Favorite Lines

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 21 May 06 - 10:38 PM

from "Molly Darling" by William Shakespeare Hayes:

Let your answer be a kiss!

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 21 May 06 - 10:42 PM

from "The Hills Of Roane County":

Boys, when you write home from this dirty old prison,
Put one of my songs in your letters for me!

Art

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 21 May 06 - 10:46 PM

from "East Texas Red" by Woody Guthrie:

And Red was dead when the other two men,
Sat down to eat their stew!!

Art

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 21 May 06 - 10:52 PM

from the Arkansas Ozark song "Father Oh Dear Father":

Daughter, oh, dear daughter, go ahead and make your vow,
It ain't no sin 'cause you ain't no kin to your daddy anyhow!!!

Art !!

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 21 May 06 - 10:54 PM

All I can leave you is a handful of songs!!!

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 21 May 06 - 10:59 PM

This young couple were childhood sweethearts--
She was a child, and he was a hood,
The lived a life of of joyful sweet devotion,
Their song is ended, and I think that's good...

Arthur David Thieme !!!

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 21 May 06 - 11:06 PM

...he had both come and gone.

(Art)

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 21 May 06 - 11:12 PM

Banua, banua, banua, oh-uh-oh-oh!
Banua, banua, baby, please don't go!

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Alba
Date: 21 May 06 - 11:13 PM

And at night through the bars
I gaze at the stars
And I long for your kisses in vain
A piece of stone I will use for my pillow
While I'm sleeping in shackles and chains

Shackles and Chains by Jimmie Davis(?)

Hi Art...sending you and yours my best as always:)

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Dan Schatz
Date: 21 May 06 - 11:16 PM

There are so many!

Here's a familiar one, and for good reason:

"Oh, dear me, the world is ill divided -
Them that work the hardest are the least provided."

- Mary Brooksbank, The Jute Mill Song

Songs by Townes Van Zandt and Utah Phillips spring to mind:

"We all got holes to fill,
And them holes are all that's real.
Some fall on you like a storm;
Sometimes you dig your own.
But the choice is yours to make
And time is yours to take -
Some dive into the sea;
Others toil out on the stone.
To live's to fly - low and high,
So shake the dust off of your wings
And the sleep out of your eyes.
Shake the dust off of your wings
And the tears out of your eyes."

- Townes Van Zandt, "To Live's To Fly"

And even though it's spoken:

"Now a traveling life might seem all right -
A life without worry or care.
You're always up and you're always out
And you're always going somewhere.
But I tell you, my friend,
It's not where you are,
But your reason for being there."

- Utah Phillips, "Phoebe Snow"

Someone mentioned Helen Schneyer - here's a traditional one she used to sing:

"Oh it's hard to hear the hungry children crying
When I have two hands that want to do their share."

- traditional, A Miner's Prayer


And the shortest, and maybe the best, written by a good friend and as yet unrecorded:

"What has war to do with children?"
- Lois Lyman, Sarajevo


There are many, many more. Good thread!

Dan Schatz

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: GUEST,Art hieme
Date: 21 May 06 - 11:22 PM

Hi everyone back---! It does seem I have MANY favorite lines.

If you want to get to heaven,
Over on that other shore,
Stay Away from those Blood-Stained Banners,
Good shepherd---feed my sheep...

(from singing of Jimmy Strothers---Library Of Congress Archive Of American Folk Song)

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 21 May 06 - 11:25 PM

If you do not when you may, you shall not when you would!

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: GUEST,Art again
Date: 21 May 06 - 11:32 PM

Way out on the wind swept desert where nature favors no man,
A buffalo found his brother at rest on the sub-baked sand,
The buffalo said to his brother, "What sickness got you this way?"
But his brother never said, 'cause his brother was dead,
Been dead since way last May!

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: GUEST,Art (last one)
Date: 21 May 06 - 11:39 PM

...there could be hundreds more...
Here's one couplet. The whole song. From the mid-1800s California gold fields...

The miners came in '49--the whores in '51,
Then they got together and raised a native son!

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Rapparee
Date: 21 May 06 - 11:57 PM

There are so many!

"...And you to whom adversity has dealt the final blow
With smilin' bastards lyin' to ya everywhere you go...."
                            --Stan Rogers, Mary Ellen Carter

"...But you saw the smiles of the gentry
And the laughter of lords at their games,
For when poor hunt the poor across mountain and moor
A rich man can keep them in chains."
                            -- The Yew Tree

What the heck! It's whole songs that set the lines up for meaning. These and many others -- "And the band played Waltzing Matilda", "The Rapparree," "John Cook," "Greenland Whale Fisheries," even "Yankee Doodle" and "Nova Scotia Farewell" and "Northwest Passage" and "We Shall Overcome" and "The Willing Conscript" and I could go one but I won't.

