Best lines in a song


There has been a long-running thread here of 'Best quotes' but maybe it would be interesting to find out folks' favorite lines from songs. To keep it on some sort of track, let's have a few ground rules.

- Attribution is required, who sang it (or wrote it) and where can we hear it?
- Shorter is better, four lines maximum, a verse. These should be words of wisdom that can be summoned for inspiration in social emergencies.
- If you're an opera fan, you're welcome to post in Italian, just don't expect many high fives from the monolingual among us.

I'll throw out a couple for starters:

When you're rockin' and a rollin' you can't hear your momma call.
Little Richard - Good Golly, Miss Molly

All I want in this life of mine is some good clean fun.
All I want in this life and time is some hit and run.
Little Feat - Fat Man in the Bathtub
128x128sfar
"A Fee laying Woman Ain't Got No Sole":: Led Zeplin

"While I'm Jacking-Off Reading Playboy on a Sunday Afternoon":: Rod Stewart

"Ah Tell Me Who are You, Ah Who The F@#K Are You":: The Who
another day another dollar after i sing & holler ,its my way of livin & i cant change a thing,and the time is growin near oh baby i wish you were here & the only way i can see you is darlin in my dreams,the hurt you leave behind is the hurt thats on my mind (ITS A HIGHWAY SONG)
BAND blackfoot
ALBUM strikes
SONG HIGHWAY SONG

this verse always reminds me of someone i lost that was very dear to me & no its not my wife.
Always a favorite ever since I attended a songwriters workshop and Felix Cavaliere was talking about interesting wordplay ...

The Rascals ... "How Can I Be Sure" written by Felix Cavaliere and Eddie Brigati

Verse #3 ...

How's the weather,
Whether or not we're together,
Together we'll see it much better,
I'll love you, I'll love you forever,
You know where I can be found.

Regards, Rich
I love you You love Me where a Happy Family.

I think a Guy named Barney Wrote it
And in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make - Beatles - The End

And everything under the sun is in tune, but the sun is eclipsed by the moon - Pink Floyd - Eclipse

The sands of time were eroded by the river of constant change - Genesis - Firth of Fifth

Watch out now, take care beware of greedy leaders, they'll take you where you should not go -George Harrison - Beware of Darkness
"If they were right, I'd agree, but it's them they know - not me"

Cat Stevens from "Father and Son"
"You know the times you impress me the most are the times that you don't try."
-- Joni Mitchell, Last Time I Saw Richard

"She's filing her nails while they're dragging the lake."
-- Elvis Costello, Watching the Detectives

"The only kind of man that you ever wanted was one that you
knew you couldn't hold very long. You're sittin' there cryin' like
I'm the first one to go."
-- Jerry Jeff Walker, Angel

"I'm like a one eyed cat, peepin' in a seafood store."
-- Joe Turner, Shake, Rattle, and Roll

"Love is love not fade away."
-- Buddy Holley, Not Fade Away
I used to be chicken hearted;
cry when he'd walk out the do'
'cause I was just young and stupid.
Ha! Ain't like that no mo'

one monkey don't stop no show.
One monkey don't stop no show.
Let him do anything he choose.
There's a million men who can fill his shoes.

Big Maybelle, One Monkey Don't Stop No Show
So make a move and plead the fifth 'cause ya Can't plead the first

"Down Rodeo"

Weapons not food, not homes, not shoes,
Not need, just feed tha war cannibal animal
I walk tha corner to tha rubble that used to be a library
Line up to tha mind Cemetary
What we don't know keeps the contracts alive an movin'
They don't gotta burn tha books they just remove 'em
While arms warehouses fill as quick as tha cells
Rally round the family, pocket full of shells

"Bulls on Parade"

Rage Against the Machine - Evil Empire (1996)
Label: Sony
Catalog: #57523
Also available on vinyl LP.
Oh, I love you more today than yesterday
But not as much as tomorrow
I love you more today than yesterday
But only half as much as tomorrow

