What's your favorite lyric from a song?


Just curious what stays with people...
arthursmuck
While lookin' into my drawer only yesterday
You know, the things that I saw made me cry
I saw the pictures and letters, I should have known better
Than to try to deny

I love them all, I love them all
And if they came again
I'd do the same again
'Cause I'm that kind of a guy


Cat Stevens
Looking down on empty streets, all she can see
Are the dreams all made solid
Are the dreams all made real

All of the buildings, all of those cars
Were once just a dream
In somebody's head


Mercy Street by Peter Gabriel
dutchtexan,
That is a perfect example of why words without music often seem less significant. When I read these words, I thought "So what", they didn't have much special meaning to me. When I realized they were from Mercy Street, I almost had to laugh, because I love that song; but the words without the music and expressive singing seem very ordinary.
Poor Otis dead and gone
Left me here to sing his song
Pretty little girl with the red dress on
Poor Otis dead and gone

The Doors/Soft Parade
Every day is the same thing out the door
Feel further away than ever before
Some things in life, it gets too late to learn
Well, I’m lost somewhere
I must have made a few bad turns

Time Out Of Mind
Bob Dylan
I don't believe in an interventionist God
But I know, darling, that you do

But if I did, I would kneel down and ask Him
Not to intervene when it came to you
Oh, not to touch a hair on your head
Leave you as you are

If he felt he had to direct you
Then direct you into my arms

----

Into My Arms
Nick Cave

A truly beautiful song.
A little green rosetta
A tiny green rosetta
You'll make a muffin really betta

F. Zappa
Do You Believe in the Westworld?
Theatre of Hate


The yellow sun was setting in tombstone
The citizen ......

By a freak a coin in the piano made it play
But only the wind and the dust heard it say
Do you believe in the Westworld?
Do you believe in the Westworld?

From the south on a wind in walked a cowboy
The saloon was dry but his guns were well oiled
Somehow he remembered when he kissed his wife
And when he said goodbye
But that was before the circus with the bear arrived
Oh the bear it roared as the gun was fired
Then the cowboy turned the gun on himself as he sang
"No-ones alive"
Do you believe in the Westworld?
Do you believe in the Westworld?


I wonder whether Kirk Brandon's newly arriving circus would feature a giant panda if written or sung today?

https://youtu.be/up1phynzMCo
‘Only love, can make it rain,
the way the beach is kissed by the sea.”  Love Reign Over Me, The Who

’She had rings on her fingers and bells on her shoes,
And I knew without asking she was into the blues.’ and
’Well, I ain’t always right but I’ve never been wrong.’  Scarlet Begonias, Grateful Dead.
Momma loves her baby, and daddy loves you too. And the sea may look warm to you babe, and the sky may look blue. But if you should go walking on the thin ice of modern life, dragging behind you the silent reproach and a million tear stained eyes, don't be surprised when a crack in the ice appears under your feet. You slip out of your depth and out of your mind with your fear flowing out behind you as you claw the thin ice. 
Not to be political, but it is from Bob Dylan’s album Infidels - the song “Sweetheart like You”

”Steal a little and they throw you in jail. Steal a lot and they make you King”
Hollies - Gasoline Alley Bred

I’m gonna heat me some water
Put a shine upon my shoes
Telephone my ma, keep the room above Joe’s
’Cause we’re comin’ back, comin’ back to the homestead

Everythin’ is packed, gettin’ back to the homestead
This time, this time we’ll stay, baby
I know that we could have made it
We had ideas in our heads
And I wish somehow we could have saved it
But we’re gasoline Alley Bred

Yet the years haven’t really been wasted
And I know it in my head
We did good for the life that we tasted
’Cause we’re gasoline Alley


-----


Of all the Hollies songs this is the one I like to keep on repeat in the car.

Back in my heady student days I remember asking my friend Calvin what he had playing in his headphones. This was something I'd never heard before and quite difficult to take in as 21 year old. But I never forgot it.

