Songs that hook you with One Great Line

Subject: Songs that hook you with One Great Line
From: catspaw49
Date: 30 Apr 02 - 09:51 PM

Yeah, a kinda' dumb thread I know but..........

I am often hooked by a song for only one small thing. Perhaps it's a snippet of the tune or a particular progression. Some songs have it ALL together with fantastic words, melodies, and everything. Some have only one line though.....One great line that hooks you in and turns the song into a favorite for you.

For instance........I like a lot of of John Prine's stuff and some of it will go on and enter the "Folk" idiom I think. But he has one that I don't suppose is really much of a song at all and certainly not his best by any means...........and yet............All The Best is a good enough piece but it contains one line which completely hooked me and puts it at the virtual top of my Top Songs List. Stupid huh? Here's the line (complete lyrics are below) that spoke volumes to me:

Then you change your mind For something else to do And your heart gets bored with your mind And it changes you

Yeah, I know...........But I'm willing to bet that there are some in your Top List which are similar..........Just "okay" songs but with one great line that has hooked you and catapulted the damn thing into your Tops list. Whether I consider it a great line is inconsequential as long as you do!!! Got any that fit?

Spaw

All The Best ©John Prine

I wish you love And happiness I guess I wish you All the best I wish you don't Do like I do And ever fall in love with Someone like you Cause if you fell Just like I did You'd probably walk around the block Like a little kid. But kids don't know They can only guess How hard it is To wish you happiness

I guess that love Is like a Christmas card You decorate a tree You throw it in the yard It decays and dies And the snowmen melt Well I once knew love I knew how love felt Yeah I knew love Love knew me And when I walked Love walked with me And I got no hate And I got no pride Well I got so much love That I cannot hide

Say you drive a Chevy Say you drive a Ford You say you drive around the town Till you just get bored Then you change your mind For something else to do And your heart gets bored with your mind And it changes you Well it's a doggone shame And it's an awful mess I wish you love I wish you happiness I wish you love I wish you happiness I guess I wish you All the best

Subject: RE: Songs that hook you with One Great Line
From: GUEST,macca
Date: 30 Apr 02 - 10:49 PM

Ye're not wrong, Narelle, There's one old (16 - 17th century?) Borders Ballad, HUGH THE GRAEME, with the line, "If ye meet the Bishop's cloak / Mak' it shorter by the hood..." Lots of impact there which first attracted me to the song.

Maybe not in quite the same way, but there are certainly a few songs with one (or more) lines which will never be the same again for me - and for many of the people I session with from time to time.

F'rinstance

Lakes of Pontchartrain: "The hair upon her shoulders, in jet-black ringlets fell...." none on her head, just on her shoulders.

Spinning Wheel: "There's a face at her casement, the face of her true love/ Who whispered with face bent...." and we usually break up about there with one finger held against the nose and a nasal... "I'm waiting for you, love."

I sometimes wonder if the originators of these songs did it deliberately. It may be blasphemy to some of the purists, but I'll bet most of us amateur students of the Folk scene have some favourites like those...... How about it, or am I the only one with a twisted sense of humour.

Subject: RE: Songs that hook you with One Great Line
From: khandu
Date: 30 Apr 02 - 10:59 PM

"There must be someway outta here" Dylan, "All Along the Watchtower"

"For your own sake, remember the times we used to know" Jethro Tull, "We Used To Know"

"If there's an original thought out there, I sure could use one now" Dylan "Brownsville Girl"

And my dear Louisiana Friend, David A, wrote, "I spent it all in the months and the years and, in time, forgot where my memories are." David A. "Leon's Jig"

khandu

Subject: RE: Songs that hook you with One Great Line
From: Anahootz
Date: 30 Apr 02 - 11:06 PM

I've cited it here before, but for a good first-line hook, I gotta go with "Mad Mission", by P. Griffin...

"We were drinkin' like the Irish, But we were drinkin' scotch..."

Subject: RE: Songs that hook you with One Great Line
From: Mickey191
Date: 30 Apr 02 - 11:34 PM

When the angels ask me to recall the thrill of them all, I simply say that I remember you.>

Subject: RE: Songs that hook you with One Great Line
From: bflat
Date: 01 May 02 - 12:03 AM

Aah Spaw, you got me where the hook enters the soul. John Prine's lyrics, this example included does it for me. The more I listen and study the more I see the layers of his lyrics. When you hear his songs, or read his lyrics, it is not unlike an onion with each layer revealing something. I've come up with my own interpretations of most of his songs. But, when I've tested my hypothsis I'm dead wrong. Which only shows I stink at that. But my interpretation doesn't change the value of his oeuvre. He is nothing short of great.

