best single lines in songs

Subject: RE: best single lines
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Mar 05 - 10:44 AM

Subject: RE: best single lines
From: GUEST,Splott Man who clicked too soon before
Date: 14 Mar 05 - 10:46 AM

"Sometimes she sees her unborn children in his eyes"

from Mike Smith's Dutchman

Subject: RE: best single lines
From: YorkshireYankee
Date: 14 Mar 05 - 01:38 PM

Oops... that "And see that maiden shining in his eyes" post is from me (didn't realize I'd lost my cookie.)

Subject: RE: best single lines
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Mar 05 - 02:32 PM

"Did they get ya ta trade, yer heroes for ghosts, hot ashes for trees, hot air for a cool breeze?" -"Wish You Were Here," Pink Floyd

Subject: RE: best single lines
From: GUEST,Bex McK
Date: 14 Mar 05 - 02:48 PM

"Freedom, oh freedom, that's just some people talking...." The Eagles, Desperado

"I hope when I die and the ages do roll, my body will blacken and turn into coal. Then I'll look from the door of my heavenly home, and pity the miner that's diggin my bones" Merle Travis, Dark as a Dungeon


Too many good ones, but those are two of my favs.

Oh yeah, and I really like "Walkin due south, out of Roanoke, I caught a trucker out of Philly, had a nice long toke"-- from Wagon Wheel by the Old Crow Medicine Show.

Subject: RE: best single lines
From: katlaughing
Date: 13 Jul 06 - 05:22 PM

refresh...this is one of the good old ones, imo

Subject: RE: best single lines
From: Peace
Date: 13 Jul 06 - 05:24 PM

"Honey I don't care, I ain't in love with your hair."

Subject: RE: best single lines
From: freightdawg
Date: 13 Jul 06 - 10:16 PM

"He was born in the summer of his 27th year,
Coming home to a place he'd never been before" John Denver, Rocky Mountain High

"The wind is the whisper of our mother the earth" JD, Windsong

"In a place of enchantment, where the wild things are known,
Will the future remember, when the lovers are gone?" JD, A Song For All Lovers

"And you wonder where we're going, where's the rhyme, where's the reason" JD, Ryhmes and Reasons

Oh love to some is like a cloud
to some as strong as steel,
For some a way of living,
For some a way to feel,
And some say love is holding on
And some say love is letting go,
And some say love is everything,
And some say they don't know..." JD, Perhaps Love

Freightdawg, in a real Colorado frame of mind.

Subject: RE: best single lines
From: GUEST,Joe_F
Date: 14 Jul 06 - 12:36 AM

Too late, but never mind.

I hear the noise of wings.

If ever you heard a little dog bark

Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with His heel

She makes a small hole in the frost on the window

Walking in his footsteps in the sweet delta dawn.

And Mary gathered cherries while Joseph stood around.

And pass as light by him as he can by me

First flower of their wilderness, star of their night

Her hair shone like gold in the hot morning sun.

Till the rain comes tumbling down.

Follow me, follow me home.

I'll pass the time like some machine

There'll be no policemen there

And painted rooms are bonny

And now I have lived, I know not how long

Tie my bones to his back, turn our faces to the west

Amid these dark satanic mills

If I were a woman as I am a man

It will all come right by tomorrow night

Die Liebe dauert oder dauert nicht

And turns to set the mirror gently face down on the stove

Unsre beiden Schatten sahn wie einer aus.

And some of them will marry, and one will marry me.

Give motherlove and lumpytums.

With smiling bastards lying to you everywhere you go

Seduced a maid who hanged herself one Monday in her garters.

Just need you, baby, when the summer come.

I'm tired of living and scared of dying

The silent stars go by.

Alas! It was to none but me.

Trudno vyskazat' i ne vyskazat'

Your face will shine through all our tears

And in the fight that followed

But not so little boys

Cool Colorado rain

This world is a world of lies.

When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall

Rozhenkes mit mandeln

Put my boots on tall, read the writing on the wall

Rocks the cradle and cries

We weren't lovers like that, and besides, it would still be all right.

Greasy rails, red clay trails

I'd say snow's what we've got.

Chickens crowing on Sourwood Mountain

Sweated in the sun that was hot at dawn

Sweet whips ding dong

Let the 2:19 ease my troubled mind

She said she'd meet me when I come

Oh, when will we ever learn?

--- Joe Fineman    [e-mail]

||: Reason will conflict with faith so long as respect for evidence conflicts with contempt for evidence. :||

Subject: RE: best single lines
From: Bill D
Date: 14 Jul 06 - 05:43 PM

re: unrequited love.

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

from: I've Rambled this Country, Both Earlye and Late

Subject: RE: best single lines
From: Snuffy
Date: 14 Jul 06 - 05:53 PM

Then she made her way homewards, with one star awake

Subject: RE: best single lines
From: Big Mick
Date: 14 Jul 06 - 06:12 PM

Will Rogers never met Howard Cosell

Subject: RE: best single lines
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Jul 06 - 07:11 PM

"I thought that I'd find
A place or a time
When someone or something
Would last..."

