Help: lines that jump out at you

Subject: lines that jump out at you
From: kendall
Date: 27 Mar 01 - 09:38 PM

I'm curious about something. Does anyone else learn a whole song for one line in it? Or, is there a strong line in a song in which you like the whole song? Example, Stan Rogers' MARYELLEN CARTER... With smiling bastards lying to you everywhere you go...

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: Bert
Date: 27 Mar 01 - 09:43 PM

Dammit Kendall. I did just that, with that same line in that same song.

Great bloody line isn't it.

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: MMario
Date: 27 Mar 01 - 09:48 PM

frequently

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: gnu
Date: 27 Mar 01 - 09:54 PM

Oh yeah, big time.

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: Matt_R
Date: 27 Mar 01 - 09:56 PM

Yes I have! Lot's of time!

The Blackbird:
But let them deny me, let them do what they will
While there's breath in my body, she's the one I love still

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: gnu
Date: 27 Mar 01 - 09:59 PM

Oops !

Oh Yeah, big time. I find quite a few songs that, for me and perhaps me alone, revolve around that one line or phrase, which makes me have to share it with others and to try to convey that one thought with the delivery. Some of 'em just reach and grab you by the booboo.

gnu

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: kendall
Date: 27 Mar 01 - 10:00 PM

how about some examples of your own. What grabs you?

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: Amos
Date: 27 Mar 01 - 10:02 PM

"Such a coaxsome elf, I was ashamed of meself
Fer to find I was truly there!"

did it for me and the Maid of the County Down. Another that caught my fancywas "Her masts and spars they shone like silver...", and the one about the long-tailed black man come up behind in Whoop Jamboree. Oh, and "My curse is on ye, Sweeny...ye have me fairly robbed!" from the Rocks O' Bawn. And "yer man, Nick McCann, from the Banks of the Bann". "Snugger with me than it is at sea...", "Dressed up in a lady's apron, I wandered most forlorn....", "five hundred brave Americans, a-whaling for to go...."; "When a man ends up on the smoking end of a long, black rifle..." "Don't you think dearest Phyllis, you had better agree...."...Oh! Cruel Barbry Ellen.... And I won't be reconstructed, and I do not give a damn! I could go on and on; every song I keep playing has a hook of a line in it (or more than one) which just won't let go, for whatever reason.

A

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: Big Red
Date: 27 Mar 01 - 10:21 PM

I wish to the Lord I'd never been born, Or had died when I was young; And never had seen your sparkling blue eyes Or heard your flattering tongue.

ALL THE GOOD TIMES

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: gnu
Date: 27 Mar 01 - 10:24 PM

Well, right off, I was just talking about moose birds on another thread and that brought to mine Tull's "Sparrow on the Schoolyard Wall", which has many thought provoking lines and imagery. The Sparrow on the Wall, a child, is told truths profound and humourous, e.g., "Too many broths can spoil the cook."

Another, simply through association, is Tull's, from the same release , which I cannot name right off, White Innocence, a song in semi-balland form, of a young lady friend bidding the singer the last goodbye... " She turned and looked at me with white innocence, With the clearest eyes of forever grey...". Well, that grabbed me.

Well, there's a couple, Kendall. What about yours ? If I knew what kind of tunes you prefer, I might be able to cite some examples from that genre.

gnu

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: MMario
Date: 27 Mar 01 - 10:27 PM

from "The wolfhound" - oh faithful hound, oh trusty hound

from "3 Score and ten" - there was many a heart of sorrow

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: gnu
Date: 27 Mar 01 - 10:28 PM

In White Innocence, IN.... sorry

gnu

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: Sorcha
Date: 27 Mar 01 - 10:41 PM

"in the early morning rain, with a dollar in my hand"
"wish I was a single girl again"
"know me if you will by the wind on the hill, for you'll know me by no other name"
"one toke over the line, sweet Jesus"
"I'd give all I own if I could atone, to that silver haired Daddy of mine"

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From:
Date: 27 Mar 01 - 10:50 PM

Kendall--

It's worse than that. The purpose of our evolving from the primordial slime to where we could wrap opposable thumbs around guitar necks is so that the couplet

Feed on your water, shovel in your coal, Stick your head out the window, watch the drivers roll.

could be written and performed. It's all down hill from here.

Seriously, I think if you look at how bits like this migrate from folk song to folk song, it's because those lines speak to people. It isn't just the singers, I found recently. Walking out of a hall where we had just done some old-timey stuff, I was buttonholed by an old man in the audience who just fed me back a half-verse out of 45 minutes of stuff--

That dirty little coward That shot Mister Howard Laid Jesse James in his grave.

