Favorite Lines

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 09 Sep 10 - 06:40 PM

"If you don't like my peaches, don't shake my tree"

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Joe_F
Date: 09 Sep 10 - 06:19 PM

Too late, but never mind.

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: RTim
Date: 08 Sep 10 - 06:35 PM

I have a line in a version of Bold Manning I will be attempting to learn some time this year.
It goes like this:

"Now some they slew and some they slay, and some they killed outright,"

Some might say - Over Kill!!

Tim Radford

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Bernard
Date: 08 Sep 10 - 06:27 PM

For me it has to be the opening line to Jake Thackray's 'On Again, On Again'...

'I love a good bum on a woman it makes my day!'...!!

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 08 Sep 10 - 06:19 PM

"But when you fell asleep with blood on your teeth" - The Handsome Family, 'So Much Wine'

"I was born a lonely singer and I'm bound to die the same
But I've got to beat the hunger in my soul,
And if I never have a nickel I won't ever die of shame
'Cause I don't believe that no one wants to know."

Kris Kristofferson, 'To Beat the Devil"

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 08 Sep 10 - 06:13 PM

And nobody mentions the classics.....
"A man ain't nothin' but a man"
"Death, cold death, came hasting along"
"A haint can't haint a haint, my good old man"

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Joe_F
Date: 08 Sep 10 - 05:40 PM

Married girl, married girl, rocks the cradle and cries.

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: GUEST,guesta
Date: 08 Sep 10 - 05:17 PM

all in all, you're just a brick in the wall. (Pink Floyd)

the storm is breaking or so it seems, we're too young to reason, too grown up for dreams. (Bryan Ferry)

oh mama dear we're not the fortunate ones, but girls just wanna have fun.

I took her to a supermarket, i had to start it somewhere, so i started there...I said pretend you've got no money / she said oh you're so funny i said yeah? i don't see anyone else laughing here.

Oh Deborah your house was very small with woodchip on the wall.

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: meself
Date: 25 Sep 08 - 07:51 PM

There were scuffles in the crowd,
And the night got rather loud,
From a-joltin' one another to and fro;
While old men with foreheads bare,
Threw their dusters in the air,
Wanting someone for to fight them at Gros Haut.

It may raise the price of shirts,
But there's no one badly hurt,
And I hope there's no ill feelings to bestow;
There's been picnics here before,
A little nearer to the shore,
But they might be called twin brothers at Gros Haut!


Okay, those last few lines might require some explanation, but anyway, that's a bit of The Picnic at Gros Haut (or The Tea at Gros Haut?), a Prince Edward Island folksong I assume was collected by Sandy Ives ...

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Sorcha
Date: 25 Sep 08 - 07:39 PM

Do lines from films count? If so....


From The Long Riders...
'I hope you are all havin' a reeelll goood time, cuz I am'
Belle Starr just before the knife fight


'Vil sum kind soul please show dis poor asshole de vay out of town?'
'Rabbi' Gene Wilder in Frisco Kid

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego
Date: 25 Sep 08 - 06:46 PM

For no particular reason, the many verses of "Thais," a comic take on the operatic heroine and her erstwhile saviour, Athanael, have been stuck in my head for over fifty years. The last two verses pretty well sum up the poor man's dilemma:

      So forth from Alexandria,
      From wicked Alexandria,
      Across the desert sands they go
      Beneath the blazing sun;
      Till Thais, parched and sweltering,
      Finds refuge in the sheltering
      Seclusion of the convent,
      In the habit of a nun!

      And now, the monk is terrified,
      To find his fears are verified;
      His holy vows of chastity
      Have cracked beneath the strain,
      Like one who has a jag on,
      He cries out in grief and agony:
      "I'd sell my soul to see her do the shimmy once again!"

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: chazkratz
Date: 25 Sep 08 - 06:05 PM

I love the last verse of John Hartford's "Gentle on My Mind":

I pull my cup of soup back from a gurgling, crackling cauldron in some train yard
My beard a dusty coal-pile and my dirty hat pulled low across my eyes
Through cupped hands round a tin can I pretend to hold you in my arms and find
That you're moving on the backroads by the rivers of my memories
Ever smiling, ever gentle on my mind

And from Flanders and Swann:

Have some Madeira, m'dear, you really have nothing to fear
I'm not trying to tempt you, that wouldn't be right
You shouldn't take spirits at this time of night
But have some Madeira, m'dear

and of course, the last lines of the song:

"Have some Madeira, m'dear,"
The sound seemed to ring in her ear
Until the next morning she woke in her bed
With a smile on her lips and an ache in her head
And a beard at her earlobe* which tickled and said
"Have some Madeira, m'dear"

*"lug hole" in the original--which is funnier, but most of us Yanks wouldn't understand it.