------

"The Revolution Will Not Be Televised"

You will not be able to stay home, brother
You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out
You will not be able to lose yourself on skag and
Skip out for beer during commercials
Because the revolution will not be televised

The revolution will not be televised
The revolution will not be brought to you by Xerox
In 4 parts without commercial interruptions
The revolution will not show you pictures of Nixon
Blowing a bugle and leading a charge by John
Mitchell, General Abrams and Spiro Agnew to eat
Hog maws confiscated from a Harlem sanctuary

The revolution will not be televised
The revolution will not be brought to you by the
Schaefer Award Theatre and will not star Natalie
Wood and Steve McQueen or Bullwinkle and Julia
The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal
The revolution will not get rid of the nubs
The revolution will not make you look five pounds thinner
Because the revolution will not be televised, Brother

There will be no pictures of you and Willie May
Pushing that shopping cart down the block on the dead run
Or trying to slide that color TV into a stolen ambulance
NBC will not be able to predict the winner at 8:32
On reports from 29 districts
The revolution will not be televised

There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
Brothers on the instant replay
There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
Brothers on the instant replay
There will be no pictures of Whitney Young being
Run out of Harlem on a rail with a brand new process
There will be no slow motion or still life of Roy
Wilkins strolling through Watts in a Red, Black and
Green liberation jumpsuit that he has been saving
For just the proper occasion

Green Acres, Beverly Hillbillies, and Hooterville
Junction will no longer be so damned relevant, and
Women will not care if Dick finally got down with
Jane on Search for Tomorrow because Black people
Will be in the street looking for a brighter day
The revolution will not be televised

There will be no highlights on the eleven o'clock
News and no pictures of hairy armed women
Liberationists and Jackie Onassis blowing her nose
The theme song will not be written by Jim Webb or
Francis Scott Key, nor sung by Glen Campbell, Tom
Jones, Johnny Cash, Engelbert Humperdinck, or The Rare Earth
The revolution will not be televised

The revolution will not be right back
After a message about a white tornado, white lightning, or white people
You will not have to worry about a dove in your
Bedroom, a tiger in your tank, or the giant in your toilet bowl
The revolution will not go better with Coke
The revolution will not fight the germs that may cause bad breath
The revolution will put you in the driver's seat

The revolution will not be televised, will not be televised
Will not be televised, will not be televised
The revolution will be no re-run brothers
The revolution will be live


Gil Scott-Heron
Almost ablaze still you don't feel the heat
It takes all you got just to stay on the beat

~ Fire on the Mountain 
Way too many lyrics.

 What comes to mind is humble pie. 
 “Newcastle brown, it’ll sure smack ya down”
This lyric has been popping into my head rather a lot recently. Wonder why?


If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next - Manic Street Preachers
-----

Bullets for your brain today
But we’ll forget it all again
Monuments put from pen to paper
Turns me into a gutless wonder

And if you tolerate this
Then your children will be next
America! Where are you now?
Don’t you care about your sons and daughters?
Don’t you know? We need you now!
We can’t fight alone against the Monster...

Steppenwolf - Monster
My favorite lyrics are:
Cause the second you wake
Too much pressure to take
Every part of you wants to cry out

It's hard for girls like us
We don't know who we trust
Not even the ones we love
Cause they don't know
Try to numb this pain
Cause we don't wanna get hurt again
Left alone out in the rain
They don't know 
dieren ringtones
@cd318  - I love "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" by Gil Scott Heron. Have you heard "The Revolution Will Be Televised" from Jeff Beck's 2016 album "Loud Hailer"?
Who are you to look down
At what I believe?
I'm on to your thinking
And how you deceive
Well, you can't abuse me
I won't stand no more
Yes, I know the reasons
Yes, I know the score. 

