Help: lines that jump out at you

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: GUEST,murrbob
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 12:00 AM

Most lines from "Springhill Mine Disaster"
Ditto "Peat-Bog Soldiers" Both of these sung by Luke Kelly

"And the people bowed and prayed,
To the neon god they'd made."Simon & Garfunkle

"Does any man know where the love of God goes?" Gordon Lightfoot

"And don't you know when kings can't win the game,
It won't be long 'til all the rules are changed;
And it's all justified,
When you're on the winning side."   Robbie O'Connel

And so many, many more!

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 11:24 PM

My preferred end to 'Willie More' -

The last heard of him he was in Montreal
Where he died of a broken heart

Not sure why I find this so moving and memorable but I do. Probably something to do with Jamesian 'specificity of reference'.

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: CET
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 08:25 PM

Talking about Townes Van Zandt:

"The dust that Pancho bit down south
Ended up in Lefty's mouth"

And here's one that I heard this morning on Archie Fisher's show on BBC Scotland. It's from a song called (I think) "Whiskey Lullaby":

"He put the bottle to his head and pulled the trigger".

I wish I'd caught the duo that sang it.

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 12:59 PM

Two lines really from Fore Day Creep

I'm a big fat mamma, got some meat shakin' on my bones.
And every time I shake some skinny gal loses her home.

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: beeliner
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 11:56 AM

1. "My huckleberry friend...". Rumor has it that Mercer's pal Johnny Green actually contributed that line to "Moon River".

2. Every line of Townes VanZandt's "Silver Ships of Andilar". Absolutely chilling!

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: Joe_F
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 05:53 PM

If ever the dead could pray for the living
There was a new man's face in hell.
She pours a cup of coffee, drips carnation from the can
Let the hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel
O Thou who changest not, abide with me.
Married girl, married girl, she rocks the cradle and cries.
Another ship for me, and for her another crew
Some helped in small ways, some helped in hallways,
Too late, but never mind
But not being married isn't what made him a dope
If ever you heard a little dog bark
She makes a small hole in the frost on the window
Brightest and best of the sons of the morning
Say, don't you remember? I'm your pal.
Walking in his footsteps in the sweet delta dawn.

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: frogprince
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 05:20 PM

From "The Ballad of Penny Evans", by Steve Goodman:

"And now every month I get a check from an Army bureaucrat.
And it's every month I tear it up and I mail the damn thing back."

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: Mike in Brunswick
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 04:40 PM

Another one from Si Kahn's Queen of the Cowboy Cafe:

If I had known what would happen that day
I might have been better prepared.
But often what's not expected is best
Cause you don't have the time to get scared.

Mike

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: Leadfingers
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 08:41 AM

Robb Johnston - 'Turn Around' :-

When they're sweeping up bits of the night that got broken

And washing the moon away .

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: Mike in Brunswick
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 01:04 AM

A couple from Si Kahn:

I was too young to understand
The way he felt about the land
But I could read his history in his hand
Gone, gonna rise again.

From Gone, Gonna Rise Again

And

We did all the things that I'd read of in books
That I'd told all my friends that I'd done.

From Queen of the Cowboy Cafe

Mike

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: quokka
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 12:21 AM

So many! Harpmolly I've got to second your choice of Famous Blue Raincoat - my favourite Cohen song.
From Nick Cave's 'The Ship Song':

Come sail your ships around me
and burn your bridges down
We make a little history, baby,
Every time you call around

And another Australian song - 'I Was Only Nineteen' by Redgum

And Frankie kicked a mine the day that mankind kicked the moon
God help me
He was goin' home in June

no matter how many thousands of times I have heard this song, it still sends a shiver down my spine everytime.

Another one:
The day Jeannie married was the day Jeannie died
And the day that young Anachie Gordon came home on the tide.

I have to stop now and go to work but I am thinking of heaps!
What a GREAT thread!!!