I guess we're talking Jung here, or something. Shared subconscious images. To Hell with Jung. It's fun just talking "Kendall & me."

Chicken Charlie

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: GUEST,Old JoeBoy
Date: 27 Mar 01 - 10:51 PM

This is from "Drifter's Wind" by Chuck Pyle:

"Married life fit like a glove -- kinda tight and kinda thin."

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: catspaw49
Date: 27 Mar 01 - 10:58 PM

Sure. For instance, all of these from the same songwriter.............

"Reality is bad enough, why should I tell the truth."

"I've got roots that need a plantin' and a love that needs a growin'. ... where my pride won't have to bend and my lips can taste the wind"

"In yesterday's 'Times' today I read, how Sgt. Pepper never played"

"But yesterday don't matter when its gone away."

"It's many a mile I have spent on this road. It's many a mile I have gone."

"My fingers they have turned to brass, my eyes have turned to clay."

Spaw

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: Dave Swan
Date: 27 Mar 01 - 11:08 PM

Three Merry Men from Kent gives us this:

"and we shall be merry, merry here, for who can know where we may go to be merry another year..."

from Rathdrum Fair, this image:

"and the old mare will stumble and bite at the wind while you sleep in the saddle with your collar turned in"

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: Matt_R
Date: 27 Mar 01 - 11:25 PM

"Your love is better than a warm trombone".

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: Sorcha
Date: 27 Mar 01 - 11:29 PM

"trombone"?? Matt, I think you got a problem there, bud. Trombone? ok,.....bone, slide in, slide out, warm is better than cold.........uh, OK, I'll stop.

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: Gypsy
Date: 27 Mar 01 - 11:56 PM

I've sure done it with tunes. Love the b part to The Rose Tree, but the a part....ugh!

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: Matt_R
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 12:03 AM

"and it's a beautiful rain, beautiful rain, beautiful rain..."

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: DonMeixner
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 12:12 AM

Almosy every line in MacPherson's Rant scream to be sung.

"It burns my heart, that I must depart, and no avenged be"

Gordon Bok's "Little River" has the same effect.

"Empty sounds from the breakers calling me, back to shore"

Jerry Jeff Walker's My Old Man

"Still in all, I recall I said when I was young, No one else could really sing the songs he sung."

Townes Van Zandt's Caroline

Her ways were free and it seemed to me, Sunlight walked beside her"

Too many to pick just several :-).

Don

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: GUEST,Bardford
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 12:31 AM

Sometimes, about all I remember from a song is one or two lines, or fragments. John Prine has some great ones:
"There's a hole in daddy's arm where all the money goes,"
and:"Old people just get lonesome, waitin for someone to say, hello in there, hello."

and: "Sittin' in my bathtub, countin' my toes
when the radiator broke, the water all froze
got stuck in the ice without my clothes
naked as the eyes of a clown."
Craig Moreau, from Calgary, wrote a song called The Final Price of Grain, about a farmer beset by bad times. Every time I hear it, these lines stick to the insides of my ears for a few days:
I was in the Navy, in the Navy I should have stayed
'Cause fighting wars off foreign shores beats farming any day."
Also the Rolling Stones Heartbreaker:
doodoo doo doo doo doo"
Cheers, Bardford

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: GUEST,RW
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 12:43 AM

"Good king Wenceslas looked out on the feast of Stephen"

You gotta love a song that starts out with a name like Wenceslas. I also like the version from Walt Kelly's "Pogo":

"Good King Sauerkraut looked out on his feets uneven."

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 12:53 AM

"See them tumblin' down, pledging their love to the ground."

Just about anything by Bob Nolan has great grabber lines. Also Tommy Makem:

"By far-off shores my feet have wandered,
Heard a stranger call me friend
Any time my mind was troubled,
Found a smile around the bend."

"Long ago, I used to be a young man,
And dear Margaret remembers that for me."

from The Dutchman by Michael Smith.

All the best.

Seamus

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: mousethief
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 02:23 AM

I learned to play "Pacing the Cage" by Bruce Cockburn just because of the first half-stanza, viz.:

Sunset is an angel weeping
Holding out a bloody sword
No matter how I squint, I cannot
Make out what it's pointing toward...

Ye gods and juleps, if I could write poetry that good.

Alex

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: GUEST,Nancy
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 03:17 AM

Most of the songs I love to sing have at least a line, usually a verse I really love

If it should be that your baby's a girl
Never you mind if her hair doesn't curl
Rings on her fingers, bells on her toes
A bomber above her wherever she goes...