How I tried to please you
Live the way you said
Do the things that you do
Like the living dead
Then the truth it hit me
Got me off my knees
It's my life I'm living
I'll live as I please

Now's the time to stand tall
Start your life anew
Freedom lies in your heart
Now's the time for you  


Too many people post lyrics without posting the name of the song or the artist!
Master, master
This is recorded through a fly's ear
And you have to have a fly's eye to see it
It's the thing that's gonna make Captain Beefheart
And His Magic Band fat
Frank, it's the big hit
It's the blimp, It's the blimp, Frank!
It's the blimp!
When I see you floatin' down the gutter
I'll give you a bottle of wine
Put me on the white hook
Back in the fat rack, Shadrach e-shack
The sumptin' hoop, the sumptin' hoop
The blimp, the blimp!
The drazy hoops, the drazy hoops!
They're camp, they're camp
Tits, tits, the blimp, the blimp
The mothership, the mothership
The brothers hid under the hood
From the blimp, the blimp
Children, stop your nursing unless you're rendering fun
The mothership, the mothership
The mothership's the one
The blimp, the blimp
The tape's a trip, it's a trailin' tail
It's traipse'n along behind
The blimp, the blimp
The nose has a crimp
The nose is the blimp, the blimp
It blows the air, the snoot isn't fair
Look up in the sky -- there's a dirigible there
The drazy hoops whir
You can see them just as they were
All the people stare
And the girls' knees tremble
And run and wave their hands
And run their hands over
The blimp the blimp
"Daughter, don't you dare!"
"Oh momma, who cares?
It's the blimp, it's the blimp!"


Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band - The Blimp
In case of Sonic Attack on your district
Follow these rules
If you are making love, it is imperative to bring all bodies to orgasm simultaneously
Do not waste time blocking your ears
Do not waste time seeking a soundproof shelter
Try to get as far away from the sonic source as possible
Do not panic
(Do not panic)
Use your wheels, it is what they are for
Small babies may be placed inside the special cocoons and should be left, if possible, in shelters
Do not attempt to use your own limbs
If no wheels are available metal, not organic, limbs should be employed whenever possible
Remember, in the case of Sonic Attack, survival means every man for himself
(Himself)
Statistically more people survive if they think only of themselves
(Only themselves)
Do not attempt to rescue friends, relatives, loved ones
You have only a few seconds to escape use those seconds sensibly or you will inevitably die
Do not panic
(Do not panic)
Think only of yourself
(Only yourself)
Think only of yourself
(Only yourself)


These are the first signs of Sonic Attack:
You will notice small objects, such as ornaments, oscillating
You will notice vibrations in your diaphragm
You will hear a distant hissing in your ears
You will feel dizzy
You will feel the need to vomit
There will be bleeding from orifices
There will be an ache in the pelvic region
You may be subject to fits of hysterical shouting
Or even laughter
These are all sign of imminent Sonic destruction
Your only protection is flight
If you are less than ten years old remain in the shelters and use your cocoon
Remember: you can help no-one else
(No-one else)
You can help no-one else
(No-one else)
Do not panic
(Do not panic)
Do not panic
(Do not panic)
Think only of yourself
(Only yourself)
Think only of yourself
(Only of yourself)
Think only of yourself
(Only yourself)
Think only of yourself


Hawkwind - Sonic Attack



@roxy54 ,

You can’t really expect Beefheart to make much by way of literal sense.

I once gave the infamous Trout Mask Replica a spin - what an ordeal that turned out to be!

Sad to say, I never really had much luck with his good friend Zappa either. The only lyric of worth I can recall was from Joe’s Cafe.

Acquired tastes I guess.


@reubent,

Wow, I know it’s Jeff Beck, and you’d expect some fireworks, but still wow!

A great record with tremendous sonics.

https://youtu.be/RbYKOlMclas
How did that pass under the radar?


------

The Revolution Will Be Televised

"The revolution, it will be televised,

You can choose to watch or not,

But if you all just talk from the safety of your sofas,

There won’t be much revolution to watch"



Live version
https://youtu.be/RbYKOlMclas

"She was filing her nails while they're dragging the lake..." - Elvis Costello, 'Watching the Detectives'.... 
Holiday in Cambodia Dead Kennedys

So, you’ve been to school
For a year or two
And you know you’ve seen it all
In daddy’s car
Thinking you’ll go far
Back east your type don’t crawl
Playing ethnicky jazz
To parade your snazz
On your five-grand stereo
Braggin’ that you know
How the niggers feel cold
And the slum’s got so much soul

