brought nothing but tears, and the cross that they plant on the graves" ...Harvey Andrews.

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Jul 17 - 05:54 AM

I'll post this in the hope that Jack may not be reading this thread. 😉 Almost any line from a Jimmy MacCarthy song. In the words of Christy, he's been given the gift.

"And she like a ghost beside me goes down with the ease of a dolphin
And emerges unlearned, unshamed , unharmed."

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: Raggytash
Date: 08 Jul 17 - 07:04 AM

From Peter Bond's Stillness That The Snow Brings:

"And in the evening hear the peals the bellman sends, leap from the tower and tumble laughing down the hill"

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 08 Jul 17 - 07:46 AM

from John Warner's Bring out the Banners

How dare we lose what they have won?

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: Michael
Date: 08 Jul 17 - 08:48 AM

" May you never lay your head down without a hand to hold. May you never make your bed out in the cold" John Martyn.

Mike

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: GUEST,Desi C
Date: 08 Jul 17 - 09:04 AM

From Song For Ireland
Drinking All The Day, In Old Pubs Where Fiddlers Love To PLay
From Raglan Road
The Queen Of Hearts Still Baking Tarts, and I not making Hay
From I'm So Lonesome
The Silence Of A Fallen Star, Lights Up The Purple Sky

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: oldhippie
Date: 08 Jul 17 - 12:18 PM

"Life is a rainstorm, but love is the ark"

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: GUEST,MacTalla
Date: 08 Jul 17 - 04:35 PM

From Woody's Pretty Boy Floyd:
"Some will rob you with a six-gun; some with a fountain pen."

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: GUEST,Bert
Date: 08 Jul 17 - 06:20 PM

About the hemp rope on his neck the golden ringlets clung - Roddy McCorley.

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: Gallus Moll
Date: 08 Jul 17 - 08:16 PM

Robert Burns 'Highland Mary':

The golden hours on angel wings flew ower me and my dearie


Hamish Henderson 'Freedom Come All Ye':

Roch the wind in the clear day's dawin', blaws the cloods heelster-goudie ower the bay


Iain Ingram 'Beneath The Painted Veil'

Beware of fools and words of doubtful wisdom, the hawk who masquerades as gentle dove

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: GUEST,gopherit
Date: 09 Jul 17 - 12:27 AM

From The Goodnight Loving Trail by Utah Phillips regarding getting old "There's nothing that can change it, there is no one to blame."

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: Stewie
Date: 09 Jul 17 - 12:38 AM

From Blues in the bottle:

Little chickens don't do nothin', but they strut their stuff

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: GUEST,Erich
Date: 09 Jul 17 - 02:57 AM

"I'm headin' into trouble with a big grin on my face"
also
"she grabbed me by my balls and said I'm so in love with you"

from "Sir" Oliver Mally - Headin' into trouble

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 09 Jul 17 - 03:21 AM

Kristofferson has featured already, never had a lot of time for him myself. But:

"Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose"

Ought to be tattoed on the foreheads of Boris, Gove, Farage et al.

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: Roz
Date: 09 Jul 17 - 12:18 PM

The cops and the legislators called them dangers agitators, and they laid Jesus Christ in his grave.

Woody Guthrie's Jesus Christ, to the tune of Jesse James.

Another favorite, the first time I ever heard the Mingulay Boat Song, I was part of a group of people rowing hell-bent thru the San Juan Islands, where summer homes looked down upon our sorry selves, and I mis-heard the line 'what care we how wide the minch is' as 'what care we how white the mansions' and still sing it that way.

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: David C. Carter
Date: 09 Jul 17 - 02:04 PM

"I forced my hands in my pockets,and felt with my thumb,
And gallantly handed her my very last piece of gum".



The Boy himself.

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 09 Jul 17 - 06:16 PM

Depends on how I'm feeling, and also on what "favourite line" means - some lines stick in your head, and some lines feel good to sing or to say, and they aren't necessarily the same lines.

And sometimes when you check on it the lines that stick in your head it turns out you've changed them.

One like that I thought I couldn't get out of my head was a Johnny Cash song "Beer for breakfast once again" which turned out to be "Beans for breakfast once again, it's hard to eat them from the can".

And there's words that sum up a whole story succinctly - Hank Williams "My son calls another man Daddy".

And another is a song I was haunted by for years just because of the line "I still remember what was on the jukebox when she turned", which was from a song Nic Jones sang. And seing this thread set me thinking about that, and if you open a thread that was at time of writing just next to this, called "Obit: Jonathan Eberhart", and scroll to the end, you'll see a story about where that led me.