Song: More Today than Yesterday
Artist: Spiral Starecase
from the song'birth,school,work,death'by the godfathers....."i've felt torture, i've felt pain,just like that film with michael caine"....referencing the movie 'the ipcress file'
"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows", and "When you ain't got nothin', you got nothin' to lose". Bob Dylan.
"Once in a while you get shown the light, in the strangest of places if you look at it right"
Grateful Dead - "Scarlet Begonias"
Well I think someone just did this the other day, so here goes again:
"One good thing about music, when it hits you feel no pain." - Bob Marley, Trenchtown Rock

"One way or another, this darkness got to give."- The Grateful Dead, New Speedway Boogie

"It's been a month since I had a toke or a dime to make the call."- Little Feat, Cold, Cold, Cold
Post removed 
So many

Drunk man
Streetcar
Foot slipped
There you are

Buddy Holly

I remain, always the optimist
Steve
God said to Abraham "Kill me a son."
Abe said "Man, you must be puttin' me on."
God said "No."
Abe said "What?"
God said "You can do what you want, Abe, but"
"Next time you see me coming, you'd better run."
Abe said "Where you want this killing done?"
God said "Down on Highway 61."
---Bob Dylan
Where oh where, are you tonight,
Why did you leave me here all alone.

I searched the world over and I thought I'd found true love,
You met another and @&$^%*, you was gone.

Buck 'n' Roy, pickin' and a grinnin'.
(Yep, dad was a Hee Haw fan. I think he liked nurse goodbody!)
"it doesn't mean that much to me, to mean that much to you"
Neil Young: Old Man
also "we all can see what we should be, but knowing is not controlling" the moody blues: After you came
and one more
"it anybody out there?" Pink Floyd : Is anybody out there
Louis Armstrong Meets Oscar Peterson

Blues In The Night

A woman’s a two face, a worrisome thing that would have you singing the blues in the night.
I turned 21 in prison doin life without parole...Momma Tried, Merle Haggard
Send lawyers guns and money...Warren Zevon
A few by The Boss

Ond day I looked straight at her and she looked straight back....Working on a Highway

Is there a dream alive that don't come true or is there something worse...The River

Why is it at the end of every hard earned day people find some reason to believe...Reason to Believe
"I'm sorry that you couldn't love me.
But I thank you for your time.
And I'm sure there will come a moment
when you won't be on my mind.

I hope I'll always be as honest
as you have always have been to me.
I just wish that you were feeling
that I was what you need."

Jim Lauderdale

Jeff
"Well, I was drunk the day that Momma got out of prison
And I went to pick her up in the rain
But before I could get to the station in my pickup truck
Momma got runned over by a dang ol' train."
David Allen Coe
"If it wasn't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all."
-- Willie Dixon, Born Under a Bad Sign

temperature's dropping at the rottin' oasis
stealing kisses from the lepers faces
heads are hanging from the garbageman trees
mouthwash, jukebox, gasoline,

got a devil's haircut in my mind
got a devil's haircut in my mind
got a devil's haircut in my mind
got a devil's haircut in my mind

-- Beck, Devil's Haircut
"Raven hair and ruby lips, sparks fly from her fingertips. Echoed voices in the night, she's a restless spirit on an endless flight." The Eagles: "Witchy Woman"
"Where's the sense in stealing without the grace to be it?"
Ian McCullough--Echo & the Bunnymen


Yes, I wish that for just one time
You could stand inside my shoes
You’d know what a drag it is
To see you

Bob Dylan-Positively 4th Street
"The future is no place, to place your better days."

Song: Cry freedom
Artist: Dave Matthews Band
Album: Crash
''Shake dreams from your hair my pretty child, choose the day, choose the sign of your day the days divinity...''

