The Best Song Lines EVER--For Us Newbies

Subject: RE: The Best Song Lines EVER--For Us Newbies
From: Steve Latimer
Date: 29 Feb 00 - 10:32 AM

"I took me a woman late last night, I was three fourths drunk, she looked allright, 'til she started peeling off her onion gook, took off her wig, said how do I look? I was high flyin', bare naked, out the window."

Bob Dylan, from "I Shall Be Free."

Subject: RE: The Best Song Lines EVER--For Us Newbies
From: canoer
Date: 28 Feb 00 - 02:15 PM

Second the recommendation of Artisan. Saw them a few years ago. Excellent, and yes, they ended with Mary Ellen, powerfully.

Subject: RE: The Best Song Lines EVER--For Us Newbies
From: Amos
Date: 28 Feb 00 - 01:23 PM

My love, she laughs like the flowers...

Subject: RE: The Best Song Lines EVER--For Us Newbies
From: Osmium
Date: 28 Feb 00 - 01:19 PM

JeffP
If you want to hear the Mary Ellen Carter given the full treatment by on of the finest British acapello trio's going they are touring the USA July 12th to Aug 13th. To date they have always finished every performance with said anthem. Tour details at [e-mail]

Subject: RE: The Best Song Lines EVER--For Us Newbies
From: GUEST,Aldus
Date: 28 Feb 00 - 12:35 PM

Two from Bob Dylan are among my favourites.. "You don't need the weathermen to know which way the wind blows..."" and "Money Dosen't talk it swears." Bruce Cockburn also has some great ones.. I think his three best are...The trouble with normal is it always gets worse ", Everybody like to see justice done.....to somebody else and ,finally from Bruce,Civilization is more than a toilet and a telephone'. Traditionally... From the Lass of Loch Royal (Lord Gregory) I'll take down this mast of gold set up a mast of tree, for it becomes not a forsaken maid to sail so Royally ".

Subject: RE: The Best Song Lines EVER--For Us Newbies
From: jeffp
Date: 28 Feb 00 - 10:21 AM

Rise again, rise again
Though your heart may be broken and life about to end.
No matter what you've lost,
Be it a home, a love, a friend.
Like the Mary Ellen Carter rise again!

Always tears me up.

Subject: RE: The Best Song Lines EVER--For Us Newbies
From: Steve Latimer
Date: 28 Feb 00 - 09:30 AM

Fom Dylans' "Shelter From the Storm"

Beauty walks a razors edge, someday I'll make it mine

And Mississippi John Hurts' "Spike Driver Blues"

This is the hammer that killed John Henry, but it won't kill me, no it won't kill me.

Subject: RE: The Best Song Lines EVER--For Us Newbies
From: Arkie
Date: 28 Feb 00 - 12:51 AM

There is nothing that can charge my emotions like the line from Wildwood Flower "I'll twine with my mingles".

Subject: RE: The Best Song Lines EVER--For Us Newbies
From: Susan A-R
Date: 27 Feb 00 - 11:12 PM

Austin Lounge Lizzards I come from the shallow end of the gene pool And a favorite in our house while I was growing up Work your fingers to the bone Whadayou get? Boney fingers. (I know, I'm cheating, but I put in a SERIOUS one first, and besides, it's a new day!)

Susan

Subject: RE: The Best Song Lines EVER--For Us Newbies
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 27 Feb 00 - 10:29 PM

While I second "Hot Buttered Rum" and "Turning Toward the Morning" I tend to lean toward the funnier favorites. Si Kahn, in "Fresh Water Whaling" (I've never seen proof that he wrote this; if anyone knows yea or nay, I'd like to know--I love the song):

We didn't want to scare the whales, we muffled oars with care
Rowed out to the horizon, and we dropped our anchor there

And anything by Mark Graham.

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: The Best Song Lines EVER--For Us Newbies
From: Sorcha
Date: 27 Feb 00 - 07:26 PM

Two, neither Folk, both Klassic Kuntry. "I'd give all I own, if I could telephone that Silver Haired Daddy of Mine" and "We'll name her after the rainbow, because she reminds me of you", Ernest Tubb, Rainbow at Midnight.

