What's your favorite lyric from a song?


Just curious what stays with people...
arthursmuck
"I've got a mind to give up living, and go shopping instead." Paul Butterfield
"Forget about it.
When Forever's over I won't remember
How I loved you anymore."

Robert Lee Castleman as sung by Alison Krauss.
"She asked me why the singers name was Alice, I said listen baby you really wouldn't understand"  ~ AC
Like a little SyFi in your lyrics.........?

Cloud Cult - "The Mission: Unexplainable Stories"

We've been searching for our whole lives.
And we have traveled through unexplainable stories.
Swear to God I fought the good fight,
always waiting for the coming of morning.
I heard the Captain say, I heard the Captain say,
"The more I know, the less I'm knowing."
I heard the Captain say, I heard the Captain say,
"Activate your force-fields and just keep going..."
Continuing in the sci-fi vein:

"Now the Klingons they came last night
and they repossessed by van.
My Cerrilian brandy's all used up;
this is my very last can!
But I ain't givin' up
cause I still have a plan!

Beam me up, Scotty, beam me aboard!
I'm just a poor old Trekkie
In a world I can't afford.
All my life supports have failed,
all the mother ships have sailed.
Beam me up, Scotty, beam me up. 

Jake Holmes
Larger than life and twice as ugly, If we have to live there, you'll have to drug me...
ABC, How To Be A Millionaire
"Two men say they're Jesus, one of them must be wrong, there's a protest singer, he's singin' a protest song..."

Dire Straits, Industrial Disease
"Bar-tender asks me 'Son, what'll it be'?, I'll have a shot of that red-head yonder lookin' at me."

Brooks & Dunn, Boot Scootin Boogie
The complete lyrics in Lucinda Williams' song "West" on the album of the same title are the sweetest, most endearing I've heard in a long, long time. The chord sequence and melody are also magnificent, absolutely beautiful. Heart-wrenching, actually.
Oops. "West" is a fantastic song, but it was "Are You Alright?" that I meant to single out for it's lyrical content. It you weren't in love when the song begins, you will be by the time it ends.
"If you’ve got somebody -you can trust to the very end -I said if you do I want to be like you -’Cause you sure got a real good friend"
Grand Funk Railroad - In Need
When the spoon is hot
and the needle's sharp
and you drift away
Oooooo, I can hear you say

Temple of The Dog- "Times of Trouble"

N

From the Frank Zappa masterpiece Packard Goose below .

Information is not knowledge.
Knowledge is not wisdom.
Wisdom is not truth.
Truth is not beauty.
Beauty is not love.
Love is not music.
Music is THE BEST ,End Quote .

That sums up my life long love of music and the insanity we go thru to get the best sound possible .
James McMurtry - "Honey don't you be yelling at me when I'm cleaning my gun". Copper Canteen on Complicated Game.
"Cuz what they do in Washington
Iz looking out for number one
And
Number one ain’t you
You’re not even
"number two"."
Frank Zappa - You are what you iz
Frank sang this on SNL and was banned for life.
"So there'll be no guiding light for you and me
We are not sailors lost out on the sea
We were always headed toward eternity
Hoping for a glimpse of Gaililee."

Emmylou Harris - The Pearl
"Fish swim
 birds fly...
 lovers leap
 by and by...
 Old men
 sit and think.
 ……...I drink"

Mary Gauthier  "I Drink"
@slaw


Reminds me of this gem delivered in a dead pan matter of fact voice by the late great J J Cale,

”I can’t swim and I can’t fly
I ain’t no fish, I ain’t no bird in the sky
I can’t tell if the sun’s gonna shine
And I don’t know if you’ll ever be mine
But I’ll make love to you any old time”
@shadorne 

Thanks for that! 

I love JJ Cale!

Would not be surprised if MG derived her song from JJ.
The Tubes - "Young and Rich"

Young and rich
Everything I desire
Light bulbs with shades
In every room
If I don't see you no more in this world, I'll see you in the next one, so don't be late! 