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: open mike
Date: 22 May 06 - 12:24 AM

Love has made a circle
that holds us all inside
where strangers are as family
and lonliness can't hide

Kate Wolf--Give Yourself to Love

Stretched so tight with wire strings
I have no room to grow
now I am but the slave who sings
when master draws the bow

Laurie Lewis--The maple's Lament

Follow that road
back thru time
back thru distance
back to me

Anne Hills

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 22 May 06 - 12:46 AM

When the blues chase up a rabbit,
Chase him a solid mile,
Poor rabbit sit down
And cry like a new-born child.

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 22 May 06 - 12:56 AM

Very well do I like your red, rosy cheeks,
Very well do I like your chin,
But I like Matthy Grove in his gore of blood
More than you and all your kin!

When I've got no shoes, I'm gonna quit the street;
Take my chair and put a fan at my feet.

When I've got no man, no meat, no shoes,
I'll lay 'cross the bed, head in the blues.

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: karen k
Date: 22 May 06 - 02:10 AM

From Larry Kaplan's "Old Zeb":

At least I know the wind is free and we haven't run out yet.

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: alanabit
Date: 22 May 06 - 02:16 AM

"Bless this voice that cries out alone
While others stand laughing - so afraid of their own
Times have been changed by just one rolling stone
Bless these children"

Bill Boazman - "Bless These Children"

"If she could see the world through my eyes
Would she change her mind?
Would she try to turn the water into wine?
Would her eyes see devices instead of the divine?
And what would they see in mine"

Rob Taylor and Alex Partick in "She Sees Spires"

There are so many brilliant songs, which never become known outside of a relatively small scene. There's a thread...

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Big Mick
Date: 22 May 06 - 07:52 AM

"Oh bury me down in yon green garden, with Union men on every side"

Ballad of James Connolly

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Big Mick
Date: 22 May 06 - 07:57 AM

"An' you sae douce, wha' sneer at this, ye're naught but senseless asses, O'
The wisest man the world e'er saw, he dearly lo'ed the lasses, O!

Auld nature swears the lovely dears, her noblest wark she classes, O'
Her 'prentice han' she tried on man, then she made the lasses, O!"

Robbie Burns, my kind of guy.

Mick

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: kendall
Date: 22 May 06 - 08:27 AM

.. maybe your ticket on the last train to glory is that stranger who was sleeping on your floor.

...and when you're on the last train to glory, you'll know you're reasonably there. (Harry Tuft)

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Big Mick
Date: 22 May 06 - 08:47 AM

From the western Canadian songwriter, Bill Gallaher. He wrote a song about a Wobbly union organizer. This organizer was shot down by police for his organizing activities, and the verse describes his funeral. The song is called "Ginger Goodwin".

"There was an endless line of mourners; people came from miles around.
And the workers on the mainland up and shut Vancouver down.
And in a painted cedar coffin he was carried through the town.
Then in death, as in his short life, Ginger went back underground."

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Big Mick
Date: 22 May 06 - 08:52 AM

From The Finding of Moses, two different lines.

"Ah now, sez Pharoah, I'll search ever nook,
from de Phoenix Park on down to Donnybrook"

and then the last line

"And so little Moses, got his mommy back,
shows that co in cidence is a nut to crack."

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Big Mick
Date: 22 May 06 - 08:56 AM

The whole of "Fairytale of New York" by Shane McGowan.

Damn, I could go on forever. There are so many fav's.

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: C. Ham
Date: 22 May 06 - 11:26 AM

'Cause if a fool be he
He's a fool like me

-Bruce Murdoch

You are right from your side
And I am right from mine
We're just one too many mornings...and a thousand miles behind

-Bob Dylan

Let me sing to you all the old songs I know
Of wild, windy places locked in timeless snow
And wide crimson deserts where muddy rivers flow
It's sad but the telling takes me home

-Utah Phillips

I never thought I was special at all
I never dreamed I could be
Just another coat hanging there in your hall
Look at what you have done to me

-Tom Mitchell

If I could hide the way I feel I'd never sing again

-Utah Phillips

I could have loved you better, didn't mean to be unkind
You know that was the last thing on my mind