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: RTim
Date: 09 Jul 17 - 06:25 PM

The first line of the next song I am going to sing..................

Tim Radford

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: Rapparee
Date: 09 Jul 17 - 08:47 PM

Well, there are so many!

"Be silent or agree with me."
   --Wolf Tones, Radio Toor-i-li-ay

"You must give me lessons
For I've never killed before."
       --Tom Paxton, The Willing Conscript

Lift your glasses friends with mine and give your hand to me
I'm the tyrant's foe, I'm freedom's friend, I'm an outlawed rapparee.
         --Trad., The Outlawed Rapparee

So pass the billy 'round boys, don't let the pint just stand there
For tonight we drink the health of every overlander.
          --Trad., Queensland Overlanders

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: meself
Date: 10 Jul 17 - 12:50 AM

He's gone where the good doggies go.

- 'Bellman'

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 10 Jul 17 - 03:03 AM

by Meredith Wilson

Did ja ever try steppin' on a piss ant? Well, there's one now. Jump 'im, stomp 'im! Thinkin' you got 'im? Thinkin' he's quit? He don't think so.
There he goes! And ja can be gol-durn sure I'm as good as any piss ant that were down or haint that were up.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Hell if I'm gonna eat cat-fish heads all my life! ! !

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 10 Jul 17 - 03:40 AM

Bad blood is like an egg stain on your jeans - you can lick it, but it still won't go away.

(Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band)

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Jul 17 - 09:08 AM

Send lawyers ,guns and money ,Dad
The shit has hit the fan

Warren Zevon

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: GUEST,Roger Knowles
Date: 10 Jul 17 - 12:36 PM

I can still remember when I bought my first guitar - Kevin Johnson, "Rock 'n' roll, I gave you all the best years of my life"

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Jul 17 - 12:49 PM

"Sitting in the shade of a rain-soaked orange blossom"
Opening line of Lulu's"My The Peaceful Heart"

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Jul 17 - 12:50 PM

Auto correct grrrrrrrs.
"Me, the Peaceful Heart"

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 10 Jul 17 - 02:30 PM

quite possibly...

"I'm sittin' here, la, la waiting for my ya ya.. Uh huh, uh huh"... 😎



Ya Ya

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: meself
Date: 10 Jul 17 - 02:40 PM

I hear "sittin' IN la-la" (but I remember it as "sittin' in THE la-la" - and I trust my memory!).

Actually, "sittin' in la-la" makes a bit of sense - in the sense of "la-la land" .....

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 10 Jul 17 - 02:51 PM

Guess it depends on the recording.. and I can never hear enough of 'em..

"sitting on my la la" being another...

I think I read a serious critical analysis of the lyrics 20 odd years ago...

uh uh.. or uh um...???

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: GUEST,James Fryer
Date: 10 Jul 17 - 03:44 PM

"Beans could get no keener reception/In a beanery"

Mountain Greenery (Lorenz Hart, lyrics)

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: Neil D
Date: 10 Jul 17 - 04:07 PM

From "Famous Blue Raincoat" by L Cohen:

Yes, and thanks, for the trouble you took from her eyes
I thought it was there for good so I never tried.

Perfectly written but better when heard in the song, the way his phrasing lets the line unfold a step at a time, surprising in the direction it takes.

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: Bill D
Date: 10 Jul 17 - 05:10 PM

"♫Since it is no better, I'm glad it is no worse.♫"

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Jul 17 - 07:08 PM

I bet you think this song is about you, don't you, don't you, don't you?

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: GUEST,Derrick
Date: 11 Jul 17 - 06:05 AM

If a drunk should come in and see you he'd go straight out and sign the pledge.

Benny Hill the Andalucian Gypsies

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: David C. Carter
Date: 11 Jul 17 - 08:59 AM

It must be jelly,cause jam don't shake lie that.

Br-549

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: gillymor
Date: 11 Jul 17 - 09:38 AM

The dust that Pancho bit down south,
Ended up in Lefty's mouth.

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: GUEST,Fred Maslan
Date: 11 Jul 17 - 10:14 AM

"You can't jump a jet plane like you can a freight train." Gordon Lightfoot

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: GUEST,guest
Date: 11 Jul 17 - 12:00 PM

"You give a goodbye sniff of Benzedrine to the convent budgerigar" - "Sister Josephine" by the wonderful Jake Thackeray.