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 11:46 PM

A bit late to correct a mondegreen 9 years later! but the quote back there from '4-Loom Weaver' rendered as "I have woven myself too far in" is actually "I have woven myself to t'far end": this should be got right, as it is a technical term, meaning to the far end of the loom so that he can weave no further.

I always love "She sez that we must marry and her daddy sez the same. I would make a run for Frisco But her daddy's got dead aim".


But among the greatest of creators of such memorable lines were not just 'the folk' or folkies, but such brilliant 30s-40s lyrists as Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Ira Gershwin, Johnny Mercer, Dorothy Fields, Al Dubin — just think of all the memorable lines from the standards of that great period... "When Broadway Babies say goodnight It's early in the morning"; "Oh no they can't take that away from me"; "People say in Boston even beans do it" ... [That's enough brilliant lines fro the 30s - ed]

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: Ebbie
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 10:26 PM

Found my cleanest dirty shirt - Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down/Kristofferson

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: GUEST,Maudlin Hart
Date: 17 Nov 08 - 07:46 AM

"Her breath began to speak as she stood right in front of me
Color of her eyes was the color of insanity..."
"She took me by the hand, I could see she was a fiery one
Her legs ran all the way up to heaven and past Avalon..."
"The apple now is sweet, oh much sweeter than it ought to be
Another little bite, I don't think there is much hope for me..."
All from Flogging Molly's "Devil's Dance Floor".

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: dwditty
Date: 02 Apr 01 - 01:24 PM

From Dave Van Ronk

"I'd be a fool if I didn't fall in love with you that night."

and from the same song:
"I'd trade my time in heaven for a day with you my dear."

of course there is always Barry McGuire's

"My blood is so mad, feels like coagulatin'."

dw

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: late 'n short 2
Date: 02 Apr 01 - 10:22 AM

Just a few that came to mind over the weekend:

"Another eye for another eye until we all are blind" (There Were Roses)

"And I somehow believe he's believin' he's holdin' her hand like before" (A Daisy a Day)

"yes I guess, they oughta name a drink after you"

"We'll never see what lies ahead if we keep on looking back" (Leaving the Land)
(and probably at least one line in just about every other Eric Bogle song)

I'm gonna have to start writing these down!

Dan

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: Roughyed
Date: 01 Apr 01 - 06:01 PM

Oh my love's rose up and she's opened the door And just like an angel she's stood on the floor Her eyes shone bright like the stars at night No diamonds could shine so. So in with my true love I did go.

Passion, eroticism and lyrical poetry all in one verse. How can you not sing it?

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: Amergin
Date: 01 Apr 01 - 04:37 PM

But his touch and his breath
Were as cold as the death

Loch Lomond

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: kendall
Date: 01 Apr 01 - 04:25 PM

and all through the night, a faded yellow light
Would burn inside the room where he would stand
And play the old Victrola, and drink his rusty wine
And conduct the Mozart music with his hard and shaking hand.. Phil Brown by D. Mallett.

...we wandered home through the public bars
we were 10 times less by one... (The Outside track)

..one day the boys called, but their pal didn't come
oh, where does he hide they did say
they searched all around and finally found
His old lifeless form in the hay... (Old Rover)

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: Ruthie A
Date: 01 Apr 01 - 02:26 PM

"If the ladies were all trout and salmon so lively Then divvel the lads would go fishing on Friday..." - Blackbirds and Thrushes

"Like a wave I'm breaking far at sea" - Exile

I have zillions more, but those two are my favourites. I cry all the way through The Drover's Boy, but that's a whole song and therefore probably doesn't count.

Ruthie

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: kendall
Date: 01 Apr 01 - 01:07 PM

.they found him on the plain,
His hands froze to the reins,
He was just 100 yards from Maryann...

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: Joy Bennett
Date: 30 Mar 01 - 02:57 PM

Ok, so slightly out of the genre, but from a Dan Hill song very long ago -- the one -night stand bar scene

"and the smoke curled round her fingertips like question marks in time."

I've never gotten that out of my head.

another line from that song "as she looked down at her lover, a friend of a friend of a stranger..."