And a bunch of lines by Kris Kristofferson

Charles

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: GUEST,Abdul the Bul Bul on his laptop
Date: 25 Sep 08 - 01:46 PM

Just to dance beneath the diamond skies with one hand waving free

You come right inside of me, close as you can be, you kiss my blood and my blood kiss me.

Al

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: alanabit
Date: 25 Sep 08 - 09:02 AM

"I met a man whose name was time
He said,"I must be going".
But just how long ago that was, I have no way of knowing
Sometimes I want to murder time
When my poor heart is aching
But mostly I just walk along the path that he is taking."

Robin Williamson from "October Song".

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Cool Beans
Date: 24 Sep 08 - 06:12 PM

As through this world I ramble
I've seen lots of funny men:
Some rob you with a six-gun,
Some with a fountain pen.
   Woody Guthrie, "Pretty Boy Floyd" and forever current.

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: kendall
Date: 24 Sep 08 - 04:59 PM

..the waves rolled up like mountain tops and the wind like a thing in pain. (Bob Coltman)

Our conversation was quite short,
Five minutes at the most
But he stood before me like a child and conjured up the ghosts
Of friends and kinfolks from an older and a slower time
And fify years just disappeared like minutes in his mind.. (Old Blue Ox, Dave Mallett)

And you're wondering what Marian found to do
That's better than coming to see you one last time
No more Robin, no more, your outlaw days are over . (Bob Coltman)

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: C. Ham
Date: 26 May 06 - 08:42 AM

Come gather round me children, a story I will tell
I've been around since Jesus met the woman at the well
I've walked these roads ten thousand years, I'm a ragtime millionaire
I am the rake and the ramblin' saint, the man from God knows where

(and every other line from every song on Tom Russell's The Man From God Knows Where)

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Alba
Date: 25 May 06 - 11:45 PM

Just give me a long,slow moving Freight Train.
Don't want no fast, high flying Airplane.
Just sing me a slow, lonesome old love song, before too long....
I'll be long gone.

Slow Moving Freight Train by Hugh Moffat
( I love Hugh Moffat singing his song but I also love Seldom Scene's version too)

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: number 6
Date: 25 May 06 - 11:27 PM

"He has no friends
But he gets a lot of mail
I'll bet he spent a little
Time in jail...
I heard he was up on the
Roof last night
Signaling with a flashlight
And what's that tune he's
Always whistling...
What's he building in there?
What's he building in there?

We have a right to know..."

What's He Building? ... by Tom Waits

sIx

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: GUEST,Hutzul
Date: 25 May 06 - 10:36 PM

"Screamed like a panther in the middle of the night"
    Willie

I may be a wage slave on a Monday
But I'll be a free man on Sunday

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Rapparee
Date: 25 May 06 - 02:49 PM

More lines that have a special meaning for me and, I suspect, to many veterans:

...And when the ship pulled into Circular Quay
I looked at the place where my legs used to be
And thanked Christ there was no one there waiting for me
To grieve, and to mourn, and to pity.

And the band played Waltzing Matilda
As they carried us down the gangway
But nobody cheered
They just stood there and stared
Then they turned all their faces away.

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Steve-o
Date: 25 May 06 - 12:37 PM

Now the years have left me bitter, the drink has dimmed my brain; for Dublin keeps on changin', and nothin' seems the same; the Metropole and the pillar are gone, the Royale long since torn down; as the grey unyielding concrete makes a city of my town.
These evocative lines are burned into my memory, perhaps somewhat incorrectly, from "Dublin in the Rare Auld Times".

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Dan Schatz
Date: 25 May 06 - 11:34 AM

I'm glad to remember Margaret, Jerry - it is always good to remember those who have done truly wonderful things.

Here's another line from the same song, "Them Stars."

It's the description of Coyote as

"That yap throated critical vamint who never
Is pleased with what other folks do...."

(And wasn't that brilliantly put to music?)

Dan Schatz

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Bill D
Date: 24 May 06 - 05:29 PM

the last two lines in "I've Rambled This Country, Both Earlye and Late" (recorded by Mike Seeger)
(a song of maudlin reflection by a fellow who realizes his "true love" has just taken up with someone else)

"And since it is no better, I'm glad that it is no worse-
Brandy in my bottle, and money in my purse."

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Scoville
Date: 24 May 06 - 05:07 PM

Creedence Clearwater Revival, from "Lodi":

"If I only had a dollar for every song I'd sung,
Every time I had to play while people sat there drunk . . . "

Haven't had to do that very much myself but I've been to enough shows by decent bands where the audience just didn't give a damn.




And all of "Faded Coat of Blue". Normally I'm immune to Victorian schmaltz but that sucker gets me every time.

And almost anything by Hazel Dickens.

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 24 May 06 - 04:40 PM

Hey, Dan: Thanks for remembering Margaret.

(I thought I was exceptionally gracious not to take the 100th post..)