Ellen

Subject: RE: Songs that hook you with One Great Line
From: GUEST,Longarm
Date: 01 May 02 - 12:32 AM

Alister Hulett has just recorded an album with the song 'Don't sign up for war' The line that gets me is " A bayonet is a weapon with a working class man at each end"!!! Heavy eh? No prizes for working out which side of politics his sympathy's are!

Subject: RE: Songs that hook you with One Great Line
From: michaelr
Date: 01 May 02 - 02:26 AM

The thing that gets me about Prine's songwriting is that he's dead simple, on the surface. But if you, the listener, connect a personal angle to the lyric, that's when the songs suddenly gain depth.

John Prine's a genius at that. Makes me wonder: does he know just what he's doing, or is he really dead simple?

GUEST macca -- could you please post the lyrics you have to Hugh the Graeme? We've been doing the song for years, but that line is new to me.

Cheers,
Michael

Subject: RE: Songs that hook you with One Great Line
From: GUEST,macca
Date: 01 May 02 - 02:35 AM

Micaelr - Glad to oblige. Latched on to this version on a Corries LP back in the days of vynil. Don't know if this is the whole song, or only extracts. I've always suspected it would have been one of those unpteen verse ballads but never found the rest. Now, thanks to the power of modern electronic communication, I'll probably be inundated with the other six hundred and twenty three verses.Problem is that modern audiences can't take it like the peasants in the old days.

HUGH THE GRAEME

The Lords hae tae the hunting gane, Tae hunt and fell the fallow deer, And they hae grippit Hugh the Graeme For stealing o' the Bishop's meat.

Well, louse my right hand free, he said, And put my brand intae the same. It's nane in Carlisle toun the day Wad tell the tale o' Hugh the Graeme

They've ta'en him tae the gallows hill, And lookit at the gallows tree, Yet ne'er did colour leave his cheek, Nor did he even blink his e'e.

And ye may gi'e my brither James, My sword that's made in metal clear, And bade him come at twelve o' clock, Tae see me pay the Bishop's meat.

And ye may gi'e my brither John, My sword that's made in metal broun, And bade him come at one o' clock, And see his brither Hugh pit doun.

And ye may tell my kith and kin, I never did disgrace their blood, And if they meet the Bishop's cloak, Tae mak' it shorter by the hood.

Subject: RE: Songs that hook you with One Great Line
From: songs2play
Date: 01 May 02 - 04:31 AM

"While you fumble with your modelling clay, Claudia builds in steel" - Ralph McTell-Claudia, it always raises the hair on the back of my neck.

Subject: RE: Songs that hook you with One Great Line
From: Terry K
Date: 01 May 02 - 04:41 AM

"Tell me where it hurts you honey, I'll tell you who to call" - Dylan (can't remember which song)

Subject: RE: Songs that hook you with One Great Line
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 01 May 02 - 05:35 AM

The line usually need to be in context - one of my favorites is the last couple of lines from Rosie Hardman's "Lady for Today".

My feet have got the urge for going,
I'll spread my wings tomorrow morn.
but lay the singing bird beside you, She will not fly until the dawn.

You can find the rest of this and more of Rosie's songs HERE

Subject: RE: Songs that hook you with One Great Line
From: KingBrilliant
Date: 01 May 02 - 05:38 AM

Paul Simon - slip sliding away
the line is...
A good day ain't got no rain, but a bad day's when you lie in bed & think about what might have been.

Kris

Subject: RE: Songs that hook you with One Great Line
From: GUEST,Strollin'Johnny
Date: 01 May 02 - 08:13 AM

Lots of Stan Roger's lines from lots of his songs, but the best two are:-

"Blue eyes in wrinkled morrocco still search the horizon for squalls" (Sailor's Rest), and:-

She wears bougainvillea blossoms, you pluck 'em from her hair and toss them in the tide" (Lock-keeper)

SJ

Subject: RE: Songs that hook you with One Great Line
From: kendall
Date: 01 May 02 - 08:23 AM

Is this a new thread, or, a continuation of one I started some time ago? I think I called it, "Lines that really grab you."

Subject: RE: Songs that hook you with One Great Line
From: kendall
Date: 01 May 02 - 08:32 AM

I did.

Subject: RE: Songs that hook you with One Great Line
From: catspaw49
Date: 01 May 02 - 08:37 AM

Yeah Kendall........It's another along the same line. I looked up the previous thread which was up to almost 200 posts so decided that either a part two or a new thread was appropriate. I picked a new on since it was easier to translate my post. It's a great thread idea and your previous thread proves it. Thanks of course!

