Best Line in a Song

Subject: Best Line in a Song
From: Mrrzy
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 09:01 AM

I could have sworn there was a thread on this, but I couldn't find it. Elves, please consolidate if there is one, thanks.

Top this recently rediscovered one, and name the author:

Stories of tortures / Used by debauchers / Lurid, licencious and vile...
Make me smile.

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: GUEST,PMB
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 09:47 AM

Tom Lehrer. But I prefer THIS sort of stuff:

Sweeney the thin-groined it is,
in the middle of the yew;
life is very bare here,
piteous Christ, it is cheerless.

Grey branches have hurt me,
they have pierced my calves,
I hang here in the yew-tree above,
without chessmen, no womantryst.

I can put no faith in humans
in the place they are;
watercress at evening is my lot,
I will not come down.

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: Micca
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 10:00 AM

On Raglan Road, on an August day
I saw her first and knew,
that her dark hair might weave a snare
that I might one day rue.

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: alanabit
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 10:00 AM

I think it is Tom Lehrer's "Smut". I don't know the second song at all.

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: bubblyrat
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 10:17 AM

The one I always remember comes from a song,a 'hit' in the 1950s, about a girl who lived on "Wolverton ( I think )Mountain", and whose father was to be feared as, I quote ;
    "He's mardy hayandy with a gurn and a narf " ,or that's what it sounds like ! ( Do Americans really talk like that ?? ).

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: Sandy Mc Lean
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 10:21 AM

"Some will rob you with a six gun; some with a fountain pen."
       Woody Guthrie's Ballad of Pretty Boy Floyd.

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 10:21 AM

Three of my favourite lines, in their setting:

Clive James: A King at Nightfall

"You spun the crown away into a ditch
And saw the water close
The army that you fed now feeds the crows
A king at nightfall
You're gonna have to watch your manners now
   And never let your face show what you're missing
   Don't wait for them to bow
   Stick out your hand for shaking, not for kissing"

Clive James: About the death of an ordinary man - a metalworker:

"He was used and discarded in a game he didn't own
But when the moment of destruction came
He showed that a working man is more than flesh and bone
The hands on his chest flared more brightly than his name
For a technicolor second as he rolled into the flame

   Though he had no great gifts of personality or mind
   He was generally respected, and the proof
   Was a line of hired Humbers tagging quietly behind
   A fat Austin Princess with carnations on the roof"

Clive James: "I see The Joker", about a Mafia boss fearful for his life:

"We do the journey different every day
Today we hit the garment district first
Then double back and take the boulevarde
And as we drive I don't know which is worst
To know he'll come but not to know the way
To know he'll make a play but not know how
Is he somewhere out there setting up the gun?
Is this headache from his crosswires on my brow?
There's no way, not a crevice, not a crack
That he can reach me, but when I cut the pack I see the Joker
I cut the pack and see the Joker"

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 10:37 AM

Clive James, The Practical Man:
There are some ideas you can't play round with
Can't let go of and you can't give ground with
'Cause when you die they're what you're found with
There are just some songs that are not for sale

Clive James, The Hypertension Kid:
"It's my lousy memory" I told the Kid
"What other men forget I still remember
The flies are still alive inside the amber
It's a garbage can with rubbish for a lid"

also
"But I love the little darlings" sighed the Kid
"The slide from grace is really more like gliding
And I've found the trick is not to stop the sliding
But to find a graceful way of staying slid

"As for the dreadful memories" said the Kid
"They're waste and poison in the spirit's river
Relax your hands and let the bastards quiver
They tremble more the more you keep it hid"

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: mrmoe
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 10:45 AM

"....my lover comes to me and tells me of her dreams
with no attempt to shovel a glimpse into the ditch of what each one means"


and then there's:

"....my thirsty wanted whiskey; my hungry wanted beans"

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: bubblyrat
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 10:46 AM

Got to agree with you there, George----That there " Hypertension Kid" is something else !! But surely ,nothing could ever surpass " I asked the waiter for Iodine, but I dined all alone " ?? ( from " Your Red Scarf Matches Your Eyes "). Wat zegt U ??