Subject: RE: The Best Song Lines EVER--For Us Newbies
From: Bradypus
Date: 27 Feb 00 - 06:48 PM

When I've done the work of day, and I row my boat away
Down the waters of Loch Tay as the evening sun is sinking
Then I look toward Ben Lawers, where the after glories glow
And I dream on two bright eyes with a merry mouth below.

The Loch Tay boat song - so relaxing

Bradypus

Subject: RE: The Best Song Lines EVER--For Us Newbies
From: Mbo
Date: 27 Feb 00 - 06:23 PM

I've got a ticket to the moon
But I'd rather see the the sunrise
In your eyes

I've got a ticket to the moon
I'll be rising high above the Earth so soon
And wiil the tears I cry turn into the rain
That falls so gently on your window?
You'll never know

From ELO's "Ticket to The Moon"

--Mbo

Subject: RE: The Best Song Lines EVER--For Us Newbies
From: Ely
Date: 27 Feb 00 - 06:12 PM

"When Bob Ford fired the ball that pulled Jesse from the wall . . . " from the ballad about Jesse James.

"The fall don't hurt, honey--it's when you land." from 'Scamp' by Freakwater.

[NOT FOLK but good anyway] "If I only had a dollar for every song I've sung, every time I had to play while people sat there drunk . . . " from 'Lodi' by CCR.

All of the Red Clay Ramblers' "Hot Buttered Rum". One of the only love songs I actually like.

Most of the Cowboy Junkies' "Powderfinger". I have no idea what the literal situation of that song is, but the emotions are wonderful.

Subject: RE: The Best Song Lines EVER--For Us Newbies
From: Willie-O
Date: 27 Feb 00 - 05:20 PM

If anyone really wants to know, "Show Us the Length" was written by Bob Bossin and/or Marie-Lynn Hammond (the latter I think) and recorded first by their (Canadian) band Stringband. And it's not their best, or necessarily even funniest, song.

But personally I'm partial to our very own Aine's:

And though London may be quaint
Going back I never ain't
I'm as Irish as a Texas girl can be!

(in the Mudcat songbook, the last line is the title)

W-O

Subject: RE: The Best Song Lines EVER--For Us Newbies
From: Ebbie
Date: 27 Feb 00 - 04:17 PM

"...and the moon came up, so quiet in the sky", Bill Staines, Roseville Fair

Subject: RE: The Best Song Lines EVER--For Us Newbies
From: Marymac90
Date: 27 Feb 00 - 02:52 PM

Show us the length of your cock

Are you hung like a beaver, or hung like a bear?

Let us check the weight of your rocks

So we can have a standard by which to compare.

You men! Don't worry if it's small or bent or slender

The personality is as important as the member!

So drop your trousers, and make the news,

And don't judge, lest we judge you!

I think the name of the song is Terranova High School. It was recorded by Bright Morning Star. I can't remember the author's name right now, but I put it into the Funny Song thread we had a while back, so it's there.

Mary McCaffrey

Subject: RE: The Best Song Lines EVER--For Us Newbies
From: Wavestar
Date: 27 Feb 00 - 01:45 PM

Revealing my poetic heart, I'd have to say probably my identifiably favourite lines almost all come from Gordon Bok songs, particularly "Turning Toward the Morning"

Oh my Joanie don't you know that stars are swinging slow, and the seas are rolling easy as they did so long ago, And if I had a thing to give you, I would tell you one more time that the world is always turning toward to morning....

-Jessica

Subject: RE: The Best Song Lines EVER--For Us Newbies
From: catspaw49
Date: 27 Feb 00 - 12:56 PM

dan Milner mentioned Pat Sky, and I've always loved one his lines that is the sond title too.......

"Reality is bad enough, Why should I tell the truth?"

Spaw

Subject: RE: The Best Song Lines EVER--For Us Newbies
From: Mary G
Date: 27 Feb 00 - 12:41 PM

here's the second best...I often thought that God made the mixer and the hod so that Paddy could know hell above the ground...from Building up and tearing England down...