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: Blues Killer
Date: 30 Mar 01 - 01:02 PM

"When I'm drinking, be sure not to mess with me!"

Champion Jack Dupre

-Blues Killer

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: Kim C
Date: 30 Mar 01 - 10:21 AM

Georgia Satellites ROCK!!!!!

Back to our regular programming....

the red-headed stranger had eyes like the thunder

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: Midchuck
Date: 30 Mar 01 - 08:37 AM

One that jumps out at me for a different reason entirely:

From the Chieftains' version of "Lily of the West:"

"I stepped up with my rapier,
And my dagger in my hand.
I seized him by the collar there,
And boldly bade him stand."

I have this vision of the guy saying, "Here, would you hold one of these for a second?"

Peter.

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: GUEST,Matt_R
Date: 30 Mar 01 - 08:36 AM

Battleship chains! Looks like Kim is a Georgia Satellites fan!! "I can't lick nobody, lick nobody but you..."

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: Amos
Date: 30 Mar 01 - 08:27 AM

"But I take delight in the juices of the barley, and courtin' pretty wimmin in the mornin' so airly!"

and

"Last night I had the strangest dream, I have never had before!
I dreamt the world had all agreed to put an end to war."

and

"Ah, no, 'twas the truth in her eyes ever shinin'
That made me love Mary, the Rose of Tralee!"

and

"But not as deep, as this love I'm in --
And know not how I sink or swim."

and

"It was rainin' from the first, an' I was dying of thirst
So I came in here
An' your long time curses hurt, but what hurts worse
Is this pain in here!"

and

"I started out on Burgundy, but soon hit the harder stuff."

and

"I have met other horses that I couldn't riseAw, it's a long, long list a-windin', Kendall!! You really started sumpn.

Regards,

A

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: Snuffy
Date: 30 Mar 01 - 08:26 AM

May the long time sun shine upon you,
All love surround you
And the pure light within you
Guide you all the way on.

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: JulieF
Date: 30 Mar 01 - 07:48 AM

Far too many to remember on a Friday afternoon. The one that comes to mind is the Bill Bragg track - New England

I saw two shooting stars last night

I wished on them but they were only satellites

Is it wrong to wish on space hardware

I wish, I wish, I wish you'd care

Julie

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: GUEST,Mad Maudlin
Date: 30 Mar 01 - 06:50 AM

One time around spun our gallant ship, two times around spun she, three times around spun our gallant ship and sank to the dark salt sea.

(The House Carpenter)

The men in the forest they asked of me: "How many strawberries grow in the salt sea?" I answered them back with a tear in my e´e: "How many ships sail in the forest?"

(I once loved a lass)

Shaking hands and fingers that do tremble, Soldier´s Joy has been a bitter pill...

(Michelle Shocked, "Shaking Hands (Soldier´s Joy)")

Pancho needs your prayers, that's true, But save a few for Lefty, too - He only did what he had to do And now he's growing old.

(Townes van Zandt: "Pancho & Lefty")

Oh I am a wild and lonely child, and the son of an angry land and with the dire wars raging I would offer you my hand for we are the children of darkness and the prey of a proud command.

(Richard Farina:"Children of Darkness")

plus my all-time favourite:

Mad Maudlin goes on dirty toes For to save her shoes from gravel.

(Mad Tom o'Bedlam)

There are more, of course, a lot of it depends on my mood. Those of you who mentioned "She moved through the fair", I agree with you- it's one of the most beautiful songs ever written!

Stumbling off to CD rack,

Mad Maudlin

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From:
Date: 30 Mar 01 - 05:34 AM

thought of more....

there's blood on the snow in the hills of Idaho..Fred Small??? Heart of the Apaloosa

heard the men and the monkeys in the jungle scream..Johnny Cash, Drive on

as when the heart indignant breaks to prove that still she lives...Thomas Moore, Harp that once

I often thought that God made the mixer and the hod so that Paddy could know hell above the ground.. Building up and tearing England down...??Behan???