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: GUEST,Riverman
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 10:48 AM

All the guys turn the colour of Avocado
When he drives down the street in his Eldorado

Jonathan Richman (John Cale): Pablo Picasso

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: topical tom
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 10:55 AM

What can you do with each moment of your life
    But love til you love it away,
    Love til you love it away.

    From "Thanksgiving Song" by Bob Franke

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: GUEST,DWR
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 10:58 AM

Mary Chapin Carpenter in Never Had It So Good:

But when she burns you again
And your phone doesn't ring
Baby, it's me.

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: Midchuck
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 11:04 AM

Recent similar thread.

P.

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: Leadfingers
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 03:19 PM

Where are the flowers that we put into the muzzles of the guns
Dried up and pressed inside a frame they never get a second glance

G . Pavgeris !

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: PoppaGator
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 03:37 PM

bubblyrat:

I remember "Wolverton Mountain," an early-60s crossover hit out of Nashville, although I wouldn't have rendered the hillbilly accent quite as outrageously as you do.

A couple of years ago, I attended a reunion of the coffeehouse/folk-music crowd from my college days. A few of the guys had stayed in touch over the years and occasionally played together as a sort of just-for-laughs jug band, and had adopted "Wolverton Mountain" as their tongue-in-cheek theme song. Of course, the whole gang joined in enthusiastically and made the song everyone's theme for the weekend. The biggest and most gleeful laughs always came at the lines ~ sung extra-slowly:

H-e-r - t-e-n-d-e-r - l-i-p-s
A-r-e - s-w-e-e-t-e-r - t-h-a-n - h-o-n-e-y

We all employed our most outrageously exaggerated backwoods accents, of course.

Now, none of the above represents a "best line" of lyrics, so this message has been strictly thread-drift. Before I try for a serious, on-topic contribution to this thread, I'll have to think a bit more. I'm sure I can come up with a quote or two from Bob Dylan and/or Robert Hunter (Jerry Garcia's lyric-writing partner) that can measure up to those really nice bits from Clive James.

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: GUEST,patty o'dawes
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 04:40 PM

She had a snake for a pet and an amulet
She was breeding a dwarf but she wasn't through yet.

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: Nick
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 04:58 PM

"You know the times you impress me most
Are the times when you don't try"

first Joni Mitchell line of many that came to mind

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: Bill Hahn//\\
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 04:59 PM

John Prine---Sometimes You Have To Lose Your Mind To Keep Your Sanity

Bill Hahn

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: Cool Beans
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 05:03 PM

They're billing me for killing me
      --"Lord Have Mercy on the Working Man," sung by Travis Tritt but I don't know the author.

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 05:15 PM

Jackson Browne's "Before the Deluge" is about the difficulties in trying to opt out of the rat-race and live a true "hippy" type existence. In the extract that follows, Jackson describes the moment the resolve to live an alternative life-style was broken by attractions of modern city life.
" ... and in the end he traded his tired wings
       for the resignation that living brings,
       and exchanged love's bright and fragile glow
       for the glitter and the rouge ..."

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 05:25 PM

How can you lie there and think of England
When you don't even know who's in the team?

- Billy Bragg

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 05:40 PM

Oh, wouldst I could kick the habit, and give up smoting for good. http://dmdb.org/lyrics/sherman.folksinger.html#3

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: GUEST,David Jones, Guest
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 06:11 PM

Fred Wedlock wrote in his song "Jogging",

Now look here Fred the Misses said you'r getting much too fat,
She poked me in the belly, said you'll have to shift all that,
You'll have to get some exercise, you'll have to understand;
A balanced diet doesn't mean a pint in either hand.

David Jones

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 06:22 PM

"The music room would make you grin
It's cold as a freezing pit
There's a hole in the wall where a lorry came in"

Angel Delight - Fairport Convention

Charlotte (keeping an eye on the wall in her music room)

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: Tootler
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 06:24 PM

Westron Winde when wilt thou blow
The smalle raine down can raine
Christ that my love were in my armes
And I in my be again

Anon, 16th. Cent.