-Tom Paxton

The miles flow on and I am gone
To a wild and empty land
Where time is like an empty room
And space an empty hand
And the things we said and the jokes we told
Are echoes in the waste
We'll meet again where hills are green
In another time and place

-Dave Van Ronk

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Mr Fox
Date: 22 May 06 - 11:27 AM

The rabble rout forbore to shout and each man held his breath
For well they knew a hero's soul was face-to-face with death

- Montrose, Steeleye Span


We could leave right now
maybe it's getting light out there
papers in the alley
just a little rain

- We Could Leave Right Now, Oysterband

Speaking of the Oysters, the whole of 'Granite Years' because it reminds me of the time I lived in a certain Kent seaside town that shall remain nameless. Some of the worst times of my life. But, paradoxically, some of the best too.

Down there in the dark they are lying
They died for nine shillings a day

- Gresford Disaster, Anon

And how could I forget?

For England is not flag or Empire it is not money and it is not blood
It's limestone gorge and granite fell it's Wealden clay and Severn mud
It's blackbird singing from the may tree lark ascending through the scales
It's robin watching from your spade and English earth beneath your nails

- A Place Called England, Maggie Holland

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: dwditty
Date: 22 May 06 - 11:34 AM

Also from ANother Time and Place (Van Ronk) - See C Ham's post a couple up from here:

I'd trade my time in heaven
For a day with you, my dear

dw

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Ebbie
Date: 22 May 06 - 11:42 AM

"I still haven't found what I'm looking for" U2

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: GUEST,Art hieme
Date: 22 May 06 - 04:17 PM

from a harmonica blues as sung by Frank Hamilton--1961:

I could sit right here---and look a thousand miles away!

Art

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: kendall
Date: 22 May 06 - 04:18 PM

..and all the things done to make a man run,
the hard luck and the failures of age...

..then I stopped with a crash...we looked into the ash
helpless with longing and rage.
Utah Phillips (Phoebe Snow)

...the clock in the kitchen says quarter past three
As the gates are flung open from hell,
But time here is frozen the clock ticks no more
Just the ashes the cinders and smell.

Fire, by Dave Mallett

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: number 6
Date: 22 May 06 - 04:28 PM

"There's a big old goofy man, dancin' with a big old goofy girl
Oooh baby, it's a big old goofy world"

Its a Big Old Goofy World ... by John Prine

sIx

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Charmain
Date: 22 May 06 - 04:51 PM

Promise me we won't go into the nightclub
I feel so f**ked up when I'm in there
Can't tell the bouncers from the customers
And I don't know which ones I prefer

Promise me we won't go into the nightclub
I really think that it's obscene
What kind of people go to meet people
Someplace they can't be heard or seen

- How true...

"Light Enough To Travel" the Be Good Tanyas

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Rapparee
Date: 22 May 06 - 04:58 PM

The killer and the cynic waltz together
Their eyes are turned into their skulls
They do not feel the bullets in the bodies
They do not hear the dolphins or the gulls

If we do these things in the greenwood,
what will happen in the dry?

                      -- Peter Yarrow, Greenwood, 1973

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Geordie-Peorgie
Date: 22 May 06 - 05:03 PM

Around the world he travelled beneath the ensign, high
He saw the south sea's flying finsh and the starless Arctic sky
But in his heart a-pining for someone so far away
AS THE BOW-WAVE SPLIT THE COOL NIGHT-AIR, HE HEARD THE LEE-WIND SAY..

          "Down By The Dockyard Wall" Shep Woolley

All of "We Stayed Awake" by Huw Williams - Especially the bit where his teenage daughter just has to grasp his finger..... Then I'm wrecked

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Charmain
Date: 22 May 06 - 05:08 PM

God forgot the Green in Greenland
He made the flowers of Ice and Snow

Icy Acres

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: kendall
Date: 22 May 06 - 05:44 PM

The world is always turning toward the morning. (Gordon Bok)

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: GUEST
Date: 22 May 06 - 07:55 PM

From the "Jute Mill Song" aka "Ten and Nine";

Oh dear me - the world is ill divided
Them that works the hardest are the least provided

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Stewie
Date: 22 May 06 - 09:26 PM

From 'Black Angel Cure' by Mark Germino:

Now I shoot the darkness down, I puncture what is swollen
And sometimes I'll tear it down, just to keep it rollin'

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Ferrara
Date: 22 May 06 - 10:10 PM

I guess no one who loves to sing could have just one favorite line, huh? The first thing that came to mind when I started reading this thread was a verse from "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day""

Then in despair I bowed my head,
"There is no peace on earth," I said,
"For hate is strong and mocks the song
"Of peace on earch, good will to men."