Sleep is a river, goes on forever...
And for your boatman, choose old John o' Dreams

Ye haven't an arm, ye haven't a leg
Ye're a hopeless shell of a man on a peg
And you'll have to be put w' yer bowl ta beg
Johnny I hardly knew ya

So come all ye young sea-farin' men, And listen to me song
When you go off on them long trips, I'd have ye's do no wrong
Take my advice, drink no strong drink, Don't go sleepin' with no whores
But get married lads, and have all night in, and go to sea no more...

Getting out my guitar right now....

Nancy

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: Joe Offer
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 03:37 AM

I visited my singing buddy Jim in the mountains today. I thought my visit two weeks ago was the last time I'd see him alive, but he surprised us - he's still hanging onto the life he has enjoyed so much. Two weeks ago, I thought he was the sickest man I had ever seen in my life; but he was still able to get out his guitar and sing four songs with me, and he played "I'll Fly Away" on my harmonica. Today, he couldn't speak; and he couldn't sit up unless I held him. I sat by him for two hours, singing to him and reminding him of all the good times we had singing together. I knew his wife before she met Jim, and I told him how intense and sincere and serious she was - and how wonderful it was that he had been able to teach her to laugh.

I've been trying to learn Bob Franke's "Thanksgiving Eve," and I sang it for Jim today. It's not a perfect song, but there are two lines in it that perfectly describe my friend Jim:

But the grace to accept every moment as a gift
Is a gift that is given to some

I told him I thought that gift was something we had in common, the thing that has bound us so close together. Jim couldn't say anything when I finished the song, but he squeezed my hand and smiled his marvelous smile. He's so sick, but I still had a delightful time with my friend Jim today.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: wdyat12
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 05:00 AM

Kendall,

My favorite is a line from Gordon Bok's "Peter Kagan and the Wind" which says it all for me.

" I'm not afraid wind." But, damnit he sould have been!

wdyat12

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: Snuffy
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 07:40 AM

Then she made her way homeward with one star awake

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: GUEST,Matt_R
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 08:08 AM

"One light, one mind
Flashing in the dark
Blinded by silence of a thousand broken hearts"

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: GUEST,Midchuck upstairs when should be in office
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 08:47 AM

Well, this isn't a line, it's a whole verse, but:

"This old Martin guitar
Built in 1946
It's scratched and stained and splintered
With nails and guitar picks.
But it's been my close companion
Since 1962.
Please don't ask me to decide
Between this guitar and you."

- Tom Russell, What Do You Want From Me

Peter.

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: GUEST,Fibula Mattock
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 08:56 AM

"Flow river flow, f*ck off to the sea" from Ding Dong Denny O'Reilly's (The Hairy Bowsies) album - a "geographical folk song" (i.e. songs about rivers, mountains etc.) Very moving.

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: kendall
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 10:04 AM

I thought that line from County Down was ,,Such a winsom elf, I had to shake meself to see I was really there?

Ok good stuff folks. BTW Little River was written by Ruth Moore. Gordon made the tune.

a line from Dave Malletts Old Blue Ox. An old man wandered away from home looking for people who were long dead.."And 50 years just disappeared like minutes in his mind."

..and I saw what it had done, and I wished I was dead, never knew there was worse things than dying.. Eric Bogle.

Today will soon become tomorrow, how I'd like to leave the past behind, for 'though I know it only brings me sorrow, to love again would only be unkind..U.Phillips

for some will lead the crippled, and some will lead the blind, but what of alms for him whose wound is of the mind.. U.Phillips.

.."but Kagen reads it wrong this time" Gordon Bok

When he hits that low note on that giant 12 string guitar, it IS the crack of doom.( It's tuned down to C)

Sorry folks, I'm having one of my "What the hell is the point" days.

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: Whistle Stop
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 11:05 AM

"'Have you heard the news?' he said with a grin
'The vice-president's gone mad!'
"Where?''Downtown''When''Last night'
'Hmmm... say, that's too bad!'"

Right, Spaw?

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: kendall
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 01:07 PM

When the government wiped out the Metis in Regina Sas. it goes.. The bullets flew and the cannons roared, the Metis' blood flowed like a river,Into the coolies where they ran to hide, it washed their dreams away, and their spirit died.. Bill Gallaher Victoria B.C.

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: GUEST,Pete Peterson at work
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 02:47 PM

Yeats' poem about The O'Rahilly, which I don't think has been set to music (unfortunately it has the same meter as Yellow Rose of Texas, the tune to which I sometimes sing Emily Dickinson poems. But I digress)

because I helped to wind the clock
I come to hear it strike

(O'Rahilly explaining to Pearse and Connolly why he was fighting in the Easter Rebellion having argued so strongly in private against a rising)

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: chip a
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 03:09 PM

In silent white mansions of stone, Maggie, have each found a place of rest........or: My face is a well written page Maggie, and time alone was the pen. Short lines which, if said in other words, would take volumes. How 'bout: and then one night in some rented room, where curtains never hung....

