Favorite Lines

Subject: Favorite Lines
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 11 May 06 - 05:01 PM

I just finished listening to one of my favorite songs, The Cafe On The Corner by Sawyer Brown. It's about an out of work Farmer who takes a job bussing tables at the Cafe, and is feeling just a little "out of place."

The lines are:

"And the meek shall inherit the earth
And the bank shall reposess it
And this job don't pay half what it's worth
But it's a thankful man that gets it."

The whole song is very strong, but those lines in particular really get me..

Got lines?

Jerry

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Bill D
Date: 11 May 06 - 05:31 PM

similarly:

from "Broken Down Squatter"

"When the country was cursed with the drought at its worst,
And the cattle were dying in scores,
I kept up me pluck, and trusted to luck,
Thinking justice might temper the laws.
But the farce had been played, and government aid
Ain't extended to squatters, old son.
When me money was spent, they just doubled the rent,
And resumed the best part of the run."

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Big Mick
Date: 11 May 06 - 07:11 PM

The whole song, but particularly this line from George Papavgeris' "Empty Handed":

My savings went to buy this land, but all its good for is to bury me

Later in this wonderful song:

I wonder what would happen if I just kept right on walking, till I disappeared..

Great stuff, El Grecko!!

All the best,

Mick

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: GUEST,old git
Date: 12 May 06 - 06:40 PM

From Calum Sands' "The man in the cap"

The priest was sprinkling prayers and holy water in the rain

and from "Ranzo"

I said to her "Me darling and how are you this morning?"
She said "None the better for the seeing of you."

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: GUEST
Date: 12 May 06 - 07:23 PM

My oldest nephew asked me a few years back what was my fav song. I told him I couldn't possibly choose only one of the who knows how many songs I've known & sung from most genres imaginable, but that I could tell him one of my alltime favorite lyric portions:

"Radiant beams from thy holy face;
   with the dawn of redeeming grace . . ."

       from the English version--Silent Night

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Elmer Fudd
Date: 12 May 06 - 07:35 PM

Ry Cooder's "Across the Borderline" touches a deep place in me. It works on many levels: spiritual, earthly, cosmic, localized, life, death, hope, despair. There is one verse in Spanish. Just gorgeous.

The chorus:

When you reach the broken promised land
And every dream slips through your hands
Then you'll know that it's too late to change your mind
'Cause you've paid the price to come so far
Just to wind up where you are
And you're still just across the borderline.

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Peace
Date: 12 May 06 - 07:48 PM

The whole song of which this is the last stanza. As Elmer said, it works (on me, anyway) on many levels.

They say that I'm feeble with age, Maggie,
My steps are less sprightly than then,
My face is a well-written page, Maggie,
And time alone was the pen.
They say we are agèd and grey, Maggie,
As sprays by the white breakers flung,
But to me you're as fair as you were, Maggie,
When you and I were young.

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: GUEST
Date: 12 May 06 - 07:57 PM

"It's a sign I'm getting on in years,
When nothing new seems welcome to these eyes and ears."

From John Gorka's "Houses In the Fields" -- and really, like Peace, I think it's the whole darned song, or at least the last couplet in every verse, that does it for me, not just a couple of lines. I don't think the song has been posted elsewhere in the forum, so I'll give it to you here:

HOUSES IN THE FIELDS
Written by John Gorka (1991)

They're growing houses in the fields between the towns,
And the Starlight Drive-In movie's closing down,
The road is gone to the way it was before,
And the spaces won't be spaces anymore.

Two more farms were broken by the drought,
First the Wagners now the Fullers pulling out,
Developers paid better than the corn,
But this was not the place where they were born.

CHORUS:

There's houses in the fields, no prayers for steady rain this year,
Houses in the fields, there's houses in the fields,
And the last few farms are growing out of here.

First he wouldn't sell and then he would,
Now there'll be children playing where the silos stood,
The word came from the marrow of his bones,
It was the last sure way to pay off all the loans.

The new streets will be named for kings and queens,
And a ransom will be paid for every castle's dream,
The model sign is crested with a lion,
And the farmers they will have enough to die on.