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: GUEST,Phil E
Date: 11 Jul 17 - 03:20 PM

"We marched them forth in inveterate streams" - Boney's Lamentation

"The sun is just a-glimmering - arise my dear" - Lemany

And a magical half line from Searching for Lambs - "strike off the morning dew"

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: GUEST,Some blasphemer
Date: 11 Jul 17 - 05:03 PM

Who the fuck are you?


From Who Are You / The 'Oo

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 11 Jul 17 - 05:26 PM

...Alice...???

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: GUEST,Lou Judson
Date: 11 Jul 17 - 08:09 PM

It's a marvelous night for a moondance - Van Morrison

And it stoned me to my soul. - ibid

just my mood today, there are a thousand others!

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 11 Jul 17 - 09:01 PM

Bad rhymes get me:
From Eric Bogle's "Belle of Broughton":
They were in love besotted by the bonnie Belle of Broughton.
But I'll forgive him, because it's a lovely song!

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: Mrrzy
Date: 12 Jul 17 - 12:22 AM

Robocop, the Terminator, Captain Kirk, Darth Vader,
Lo Pan, Superman, every single Power Ranger

Or maybe
Spock, the Rock, Doc Ock and Hulk Hogan

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: meself
Date: 12 Jul 17 - 02:50 AM

The moon is swimming naked, and the summer night is fragrant ....

- Closing Time, L. Cohen

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: DMcG
Date: 14 Jul 17 - 02:26 AM

A friend wrote a show (with others) about the sinking of the Titanic but much more how it affected all the people of Southampton who provided the majority of the crew. One of the songs contains the line

"It was a night to remember, and a job to forget"

No one talked about PTSD at the time, of course, but this line captures it for me.

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: jojofolkagogo
Date: 19 Jul 17 - 03:01 PM

Far too many to write here . . .

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: GUEST,Skivee, guesting in
Date: 19 Jul 17 - 03:20 PM

"Fight on, m'lads, for I'm wounded but nae slain.
I'll sit me doon tae bleed a while, and then rise tae fight again."

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 19 Jul 17 - 07:15 PM

"You'll be shot if you're caught out there rapping"

From a version of Waterford Boys

Far too good for 'em (rappers) I reckon!

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: GUEST,Mike Yates
Date: 20 Jul 17 - 03:53 AM

Many, many years ago I flew to the island of Fiji. It was late afernoon and the light was fading. At the time the fields of sugar cane were being set on fire prior to being harvested (in order to kill off the rats and snakes) and as I looked down on the scene from the aircraft I thought of these lines from "The Flying Cloud" : "To the burning shores of Africa/Where the sugar cane does grow." OK it wasn't Africa, but it was an image that has remained in my mind for over fifty years, as has those old song lines.

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 20 Jul 17 - 12:04 PM

Correction

The rapper line is from "The Piper & The Cow"

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: Shakey
Date: 20 Jul 17 - 05:41 PM

from the moment i could talk i was ordered to listen

Cat Stevens

While I'm here may I just say that I've not been on this site for ten years an I could still log in with my old ID - impressive. Hats off to mudcat

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: The Sandman
Date: 21 Jul 17 - 03:25 AM

The lily of the valley and the primrose of the dell, bogies bonny belle

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: Joe Offer
Date: 21 Jul 17 - 03:38 AM

I've got another one, from John Prine's "Paradise":

Where the air smelled like snakes, and we'd shoot with our pistols
But empty pop bottles was all we would kill.

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: Joe Offer
Date: 21 Jul 17 - 03:48 AM

Oh, another one, from Folsom Prison Blues by Johnny Cash:

But I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.

I continue to wonder, however, how the guy got sent to prison in California for a crime he committed in Nevada.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Jul 17 - 03:50 AM

Puttin wood in the stove
And water in the cup,
You worked so hard
That you died standing up

Anna McGarrigle

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Jul 17 - 04:06 AM

Sorry, The Work Song is by Kate, not Anna McGarrigle

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: Dave Sutherland
Date: 21 Jul 17 - 08:25 AM

"The curfew had been lifted, the gambling wheel shut down,
Anyone with any sense had already left the town"
Lilly, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts - Bob Dylan

"Got a job and tried to put some money away,
But I've got debts that no honest man can pay"
Atlantic City – Bruce Springsteen

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: GUEST,Ned of the hill
Date: 21 Jul 17 - 11:31 AM

Dark is the evening; silent the hour.

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 21 Jul 17 - 02:38 PM

My dreams, they aren't as empty, as my conscience seems to be.