Spaw

Subject: RE: Songs that hook you with One Great Line
From: GUEST,Mike Billo
Date: 01 May 02 - 09:13 AM

"Old Bill Jones had a daughter and a son. One went to Denver and the other went wrong" from "I Ride An Old Paint"

Subject: RE: Songs that hook you with One Great Line
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 May 02 - 09:38 AM

There's a line from a song I've searched for a couple of times here and got nowhere with the search:>

"I still remember what was on the jukebox when she turned".

I don't know why it grabs me, but somehow it does. It's like some kind of a flash photograph of a moment - you look at the photograph, and suddenly you're back there.

Subject: RE: Songs that hook you with One Great Line
From: GUEST,jonesey
Date: 01 May 02 - 09:42 AM

Several come to mind. Sometimes it's a single line sometimes a whole verse or chorus. In no particular order:

Come back to us Barbara Lewis Hare-Krishna Beauregard-John Prine

If you loved me half as much as I love you-Hank Williams

You've got a lotta nerve-Bob Dylan

If my life were a book and my time were the pages Of all the chances I took in the chapters of my ages The corners would be folded where it told of me and you The pages worn and ragged from the times I read them through And that's how my time would look if my life were a book-Tom Dundee

I'm gonna marry Betty Blue 'Cause I love her and she loves me, too. We're gonna walk down the aisle two by two early in the mornin' time. There'll be rented tuxedo's all over the place tears in her eyes smile on my face I'm gonna marry Betty Blue early in the mornin' time, early in the mornin' time-Mike Jordan

I'm goin' steady with Iron Ore Betty She's goin' steady with me Get our mail from the same mail box We watch the same TV She's got rug burns on her elbows I got'em on my knees I'm goin' steady with Iron Ore Betty She's goin' steady with me-John Prine

I'm staring holes in my eggs as he peeks at the waitresses legs-Joni Mitchell

There's more, but that's enough for now.

Subject: RE: Songs that hook you with One Great Line
From: Murph10566
Date: 01 May 02 - 09:45 AM

"Up here we sacrifice our Children

To feed the worn-out Dreams of Yesterday..."

Paul Brady - THE ISLAND

"Ah, but Justice is a fickle thing:

One Law for the Common Man, another for the King..."

Mick Moloney / Robbie O'Connell - THE WINNING SIDE

Subject: RE: Songs that hook you with One Great Line
From: MikeofNorthumbria
Date: 01 May 02 - 10:14 AM

Kevin,

"I still remember what was on the jukebox when she turned" is (I think) on the recently issued Nic Jones anthology (which , to my shame, I haven't got ...yet). Mike Harding played that particular song on his Radio 2 hour only a few weeks ago, and the BBC Website might have the playlist posted.

My own contenders for heart-grabbing lines would have to include:

"I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children" [Dylan: "Hard rain's a-gonna fall"]

"For my heart is with him altogether, though I live not where I love." [Trad: "I live not where I love"]

...and of course ...

"The Bovril's with the gravy, but the Marmite's with the jam!" [By - Guess who?]

And finally ...

"Ying-tong, ying-tong, ying-tong, ying-tong, ying-tong iddle-i-po!" [Spike Milligan: "The Ying Tong Song"]

And there's more what that come from, folks!

Wassail!

Subject: RE: Songs that hook you with One Great Line
From: Dunkle
Date: 01 May 02 - 11:49 AM

Gordon Lightfoot: If you plan to face tomorrow, do it soon...(Race Among the Ruins)

Bob Franke: What can you do with each moment of your life, but love 'til you love it away...

Both of these give me something to think about each time I sing them. Don

Subject: RE: Songs that hook you with One Great Line
From: Fibula Mattock
Date: 01 May 02 - 12:04 PM

"Where the clouds are like headlines on a new frontpage sky" from Shiver Me Timbers by Tom Waits.

Subject: RE: Songs that hook you with One Great Line
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 May 02 - 12:10 PM

"Most of the time..."

"Beauty walks a razor's edge, someday I'll make it mine..." (Shelter From the Storm)

"and when finally the bottom fell out, I became withdrawn...the only thing I knew how to do was to keep on keepin' on like a bird that flew, tangled up in blue..." (Tangled Up In Blue)

Darkness at the break of noon shadows even the silver spoon, the handmade blade, the child's balloon, eclipses both the sun and moon, to understand you know too soon that there is no sense in trying..." (It's Allright Ma - I'm Only Bleeding)

All above lines by Dylan.