(CHORUS)

Oh, I guess no one should be afraid of change,
But tell me why is there a fence for every open range?
It's a sign I'm getting on in years,
When nothing new seems welcome to these eyes and ears.

(CHORUS)

They're growing houses in the fields between the towns,
And the Starlight Drive-In movie is all closed down,
The road is gone to the way it was before,
And the spaces won't be spaces anymore,
No, the spaces won't be spaces anymore.

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Midchuck
Date: 12 May 06 - 08:00 PM

There's a hound dog running all alone through the piney woods
The howlin' tears the soul out of me
There's a jay bird calling up a funeral dirge
In ragtime harmony.
Barb'ry Allen rolled over in her grave all morning
There were roses growing out of her head
Hey, God's gonna burn down Nashville tonight
Jimmy Martin's dead
Ah, the great Jimmy Martin's gone dead

Tom Russell, "The Death of Jimmy Martin>

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Alba
Date: 12 May 06 - 08:21 PM

I never knew what you all wanted
So I gave you everything
All that I could pillage
All the spells that I could sing
It's as if the thing were written
In the constitution of the age
Sooner or later you'll wind up
Pacing the cage

Sometimes the best map will not guide you
You can't see what's round the bend
Sometimes the road leads through dark places
Sometimes the darkness is your friend
Today these eyes scan bleached-out land
For the coming of the outbound stage
Pacing the cage
Pacing the cage

Bruce Cockburn: Pacing the Cage

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: kendall
Date: 12 May 06 - 08:26 PM

I have so many favorite lines so I'll just mention a song that I just heard recently for the first time.
It's by Ian Campbell, and titled "Sun is burning in the sky."

Now the sun has come to earth
shrouded in a mushroom cloud of death
Death comes in a blinding flash of hellish heat and leaves a smear of ash,
And the sun has come to earth
Now the sun has disappeared
All is darkness, anger pain and fear

TWISTED SIGHTLESS WRECKS OF MEN GO GROPING ON THEIR KNEES AND CRY IN PAIN
And the sun has disappeared....

That's one of the most powerful lines I have ever heard.

War really is the ultimate failure.

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: catspaw49
Date: 12 May 06 - 08:48 PM

"The best kind of love can take away the pain
And the best kind of answer has no sound."......Peter Himmelman

Himmelman did the music for "Judging Amy" and this song was an original written for a particular show. A really GREAT line.....

Spaw

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Effsee
Date: 12 May 06 - 09:17 PM

"And for two thousand years,
He's brought nothing but tears,
and the cross that they plant on the graves"
Harvey Andrews.

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 12 May 06 - 09:35 PM

And a Bob Franke song about fatherhood: "It's not the thing I do best, but it's the best thing I do." Every parent can recognize the wisdom in that line.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Alba
Date: 12 May 06 - 09:56 PM

This verse melts my Heart as it makes me think of my Grandfather for some reason. Strange what Imagery a Song bring to our minds:)

At the crossroads fair I'll be surely there
And I'll dress in my Sunday clothes
And I'll try sheep's eyes, and deludhering lies
On the heart of the nut-brown Rose.
No pipe I'll smoke, no horse I'll yoke
Though with rust my plow turns brown,
Till a smiling bride by my own fireside
Sits the Star of the County Down.

By the way it worked For William Doyle, my Grandfather. He married his nut brown Rose:)

Lovely Thread Jerry, as usual. Thank You
J

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Peace
Date: 12 May 06 - 10:10 PM

I guess I should stop by Mr. Johnson`s hardware store
His only son was my friend Joe
But he joined the army back in 1964
How could we know he would never come back, twenty years ago.

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 13 May 06 - 01:44 AM

Great line from the song ' A Pub With No Beer '

" There's a far away look on the face of the bum '

and a line from Richard Thompsons ' Beeswing '

" White Horse in her hip pocket, and a wolfhound at her feet. "

eric

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 13 May 06 - 01:46 AM

I'm almost ashamed to admit it, but my favourite lines (at the moment, anyway) come from a song by Lonestar - What about now?

The road rolls out like a welcome mat,
I don't know where it goes, but it beats where we're at,
We always said 'some day some how,
We're gonna get away, gonna blow this town;

What about now, how about tonight?


