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)

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 01:44 PM

I think it is wonderful that a new thread was started, although I don't mind links to old threads. But I hate opening up a thread from 2003 when it is 2008 now. Anyway, their was a lot of consensus in previous threads for "if it weren't for the alligators I'd sleep out in the swamp." mg

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: open mike
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 02:18 PM

ting tang walla walla bing bang
oo ee oo ah ah ting tang walla walla bing bang
(the witch doctor)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8qDphoQPdw

and then there is the one eyed one horned flying purple people eater
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9H_cI_WCnE

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: Mrrzy
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 03:36 PM

The only person on the scene missing was the Jack of Hearts...

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: GUEST,Ken Brock
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 03:53 PM

two of my favorites are from one song, Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart's "Take Him" (from Pal Joey, 1940):

last year his arm was busted, reaching _from_ a check

and later

so here's my benediction, please take my Benedict, too.

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: oldhippie
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 04:41 PM

More;

"Deliver me lord from the judgement
Of the Saints who have never been caught" - Larry Jon Wilson

"Your light still shines
It's one small star to guide me" - Eric Bogle

"'Cause I know I'm going nowhere
And anywhere's a better place to be" - Harry Chapin

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: The Mole Catcher's Apprentice (inactive)
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 04:50 PM

"Gonna see Miss Brer Foxhole she's got diamonds in her teeth"

- W.S. Walcott Medicine Show. The Band

Charlotte (up on Cripple Creek)

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: JulieF
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 05:00 PM

Always loved

I saw a shooting star last night
i wished on it but it was just a satelite
its wrong to wish on space hardware
I wish, i wish you care

billy bragg - new England

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 05:06 PM

What's interesting about this is that no one has commented on posters' choice of "best lines". Maybe, they only really work in the context of the complete song.

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: GUEST,Brendan
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 05:26 PM

I heard Louis Killen singing a song last week that I think was written by Mike Waterson. The song was about a common working man whose run of bad luck was described beautifully with the brilliant line....

If he fell into a barrel of ladies parts he'd climb out sucking his thumb.

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: Art Thieme
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 05:59 PM

If you do not when you may, you shall not when you would!
   from Blow Away The Morning Dew-as sung by Ewan MacColl

Aint it enough to break your heart,
You've got to work all day, and at night it's dark.
   Hard Times In The Mill as sung by Pete Seeger

He has both come and gone! (?)

This young couple were childhood sweethearts,
She was a child and he was a hood.
In my song called That's The Ticket But this line actually is from Carol Thieme if you really want the truth of it!!!
(So there...)

Art Thieme

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: GUEST,Frank Lee
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 06:09 PM

Eddie Cochrane's, 'I called my Congressman and he said, quote,
"I'd like to help you son, but you're too young to vote" From 'Summertime Blues'

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 06:19 PM

"they asked for some collaterol, and I pulled down my pants" - Dylan

"ADAM RAISED A CAINE!!! ADAM RAISED A CAINE!!!" - Springsteen

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: dulcimerjohn
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 06:21 PM

would have to mine my databank but I'm sure it's something either from Richard Thompson, Dave Cousins or Dylan..Dulcimerjohn

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: Art Thieme
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 06:21 PM

It's knowing I can get some sex without having to commit to you at all,
That makes me leave my sleeping bag rolled up and stashed behind your couch...

----A parody of Gentle On Ny Mind that I once improvised during my set on the steamboat Julia Belle Swain and sang for John Hartford. It got less than a hearty welcoming, and that's about as far into it as I went...

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: Art Thieme
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 06:23 PM

You had to be there!

Art

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: John Hardly
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 06:29 PM

Hello and goodbye, divided by a line down the middle of the road. --Pierce Pettis

The dust that Pancho bit down south ended up in Lefty's mouth __ Van Zandt

And I need you more than want you
And I want you for all time --Jim Webb

But this Tom waits lyric is the most blow-my-mind best written shit I've ever heard...

When traveling abroad in the continental style
It's my belief one must attempt to be discreet
And subsequently bear in mind your transient position
Allows you a perspective that's unique

And though you'll find your itinerary a blessing and a curse
Your wanderlust won't let you settle down
And you'll wonder how you ever fathomed that you'd be content
To stay within the city limits of a small Midwestern town

Most vagabonds I knowed don't ever want to find the culprit
That remains the object of their long relentless quest
The obsession's in the chasing and not the apprehending
The pursuit, you see, and never the arrest

Without fear of contradiction, bon voyage is always hollered
In conjunction with a handkerchief from shore
By a girl who drives a Rambler and furthermore
Is overly concerned that she won't see him anymore