Oft in the stilly night...Thomas Moore

Oh dear me the world is ill provided, them that works the hardest are the least provided...Ten and Nine..

mg

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: Bert
Date: 29 Mar 01 - 10:51 PM

The rats have gone and we the crew,
Leave her Johnny leave her,
I think it's time that we left too,
It's time for us to leave her.

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: Ebbie
Date: 29 Mar 01 - 06:18 PM

What great words- I just discovered I can get high just from reading!

"I need wings to fly, I need roots to grow"- Roots and Wings, Jackie Koresko
"Like the last leaf on the Autumn branch, comes a time when you must let go"- Changin' of the Seasons, Kathy Martin Fanning
"Down here a drop of water's just another way to pray" Canyon de Chelly, (Borrowed thought) Buddy Tabor
"...He'll tell you about a wreck on the highway, how they drank and they died..." Go Ask That Old Cowboy, Buddy Tabor
"They've all gone away', said the voice of a stranger"- Carter Stanley
"I felt my own music within me rise like the wind in the Autumn trees", River, Bill Staines
"I miss you, darlin', as heav'n would miss the stars above" Faded Love

So many. And so many more...

Ebbie

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: gnu
Date: 29 Mar 01 - 05:02 PM

Just about every Irish Trad song has one of these lines for me, but I couldn't pick the one line that seemed to be my favourite. Then, it hit me. THE line of lines for me is definitely.... Give the shanty boys whiskey, there's nothin' goes wrong. ....because I heard my old man sing it from the time I was a wee tad and he was in those lumber camps. ( I know it's not ITrad ).

reminiscinggnu

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: Kim C
Date: 29 Mar 01 - 04:49 PM

You should have seen her running through the smoke
Draggin' that Navajo rug

and

I can still feel the eyes of those blue-bellied devils
As I walk around tonight through the concrete and metal

and

You ain't a beauty but hey you're all right

and

Of all the harm that ere I've done
Alas it was to none but me

and

You got me tied down with battleship chains
Fifty foot long and a two-ton anchor

and

I'd rather be lonely, I'd rather die
Six hundred sixty six times

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: Bert
Date: 29 Mar 01 - 04:05 PM

About the hemp rope on his neck, the golden ringlets clung. - Roddy McCorley

We've been together now for forty years, and it don't seem a day too much. - My Dear Old Dutch.

From cold and want her little one had died. - While London Sleeps.

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: BRG
Date: 29 Mar 01 - 02:46 PM

Thanks, Kendall. I'm very much looking foward to meeting Gordon Bok in May. He's doing a concert here (and staying with us!)

A couple more that popped into my head:

"And with an achin' in my heart I'm gonna bite down and swallow hard" Iris Dement

"They already think my name is 'Where in the hell you been?' " John Prine

"You're a dirty, hungry, scaly bag of timbers" Gordon Bok (How could you not listen to the rest?)

This could go on forever...

Bruce

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: Grab
Date: 29 Mar 01 - 11:34 AM

Mollificent, I'm with you all the way on "Famous Blue Raincoat", and most other Cohen songs! Other nominations (all a bit modern, but what the hell):-

The whole damn thing, every line, of "Sea Fever".

"The Reverend Green be glad to see you
When you haven't got a prayer -
Boy you got a prayer in Memphis."
(Marc Cohn, Walking in Memphis)

"Her mind is Tiffany twisted, she got the Mercedes bends"
(Eagles, HCal)

"The evening paper with horror tones,
But there's hope later for Capricorn"
(Dire Straits, Lions - and most of the rest of that song too!)
Graham.

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Mar 01 - 10:28 AM

Does "Stomping at the Savoy" count?

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Mar 01 - 10:01 AM

Sometimes I think, you to sweet to die , and another time I think , you aughtta be buried alive- Richard "rabbit" Brown "james alley blues"

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: mkebenn
Date: 29 Mar 01 - 08:52 AM

YES, LINE BREAKS AND ALL!!!!!!!!