Just sums up everything I feel about all the trips I've planned and never been on... just getting into a car or a plane and being somewhere else, because anywhere is better than where we are now.

LTS

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Elmer Fudd
Date: 13 May 06 - 02:34 AM

My love she speaks like silence,
Without ideals or violence,
She doesn't have to say she's faithful,
Yet she's true, like ice, like fire.
People carry roses,
Make promises by the hours,
My love she laughs like the flowers,
Valentines can't buy her.


...and all the rest of "Love Minus Zero No Limit," by Bob Dylan

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Pauline L
Date: 13 May 06 - 04:48 AM

Two of my favorite lines come from the same song:

We never did do much talkin' anyway
----------------
I gave her my heart but she wanted my soul

A really powerful song is American Pie. All the lyrics are good, but especially the last verse:

I met a girl who sang the blues
And I asked her for some happy news
But she just smiled and turned away
I went down to the sacred store
Where I'd heard the music years before
But the man there said the music woudn't play

And in the streets the children screamed
The lovers cried, and the poets dreamed
But not a word was spoken
The church bells all were broken
And the three men I admire most
The Father, Son and the Holy Ghost
They caught the last train for the coast
The day the music died

That just rips me up every time I hear or play it.

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: clairerise
Date: 13 May 06 - 08:25 AM

Why is the bedroom so cold?
You've turned away on your side.
Is my timing that flawed?
Our respect runs so dry.
Yet there's still this appeal
That we've kept through our lives.

But love, love will tear us apart again.
Love, love will tear us apart again.

You cry out in your sleep,
All my failings exposed.
And there's a taste in my mouth,
As desperation takes hold.
Just that something so good
Just can't function no more.


I know it is not the norm on here, but i just love these lyrics.

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 13 May 06 - 08:30 AM

Norm? There ain't no Norm on here? :-)

Jerry

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: kendall
Date: 13 May 06 - 08:30 AM

..for Willy McBride it all happened again, and again, and again, and again and again..

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: GUEST
Date: 19 May 06 - 05:08 PM

i love that line...do you know what the name of the song actually is? i can't find it based on the lyrics alone. thanks =)

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: GUEST,Mikeof Northumbria(off base)
Date: 19 May 06 - 05:32 PM

"And he not busy being born is busy dying"

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Alba
Date: 19 May 06 - 09:09 PM

Hi Guest 5:08pm

If you meant Kendall's Favorite Line :....for Willy McBride it all happened again, and again, and again, and again and again..

The line is from the Song "No Man's Land" by Eric Bogle

Here is the Chorus and the verse containing the Line itself.


Chorus:
Did they beat the drum slowly and play the fife lowly,
did they sound the death march as they lowered you down ?
and did the band play the last post and chorus ?
And did the pipes play the flowers of the forest

Did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind
In some faithful heart is your memory enshrined
And though you died back in 1916, to that loyal heart are you forever 19
Or are you a stranger without even a name
Enshrined there forever behind a glass pane
In an old photograph torn and tattered and
stained
And fading to yellow in a brown leather frame

Last verse:
And I can't help but wonder young Willie McBride
Do all who lie here with you know why they died
Did you really believe it when they told you the cause
Did you honestly think that one war would end wars
Well your suffering, your sorrow, your glory, your shame
Your killing, your dying, it was all done in vain..........
'Cos young Willie McBride it all happened again, and again, and again, and again and again.

Great Line and a Great Song imo.

Jude
Song title corrected per Alba's request.

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 19 May 06 - 09:37 PM

From Rosalie Sorrels' "Go With Me":

Let me walk into your smile,
Rest there in your eyes awhile,
Climb the mountains of your heart,
Walk your mind from dawn till dark.

Always reminds me of the night I met my wife of forty-nine years ago, and we sat in the kitchen, walking one another's minds,

Sandy

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 19 May 06 - 09:47 PM

Sorry for the extraneous "of" in the last line of the above.

I also like the last two lines on the chorus of Gordon Bok's "Turning Toward the Morning":

"If I had a thing to give you, I would tell you one more time:
The world is always turning toward the morning."