The Doors - An American Prayer
"No matter if your born to play the king or pawn
for the line is thinly drawn tween joy and sorrow.
And so my fantasy becomes reality
and I must be what I must be and face tommorrow"

Simon and Garfunkle "Flowers Never Bend"
"Hey, you! Don't tell me there's no hope at all. Together we stand. Divided we fall."
Hey You, Pink Floyd
Maybe life is just put on for show
Oh but it's the only show in town
And it don't cost a nickel to get in
Oh but you'll pay dear to hang around

"The Only Show In Town" by Jesse Winchester
Let The Rough Side Drag (1976)
She came onto him like a slow-moving cold front.
His beer was warmer than the look in her eyes.

"Icy Blue Hear" by John Hiatt
"Don't you try the Queen of Diamonds boy, she beat you if she's able; you know the Queen of Hearts is always your best bet"
She had a chassis like an XJS
Skull necklace like a high priestess
I thought maybe just one caress
She said You dream too much
(Richard Thompson------You Dream Too Much)

Mary says she's worried about herself and the kids
She's never known anybody had a gun
and her daddy never did
but I think it should be up to me
'cause when it's all said and done
somebodys got to walk into the night
well I'm going to be that one
(Fred Eaglesmith ----------Time to get a Gun).
Here are some of my favorites. (I’ll probably think of more later!)

Fed up:
“Stop this world; let me off.
There’s just too many pigs – in the same trough.
There’s too many buzzards – sittin’ on the fence.
Stop this world; it’s not makin’ sense.”

Diana Kroll from “The Girl in the Other Room”
Lyrics to “Stop this World” by Mose Allison

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Philosophical:
“I want to know what promises to keep.
I want to know how guilty people sleep…
I want to know why the Devil’s not run dry
I want to know why politicians lie.”

Lyrics to “I Want to Know” by Raul Malo
The Mavericks, from “The Mavericks” (2003)

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As for remembering the first time I heard a particular lyric, and exactly where I was and what I was doing at the time; I’ll never forget the first time I heard the end of Jim Steinman’s wonderfully developed story:

“So now I’m praying for the end of time
To hurry up and arrive
‘Cause if I gotta spend another minute with you
I don’t think that I can really survive…”

Meat Loaf, from “Bat out of Hell”
Lyrics to “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” by Jim Steinman

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Humor (black?):
Favorite song title: "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner"
My favorite line from the song:
“Patty Hurst heard the burst from Roland’s Thompson gun – and bought it.”

Lyrics by Warren Zevon from the album “Warren Zevon”

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My all time favorite couplet (OK, I love Kathy Valentine’s work with the Go-Go’s (with whom she plays bass) and, better yet, The Delphines (she is a killer guitarist):

“Mary ate her little lamb,
And punk rock isn’t dead.”

Lyrics to “The Whole World’s Lost it’s Head by K. Valentine and J. Wiedlin
The Go-Go’s, from “Return to the Valley of the Go-Go’s”
.
"pick up the dog doo, hope that it's hard.......I'm just an ordinary, average guy" - Joe Walsh

How close this hits home, since the acquisition of a couple of pups!
"Accidents speak louder than words"

Annie Lennox - Medusa - Thin Line Between Love and Hate
"Half of me is me, the other half of me is you."

From the movie "The Last Flight of Noah's Ark"
Composed and conducted by Maurice Jarre.
Sung by Alexandra Brown
"There ain't no devil, just God when he's drunk"
Tom Waits - Heart Attack and Vine

the clouds will part and the sky cracks open
and god himself will reach his f'ing arm
through
just to push you down
just to hold you down
NIN - The Wretched

airstream is so shinny
and it's made out of aluminum
you can't tell if it's a '64
or an '81
The Vandals - Airstream
I could be wrong, but I'm not
Eagles - Victim of Love

Well, it just goes to show
Things are not what they seem
Rolling Stones - Sister Morphine

Accidents never happen in a perfect world
Blondie - Accidents Never Happen

And the Little Feat song that Sfar started this off with has one of the single lewdest lines in all of rock:

Hey, momma, hey, can I check your oil, allright?
Little Feat - Fat Man in the Bathtub