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: GUEST,kenny
Date: 21 Jul 17 - 04:58 PM

From "Oor Hamlet", by Adam MacNaughton :

"A sword fight was arranged for the interested perties,
Wi' a blunted sword for Hamlet, and a shairp sword for Laertes"

Jimmy Crowley, "Invitation To A Funeral" :

"Someone hit Moloney with the carcass of a cat"

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: Elmore
Date: 22 Jul 17 - 04:03 PM

"There ain't no cure for the summertime blues" by Eddie Cochran

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 22 Jul 17 - 04:05 PM

there is.. more Eddie Cochran records... 😎

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: GUEST,IanA
Date: 23 Jul 17 - 01:31 PM

I put my hand upon her breast,
Mark well what I do say,
I put my hand upon her breast
And the wind from her arse blew sou' sou' west.

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: voyager
Date: 24 Jul 17 - 01:57 PM

If the river was whiskey and I was a diving duck
I'd dive to the bottom and I'd never come up.

If the River Was Whiskey

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: kendall
Date: 24 Jul 17 - 02:21 PM

Alone on the hillside your lover is lying, and pale is the hew of his cheek Kirsten.

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: kendall
Date: 24 Jul 17 - 02:32 PM

another, "dreaming in the night, I saw a land where no man had to fight.." (Song for Ireland)

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: Elmore
Date: 25 Jul 17 - 11:34 AM

"I ache in the places where I used to play" from Tower of Song" by L. Cohen

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: David C. Carter
Date: 25 Jul 17 - 11:41 AM

'I look such a pillock with me bike clips on'.

Jake Thackray

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: Elmore
Date: 25 Jul 17 - 05:01 PM

"With smiling bastards lying to you everywhere you go." from "Mary Ellen Carter" by Stan Rogers.

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: GUEST,PatrickH
Date: 25 Jul 17 - 06:18 PM

Long past the midnight curfew we sat starry-eyed...

And (Fred would have said)

The rain falls on my yellow locks and the dew wets my skin, my babe is cold in my arms, Lord Gregory let me in.

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Jul 17 - 06:31 PM

take down this mast of gold,
Set up a mast of tree,
For it becomes not a forsaken maid
To sail so royalty.

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Jul 17 - 07:53 PM

Hamish Imlach sang in John o' Bredislee
" he is gan tae the green woods
tae ding the dun deer down, down

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: RobbieWilson
Date: 25 Jul 17 - 08:08 PM

That was me , by the way

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: GUEST,Tackleberry828
Date: 25 Jul 17 - 10:42 PM

"I'm up and gone at the crack of dawn
I've been working like a regular dog
to keep my woman and the lights
and the water and the phone turned on"
-David Allan Coe "Time Off For Bad Behavior"

When they put them handcuffs on me, Lord how I fought to resist
But agent clamped 'em tighter, 'til that metal bit into my wrist
They took my belt and my billfold, my fingerprints, and the profile of my face
And then they locked away the only hell my mama ever ever raised
-Johnny Paycheck "Only Hell My Mama Ever Raised"

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: the lemonade lady
Date: 26 Jul 17 - 03:22 AM

"See how the Cormorant swoops and dives,
Must be some thrill to go that deep
Down to the basement on this life
Down to where the mermaid gently sleeps

From Noel Brazil's Columbus

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: GUEST,Willierespond
Date: 26 Jul 17 - 04:37 AM

"I'm going now, from bonds and from bosses, they privatised the boom and socialised the losses"

I'm Going Now

Kevin Doherty (solo CD -- member of 4 Men and a Dog)

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 26 Jul 17 - 06:08 AM

You made me love you

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: GUEST,Andiliqueur
Date: 26 Jul 17 - 07:47 AM

"We'll never see what lies ahead if we keep on looking back" from the last verse of Leaving the Land by Eric Bogle.

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: Elmore
Date: 26 Jul 17 - 11:50 AM

Love is never wasted even when it's hard love. From "Hard Love" by Bob Franke.

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 26 Jul 17 - 02:42 PM

I saw a mouse!
(Where?)
There on the stair!
(Where on the stair?)
Right there!
A little mouse with clogs on
Well I declare!
Going clip-clippety-clop on the stair
Oh yeah!

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 26 Jul 17 - 02:46 PM

I've got a bike. You can ride it if you like.
It's got a basket, a bell that rings and
Things to make it look good.
I'd give it to you if I could, but I borrowed it.
You're the kind of girl that fits in with my world.
I'll give you anything, ev'rything if you want things.