Jimi Hendrix, Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)
Political ScienceRandy Newman

No one likes us, I don't know why
We may not be perfect, but heaven knows we try
But all around, even our old friends put us down
Let's drop the big one and see what happens

We give them money, but are they grateful?
No, they're spiteful and they're hateful
They don't respect us, so let's surprise them
We'll drop the big one and pulverize them

Asia's crowded and Europe's too old
Africa is far too hot
And Canada's too cold
And South America stole our name
Let's drop the big one
There'll be no one left to blame us

We'll save Australia
Don't wanna hurt no kangaroo
We'll build an all American amusement park there
They got surfin', too

Boom goes London and boom Paree
More room for you and more room for me
And every city the whole world round
Will just be another American town
Oh, how peaceful it will be
We'll set everybody free
You'll wear a Japanese kimono
And there'll be Italian shoes for me

They all hate us anyhow
So let's drop the big one now
Let's drop the big one now

Songwriters: RANDY NEWMAN© Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.For non-commercial use only.Data from: LyricFind
The Rolling Stones.... Gimme Shelter....                                                           NEED NOT SAY NO MORE.....
"and she counted the spiders
as they crawled up inside her"...

Smashing Pumpkins "Wound"


…………………………………………


Totally agree with bdp24. Lot of great lyrics on "West"!!!
"Bought a guitar in a pawn shop
in the middle of a thunderstorm..
took it outside, let the the rain, 
wash it clean...

carried it home, stood it on the porch
stared at it a while...
wondered if there’s a song
in it for me.."

WOW!

Tony Joe White "Paintings on the Mountain"


"we tried to talk it over,
but the words came out to rough.."

Eagles  "Best of my Love"
I smoked my friends right down to the filter

Tom Waits  A little drop of poison 
...."I'll tell it to you straight
I got the mileage to show"...

Devon Allman

She said "Carl take all the money", she called everybody Carl

John Prine...Come back to us Barbara Lewis
53 years later it’s still:

Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky
With one hand waving 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
"Roland searched the continent for the man who did him in
He found him in Mombasa in a barroom drinking gin
Roland aimed his Thompson gun, he didn't say a word
But he blew Van Owen's body from there to Johannesburg."

-Warren Zevon

"I wanted the ocean to cover over me
I wanna sink slowly without getting wet
Maybe someday, I won't be so lonely
And I'll walk on water every chance I get"

Counting Crows "Time and Time Again"
"Hear me now and don't forget
I'm not the man my actions would suggest
A little boy, I'm tied to you
I fell apart
That's what I always do".....

Afghan Whigs "Debonair"


Dylan...

" Gotta hurry on back to my hotel room, where I got me a date with Botticelli's neice, she promised she'd be right there with me, when I paint my masterpiece." 

The Dead does an outstanding version of this on their Dozin at the Knick cd.  
"Get a job and fight to keep it
Strike out to reach a mountain
Be so nice on the outside
But inside keep ambition

Don’t cry because you hunt them
Hurt them first they’ll love you
There’s a millionaire above you
And you’re under his suspicion"


The Who  "I've Had Enough"
lately, I've been enamored by Dylan's 35th studio Album, Tempest.

But the lines that resonate with me most from Tempest:

"I'll pay in blood ...but not my own"

and, "I'm not dead, my bell still rings"
..if someone,... offers you.... some sugar
you should eat it...."

Smog  "Sweet Treat"
And the man in the suit has just bought a new car from the profit he's made on your dreams...

The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys - Traffic
"When the wind picked up,
the fire spread and the grapevine seemed left for dead,
and the northern sky, looked like the end of days,
a wake-up call to a rented room
sounded like an alarm of impending doom,
to a warn us It's only a matter of time
before we all burn,

we bought some wine, and some paper cups
near your daughter's school,
when we picked her up, and drove to the cemetery
on a hill,  where we watched the plums
paint the sky grey
as she laughed and danced through the fields of graves,
and there I knew it would be alright..
that everything would be alright"..

Death Cab For Cutie "Grapevine"
" so often times it happens
that we live our life in chains
and we never even 
know we have the key"..

The Eagles  "Already Gone"
Neko Case, Hold On, Hold On:

I left the party at 3 a.m., alone thank god.........
"......lean over the toilet bowl
and throw up my confession
cleanse my soul
of this hidden obsession..."

Lucinda Williams "Ventura"