Jerry

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: GUEST,Dan Schatz at the office
Date: 24 May 06 - 04:37 PM

The very sad news about Margaret MacArthur reminded me of one of my all time favorite lines from the cowboy poem she put to music:

"Religion? You don't know its primary branches
If you ain't been alone with the stars."

- a poem adapted by Margaret MacArthur, Them Stars

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: BB
Date: 24 May 06 - 04:24 PM

From a version of 'Cottage Well-Thatched with Straw':

'Sunday saints I despise, with their chatter and lies;
They're as constant as melting snow...'

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Crystal
Date: 24 May 06 - 04:42 AM

I bought the new SOH Album last week and decided that my current favourite line in any song is:

"And a minister said his vision of hell,
Is three folk singers in a bar near Wells,
But I have a vision of urban sprawl,
It's pubs where no-one ever sings at all."

Chillingly accurate.
I wasn't terribly impressed with the rest of the album to be honest though!

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: GUEST,Milead
Date: 23 May 06 - 05:45 PM

Has anybody mentioned yet...

"At the age of fourteen he was a married man,
Age of fifteen the father of a son.
Age of sixteen on his grave the grass was green"

From "Trees they grow high" Sadness made poetry.
Cheers

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: harryrages
Date: 23 May 06 - 03:55 PM

One sung - never forgotten

OGGY MAN
(Cyril Tawney)

Well the rain's softly falling and the oggy man's no more
I can't hear him calling like I used to before
I came through the gateway and I heard the sergeant say
The big boys are coming, see their stand across the way
Yes the rain's softly falling and the oggy man's no more

It was there that she told me when she bade me good bye
There's no one will miss you one half as much as I
My love will endure, dear, like a beacon in the squall
Eternal as the oggy man beneath the dockyard wall
Well the rain's softly falling and the oggy man's no more

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: kendall
Date: 23 May 06 - 08:48 AM

I come home from work she meets me at the road,
Not to tell me that she loves me, but the toilet overflowed.
(Sandy Paton)

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: cetmst
Date: 23 May 06 - 07:15 AM

Another line from John Prine's 'Paradise' - I'm sorry my son but you're too late in asking, Mr. Peabody's coal train has hauled it away.

From 'Come By the Hills' - The cares of tomorrow must wait 'til this day is done.

Remember me at the close of a long, long day.

England hath taken me.

Jean Ritchie's Now is the cool of the day.

Jean Ritchie: No more will black waters run over my land.

Jean Ritchie: The L&N don't stop here any more.

Pretty nearly anything else by Jean Ritchie.

My heart breaks as you take your long journey.

A happy-ever-after life was not the kind they got
But they tended to be happy more often than not. - Bob Blue,'Ballad of Erica Levine.

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Alba
Date: 22 May 06 - 11:02 PM

Indeed Ferrara, how could anyone have but one line of one Song they love to Sing or Hear:)

People are strange we move around closely,
only to find we are miles apart.
Busy putting up fences with no Gates to open.
Constructing defenses around our Hearts


and I have long loved the picture this verse paints:

Now the warriors of winter they gave a cold triumphant shout
And all that stays is dying, all that lives is getting out
See the geese in chevron flight flapping and a-racing on before the snow
They've got the urge for going, and they've got the wings so they can go

Urge for Going ~ Joni Mitchell

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 22 May 06 - 10:53 PM

"Blacker than night were the eyes of Felina,
WIcked and evil while casting a spell.
I was in love with this Mexican maiden,
I was in love, but in vain, I could tell."

Seamus

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Ferrara
Date: 22 May 06 - 10:10 PM

I guess no one who loves to sing could have just one favorite line, huh? The first thing that came to mind when I started reading this thread was a verse from "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day""

Then in despair I bowed my head,
"There is no peace on earth," I said,
"For hate is strong and mocks the song
"Of peace on earch, good will to men."

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep,
"God is not dead, nor doth he sleep --
"The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,
"With peace on earth, good will to men."

I don't believe such a thing ever will or can happen on this earth, but the words ring out with such hope and brilliance that I love to hear or sing them.

... In an entirely different vein, here's a couple of lines I like very well. I like the intensity and honesty of the lady's anger and vengefulness!
   
I hope there is a day a-comin'
When love shall put an end to me
And that there is a place of torment
To contain my love for deceiving me.

   - From "Come All Ye Fair and Tender Ladies," as sung by Sheila Kaye Adams.

There's another version of the same song, from Arizona I believe, that has a great line in it:

He'll tell to you some pleasant story,
And say he loves no one but you,
And this is all for to blight your day,
And that's the love he has for you!