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: Elmore
Date: 27 Jul 17 - 02:26 PM

"If our bones bleach on the desert, we'll consider we are blessed" from "Tonight We Ride", by Tom Russell.

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: mg
Date: 06 Aug 17 - 08:23 PM

from boatie rows

muckle lighter is the load when love bears up the creel..

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: Jon Dudley
Date: 07 Aug 17 - 02:15 AM

'For it's many a dark and a cloudy morning turns out to be a bright sunshiny day...'

Banks of the Sweet Primroses.

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: GUEST,I was there
Date: 07 Aug 17 - 11:50 AM

I never died, said he.

(Least favourite, as you asked: This land is your land (because it WASN'T)).

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: gillymor
Date: 07 Aug 17 - 01:06 PM

"That was a million light beers ago."

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Aug 17 - 02:15 PM

Of the house I was born in there is but a stone on a stone.

The Chieftans, The May Morning Dew

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: GUEST,Richard
Date: 07 Aug 17 - 04:29 PM

"Her hands so soft, her breath so sweet, her tongue did gently glide" from "When a man's in love" (trad.)
Here's one we should all agree on:-
"One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain"
Trenchtown Rock - Bob Marley
But compare:
"Be not afeared: the isle is full of noises, sounds and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not"
Great minds....

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: Deckman
Date: 07 Aug 17 - 05:41 PM

"Do you remember our nights of courting,
   When your head lay on my breast,
You could make me believe by the falling of your arm,
   That the sun rose in the West" .... Walt Robertson

bob(deckman)nelson

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: Hagman
Date: 07 Aug 17 - 08:07 PM

"Her daddy was lazy and no-count, claimed he had a bad back"

Polk Salad Annie - Tony Joe White.

Very concise!

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: gillymor
Date: 07 Aug 17 - 08:35 PM

"Going on down to the railroad track,
Let the 4:19 scratch my back."

The Band

"If I thought it would do any good,
I'd stand on the rock where Moses stood."

also The Band

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: Gabriel
Date: 09 Apr 18 - 06:28 AM

I have a new favourite.
From th eCape Breton song 'When first I came to Caledonia'.
"He had a daughter; she made good tea."

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: GUEST,Joe Nicholson
Date: 09 Apr 18 - 07:03 AM

Whenever some daft executive told us to do something silly which in my working lif was quite often I always thought of the line Our officers commanded us and them we must obey.

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: GUEST,David Coxell
Date: 09 Apr 18 - 07:18 AM

You pick up a girl and you think you're so smart
She's acting kinda coy, you swear you're breaking her heart,
But all that you're left with when she's emptied your purse,
Is a jibe from the doctor and a jab from the nurse.

The Train Song - Jonathan Kelly

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: GUEST,Andiliqueur
Date: 09 Apr 18 - 07:36 AM

"But we never learn, trusting in the fire while the cool flame burns"
Richard Thompson 'Persuasion'.

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: GUEST,Andiliqueur
Date: 09 Apr 18 - 11:11 AM

Oh dear. I'm wrong. I always thought it was "cool flame" but it's "cruel flame". Don't like it as much now. I'll get me coat....

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: GUEST,Observer
Date: 09 Apr 18 - 11:47 AM

Or to lie on the decking on a warm Summer's evening
And watch the red sun fall burning beneath the Earth's rim - Eric Bogle

OR:

Now prosperity is the finest tree that stands in all creation
Beneath it's boughs we will speed our plough to join the Polish Nation - Brian McNeill

The latter could have been written by Robert Burns.

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: meself
Date: 09 Apr 18 - 03:00 PM

Save your money when you're young, my boys,
You'll need it when you're old.

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: mg
Date: 09 Apr 18 - 04:50 PM

for donald was the bravest man and donald he was mine...from highland widow's lament.

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 10 Apr 18 - 03:04 AM

“A-wop-bom-a-loo-mop-a-lomp-bom-bom!
Tutti frutti, good booty.”

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: GUEST,Harry
Date: 10 Apr 18 - 03:18 AM

For me, the greatest first line :

The Mississippi delta was shining like a National guitar . . . .

Oooooo the possibilities

....... and, the line that always makes me chuckle:

She told me again she preferred handsome men but for me she would make an exception.

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: GUEST,Harry
Date: 10 Apr 18 - 03:32 AM

EVERY line in Tom Waits' Heart Attack and Vine but especially:

Don't you know there ain't no devil there's just God when he's drunk?