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep,
"God is not dead, nor doth he sleep --
"The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,
"With peace on earth, good will to men."

I don't believe such a thing ever will or can happen on this earth, but the words ring out with such hope and brilliance that I love to hear or sing them.

... In an entirely different vein, here's a couple of lines I like very well. I like the intensity and honesty of the lady's anger and vengefulness!
   
I hope there is a day a-comin'
When love shall put an end to me
And that there is a place of torment
To contain my love for deceiving me.

   - From "Come All Ye Fair and Tender Ladies," as sung by Sheila Kaye Adams.

There's another version of the same song, from Arizona I believe, that has a great line in it:

He'll tell to you some pleasant story,
And say he loves no one but you,
And this is all for to blight your day,
And that's the love he has for you!

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 22 May 06 - 10:53 PM

"Blacker than night were the eyes of Felina,
WIcked and evil while casting a spell.
I was in love with this Mexican maiden,
I was in love, but in vain, I could tell."

Seamus

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Alba
Date: 22 May 06 - 11:02 PM

Indeed Ferrara, how could anyone have but one line of one Song they love to Sing or Hear:)

People are strange we move around closely,
only to find we are miles apart.
Busy putting up fences with no Gates to open.
Constructing defenses around our Hearts


and I have long loved the picture this verse paints:

Now the warriors of winter they gave a cold triumphant shout
And all that stays is dying, all that lives is getting out
See the geese in chevron flight flapping and a-racing on before the snow
They've got the urge for going, and they've got the wings so they can go

Urge for Going ~ Joni Mitchell

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: cetmst
Date: 23 May 06 - 07:15 AM

Another line from John Prine's 'Paradise' - I'm sorry my son but you're too late in asking, Mr. Peabody's coal train has hauled it away.

From 'Come By the Hills' - The cares of tomorrow must wait 'til this day is done.

Remember me at the close of a long, long day.

England hath taken me.

Jean Ritchie's Now is the cool of the day.

Jean Ritchie: No more will black waters run over my land.

Jean Ritchie: The L&N don't stop here any more.

Pretty nearly anything else by Jean Ritchie.

My heart breaks as you take your long journey.

A happy-ever-after life was not the kind they got
But they tended to be happy more often than not. - Bob Blue,'Ballad of Erica Levine.

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: kendall
Date: 23 May 06 - 08:48 AM

I come home from work she meets me at the road,
Not to tell me that she loves me, but the toilet overflowed.
(Sandy Paton)

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: harryrages
Date: 23 May 06 - 03:55 PM

One sung - never forgotten

OGGY MAN
(Cyril Tawney)

Well the rain's softly falling and the oggy man's no more
I can't hear him calling like I used to before
I came through the gateway and I heard the sergeant say
The big boys are coming, see their stand across the way
Yes the rain's softly falling and the oggy man's no more

It was there that she told me when she bade me good bye
There's no one will miss you one half as much as I
My love will endure, dear, like a beacon in the squall
Eternal as the oggy man beneath the dockyard wall
Well the rain's softly falling and the oggy man's no more

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: GUEST,Milead
Date: 23 May 06 - 05:45 PM

Has anybody mentioned yet...

"At the age of fourteen he was a married man,
Age of fifteen the father of a son.
Age of sixteen on his grave the grass was green"

From "Trees they grow high" Sadness made poetry.
Cheers

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Crystal
Date: 24 May 06 - 04:42 AM

I bought the new SOH Album last week and decided that my current favourite line in any song is:

"And a minister said his vision of hell,
Is three folk singers in a bar near Wells,
But I have a vision of urban sprawl,
It's pubs where no-one ever sings at all."

Chillingly accurate.
I wasn't terribly impressed with the rest of the album to be honest though!

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: BB
Date: 24 May 06 - 04:24 PM

From a version of 'Cottage Well-Thatched with Straw':

'Sunday saints I despise, with their chatter and lies;
They're as constant as melting snow...'

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: GUEST,Dan Schatz at the office
Date: 24 May 06 - 04:37 PM

The very sad news about Margaret MacArthur reminded me of one of my all time favorite lines from the cowboy poem she put to music:

"Religion? You don't know its primary branches
If you ain't been alone with the stars."

- a poem adapted by Margaret MacArthur, Them Stars