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Stewie
Date: 22 May 06 - 09:26 PM

From 'Black Angel Cure' by Mark Germino:

Now I shoot the darkness down, I puncture what is swollen
And sometimes I'll tear it down, just to keep it rollin'

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: GUEST
Date: 22 May 06 - 07:55 PM

From the "Jute Mill Song" aka "Ten and Nine";

Oh dear me - the world is ill divided
Them that works the hardest are the least provided

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: kendall
Date: 22 May 06 - 05:44 PM

The world is always turning toward the morning. (Gordon Bok)

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Charmain
Date: 22 May 06 - 05:08 PM

God forgot the Green in Greenland
He made the flowers of Ice and Snow

Icy Acres

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Geordie-Peorgie
Date: 22 May 06 - 05:03 PM

Around the world he travelled beneath the ensign, high
He saw the south sea's flying finsh and the starless Arctic sky
But in his heart a-pining for someone so far away
AS THE BOW-WAVE SPLIT THE COOL NIGHT-AIR, HE HEARD THE LEE-WIND SAY..

          "Down By The Dockyard Wall" Shep Woolley

All of "We Stayed Awake" by Huw Williams - Especially the bit where his teenage daughter just has to grasp his finger..... Then I'm wrecked

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Rapparee
Date: 22 May 06 - 04:58 PM

The killer and the cynic waltz together
Their eyes are turned into their skulls
They do not feel the bullets in the bodies
They do not hear the dolphins or the gulls

If we do these things in the greenwood,
what will happen in the dry?

                      -- Peter Yarrow, Greenwood, 1973

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Charmain
Date: 22 May 06 - 04:51 PM

Promise me we won't go into the nightclub
I feel so f**ked up when I'm in there
Can't tell the bouncers from the customers
And I don't know which ones I prefer

Promise me we won't go into the nightclub
I really think that it's obscene
What kind of people go to meet people
Someplace they can't be heard or seen

- How true...

"Light Enough To Travel" the Be Good Tanyas

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: number 6
Date: 22 May 06 - 04:28 PM

"There's a big old goofy man, dancin' with a big old goofy girl
Oooh baby, it's a big old goofy world"

Its a Big Old Goofy World ... by John Prine

sIx

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: kendall
Date: 22 May 06 - 04:18 PM

..and all the things done to make a man run,
the hard luck and the failures of age...

..then I stopped with a crash...we looked into the ash
helpless with longing and rage.
Utah Phillips (Phoebe Snow)

...the clock in the kitchen says quarter past three
As the gates are flung open from hell,
But time here is frozen the clock ticks no more
Just the ashes the cinders and smell.

Fire, by Dave Mallett

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: GUEST,Art hieme
Date: 22 May 06 - 04:17 PM

from a harmonica blues as sung by Frank Hamilton--1961:

I could sit right here---and look a thousand miles away!

Art

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Ebbie
Date: 22 May 06 - 11:42 AM

"I still haven't found what I'm looking for" U2

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: dwditty
Date: 22 May 06 - 11:34 AM

Also from ANother Time and Place (Van Ronk) - See C Ham's post a couple up from here:

I'd trade my time in heaven
For a day with you, my dear

dw

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Mr Fox
Date: 22 May 06 - 11:27 AM

The rabble rout forbore to shout and each man held his breath
For well they knew a hero's soul was face-to-face with death

- Montrose, Steeleye Span


We could leave right now
maybe it's getting light out there
papers in the alley
just a little rain

- We Could Leave Right Now, Oysterband

Speaking of the Oysters, the whole of 'Granite Years' because it reminds me of the time I lived in a certain Kent seaside town that shall remain nameless. Some of the worst times of my life. But, paradoxically, some of the best too.

Down there in the dark they are lying
They died for nine shillings a day

- Gresford Disaster, Anon

And how could I forget?

For England is not flag or Empire it is not money and it is not blood
It's limestone gorge and granite fell it's Wealden clay and Severn mud
It's blackbird singing from the may tree lark ascending through the scales
It's robin watching from your spade and English earth beneath your nails

- A Place Called England, Maggie Holland

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: C. Ham
Date: 22 May 06 - 11:26 AM

'Cause if a fool be he
He's a fool like me

-Bruce Murdoch

You are right from your side
And I am right from mine
We're just one too many mornings...and a thousand miles behind

-Bob Dylan

Let me sing to you all the old songs I know
Of wild, windy places locked in timeless snow
And wide crimson deserts where muddy rivers flow
It's sad but the telling takes me home

-Utah Phillips

I never thought I was special at all
I never dreamed I could be
Just another coat hanging there in your hall
Look at what you have done to me

-Tom Mitchell

If I could hide the way I feel I'd never sing again

-Utah Phillips

I could have loved you better, didn't mean to be unkind
You know that was the last thing on my mind

-Tom Paxton

The miles flow on and I am gone
To a wild and empty land
Where time is like an empty room
And space an empty hand
And the things we said and the jokes we told
Are echoes in the waste
We'll meet again where hills are green
In another time and place

-Dave Van Ronk