And (another chuckle):

See that little Jersey girl in the see through top,
Over by the pedal pushers suckin on a soda pop.
I bet she's still a virgin but it's only twenty-five to nine.
You can see a million of them on Heart Attack and Vine.



Come to think if it, pretty much every line from the pens of Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits; and, most of Paul Simon's.

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: Mrrzy
Date: 10 Apr 18 - 09:25 AM

In English:

I'll set my sail of silver, I'll loose my rope of silk
My mast is of the cypress tree, my mast is of the cypress tree
My track is as milk

I'll set my sail of silver, I'll steer towards the sun

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: Gordon Jackson
Date: 10 Apr 18 - 09:31 AM

"Lend me your ears while I call you a fool." The Witch's Promise, Jethro Tull.

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: GUEST,keberoxu
Date: 10 Apr 18 - 12:26 PM

Nobody else can walk it for you,
You got to walk it by yourself

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: GUEST,Jerry
Date: 10 Apr 18 - 03:55 PM

If anyone asks you who composed this song
Tell them it was me and I sing it all day long.

It’s nothing special or even remotely profound, but I love the bravado sentiment.

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: dick.hamlet
Date: 11 Apr 18 - 12:06 AM

Tom Lehrer's MLF Lullabye:
...and one of the fingers on the button will be German.

Craig Johnson's Keweenaw Light:
The lies and the highways that carried me away.

In Terrytown:
For she has gold and riches more than me.

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: Hamish
Date: 11 Apr 18 - 04:07 AM

"Just when you least expect it: just what you least expect". Er, The Pet Shop Boys

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: GUEST,ottery
Date: 11 Apr 18 - 04:23 PM

"Last night I dreamed a dreadful dream,
Beyond the Isle of Skye
I saw a dead man win a fight
And I think that man was I"

From the Battle of Otterburn, as sung by June Tabor.

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: robomatic
Date: 13 Apr 18 - 07:42 PM

Dan Bern:

"Everything I know I learned from my dad,
He learned it all from his,
And his dad just happened to be-
WRONG ABOUT EVERYTHING!"

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: GUEST,Philippa
Date: 14 Apr 18 - 04:19 PM

I might think of a different favourite line from a song, but the one that comes to my mind just now is from "The Boys of Barr na Sráide", especially the second half of :
We jumped for joy beneath the sky;
Life knew no print or plan ...

{I can't say I'm enamoured of what comes next about hunting for the wren!)

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: GUEST,wallacemacnow
Date: 14 Apr 18 - 05:39 PM

Ive got teeth to keep my gold in and whiskers on my soul.

Bob Coltman - Sleepy Owlsey

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: BTMP
Date: 14 Apr 18 - 06:12 PM

I've always liked the line from Merle Haggard's I'm Going Off the Deep End:

My weakness is stronger than I am.

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: GUEST,Captain Swing
Date: 14 Apr 18 - 08:02 PM

Mother Superior jump the gun

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: Roz
Date: 17 Apr 18 - 04:17 PM

Don't confront me with my failures; I have not forgotten them

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: leeneia
Date: 18 Apr 18 - 11:06 AM

There are lunatic survivalists with Gucci bandlieros
taking tacky, khaki walkie-talkies to the rendezvous...


from 'The F-word' by Peter and Lou Berryman

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: Joe_F
Date: 20 Apr 18 - 06:09 PM

I went down in my socks and ran into the fox.

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: Lighter
Date: 20 Apr 18 - 08:01 PM

"Thunderin' Jazus! Ye think I'm dead?"

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: kendall
Date: 20 Apr 18 - 08:12 PM

"If I had it to do all over again, I'd do it all over you."

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: Joe_F
Date: 21 Apr 18 - 06:16 PM

When out of blossomed Normandy another pirate came.

If ever you heard a little dog bark.

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: Paul Burke
Date: 21 Apr 18 - 06:57 PM

Last year, when I wasn't listening, Joe Offer wrote "Joe Offer, suffering through a hundred-degree week"

They are American degrees- Fahrenheit degrees- not real degrees. Only 78 in EuroDegrees, not what we call hot oop North,

Favourite line(s)?

She has taken a brace of pistols
And she has shot her false Willy O...

Subject: RE: What's your favorite line from a song
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 22 Apr 18 - 01:41 PM

Step right up folks
See Little Egypt do her famous dance of the pyramids
She walks she talks, she crawls on her belly like a reptile
Just one thin dime, one tenth of a dollar
Step right up folks!!