We have sung this at many funerals -- not for the departed, but for the grieving ones who have been left to carry on.

A favorite quatrain from tradition ("Dear Companion"):

Last night you were sweetly sleeping,
Dreaming in your sweet repose,
Whilst I, a poor boy broken-hearted,
Listened to the wind that blows.

Sandy

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: GUEST
Date: 19 May 06 - 10:29 PM

No, Alba,
"the line is from the Song "The Greenfields of France" by Eric Bogle"
That may be what some groups call it but Bogle called it "No man's land."
And some people call it "Willie McBride" but they're wrong too.
Robyn

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Alba
Date: 19 May 06 - 10:46 PM

Thank you for putting me in my place Robyn.
Alba

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 20 May 06 - 02:38 AM

If I had a pen from Pennsylvania,
if I had paper of the purest white,
if I had ink of the rosy morning
a true love note unto you I'd write.

(When First I Went to Caledonia)

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Stewie
Date: 20 May 06 - 04:27 AM

Adoptee to birth mother:

On the day when I was new
You held me once
No one held you
I think of you as a Mourning Dove
That only flew on wings of love
[From Steven Sellors' 'Mourning Dove']

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 20 May 06 - 05:47 AM

so many great lines

the sky admits defeat, the sea will kiss your feet
I could drown in those blue eyes
(from Don Partridges hit Blue Eyes - written I believe by Richard kerr)

I could see she wasn't my cup of tea,
and I wasn't her glass of wine
(from I could not take my eyes off her by Dave Paskett)

Woman is the sweetest fruit god ever put on the vine
and I no more have just one kinda woman than I'd drink only one kind of wine
(from Berkley Woman by Bryan Bowers)

all of Late in the Evening by Paul Simon

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Teribus
Date: 20 May 06 - 07:39 AM

From Eric Bogle's "Safe in the Harbour":

"Ah to throw off the shackles and fly with the seabirds
To where green waves tumble, before driving sea winds.
Or to lie on the decking on a warm summers evening
And watch the red sun fall burning beneath the earth's rim"

Brings back lots of memories of passages long gone. My interest in "watching the red sun" falling burning beneath the earth's rim in those days was to check the ship's gyro. You took a bearing of the setting sun with the sun one half it's size above the horizon, funny thing was, whoever took that sight always stayed to see the sun fully down.

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Joe Offer
Date: 20 May 06 - 01:21 PM

from John Prine's "Paradise" (1971):

Well sometimes we'd travel right down the Green River
To the abandoned old prison down by Adrie Hill
Where the air smelled like snakes, And we'd shoot with our pistols
But empty pop bottles Was all we would kill.

These are some of the most vividly descriptive words I know. I was driving through western Kentucky a couple years ago, and I just had to hike a trail I found near the Green River. It was in Mammoth Cave National Park, high above the river in a lush, overgrown area that has sinkholes all around. Yes, it DID smell like snakes there and I was halfway scared out of my wits to walk alone, but it was beautiful.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From:
Date: 20 May 06 - 03:06 PM

This is from a Vermont rock band I know, but just love this verse, from "Shopping List" by 8084

"I'm having lunch today, with the harbingers of doom.
I'm meeting them at noon
I have to do it soon
'cause they've been occupying all the empty corners of my room"



Not sure why, but it just hits me in the right places. :-)

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 21 May 06 - 10:45 AM

"That's All Right" recorded by Helen Schneyer --

"I went down in the valley to pray,
My soul got happy and it stayed all day.
My soul's got a seat up in the Kingdom
And that's all right."

I love it ! -- "My soul got happy and it stayed all day".

Linn

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: number 6
Date: 21 May 06 - 11:11 AM

There're many songs and many lines, but this is comes to mind this morning as I post to this thread:

We'll hoist a hand
Becalmed upon a troubled sea
"Make haste your funeral," cries the Valkyrie

We'll hoist a hand
Or drown amidst a stormy sea
"Here lies a coffin," cries the cemetery, it calls to me

And all for nothing quite in vain was hope forever tossed
No thoughts explained, no moments gained, no hope forever lost
One moment's space, one moment's final fall from grace
Burnt by fire, blind in sight, lost in ire

sIx

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Leadfingers
Date: 21 May 06 - 11:24 AM

"When they're sweeping up bits of the night that got broken , and washing the moon away" - A fragment from 'Turnaround' by Left Wing Politacal writer Robb Johnson , to prove that he can write love songs as well !!