Subject: RE: The Best Song Lines EVER--For Us Newbies
From: BlueJay
Date: 27 Feb 00 - 12:22 PM

Oh my name is Penney Evans and I've just gone twenty-one,
A young widow of the war that's being fought in Vietnam,
And I have two infant daughters, I thank God I have no sons,
Now they say the war is over, but I think it's just begun
Steve Goodman, "The ballad of Penney Evans"

Subject: RE: The Best Song Lines EVER--For Us Newbies
From: Amos
Date: 27 Feb 00 - 12:08 PM

She was winsome and fair as the dew upon the meadow... But 't was not her beauty alone that won me... Oh, no, 'twas the truth n her eyes, ever shining
That made me love Mary, the Rose of Tralee!

Subject: RE: The Best Song Lines EVER--For Us Newbies
From: Art Thieme
Date: 27 Feb 00 - 12:02 PM

That should read, "IT ain't no sin 'cause you ain't no kin to your daddy anyhow."

Art

Subject: RE: The Best Song Lines EVER--For Us Newbies
From: Art Thieme
Date: 27 Feb 00 - 11:59 AM

I aint no sin 'cause you ain't no kin to your daddy anyhow.

Subject: RE: The Best Song Lines EVER--For Us Newbies
From: Ali_UK
Date: 27 Feb 00 - 11:43 AM

Oh so many!

One that always moves me is a line from 'She Moves Through the Fair.' which goes...

"She's gone her way homeward with one star awake. Like a swan in the evening moves over the lake."

Don't know why but it gives me a really beautiful tingle in the heart.

One that amazes me with it's audacity and the fact that it became popular is from a Guns 'n' Roses song ( and I use that nomenclature advisedly).

"....I used to love her, but I had to kill her, now she's buried in ma bayck yaarrrddd." Sheesh! Who gets off on that crap?

Subject: RE: The Best Song Lines EVER--For Us Newbies
From: TheOldMole
Date: 27 Feb 00 - 11:15 AM

Big Joe Turner: I'm like a one-eyed cat, peepin' in a sea food store.

A line so dirty that the censors didn't get it, and allowed it to go into the "cleaned-up" Bill Haley version.

Subject: RE: The Best Song Lines EVER--For Us Newbies
From: Abby Sale
Date: 27 Feb 00 - 11:04 AM

I'll sort of make a challenge of it. I first heard the on its own in the course of normal conversation with Martin Carthy, although I don't know that he ever put the song on record. I sing it to myself - I've never been cruel enough to sing it in public (Carthy or any good ballad singer could get away with it but that's different.) It's a good song & the longest I know. I actually first started learning the song in 1960 from Ewan MacColl's _English & Scottish Popular Ballad_ series but it took 25 years. About 2 verses per year.

I don't know that it's my favorite line anywhere but it certainly says something on its own and says more about ballodic use of language.

Sorry to run on. Nostalgia.

Nae wyte a man wi' violence, That ne're wyte you wi' nane.

Subject: RE: The Best Song Lines EVER--For Us Newbies
From: GUEST,Pixie
Date: 27 Feb 00 - 10:29 AM

This maybe not the greatest line ever written, but tickles me every time I hear it:

Lyle Lovett: From "She's No Lady She's My Wife"

"the preacher asked her, and she said I do the preacher asked me, and she said he does too"

Subject: RE: The Best Song Lines EVER--For Us Newbies
From: Peter T.
Date: 27 Feb 00 - 10:25 AM

"Black girl, black girl, don't lie to me: Where did you sleep last night? In the pines, in the pines, Where the sun never shines, I shivered the whole night through."

Makes me shiver every time I hear it, for the 1000th time.
yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: The Best Song Lines EVER--For Us Newbies
From: Liam's Brother
Date: 27 Feb 00 - 10:22 AM

There is a line in The West Rutland Marble Bawn that I like...
"The sound of his sledge on an iron wedge, like a shot when the trigger is drawn."

And then there's Woody Guthrie's...
"In the misty crystal glitter of that wild and windward spray."

When First I Came To Caledonia has a lovely image...
"If I had pens from Pennsylvania
And I had paper of snowy white
And I had ink from a rosy morning
A true love letter to you I'd write."

Many years ago, Patrick Sky remarked to me about
The Green Linnet that it was the only song in his experience thaat starts with the word "curiosity."
"Curiosity drove a young native of Erin
For to view the gay banks of the Nile."