I Walk Alone

At the moment I don't remember the author's name.

Subject: RE: best single lines
From: David C. Carter
Date: 14 Jul 06 - 07:26 PM

I've made shoes for everyone,but I still go barefeet.Dylan

You can see clear down to the bottom,deeper.
Depending on where you stand,how you look, and what you wanna see.
Rodney Crowell.

Subject: RE: best single lines
From: frogprince
Date: 14 Jul 06 - 07:54 PM

Man, where does a guy really start? So many of the ones already given have been stuck under my skin for years, too.

Someone beat me to "I gave her my heart, but she wanted my soul"

"He's a pilgrim, and a preacher, and a problem when he's stoned"
                Kris, "The Pilgrim, Chapter 33.

"I have seen the David; I've seen the Mona Lisa, too; and I have heard Doc Watson play Columbus Stockade Blues"
                Guy Clark, "Dublin Blues".

"You come home straight, and you come home curly; sometimes you don't come home at all"
               John Prine, "The Speed of the Sound of Loneliness"

"Yesterday's dead, and tomorrow is blind, and I live one day at a time"         
               Willy Nelson, "One Day at a Time".

Subject: RE: best single lines
From: David C. Carter
Date: 14 Jul 06 - 07:59 PM

"But the lady beside me is the one I have chosen,
To walk through my life
Like a coat from the cold"
Guy Clark

Subject: RE: best single lines
From: Dave Earl
Date: 14 Jul 06 - 08:12 PM

May the sun always shine wherever you are,
But you'll still need the darkness to show you the stars

Rest for a while - Colum Sands

Subject: RE: best single lines
From: freightdawg
Date: 14 Jul 06 - 11:54 PM

"When people say that life is rough,
I wonder, 'compared to what?'" Charley Pride, I'm Just Me

Freightdawg

Subject: RE: best single lines
From: katlaughing
Date: 15 Jul 06 - 12:05 AM

freighdawg, I love JD's stuff, too, but when he said this one: "The wind is the whisper of our mother the earth" , I don't think he'd ever been to Wyoming! Hardly a whisper there!:-)

Great posts, folks! Thanks!

Subject: RE: best single lines
From: Abuwood
Date: 15 Jul 06 - 03:58 AM

" You'll never miss what's given to a friend"
Reap and Sew Barry Temple

Subject: RE: best single lines
From: GUEST,old git
Date: 15 Jul 06 - 05:38 AM

"The priest was sprinkling prayers and holy water in the rain"

The man in the hat ----Colum Sands

Subject: RE: best single lines
From: GUEST,old git
Date: 15 Jul 06 - 05:47 AM

"Yes to dance beneath a diamond sky with one hand waving free
Silhouetted by the sea.........
Let me forget about today until tomorrow"


Mr Tambourine man ----Bob Dylan



not exactly a single line...but still....

Subject: RE: best single lines
From: clairerise
Date: 15 Jul 06 - 05:49 AM

sugar, aw honey honey

Subject: RE: best single lines
From: The Sandman
Date: 15 Jul 06 - 07:02 AM

Heres a few;While beating off Magellan straits,it blew exceeding hard
Two Jolly Tars we did lose,. blown from the topsall yards.
By angry seas the ropes we threw, from their poor grasps was torn
We had to leave them to the Sharks,that prowl around Cape Horn from The gallant frigate amphitrite.
       From sailortown. C Fox Smith, Dick Miles
Off a broad brimming water, where the summer sun has died .
Like a wounded whale a sounding, in the sunset tide.
       Bantry Bay song, Dick Miles
across the heathery moor came the curlews call.
While Dragonflys danced their farewell ball.
       DickMiles

Subject: RE: best single lines
From: GUEST,old git
Date: 15 Jul 06 - 07:21 AM

my favourite put down

I said to her," me darling and how are you this morning?"
She said,"None the better for the seeing of you!"

from the shanty "Wild goose"( Ranzo)

Subject: RE: best single lines
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Jul 06 - 09:02 AM

Subject: RE: best single lines
From: freightdawg
Date: 15 Jul 06 - 08:54 PM

Kat, I'm sure JD had been to Wyoming, its just that you all live so far apart up there that the mother earth has to whisper just a little bit louder to be heard. (snicker)

And I should have mentioned that I don't think Charley Pride wrote "I'm Just Me" but he sang the song. The line I quoted starts off the second verse and, whoever wrote it, I think it is one of the best lines in all songdom.

Freightdawg

Subject: RE: best single lines
From: Bert
Date: 15 Jul 06 - 11:52 PM

Nice selection GUEST Joe F.