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: GUEST
Date: 21 May 06 - 04:16 PM

The light of passion in dreamy eyes, and a page of truth well read,
The glorious thrill in a heart grown cold of the spirit I thought was dead,
A song that goes to a comrade's heart, and a tear of pride let fall --
And my soul is strong! and the world to me is a grand world after all!

Garnet Rogers....."After all".   From a poem by Australian Henry Lawson......Always reminds me that maybe its not all in vain ...Ake

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 21 May 06 - 04:23 PM

Jerry Rasmussen, who initiated this thread, has crafted many memorable lines himself, but one that has always struck me as truly capturing the "idiom of the people" opens his song about Dixon, Illinois:

    "Used to be was all I knew was Dixon."

My wife, Caroline, sings Craig Johnson's gem "Goodbye to the Lowlands" which talks of the changes in one's old home town wrought by the bulldozers of progress. His second verse observes that developments are often named after the areas they've destroyed -- you know, that long line of condominiums called "Walnut Grove" that stands where the walnut trees once were, but are no more:

    They've landscaped the cornfields, the back roads are paved,
    And they've built lots of houses with false country names;
    Names of the farms and the fields that they've changed,
    But they can't hide the truth of what little remains.

Bob Coltman's "Weaver's Reverie" sets the stage in the first verse of his heartbreaking song of the factory girls of 19th century Lowell, Masscahusetts, thusly:

    Where the weaver stands to work, she can scarcely see the sky;
    The songs of the sparrow can't be heard.
    The golden sunlight out the dirty window shines;
    She turns to her weaving without a word.

and the chorus observes:

    Slap go the belts against the pulleys;
    Shuttles fly across the loom.
    There are hours to go, and they never go so slow
    As they go in the weaving room.

    Sandy

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 21 May 06 - 04:26 PM

From Spring Of '65: traditional

"Come all you newsy women, who scatter news about
Don't tell no tales upon us, we're bad enough without
Don't tell no tales upon us, or kick up any fuss
You've been guilty of the same thing, perhaps a whole lot worse.

I find it interesting how few lines from traditional music have been posted..

Jerry

or, how about: from Coal Man Blues, from Peg Leg Howell

Woke up this morning, 'bout five o'clock
Cooked me some eggs and a nice pork chop
Drank a cup of coffee, read a magazine
I had to run pretty fast to catch the five fifteen

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Tootler
Date: 21 May 06 - 04:31 PM

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the sign said "The words of the prophet are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls
And whisper'd in the sounds of silence.

From "Sounds of Silence" by Paul Simon.

And, in a more light hearted vein;

The sheep's in the meadow,
The kye's in the corn,
Thou's ower lang in thy bed,
Bonny at morn.
The sheep's in the meadow,
The kye's in the corn,
Thou's ower lang in thy bed,
Bonny at morn.

Chorus
Canny at night,
Bonny at morn,
Thou's ower lang in thy bed,
Bonny at morn.

The bird's in the nest,
The trout's in the burn,
Thou hinders thy mother,
In many a turn.
The bird's in the nest,
The trout's in the burn,
Thou hinders thy mother,
In many a turn.
Canny at night

We're all laid idle,
Wi' keeping the bairn,
The lad winnot work,
The lass winnot lairn,
We're all laid idle,
Wi' keeping the bairn,
The lad winnot work,
The lass winnot lairn,
Canny at night

Traditional Northumbrian

Something I am sure any parent can relate to :-)

Geoff

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Mr Fox
Date: 21 May 06 - 06:33 PM

Is it him that you see when we make love together?
Is it him that you see now war fills the sky?
Was he there when you stood in your grandmother's wedding dress
As we made our own vows, you and I?
- Woods of Darney, Richard Thompson.

Men have stripped you to the skin
Now the wolves will strip you to the bone
- The Death of Young Andrew, Trad.