Sometimes I recall what others have said
Love is for lovers, in love and full grown
Life's for the living and death's for the dead
And the death of a heart is a fathom unknown

Buffy Sainte-Marie (can't recall the song title, though)

- LH

Subject: RE: Songs that hook you with One Great Line
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 May 02 - 12:49 PM

Thanks Mike - that's on my list of records already. And if Nic recorded it, that means I can pat myself on the back as having a good ear for a good song.

Subject: RE: Songs that hook you with One Great Line
From: GUEST,Chip A.
Date: 01 May 02 - 01:18 PM

There ain't no future in the past..

Angel flyin' too close to the ground..

You hang around Third and MacDougal, Your mind and my body at war...

I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now..

Subject: RE: Songs that hook you with One Great Line
From: GUEST,Chip A.
Date: 01 May 02 - 01:24 PM

NO, NO, NO....

Your mind and YOUR body at war! A junkie song I knew in the 60's

Subject: RE: Songs that hook you with One Great Line
From: kendall
Date: 01 May 02 - 01:33 PM

"She had a voice that would shatter Tupperware"

Subject: RE: Songs that hook you with One Great Line
From: Shields Folk
Date: 01 May 02 - 02:50 PM

"saw two shooting stars last night, I wished on them but they were only satellites" Billy Braggs New England

Subject: RE: Songs that hook you with One Great Line
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 May 02 - 03:33 PM

"These are the Good Old Days"

"One Toke Over the Line"

"If you'd a given me that ring" she said, "I'd have pulled the trigger and I'd shot you dead"

Subject: RE: Songs that hook you with One Great Line
From: Peter T.
Date: 01 May 02 - 03:37 PM

The whole of "Fire and Rain" is one great line after another (I said that last time!).

"We'll sit and dream, and think how good it has been, and be glad that it all came true," from Carousel is one of those lines that opens up huge spaces of time.

yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Songs that hook you with One Great Line
From: Jock Morris
Date: 01 May 02 - 07:10 PM

Dave Goulder's 'Freight Train Blues' has the line : "I wish his balls would turn to bulldogs and bite the bugger to death". Classic!

Scott

Subject: RE: Songs that hook you with One Great Line
From: Deda
Date: 01 May 02 - 09:30 PM

Another from Paul Simon's slip-sliding away:

God only knows, and God has his plan
The information's not available to the mortal man
We're working our jobs, collect our pay
Believe we're riding down the highway when in fact we're slip-sliding away.

I also always loved Leo Kottke's "I'm the guy who didn't marry pretty Pamela Brown"--
"One of these days I might be in your town
And I guess I owe it all to Pamela Brown."
(I don't think Kottke wrote it, but I hear it in his voice.) The whole image of defining himself and everything that he's done in his life because of not marrying P.B.

Dylan -- my late great mother was knocked out by the line (after "I wish there was something you would do or say
To try and make me change my mind and stay... )
"We never did too much talkin' anyway"
-- which really paints a hell of a picture.

To tell the truth, I love the line "Good night, Irene, Good night Irene
I'll see you in my dreams."

In "Kevin Barry" I like "another martyr for old Ireland, another murder for the crown
You can kill the sons of Ireland, but you cannot keep them down"
I know that's a contested line and it may be "wrong" but I've always really liked it.

Subject: RE: Songs that hook you with One Great Line
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 May 02 - 09:39 PM

Alex Campbell taught a generation to sing "Goodnight Irene - I'll get you in my dreams." Which I'm sure is how Leadbelly would have wanted it.

The years have made me bitter,
The gargle's dimmed me brain

(But that song is full of lines that cut through to the bone.)

Subject: RE: Songs that hook you with One Great Line
From: Gary T
Date: 01 May 02 - 09:44 PM

(Context: breaking up again with his girl)
I saw more love in her eyes when I left her than most foolish men will ever see (Four in the Morning)

Subject: RE: Songs that hook you with One Great Line
From: Bobert
Date: 01 May 02 - 09:52 PM

Yeah, Spazer, I'm a big John Prine fan and also a resident of West Ginny, the coal capital of the US so I think of his song "Paradise" which went something like:

Oh, Daddy won't ya take me back to Mulenburg County... Down by the Green River where Paradise lay... Well, I'm sorry my son , but you're too late in askin'...Mr. Peabody's coal train has hauled it away...

Subject: RE: Songs that hook you with One Great Line
From: Celtic Soul
Date: 01 May 02 - 09:55 PM

I close my eyes and I see, blood and roses.

Yeah, a little morbid, and it is pop, but it always struck me as being memorable.

And though it is not a single line, I also like:

I had to stop in my tracks for fear of walking on the mines I'd laid, and if I built this fortess around your heart. Encircled you with fences and barbed wire. Then let me build a bridge, for I cannot fill the chasm. Let me set the battlements on fire.