Planes and trains and boats and buses
Characteristically evoke a common attitude of blue
Unless you have a suitcase and a ticket and a passport
And the cargo that they're carrying is you

A foreign affair, juxtaposed with a stateside
And domestically approved romantic fancy
Is mysteriously attractive due to circumstances, knowing
It will only be parlayed into a memory

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: GUEST,Joseph de Culver City
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 12:29 PM

Yes and only if my own true love was waiting
And I could hear her heart a softly pounding
Only if she was lying by me,
Would I rest in my bed once again

Bob Dylan

White, so white, refrigerator white
Everything about you is refrigerator white
You're cold pretty mama, like a Utah night
Everything about you is refrigerator white

Nick Lowe

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: wordfella
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 12:31 PM

Bob Seger: Wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then...

Ah, ironic reversals!

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: The Vulgar Boatman
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 03:09 PM

"I'd rather have drowned in misery than gone to New South Wales..."
Jim Jones - trad.

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: slowerairs
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 03:48 PM

She isn't a virgin but she's trying to become one.

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 04:20 PM

from a song that I actually perform:

"So we just closed our eyes and dreamed us up a kitchen"

- Desperados Waiting For A Train . written by Guy Clarke

Charlotte (the view from Ma and Pa's piano stool

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 07:47 PM

Carl had a way with cotton
Mama had a way with words
And I had my way with a red haired Catholic girl

Sometimes they drink Four Roses
Sometimes the old Grandad
They don't drink in the mornings, but sometimes they wish they had

from Happy Endings by Eric Taylor

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: number 6
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 08:30 PM

"And I would write Jesus a letter,
But I hear that he don't speak English...
So instead I'll just throw these cobblestones Until I ring that old church bell."    ..... from Sleepy Town by Jim White

.... biLL

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: Bert
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 10:20 PM

From a Johnny Cash song...

I like to get my loving, while I've got it on my mind.

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: Melbert
Date: 07 Mar 08 - 05:57 AM

AS an "attention getter" for an opening line, I don't think you can beat Thachray's "I love a good bum on a woman, it makes my day"......

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: GUEST,wayne monroe
Date: 07 Mar 08 - 06:07 AM

"I never had a job where the boss wouldn't steal the bass drum from his own brass band", from Cheyenne, written and sung by John Stewart.

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: GUEST,Green gal
Date: 07 Mar 08 - 07:09 PM

she doesn't have to say she's faithful
she's true like ice, like fire

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: number 6
Date: 08 Mar 08 - 01:01 AM

"You thought the leaden winter would bring you down forever,
But you rode upon a steamer to the violence of the sun."

by Eric Clapton and Martin Sharp


... biLL

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: The Mole Catcher's Apprentice (inactive)
Date: 08 Mar 08 - 12:22 PM

And the colours of the sea bind your eyes with trembling mermaids,
And you touch the distant beaches with tales of brave Ulysses...

sorry couldn't resist...it's a really great song, one of Cream's best

Charlotte (disraeli gears)

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: GUEST,David Jones, Guest.
Date: 08 Mar 08 - 04:02 PM

From the days of -49.

"They call me a bummer and a gin sot too, but what cares I for praise"

David Jones

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: moongoddess
Date: 08 Mar 08 - 10:41 PM

From a John Denver song:
"Please Daddy, don't get drunk this Christmas, I don't want to hear my mamma cry."

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: freightdawg
Date: 08 Mar 08 - 11:09 PM

"When people say that life is rough,
I wonder, "compared to what?""

From "I'm Just Me" performed by Charlie Pride

"In a place of enchantment, where the wild things are known
will the future remember, when the lovers are gone?"

From "A Song For All Lovers" by John Denver

"I thought he walked on water."

From the song of the same title, Randy Travis

"And today I saw the first airplane that flew, touched a moon rock, saw a senator at the zoo."

From "Nothing as Original as You", The Statler Bros.

Just a few, many many others but I'm too sleepy...

Freightdawg

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: GUEST,Marty
Date: 09 Mar 08 - 12:12 AM

Harry Nilsson:
You're breakin' my heart,
You're tearin' it apart,
So fuck you

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 09 Mar 08 - 05:20 AM

There have definitely been other threads on this subject - I've clickied some of them below. My fave line is buried in one of them, among 759,834 others so that means I get to write it again here:

"She had to have something flash every time she smiled" (Bob Dylan, Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts)

We all know people for whom that is the perfect description. Another favourite has surfaced in my memory because of the recent Swiss Cottage lyrics thread. It's less poetic but just so true - and it's replayed itself in my head a thousand times when sparked off by some life-event or other:

"You know you can't make people be what you want them to be..." (Al Stewart, Swiss Cottage Manoeuvres)

In addition to this thread, there are also:

Great turns of phrase in lyrics

Songs that hook you with one great line

Lines that really grab you

Favorite lines This is the one Midchuck posted above, just so it doesn't feel left out.