Early next morning his fiddle was found
Splinters and wires on the grey mossy ground
Some say it was love that had called him away
Others would rather not say
- Fiddler's Cross, Bob Pegg

Well, I heard the hoot owl singing
As they were taking down the tents
The stars above the barren trees
Were his only audience
Them charcoal gypsy maidens
Can strut their feathers well
But nobody can sing the blues
Like Blind Willie McTell
- Blind Willie McTell, Bob Dylan

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: RobbieWilson
Date: 21 May 06 - 06:33 PM

Alba, you were right enough about Green Fields of France. It was originally called No Man's Land, and Bogle would explain the reason why; ( double meaning; land between the trenches and the central point of the song that all those boys never got to be men). However when he started to make money out of the Clancy Brothers reworking of the song which they called Green Fields of France and he has since made it quite clear when introducing it on stage that he is hapy with the new name.

Back to favourite lines:
You come home late you come home early,
You come on big when you're feeling small.
You come home straight, you come home curly,
Sometimes you don't come home at all.
(John Prine)

You curl around me like a fern in the spring
(John Martyn)

Your eyes look from a different face
they've seeen that much, that soon
Your cheeks too cold too pale to shine
like an old and waning moon.
(Richard Thompson)

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Ebbie
Date: 21 May 06 - 06:47 PM

So many.

I always thought I'd see you again. Fire and Rain/ James Taylor

I felt my own music within me rise
like the wind in the Autumn trees. River/Bill Staines

And the moon came up, so quiet in the sky. Roseville Fair/ Bill Staines

Like the last leaf on the Autumn branch
Comes a time you must let go. Changin' of the Seasons/Kathy Martin fanning

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: BuckMulligan
Date: 21 May 06 - 06:59 PM

Maybe love is not as gentle as my memory
Maybe time and wishful half-remembered fantasy
are the greatest part

Cheryl Wheeler - "Arrow"


Flipped into the wind
Like the ashes of her cigarette

Comin' Down in the Rain - Buddy Mondlock

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 21 May 06 - 10:24 PM

from the labor song "Hard Times In The Mill":

Ain't it enough to break your heart,
You gotta work all day -- and at night, it's dark.

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 21 May 06 - 10:29 PM

Hi, Art: I figured I could get some favorite lines from a traditional song from you.... :-)

Jerry

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 21 May 06 - 10:35 PM

from Woody Guthrie's "Ballad Of Tom Joad":

They buried grandpa Joad by the side of the road,
Buried grandma on the California side!

--------(These two spare lines by Woody take care of the entire migration trip from the Oklahoma dust bowl to the supposed land of milk and honey in California. Without this brilliant shortcut this already very long song would've had 5 or 6 more verses.)

Art

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

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 24 May 06 - 04:40 PM

Hey, Dan: Thanks for remembering Margaret.

(I thought I was exceptionally gracious not to take the 100th post..)

Jerry

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Scoville
Date: 24 May 06 - 05:07 PM

Creedence Clearwater Revival, from "Lodi":

"If I only had a dollar for every song I'd sung,
Every time I had to play while people sat there drunk . . . "

Haven't had to do that very much myself but I've been to enough shows by decent bands where the audience just didn't give a damn.




And all of "Faded Coat of Blue". Normally I'm immune to Victorian schmaltz but that sucker gets me every time.

And almost anything by Hazel Dickens.

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Bill D
Date: 24 May 06 - 05:29 PM

the last two lines in "I've Rambled This Country, Both Earlye and Late" (recorded by Mike Seeger)
(a song of maudlin reflection by a fellow who realizes his "true love" has just taken up with someone else)

"And since it is no better, I'm glad that it is no worse-
Brandy in my bottle, and money in my purse."

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Dan Schatz
Date: 25 May 06 - 11:34 AM

I'm glad to remember Margaret, Jerry - it is always good to remember those who have done truly wonderful things.

Here's another line from the same song, "Them Stars."

It's the description of Coyote as

"That yap throated critical vamint who never
Is pleased with what other folks do...."

(And wasn't that brilliantly put to music?)