Subject: RE: Songs that hook you with One Great Line
From: catspaw49
Date: 01 May 02 - 10:01 PM

Yeah Bobertz....I live right on the edge of a lot of land that Mr. Peabody owns the rights to and I grew up only a few miles from the "Gem of Egypt" and "Big Muskie".......teo of the biggest draglines in the world. As a kid I was thrilled at their size but before long I was appalled at their destructive power. And I've seen too much of Mr. Peabody's "reclamation".............

Great stuff here folks!!! Thanks for playing. It's an interesting thing to me how it only takes a snippet to endear a song to you.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Songs that hook you with One Great Line
From: Lonesome Gillette
Date: 01 May 02 - 10:04 PM

"How many nickles does it take to see little lulie's body shake?"

From "Shout Little Lulie", traditional (as far as I know) tune

Subject: RE: Songs that hook you with One Great Line
From: Rolfyboy6
Date: 01 May 02 - 10:10 PM

"She got Elgin movements from her head down to her toe" Robert Johnson

Subject: RE: Songs that hook you with One Great Line
From: Lynn
Date: 01 May 02 - 10:27 PM

You'll likely hate me for this...

"It's getting to the point where I'm no fun anymore..."

I loved that line as a kid. Still does something for me.

All the best

Lynn

Subject: RE: Songs that hook you with One Great Line
From: Bill D
Date: 01 May 02 - 10:30 PM

"Well to leave him unburied I thought was a sin
But I was too lazy a grave to begin
So I put on my boots and I trampled him in-"

Dave Goulder, In the Field of the Willows

and most of the rest of the lines

Subject: RE: Songs that hook you with One Great Line
From: GUEST,T-Tone
Date: 01 May 02 - 11:17 PM

Down a dirty old street, the angel of the East is callin' And with a tremblin' hand I open up a can, I can hear a baby bawlin'......Shane MacGowan, Victoria

Subject: RE: Songs that hook you with One Great Line
From: MandolinPaul
Date: 02 May 02 - 12:21 AM

Hank Thompson:
He's got a way with women and he just got away with mine

Mojo Nixon (from Are You Drinkin' With Me, Jesus):
I know that you can walk on the water, but can you walk on this much beer

Muddy Waters:
My baby
She run off with the garbage man
Oh I need that good-lookin' woman
So she can empty my cans

Woody Guthrie:
Take it easy, but take it

BB King (from How Blue Can You Get):
I bought that girl a brand new Ford
She said, "I want a Cadillac"
I bought her a ten-dollar dinner
She said, "Thanks for the snack"
I let her live in my penthouse
She said that it's just a shack
I gave her seven children
and now she wants to give 'em back

Subject: RE: Songs that hook you with One Great Line
From: Hrothgar
Date: 02 May 02 - 03:55 AM

Bogle - Singing the Spirit Home -

"Until the last chains fall, freedom will make slaves of us all."

Subject: RE: Songs that hook you with One Great Line
From: GUEST,Calico
Date: 02 May 02 - 04:28 AM

How about John Prine's great line "I could see that topless lady had something up her sleeve?"

Or Kris Kristofferson's "Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose. Nothin' ain't worth nothin', but it's free?"

Or Mason Williams's "You done stomped on my heart and mashed that sucker flat?"

Goodness, gracious [great balls of fire!], there must be a ton of 'em! Idn't that why they'se called "hook lines?"

Calico

Subject: RE: Songs that hook you with One Great Line
From: Terry K
Date: 02 May 02 - 05:24 AM

"Easy's gettin' harder every day" - Iris Dement

..and somewhere I heard of a country song "If'n I'd have shot her when I first wanted to, I'd have been out by now"

oh, and John Mellencamp "I need a woman who won't drive me crazy - someone who understands the words, hey hit the road now"

Cheers, Terry

Subject: RE: Songs that hook you with One Great Line
From: GUEST,Bullfrog Jones (on the road)
Date: 02 May 02 - 05:43 AM

For its wonderful freewheeling imagery, and because it always lifts my heart -- Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky, with one hand wavin' free, silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands, with all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves, let me forget about today until tomorrow.

Subject: RE: Songs that hook you with One Great Line
From: kendall
Date: 02 May 02 - 07:55 AM

That line from Dylan is a hooker, I'll bet he's glad he swiped the song from his friend and rebuilt it to suit himself. Part of the original:

walking down that long lonesome road babe,
you're the one that made me travel on
still, I sit and wonder as I go babe
just wonder who's gonna buy you ribbons when I'm gone.