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: eddie1
Date: 09 Mar 08 - 05:34 AM

"I fumbled in my closet through my clothes to find my cleanest dirty shirt". (Kris Kristoffersen, "Sunday Morning Coming Down".)

Eddie

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 09 Mar 08 - 06:22 AM

Everybody's saying that hell's the hippest way to go
I don't think so
Gonna take a look around it though

- Blue, the incomparable Joni

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 09 Mar 08 - 10:21 AM

His tongue it could not speak but only flatter, Dylan. The priest he sat in the airport bar, he was wearing his fathers tie. Joni M. I lit a thin green candle to make you jealous of me, but the room just filled up with mosquitos, they heard that my body was free. L. Cohen.
She's a hundred but she's wearin something tight. L. Cohen. Kick the darkness til it bleeds daylight. Bruce Cockburn.

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: Midchuck
Date: 09 Mar 08 - 11:09 AM

Well maybe there's a God above
But all I've ever learned from love
Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew ya

Leonard Cohen, "Hallelujah"

Peter

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: Mrrzy
Date: 09 Mar 08 - 02:14 PM

Thank God and Greyhound You're Gone!

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: GUEST,Dan in NS
Date: 09 Mar 08 - 03:27 PM

Fighting for the right to fight the right fight for the Right - (John Birch Society, the Chad Mitchell Trio)

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: SouthernCelt
Date: 09 Mar 08 - 04:27 PM

A couple more from Robert Earl Keen, Jr., (yeah, I like him a lot).

"He bought a house in southern France, but he lives in Hollywood"
From "Mr. Wolf and Mama Bear" and you have to take that line in the context of the rest of the song.

"This morning our house looks like hell...or possibly WalMart."
From Keen's second novelty Christmas song called, I think, Merry Christmas You-all" (can't lay my hands on the CD right now).

SC

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: GUEST,Syd's ghost, in a minor key.
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 12:07 AM

Oh, 'tis my delight on a Friday night, at one and nine a throw.

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: Claymore
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 12:52 AM

There was a couple of bawdy ballads that we sang in the 'Nam.

One was about the "Night We Gunned Down Santa Claus" ( The password was not Ho Ho Ho).

The other had a verse that went;

You come into the room, talking that talk,
I can tell what you've been doing by the way you walk...

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 06:16 AM

Don't get too gay in Botany Bay unless you be well hung; unless you be well hung me boys, and after that Jim Jones, way up upon the gallows high, the crows will pick your bones...

Otherwise:

Sweeney the thin-groined it is,
in the middle of the yew...

Is that Flann O'Brien's translation? Alas I can't lay my hands on either At Swim-Two-Birds OR Sweeney Astray (Seamus Heaney). Meanwhile making do with Buile Suibhne. It's a sair fecht, as Oor Wullie would say.

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: GUEST,Bernard Quenby
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 09:39 AM

'Drop-Kick me Jesus, through the goal posts of life - Bobby Bare

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 12:08 PM

Lulu, oh lulu come and open up this door,
Before I have to open it with my old 44.
from "Been all around this world." (traditional)

The beer I had for breakfast wasn't bad, so I had one more for desert. (Kris Kristoffersen, "Sunday Morning Coming Down".)

Your debutante knows what you need, but I know what you want.

Russ (permanent GUEST)

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: Mrrzy
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 01:28 PM

Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now!

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: GUEST,Henry
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 02:53 PM

'I've seen landladies who've lost their lovers at the time of Rupert Brooke'. Four years of history and personal tragedy in one line by Clive James.

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: Susanne (skw)
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 08:08 PM

"Where are you when we need you Christy Moore?"

(Eric Bogle, Plastic Paddy)

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: GUEST,TonyK
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 11:19 PM

A picnic in the rain
after a prairie fire.
Prine

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: GUEST,Ian cookieless
Date: 11 Mar 08 - 02:04 PM

North South East West
Kill the best and buy the rest
It's just spend a buck to make a buck
You don't really give a flying fuck
About the people in misery

Call It Democracy by Bruce Cockburn

Subject: RE: Best Line in a Song
From: PoppaGator
Date: 11 Mar 08 - 02:19 PM

Talkin' on the phone is not my speed
Don't send me no letters 'cause I can't read...

"Ready, Willing, and Able" as recorded by Fats Domino. (Not sure who wrote it...)