Dan Schatz

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Steve-o
Date: 25 May 06 - 12:37 PM

Now the years have left me bitter, the drink has dimmed my brain; for Dublin keeps on changin', and nothin' seems the same; the Metropole and the pillar are gone, the Royale long since torn down; as the grey unyielding concrete makes a city of my town.
These evocative lines are burned into my memory, perhaps somewhat incorrectly, from "Dublin in the Rare Auld Times".

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Rapparee
Date: 25 May 06 - 02:49 PM

More lines that have a special meaning for me and, I suspect, to many veterans:

...And when the ship pulled into Circular Quay
I looked at the place where my legs used to be
And thanked Christ there was no one there waiting for me
To grieve, and to mourn, and to pity.

And the band played Waltzing Matilda
As they carried us down the gangway
But nobody cheered
They just stood there and stared
Then they turned all their faces away.

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: GUEST,Hutzul
Date: 25 May 06 - 10:36 PM

"Screamed like a panther in the middle of the night"
    Willie

I may be a wage slave on a Monday
But I'll be a free man on Sunday

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: number 6
Date: 25 May 06 - 11:27 PM

"He has no friends
But he gets a lot of mail
I'll bet he spent a little
Time in jail...
I heard he was up on the
Roof last night
Signaling with a flashlight
And what's that tune he's
Always whistling...
What's he building in there?
What's he building in there?

We have a right to know..."

What's He Building? ... by Tom Waits

sIx

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Alba
Date: 25 May 06 - 11:45 PM

Just give me a long,slow moving Freight Train.
Don't want no fast, high flying Airplane.
Just sing me a slow, lonesome old love song, before too long....
I'll be long gone.

Slow Moving Freight Train by Hugh Moffat
( I love Hugh Moffat singing his song but I also love Seldom Scene's version too)

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: C. Ham
Date: 26 May 06 - 08:42 AM

Come gather round me children, a story I will tell
I've been around since Jesus met the woman at the well
I've walked these roads ten thousand years, I'm a ragtime millionaire
I am the rake and the ramblin' saint, the man from God knows where

(and every other line from every song on Tom Russell's The Man From God Knows Where)

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: kendall
Date: 24 Sep 08 - 04:59 PM

..the waves rolled up like mountain tops and the wind like a thing in pain. (Bob Coltman)

Our conversation was quite short,
Five minutes at the most
But he stood before me like a child and conjured up the ghosts
Of friends and kinfolks from an older and a slower time
And fify years just disappeared like minutes in his mind.. (Old Blue Ox, Dave Mallett)

And you're wondering what Marian found to do
That's better than coming to see you one last time
No more Robin, no more, your outlaw days are over . (Bob Coltman)

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Cool Beans
Date: 24 Sep 08 - 06:12 PM

As through this world I ramble
I've seen lots of funny men:
Some rob you with a six-gun,
Some with a fountain pen.
   Woody Guthrie, "Pretty Boy Floyd" and forever current.

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: alanabit
Date: 25 Sep 08 - 09:02 AM

"I met a man whose name was time
He said,"I must be going".
But just how long ago that was, I have no way of knowing
Sometimes I want to murder time
When my poor heart is aching
But mostly I just walk along the path that he is taking."

Robin Williamson from "October Song".

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: GUEST,Abdul the Bul Bul on his laptop
Date: 25 Sep 08 - 01:46 PM

Just to dance beneath the diamond skies with one hand waving free

You come right inside of me, close as you can be, you kiss my blood and my blood kiss me.

Al

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: chazkratz
Date: 25 Sep 08 - 06:05 PM

I love the last verse of John Hartford's "Gentle on My Mind":

I pull my cup of soup back from a gurgling, crackling cauldron in some train yard
My beard a dusty coal-pile and my dirty hat pulled low across my eyes
Through cupped hands round a tin can I pretend to hold you in my arms and find
That you're moving on the backroads by the rivers of my memories
Ever smiling, ever gentle on my mind

And from Flanders and Swann:

Have some Madeira, m'dear, you really have nothing to fear
I'm not trying to tempt you, that wouldn't be right
You shouldn't take spirits at this time of night
But have some Madeira, m'dear

and of course, the last lines of the song:

"Have some Madeira, m'dear,"
The sound seemed to ring in her ear
Until the next morning she woke in her bed
With a smile on her lips and an ache in her head
And a beard at her earlobe* which tickled and said
"Have some Madeira, m'dear"

*"lug hole" in the original--which is funnier, but most of us Yanks wouldn't understand it.