Peace, Chip

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: tiggerdooley
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 03:22 PM

More than one line really, but I don't care:

So dry your eyes. no more tears
Hold me once and I'll walk out of here
Who knows one day, we'll meet again
But don't wait for me 'cos the wind knows my name...

Gets me every time. You all know that one, right?

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: Matt_R
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 03:30 PM

Ah yes...Fairground Attraction...songs for a sunny summer afternoon...

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: tiggerdooley
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 03:37 PM

And for a rainy Sunday!

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: tiggerdooley
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 03:37 PM

And for a rainy Sunday!

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: Kim C
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 03:48 PM

There were spaces between Donald and whatever he said
Strangers had forced him to live in his head

and

I hate graveyards and old pawn shops
Cause they always bring me tears
I can't forgive the way they rob me
) Of my childhood souvenirs

and

Blow up the TV

and

you're gonna make me lonesome when you go

and

I wish I was on yonder hill That every tear would turn a mill
Oh Johnny is gone for a soldier

and

The three men I admire most
The Father, Son and Holy Ghost
They caught the last train for the coast
The day the music died

and

If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice

and

I don't want the world to see me
Cause I don't think that they'd understand
When everything's made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am

and

With every heartbeat I still think of you
And remember our faded love

and

We loved each other then Lorena
More than we ever dared to tell

and

I'm lord and master of a fool's Taj Mahal
Who says you can't have it all

and

In my life I love you more

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: kendall
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 03:57 PM

I'll give you back your ring and letters, And the picture I love so well, And, henceforth we will meet as strangers, But, I will never say "Farewell".. (Fond affection) recorded by Joan Sprung.

And..."but, our good times are all gone, and I'm bound for moving on, I'll look for you if I'm ever back this way".. Four strong winds.

And, you're wondering what Marian found to do, That's better than coming to see you one last time.. Lonesome Robin by Bob Coltman

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: tiggerdooley
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 03:58 PM

What about this one:

Don't care if I sit here forever holding nothing but my heart

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: Big Mick
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 04:01 PM

Pete, I love that line by the O'Rahilly.

"By trade I was a cooper, lost out to redundancy, like my house that fell to progress, my trades a memory" Pete St. John

"Sometimes she sees, her unborn children, in his eyes" Michael Smith

"Courage, brother, you do not walk alone. We will walk with you and sing your spirit home" Eric Bogle

"As through this world I travel, I've seen lots of funny men, some rob you with a pistol, others with a fountain pen" "as through this world I roam, I've never seen an outlaw, drive a family from their home" Woody Gutherie

All the best,

Mick

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: Kim C
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 04:03 PM

ooops....that should read

I wish I was on yonder hill
Tis there I'd sit and cry my fill
That every tear would turn a mill
Oh Johnny is gone for a soldier

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: Hawker
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 04:06 PM

'But when the fish and tin are gone, what are the Cornish Boys to do?'
Cornish Lads by Roger Bryant

'Oh the rain is softly falling and the Oggy man's no more'
The Oggie Man by Cyril Tawney

'And I've woven meself too far in'
The four loom weavers lament

'When my days are over, Haul away to heaven'
Farewell Shanty

'We'll play the game over and over and over again!'
The Game of All Fours

'But all I could answer was Teddy O'Neil'
Teddy O'Neil

'Eee she were a big 'un - wi' emphasis on the Big'
Rawtenstall Annual Fair

Sowing in the morning, sowing seeds of kindness
Bringing in The sheaves

More? HUNDREDS!!! - though I have to say that I am also attracted by the tune and the way the words snuggle inot it, for instance, in 'She Moves Through The Fair' The words 'Like a swan in the evening moves over the lake - I first heard this sung by Josef Locke on an old recording of father in Law's, he sings it like she is mo-o-oving over the lake, it's so descriptive
Lucy

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: Melani
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 04:19 PM


"We were ninety-one days to Montego Bay, pumping like madmen all the way..."

"If it weren't for the alligators, I would sleep out in the wood..."

"I will dress in men's clothing, to his regiment I'll go, and I'll be a true soldier, and I'll fight all his foes..."

"Perhaps in battle I might fall, from a shot from an angry cannon ball, and you so far from your daddy's hall..."

"The captain said, 'Let him be, for he's sober out to sea, and he bakes a better pie than my mother.'"

I could go on and on. Every song has a favorite line or verse.

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: tiggerdooley
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 04:20 PM

If the kids are united they will never be divided!