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: mkebenn
Date: 29 Mar 01 - 08:50 AM

Lake Huron rolls, and Superior sings
in the rooms of her ice water mansions
Old Michigan steams like a young man's dreams
her islands and bays are for sportsmen
And farther below Lake Ontario takes in what Lake Erie can send her
And the iron boats go as the mariners all know
with the gales of November remembered. Mike

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: Midchuck
Date: 29 Mar 01 - 08:08 AM

The old ways had their hardships,
And the winters were too lonely,
But they knew where they belonged,
In a world they could understand.
'Till the cities closed in on us,
And our one choice grew too simple:
You go broke from paying taxes
Or get rich from selling land.

- Dick McCormack, Voices in the Hills

Peter.

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: kendall
Date: 29 Mar 01 - 08:06 AM

Bruce, you have been reading my mind!

..and Lindy Lou, crying and dying and the ocean roaring through.. (The wheelhouse door)

Gordon Bok and I have been close friends for over 40 years, and he can still mesmerize me in concert.(Or, in my living room even)

More.. then the busy years went rushing by us, we lost our starry notions on the way.. (Those were the days)

..They are gone where the forests of oak trees before, Are gone to be wasted in battle. (Dancing at Whitsun)

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: GUEST,Crazy Eddie
Date: 29 Mar 01 - 08:03 AM

"He had to try to satisfy a thirst he couldn't name,
Driven toward the darkness by the devils in his pain"

"And it's a hard, it's a hard, ......it's a hard rain 's, gonna fall"

"But nobody cheered, they just stood there & stared,
Then they turned all their faces away."

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: BRG
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 11:29 PM

Many by John Prine "There's a hole in daddy's arm where all the money goes"

Also agree with Kim C, I was struck by:

"There were spaces between Donald and whatever he said"

"Where have I been to, I don't know, broken fiddle and crooked bow,holes in my shoes and I'm walking slow as the last long shadows fall"

"The last thing I heard was a sound, not a word, the bangin' of the wheelhouse door"

"He smiled like the sharks off little Green Island, he had teeth all over his face" Too many Bok lines to mention, really

"I painted her as she might have been if the worst had been the best" Robert Service actually, but we sing it

"Every song in my breast dies a bornin', without you" Tom Paxton

"Next came the damn mosquitoes, they bit me fore and aft The way them diamond diggers bit was enough to drive me daft" (Reminds me of home) Trad

"A one horse place, a friendly face, some coffee and a tiny trace of fiddlin' in the distance far behind him" Dave Mallett

Cheers, Bruce

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: jaze
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 10:51 PM

If love means forever,expecting nothing returned, Then I hope I'll be given another whole lifetime to learn. Joan Baez

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From:
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 10:43 PM

got to agree about if it weren't for the alligators I'd sleep out in the woods...

but my favorite is "Donald was the bravest man, and Donald he was mine." Highland Widow's lament.

I put my head into a cask of brandy...Peggy Gordon.

Fundy's long and Fundy's wide, Fundy's fog and rain and tide ...Fundy Bay by Gordon Bok...

Rifle to rifle and horse against horse..Fenian Men

One for the Morning Glory, two for the early dew, three for the man who wrote this song and four for the likes of you girl, four for the likes of you. Morning Glory

Tramp tramp tramp the boys are marching, cheer up comrades they will come..

et lux perpetua luceat eis...Catholic requiem

I found him worthy of his wound...Dainty Davy

mg

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: aussiebloke
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 09:18 PM

From 'The Overlander' - Aussie trad...

We steer up to those pretty girls, that dress themselves in grandeur
And while they sweat our checks they swear they love the overlander.

Chorus: Pass the bottle 'round me boys, etc...

Subject: RE: Help: lines that jump out at you
From: kendall
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 08:48 PM

..I stood by your Atlantic sea, and sang a song for Ireland..

Dreaming in the night, I saw a land where no man had to fight.. Song for Ireland.

...if the ladies were squirrels with high busy tails, I'd load up my shotgun with rock salt and nails... U.Phillips