And a bunch of lines by Kris Kristofferson

Charles

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego
Date: 25 Sep 08 - 06:46 PM

For no particular reason, the many verses of "Thais," a comic take on the operatic heroine and her erstwhile saviour, Athanael, have been stuck in my head for over fifty years. The last two verses pretty well sum up the poor man's dilemma:

      So forth from Alexandria,
      From wicked Alexandria,
      Across the desert sands they go
      Beneath the blazing sun;
      Till Thais, parched and sweltering,
      Finds refuge in the sheltering
      Seclusion of the convent,
      In the habit of a nun!

      And now, the monk is terrified,
      To find his fears are verified;
      His holy vows of chastity
      Have cracked beneath the strain,
      Like one who has a jag on,
      He cries out in grief and agony:
      "I'd sell my soul to see her do the shimmy once again!"

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Sorcha
Date: 25 Sep 08 - 07:39 PM

Do lines from films count? If so....


From The Long Riders...
'I hope you are all havin' a reeelll goood time, cuz I am'
Belle Starr just before the knife fight


'Vil sum kind soul please show dis poor asshole de vay out of town?'
'Rabbi' Gene Wilder in Frisco Kid

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: meself
Date: 25 Sep 08 - 07:51 PM

There were scuffles in the crowd,
And the night got rather loud,
From a-joltin' one another to and fro;
While old men with foreheads bare,
Threw their dusters in the air,
Wanting someone for to fight them at Gros Haut.

It may raise the price of shirts,
But there's no one badly hurt,
And I hope there's no ill feelings to bestow;
There's been picnics here before,
A little nearer to the shore,
But they might be called twin brothers at Gros Haut!


Okay, those last few lines might require some explanation, but anyway, that's a bit of The Picnic at Gros Haut (or The Tea at Gros Haut?), a Prince Edward Island folksong I assume was collected by Sandy Ives ...

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: GUEST,guesta
Date: 08 Sep 10 - 05:17 PM

all in all, you're just a brick in the wall. (Pink Floyd)

the storm is breaking or so it seems, we're too young to reason, too grown up for dreams. (Bryan Ferry)

oh mama dear we're not the fortunate ones, but girls just wanna have fun.

I took her to a supermarket, i had to start it somewhere, so i started there...I said pretend you've got no money / she said oh you're so funny i said yeah? i don't see anyone else laughing here.

Oh Deborah your house was very small with woodchip on the wall.

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Joe_F
Date: 08 Sep 10 - 05:40 PM

Married girl, married girl, rocks the cradle and cries.

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 08 Sep 10 - 06:13 PM

And nobody mentions the classics.....
"A man ain't nothin' but a man"
"Death, cold death, came hasting along"
"A haint can't haint a haint, my good old man"

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 08 Sep 10 - 06:19 PM

"But when you fell asleep with blood on your teeth" - The Handsome Family, 'So Much Wine'

"I was born a lonely singer and I'm bound to die the same
But I've got to beat the hunger in my soul,
And if I never have a nickel I won't ever die of shame
'Cause I don't believe that no one wants to know."

Kris Kristofferson, 'To Beat the Devil"

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Bernard
Date: 08 Sep 10 - 06:27 PM

For me it has to be the opening line to Jake Thackray's 'On Again, On Again'...

'I love a good bum on a woman it makes my day!'...!!

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: RTim
Date: 08 Sep 10 - 06:35 PM

I have a line in a version of Bold Manning I will be attempting to learn some time this year.
It goes like this:

"Now some they slew and some they slay, and some they killed outright,"

Some might say - Over Kill!!

Tim Radford

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: Joe_F
Date: 09 Sep 10 - 06:19 PM

Too late, but never mind.

Subject: RE: Favorite Lines
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 09 Sep 10 - 06:40 PM

"If you don't like my peaches, don't shake my tree"