It’s time to taste what you most fear
Right Guard will not help you here
Brace yourself, my dear
Brace yourself, my dear
It’s a holiday in Cambodia
It’s tough, kid, but it’s life
It’s a holiday in Cambodia
Don’t forget to pack a wife

You’re a star-belly snitch
You suck like a leech
You want everyone to act like you
Kiss ass while you bitch
So you can get rich
While your boss gets richer off you

Well, you’ll work harder
With a gun in your back
For a bowl of rice a day
Slave for soldiers
Till you starve
Then your head is skewered on a stake

Now you can go where the people are one
Now you can go where they get things done
What you need, my son...
What you need, my son...

Is a holiday in Cambodia
Where people are dressed in black
A holiday in Cambodia
Where you’ll kiss ass or crack

Pol Pot, Pol Pot, Pol Pot, Pol Pot

It’s a holiday in Cambodia
Where you’ll do what you’re told
It’s a holiday in Cambodia
Where the slums got so much soul
Pol Pot
-------

Somehow, even some 41 years later, this song never loses its power.

I first heard it via John Peel on BBC radio. Incredible how times have changed.

For decades I thought Jello was singing "Right, God will not help you here!"
This one surely needs no introduction.

How many of us still feel like this in later life?



"Remember when you were young, you shone like the sun."

[PF SOYCD]
The moon is a silver lady glowing through my life
In a little space above the music
I wish upon your face
I wish upon my dreams
In the middle of this crazy world bubbling with pretty pearls and spinning through the blue

Hirth Martinez: The Moone Toone
The Word-Moody Blues

This garden universe vibrates complete
Some, we get a sound so sweet
Vibrations reach on up to become light
And then through gamma, out of sight
Between the eyes and ears there lie
The sounds of color and the light of a sigh
And to hear the sun, what a thing to believe
But it's all around if we could but perceive
To know ultra-violet, infra-red, and x-rays
Beauty to find in so may ways
Two notes of the chord, that's our full scope
But to reach the chord is our life's hope
And to name the chord is important to some
So they give it a word, and the word is OM
"Beauty I'd always missed
With these eyes before,
Just what the truth is
I can't say anymore."



Moody Blues Nights in White Satin
I’m zipping through the days
At lightning speed
Plug in, flush out
And fire the f***in’ feed

Rocks Off
Rolling Stones




Never realized the passing hours of evening showers
Slip noose hanging in my darkest dreams
I'm strangled by your haunted social scene
Just a pawn outplayed by a dominating queen

Someone Saved My Life Tonight
Bernie Taupin/Elton John

It Riles them to believe
That you perceive
The web they weave
And keep on thinking free...

Moody Blues
Johnathan Edwards, not a big fan of the song but I remember it from when I was a kid and it always been stuck in my head. Think the songs name is something line, Sunshine Go Away Today? 

"you can't even run your own life I'll be damn if you will run mine."
So you see, the only proof
Of what you are is in the way you hear the truth

Don’t be scared, live to win
Although they’re always gonna tell you it’s a sin

In the end, you’re on your own
And there is no one who can stop you being alone

Motorhead - Stay Clean
In the Avenues and Alleyways
While you sleep there's a whole world coming alive
Abel and his brother, fighting one another
In and out of every dive
The avenues and alleyways
Where the strong and the quick alone can survive
----

The avenues and alleyways
Where the soul of a man is easy to buy
Everybody's wheeling
Everybody's dealing
All the low are living high
Every city's got em
Can we ever stop em?
Some of us are gonna try


Tony Christie Avenues and Alleyways
https://youtu.be/7Z-4IGSk9k0

No one notices the customs slip away...

Al Stewart/On the Border/Year of The Cat
If you should go skating on the thin ice of modern life, dragging behind you the silent reproach and a million tear stained eyes, don’t be surprised when a crack in the ice appears under your feet. You slip out of your depth and out of your mind with your fear flowing out behind you, as you claw the thin ice.