All the best,
Dan Milner

Subject: RE: The Best Song Lines EVER--For Us Newbies
From: Eric the Viking
Date: 27 Feb 00 - 09:47 AM

Surely some of the best lines ever were in Imagine by John lennon. Eric

Subject: RE: The Best Song Lines EVER--For Us Newbies
From: Lonesome Dave
Date: 27 Feb 00 - 09:04 AM

I wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then.

Subject: RE: The Best Song Lines EVER--For Us Newbies
From: Osmium
Date: 27 Feb 00 - 07:32 AM

PS.Ther's no underlying disrespect to women here; any more than there is in the song!

Subject: RE: The Best Song Lines EVER--For Us Newbies
From: Osmium
Date: 27 Feb 00 - 07:29 AM

Perhaps not one of the best but maybe one that most men have felt from time to time;

I wish I was in some lonesome valley
Where womankind they cannot be

from Peggy Gordon

Subject: RE: The Best Song Lines EVER--For Us Newbies
From: Benjamin
Date: 27 Feb 00 - 04:48 AM

If it's only lyrics, Earth Wind and Fire's "I'll write a song for you" is a great tune. "Spirt" by the same band is also a great lyrical tune. Maybe "Bleeker Street" by Simon and Garfunkel.

It's hard for me to say what song would be my favorte.

As for traditional, John Jackson's "Boats up the River" would probably be it.

Almost anything done by Brownie McGhee is a favorte of mine. Especially when he did "Midnight Special" with Sonny Terry.

Subject: RE: The Best Song Lines EVER--For Us Newbies
From: Chocolate Pi
Date: 27 Feb 00 - 12:57 AM

argh; I can't pick just one!

"The earth will soon dissolve like snow, the sun forbear to shine" from one of the later verses to Amazing Grace.

"Love, like the yellow daffodil is coming through the snow" Julian of Norwich, Sydney Carter "Si me quieres escribir, ya sabes mi paradero, en el frente de Gandesa, primera linea del fuego" (If you want to write to me, you already know my address, in the Gandesa front in the first line of fire) Si Me Quieres Escribir, Spanish Civil War song

"And they danced by the light of a sparkling bobby sock, cause the theme of the prom was the history of rock." The Ballad of Erica Levine, Bob Blue

"Hearts starve as well as bodies, give us bread but give us roses." Bread and Roses

"I'll fight them as a woman, not a lady/ I'll fight them as an engineer" I'm Gonna Be an Engineer, Peggy Seeger

Chocolate Pi (trying to shut out the 'music' from the party next door)

Subject: RE: The Best Song Lines EVER--For Us Newbies
From: Crowhugger
Date: 27 Feb 00 - 12:06 AM

referring to the Mississippi River:

...It's too thick to navigate and it's too thin to plow."

John Hartford, if what's left of my memory serves.

Subject: RE: The Best Song Lines EVER--For Us Newbies
From: sophocleese
Date: 26 Feb 00 - 11:53 PM

There's whiskey in the jar! Moves me, usually closer to the bar, every time.

Subject: RE: The Best Song Lines EVER--For Us Newbies
From: Mary G
Date: 26 Feb 00 - 11:39 PM

Donald was the bravest man and Donald he was mine...from Highland Widow's Lament....

mg

Subject: RE: The Best Song Lines EVER--For Us Newbies
From: Susan A-R
Date: 26 Feb 00 - 11:39 PM

I still like

As through this world I travel, I've seen some funny men Some will rob you with a six gun and some with a fountain pen. As through this world I travel, as through this world I roam I've never seen an outlaw drive a family from their home

Woody's Pretty Boy Floyd. (approximate)

Subject: RE: The Best Song Lines EVER--For Us Newbies
From: Ed Pellow
Date: 26 Feb 00 - 08:34 PM

Hip fol the day fol the digee oh

Subject: The Best Song Lines EVER--For Us Newbies
From: Mbo
Date: 26 Feb 00 - 08:23 PM

Alright! I know the older folks covered this subject a while ago...but there are a lot more of us now (including myself) who did not get the chance to participate. I'd like to hear from all the newbies--at least the ones since last May! What do YOU think the best (most beautiful, inspiring, heart-thumping, sad, etc) lyric lines from songs are? LET THE PEOPLE SPEAK!!

--Mbo