Not a song, but I love the opening sentence of Pride and Prejudice

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife"

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: open mike
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 06:46 PM

the line from Michael Smith's The Dutchman comes to mind:
He sees their unborn children in her eyes.
(or is it she sees their unborn children in his eyes?)
I think Greg Brown had a similar line in a song of his..

"Spring Wind"

I lived awhile without you,
darn near half my life.
I no longer see our unborn children,
run to you my unwed wife.

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: oldhippie
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 07:35 PM

I always liked the David Mallett lyric, "life is a rainstorm, but love is the ark";
and from Kate Wolf "You came when you were needed, I could not ask for more, Than to turn and find you walking, Through the kitchen door."

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: SouthernCelt
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 07:38 PM

I always liked the lines in "For Love" by Robert Earl Keen, Jr. (I think he wrote it):

"I asked him before he died, what made him cross the line?
He asked me did I mean the line I just stepped across."

SC

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: Nick E
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 07:42 PM

She danced like she had NO bones
In same song, She was dressed in a scarf and a sneeze...(David Bromberg)

or the words of another folk singer of Jewish extraction..

I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes, then you'd know what a drag it is to see you! (Bob)

or on a more POP music note ...Pretty women walking with gorillas down my street...

(All lyrics are likely paraphased as I suffer from CRS)

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: Suegorgeous
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 07:53 PM

You say the magic's gone but I'm not a magician
You say the spark's gone, well, get an electrician...

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: number 6
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 07:59 PM

There's plenty of good lines but the following comes to my mind at this time.

"There's a hole in daddy's arm where all the money goes,
Jesus Christ died for nothin' I suppose."

.. by John Prine.

biLL

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: Dave Earl
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 08:08 PM

"that her dark hair might weave a snare"

Ouch Micca if that was Red instead of dark.......

But! For my money :-

"may the sun always shine where ever you are,
But you'll still need the darkness to show you the stars"

The Night is Young by Colum Sands
Dave

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: Joe_F
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 08:57 PM

Well, I am going to be literal & mention single lines:

Walking in his footsteps in the sweet delta dawn.
Married girl, married girl, rocks the cradle and cries.
I'll get myself up in some right high degree
O Thou Who changest not, abide with me.
Too late, my brothers! Too late, but never mind.
Some helped in small ways, some helped in hallways
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
I've looked on love from both sides now
Say, don't you remember? I'm your pal.
Da ya kuryashchaya
Where many a rooster like himself sat waiting for his tea
And so far no dead ends
The sun shines owre the westlin hills by the lamplicht o the moon
First flower of their wilderness, star of their night
Then turn your high horse heid about
The man o independent mind
Her hair shone like gold in the hot morning sun
So I eat a good breakfast and go back to bed.
I have been a good boy, and done what was expected.
Get in there and blow out the light.
I'd walk on down that silver lane
Life is a toil, and love is a trouble
Since love is lord of heaven and earth
And now I have lived, I know not how long
Tie my bones to his back, turn our faces to the west
And you the foremost o' them a' shall ride our forest queen
Die Liebe dauert oder dauert nicht
And turns to put the mirror gently face down by the stove
"Es kann drei Tage kosten." "Kam'rad, ich komme gleich."
And some of them will marry, and one will marry me.
Give motherlove and lumpytums.
I've a neater, sweeter maiden in a cleaner, greener land.
Tonight there'll be but three.
He was born on land, but he sure enjoys the skies.
The silent stars go by
And here comes the chopper to chop off your head.
Alas! it was to none but me.
Rechka dvizhitsa i ne dvizhitsa,
Your face will shine through all our tears
And mother catechises me till I want to go out and swear
A dragon lives forever, but not so, little boys
This world is a world of lies
Rozhenkes mit mandeln
Put my boots on tall, read the writing on the wall
Greasy rails, red clay trails
Chickens crowing on Sourwood Mountain
Sweet whips, ding-dong
Que je me souviens eux.
And our friends in South America, though them we never saw

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: GUEST,TonyK
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 11:08 PM

Later on the crowd thinned out
and I was just about to do the same.      Dylan

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: Fred Maslan
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 11:25 PM

Lightfoor's

"You can't jump a jet plane
Like you can a freight train.
So I'd best be on my way
in the early morning rain."