As if that’s not-good enough, this is being sung to a baby. The sea may look warm to you babe, and the sky may look blue. Oooh ooh oooh Baby Blue. Epic.
Instant karma’s gonna get you
Gonna look you right in the face

Better get yourself together darlin’
Join the human race


How in the world you gonna see
Laughin’ at fools like me?

Who on earth d’you think you are
A super star?

Well, right you are
“You’ve got to be trusted,
By the people that you lie to,
So that when they turn their backs on you,
You’ll get the chance to push the knife in”

From “Dogs” off the Pink Floyd “Animals” album.

“Big man, pig man
Ha ha, charade you are,
You well heeled big wheel,
Ha ha, charade you are
You are nearly a laugh,
But you’re really a cry”

From “Pigs” off the Pink Floyd “Animals” album

I'm probably repeating this Dylan line, but it's well worth repeating.

"That he not busy being born is busy dying."

I still remember how side 2 of Bringing it all Back Home blew my mind when I first heard it some 35 years ago, and it sometimes still does.


It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)

Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child's balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand you know too soon
There is no sense in trying.

Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn
Suicide remarks are torn
From the fool's gold mouthpiece
The hollow horn plays wasted words
Proves to warn
That he not busy being born
Is busy dying.

Temptation's page flies out the door
You follow, find yourself at war
Watch waterfalls of pity roar
You feel to moan but unlike before
You discover
That you'd just be
One more person crying.

So don't fear if you hear
A foreign sound to your ear
It's alright, Ma, I'm only sighing.

As some warn victory, some downfall
Private reasons great or small
Can be seen in the eyes of those that call
To make all that should be killed to crawl
While others say don't hate nothing at all
Except hatred.

Disillusioned words like bullets bark
As human gods aim for their mark
Made everything from toy guns that spark
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark
It's easy to see without looking too far
That not much
Is really sacred.

While preachers preach of evil fates
Teachers teach that knowledge waits
Can lead to hundred-dollar plates
Goodness hides behind its gates
But even the president of the United States
Sometimes must have
To stand naked.

An' though the rules of the road have been lodged
It's only people's games that you got to dodge
And it's alright, Ma, I can make it.

Advertising signs that con you
Into thinking you're the one
That can do what's never been done
That can win what's never been won
Meantime life outside goes on
All around you.

You lose yourself, you reappear
You suddenly find you got nothing to fear
Alone you stand with nobody near
When a trembling distant voice, unclear
Startles your sleeping ears to hear
That somebody thinks
They really found you.

A question in your nerves is lit
Yet you know there is no answer fit to satisfy
Insure you not to quit
To keep it in your mind and not fergit
That it is not he or she or them or it
That you belong to.

Although the masters make the rules
For the wise men and the fools
I got nothing, Ma, to live up to.

For them that must obey authority
That they do not respect in any degree
Who despise their jobs, their destinies
Speak jealously of them that are free
Cultivate their flowers to be
Nothing more than something
They invest in.

While some on principles baptized
To strict party platform ties
Social clubs in drag disguise
Outsiders they can freely criticize
Tell nothing except who to idolize
And then say God bless him.

While one who sings with his tongue on fire
Gargles in the rat race choir
Bent out of shape from society's pliers
Cares not to come up any higher
But rather get you down in the hole
That he's in.

But I mean no harm nor put fault
On anyone that lives in a vault
But it's alright, Ma, if I can't please him.

Old lady judges watch people in pairs
Limited in sex, they dare
To push fake morals, insult and stare
While money doesn't talk, it swears
Obscenity, who really cares
Propaganda, all is phony.

While them that defend what they cannot see
With a killer's pride, security
It blows the minds most bitterly
For them that think death's honesty
Won't fall upon them naturally
Life sometimes
Must get lonely.

My eyes collide head-on with stuffed graveyards
False gods, I scuff
At pettiness which plays so rough
Walk upside-down inside handcuffs
Kick my legs to crash it off
Say okay, I have had enough
What else can you show me?

And if my thought-dreams could be seen
They'd probably put my head in a guillotine

But it's alright, Ma, it's life, and life only.


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