I'm gonna cheat and quote one of my own. (I think ALL my lyrics are great HEE HEE)

"Don't make her choose between her pride and you"

Subject: RE: best single lines
From: Joe_F
Date: 17 Nov 21 - 06:01 PM

I've a neater, sweeter maiden in a cleaner, greener land.
-- Kipling, "Mandalay"

Subject: RE: best single lines
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 17 Nov 21 - 06:19 PM

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


...Woody describing the Columbia River in his song Grand Coulee Dam. How's that then!

Subject: RE: best single lines
From: GerryM
Date: 18 Nov 21 - 04:05 AM

We are riding on a railroad, singing someone else's song. James Taylor

Subject: RE: best single lines
From: David C. Carter
Date: 18 Nov 21 - 05:46 AM

"Even the President of the United States must sometimes have to stand naked".

Subject: RE: best single lines
From: David C. Carter
Date: 18 Nov 21 - 05:48 AM

Shoulda said that line was from Dylan.

Sorry.

Subject: RE: best single lines
From: PHJim
Date: 18 Nov 21 - 09:06 AM

"They're tearing down buildings that I watched them build." -Shel Siverstein

"To me you're as fair as you were Maggie, when you and I were young."
-George W. Johnson

"My face is a well written page Maggie, and time alone was the pen." -George W. Johnson

"64 percent of all the world's statistics are made up right there on the spot and 82.4 percent of people believe 'em whether they're accurate statistics or not" - Todd Snider

"Is that the sun goin' down over there in the west or just a headlight glow, C&O Express?" -Utah Philips

"The silence of a falling star lights up a purple sky
And as I wonder where you are I'm so lonesome, I could cry" -Hank Williams

Subject: RE: best single lines
From: Sol
Date: 18 Nov 21 - 09:51 AM

"...And when they're on a roll she pulls a razor from her boot
And a thousand pigeons fall around her feet.
So put a candle in the window and a kiss upon his lips
As the dish outside the window fills with rain......"

Time - Tom Waites
-----------------

"...And in your lonely flight
Haven't you heard the music in the night?
Wonderful music
Faint as a will o' the wisp
Crazy as a loon
Sad as a gypsy serenading the moon."

Skylark - Hogey Carmichael/Johnny Mercer

Subject: RE: best single lines
From: Joe_F
Date: 18 Nov 21 - 06:09 PM

And overside I heard him call my name.
-- Stan Rogers

Subject: RE: best single lines
From: GUEST,Martin Ryan
Date: 18 Nov 21 - 06:32 PM

“These words were composéd by Spencer the Rover …”

To me, that’’s one of the great opening lines of the tradition but … it’s all downhill after that!

Regards

Subject: RE: best single lines
From: Jim McLean
Date: 19 Nov 21 - 03:18 AM

“Mr Ben Nevis you’re as old as the hills” Bob Halfin.

Subject: RE: best single lines
From: GerryM
Date: 19 Nov 21 - 06:41 AM

Blow the dustcake from your nose – Stan Rogers

Subject: RE: best single lines
From: GerryM
Date: 19 Nov 21 - 06:43 AM

There is a crack, a crack in everything; that's how the light gets in. – Leonard Cohen

Subject: RE: best single lines
From: GerryM
Date: 19 Nov 21 - 06:45 AM

If dirt was a kingdom, then you'd be the king. – Utah Phillips

Subject: RE: best single lines
From: RTim
Date: 19 Nov 21 - 12:24 PM

"The cork is in the bottle..but the Whisky is in me..."

Tim Radford

Subject: RE: best single lines
From: PHJim
Date: 19 Nov 21 - 01:18 PM

So you'd better go romance her before she hauls off and flies to France, sir
Or up and dies of cancer And it's no longer your choice to make
-Vance Gilbert

Subject: RE: best single lines
From: PHJim
Date: 19 Nov 21 - 01:20 PM

Goodbye Pluto, Being number nine was nice till you
Lost your planetary status. Now you're simply rock and ice
-Vance Gilbert

Subject: RE: best single lines
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Nov 21 - 05:18 PM

Dixie Chicks : "he was a missing person no one missed at all".

Subject: RE: best single lines
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Nov 21 - 05:18 PM

pS   - also the saddest.

Subject: RE: best single lines
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Nov 21 - 06:43 PM

Following on from Tim:

"There's a thousand years of history drowned in that whisky glass..."

(Elvis Costello, via Christy)

Subject: RE: best single lines
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Nov 21 - 10:42 PM

She spoke of astrology while muttering apologies
For coffee that tasted of hot dogs
I said 'That's OK, mine was cold anyway, and just grand'
Then she lay on the bed while the radio fed us
With records and adverts for cat food....

Al Stewart - In Brooklyn

(Mr S certainly had a knack imho for making poetry from the mundane)

Subject: RE: best single lines
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Nov 21 - 11:03 PM

All the world seems in tune on a spring afternoon when we're poisoning pigeons in the park....

Tom Lehrer

Subject: RE: best single lines
From: PHJim
Date: 21 Nov 21 - 12:44 AM

"First it's D and then it's G, then A, then back to D, G a little more and then back to A"
John Hartford (My Rag)