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: Janice in NJ
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 11:27 PM

It shall never be said in old England I slew a naked man.

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: GUEST,jeff
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 12:13 AM

He said, "Oh baby, I'm crazy 'bout you.' She looked the othter way and said , "OhYeah? Well me,too" Tom Dundee from his song 'A Long Letter and a Short farewell'.

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: number 6
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 11:21 AM

" Hear them singing
All the women of Pompeii
Standing with the Nagasaki housewives in doorways
In eruptions and destructions on doomsday"

... from the Yard went on Forever by Jimmy Webb

biLL

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: The Unicorn Man
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 11:26 AM

My favorite is "Merry Christmas you arse hole, Thank god it's our last"    The Pogues. Fairy Tail in New York, of course.

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: Bru
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 11:32 AM

"And I'll stand over your grave, till I'm sure that you're dead"

Bob Dylan - Masters Of War. An oldie, but goldie.

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: BTMP
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 12:16 PM

I like Merle Haggard's line from the song 'Going Off of the Deep End' where he sings: "My weakness is stronger than I am."   -btmp

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 12:23 PM

"He wore his gun outside his pants for all the honest world to feel"

"Now you wear your skin like iron, your breath's as hard as kerosene"

- Townes Van Zandt

"Money doesn't talk, it swears"

- Dylan

"Nothin' ain't worth nothin', but it's free..."

- Kristofferson

"But to live outside the law you must be honest"

- Dylan

"the church of mad love is such a holy place to be"

- David Bowie

"he not busy being born is busy dying"

- Dylan

She said, "Where ya been?"
I said, "No place special."
She said, "You look different."
I said, "Well, I guess..."
She said, "You've been gone."
I said, "That's only natural."
She said, "Ya gonna stay?"
I said, "If you want me too...YES!"

- Dylan

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: number 6
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 12:46 PM

"The only thing we knew for sure about Henry Porter is that his name wasn't Henry Porter."

.... from Brownsville Girl by Bob Dylan and Sam Shepard

biLL

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: number 6
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 12:50 PM

"Its a pink, pink, pink, pink, pink moon."

... from Pink Moon by Nick Drake

biLL

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: john f weldon
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 12:53 PM

This is from the best songwriter of all Mr Trad Anon, from "Young Edwin"

The fish out on the ocean
Swim o'er my true love's breast
His body's in a slow and gentle motion
I hope his soul's at rest.

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: GUEST,Jonny Sunshine
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 12:59 PM

"My head and my heart fought like brothers torn apart
I got Cain-ed and completely un-Abel"

from "Big Baboon" by Flipron, who are one of the best bands I've heard in a long while (look 'em up)

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: The Mole Catcher's Apprentice (inactive)
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 01:10 PM

well alright...I couldn't resist... I was reminded of it because of another thread, about the ancient British television programme, 6.5 Special

Hoots mon,there's a moose
loose aboot this hoose

complete nonsense but oh so funny

Charlotte (one quarter Scottish)

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 01:29 PM

Between Marx and Marzipan in the dictionary, there was Mary

I never made the first team, I just made the first team laugh
And she never came to the phone, she was always in the bath

No amount of poetry could mend this broken heart
But you could put the hoover round if you want to make a start

One dark night, he came home from the sea
And put a hole in her body where no hole should be


- all courtesy of The Bard of Barking

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: The Mole Catcher's Apprentice (inactive)
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 01:31 PM

ying tong iddle i po..

Charlotte (one of six charlies in search of an author)