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[slink]

In the light of the dumb ones, I want to know what people consider great lines...

I am still trying to decide what I will put for mine, so come back to me.

Now you...

[AlohaDawg]

"The pumps don't work 'cause the vandals took the handles" from that Bob Dylan song!

I have always admired the simplicity of that statement. I really do think it's a decent line.

One of my favorite of Rickie Lee Jones' songs: (did you know she used to live with Tom Waits?)

After hours

All the gang has gone home
Standing on the corner
All alone

You and me, streetlight
We'll paint the town - grey
Oh, we are so many lamps
Who have lost our way

Say goodnight, America
The world still loves a dreamer

And all the gang has gone home
And I'm standind on the corner
All alone

[V-Adore]

Most of the bands I like tend to be those with clever or particularly good lyrics. A few I can think of right off:

* TMBG's "I Palindrome I," manages a palindromic bridge:
"Son, I am able," she said, "though you scare me." "Watch," said I -- Beloved, I said, "watch me scare you, though." Said she "able am I, son."

* Moxy Fruvous's "Lee" is good across the board, but one verse always gets me:
Rotten fruit, bending trees, rocket ships, and our disease

* R.E.M.'s "E-Bow the Letter": the whole thing, but especially
Aluminum tastes like fear; adrenalin, it pulls us near

* The entirety of The Police's "Synchronicity II," just for being well-executed lyrical narrative.

[andalucia]

* R.E.M.'s "E-Bow the Letter": the whole thing, but especiallyAluminum tastes like fear; adrenalin, it pulls us near

Agreed... I'd nominate a whole lot of 'New Adventures in Hi-Fi', to which I'm currently quite addicted, including "Dreaming of Maria Callas... whoever she is."

God this is a dangerous train of thought to get onto... I should never ever "take a quick break" from working on CanLit essays to visit this board. Let's see...

"Wrap your saviour up in cellophane", Chocolate Jesus, Tom Waits

"Day after day, up on that beautiful stage, we've been playing tambourine for minimum wage, 'cause we are real... " We Are Real, Silver Jews

"She's well acquainted with the touch of the velvet hand like a lizard on a window pane" Happiness is a Warm Gun, the Beatles

"Perhaps the strange ones in the dome can lend us a book we can read up alone, and try to get it on like once before" Drive-In Saturday, David Bowie*

"Goodbye is too good a word, babe, so I'll just say, 'Fare thee well'" Don't Think Twice, It's Alright, Bob Dylan obviously

"See my baby, don't act so smart: I'll cut out your liver, and eat your heart" My Sugar so Sweet, Nick Drake, although I think it's "Trad"

"If man is five, then the devil is six, and if the devil is six, then god is seven."  Monkey Gone to Heaven, the Pixies

" Skyscrapers are scraping together/your voice is smoking/last cigarettes are all you can get, turning your orbit around" Jesus Etc. [up there in my as-yet unrecorded Fave Song Titles list...], Wilco.

and some songs that I consider to be pretty much all good lines (I know that's a copout):
Visions of Johanna, Bob Dylan
Skip Tracer, Sonic Youth
Hallelujah, Leonard Cohen
Papa Was a Rodeo, the Magnetic Fields
The Gift, Velvet Underground
Dead, They Might be Giants


Apologies for length; the worst is once I'll read some more answers, I'll have many many more ideas.




* April 2nd:  I see David Bowie at the Corel Centre, floor, 15th row, thereby checking one more thing off my life-ambitions list.

[V-Adore]

* R.E.M.'s "E-Bow the Letter": the whole thing, but especiallyAluminum tastes like fear; adrenalin, it pulls us near

Agreed... I'd nominate a whole lot of 'New Adventures in Hi-Fi', to which I'm currently quite addicted, including "Dreaming of Maria Callas... whoever she is."

Yeah, I have to agree. "Hi-Fi" just has so, so many good lyrics, and the first five songs on the disc are just pure amalgamated Musical Good. And then there's the line from "So Fast, So Numb" about "eatin' cartilage, shark eyes, shark heart, and your blood is running cold..."

You're right, this is too addictive.

[PinkStainlessTail]

Love me tender, love me sweet
Love me like I love my feet.
Sit me down with Ezra Pound,
But don't forget to eat!"

From The Residents' Walter Westinghouse. The number of brain cells I have devoted to Residents lyrics is...disturbing.

[slink]

OK, this has grown beyond belief. Knew this was a bad idea, and this is by no means all of it. But all I can find and play at the moment!

Nirvana - Frances Farmer...
"She'll come back as fire, and burn all the liars, leave a blanket of ash on the ground"
"I'm in my Kraut box, held up here in my ink penitentiary"
Unused line, but it just flows particularly well.

Alice in Chains - No Excuses
"Drained and blue, I bleed for you, you think it's funny, well you're drowning in it too"

Masters of Reality - Deep in the Hole
"Just want a taste, to feel like I did, the night that you came to the hole where I hid"

Boss Hog - Texas
"I'm in Texas, I'm in pain, I am bleeding and ashamed"

Desorden Publico -
"Hay cosquillas que no dan risa" (just go translate it and see why!)

Cake - Frank Sinatra
"While Frank Sinatra sings stormy weather, the flies and spiders get along together, cobwebs fall on an old skipping record" And well, the entire rest of this song! One of the finest lyrically by anyone.

Cake - Open Book
"But you're caught, in your own glory, you are believing your own story, timing your contractions, inventing small contraptions, that roll across your polished hardwood floors"

Jane's Addiction - Jane Says (and most everything else penned by Farrell)
"Jane goes, to the store at eight, she walks up on St Andrews. She waits, and get's her dinner there. She pulls her dinner from her pocket. Jane says ' I ain't never been in love, I don't know what it is', she only knows if someone wants her"

Nine Inch Nails - I'm Looking Forward To Joining You Finally
"In the blur of serenity, where did everything get lost, the flowers of naivety, buried in a layer of frost"

Pixies - Mr Grieves
"What's that floating in the water, oh Neptune's only daughter"

Sublime - Garden Grove
"If you only knew all the love that I found, it's hard to keep my soul on the ground. Your a fool don't fuck around with my dog"
"Gettin yelled at by my Dad. Saying I'm happy when I'm not. Finding roaches in the pot"

System of a Down - Boom
"Every time you drop the bomb you kill the god your child has borne"

Tom Waits - Nighthawks
"It's kind of about 2.30 in the morning, you been standing on the corner of fifth and vermouth, and you climb into the helm of a 1958 monkey shit brown Buick Supra, and you're on your way home. A luxury automobile, bought at Dollar Bill's Easy Autos for next to nothing."

Tom Waits - Goin' Out West
"Well I know karate, Voodoo too, I'm gonna make myself available to you. I don't need no make up, I got real scars, I got hair on my chest, I look good without a shirt"

Violent Femmes - Kiss Off
"I take one, one, one 'cause you left me, and two, two, two for my family, and three, three, three for my heartache, and four, four, four for my headache, and five, five, five for my lonely, and six, six, six for my sorrow, and seven, seven n n n n no tomorrow, and eight, eight I forget what eight was for, but nine, nine, nine for the lost god, and ten, ten, ten, ten for everything everything everything everything"

In general:
Tom Waits - Eggs and Sausage and Big Joe and Phantom 309 / What's He Building /  Looking for the Heart of Saturday Night
Leonard Cohen - Chelsea Hotel #2
Bob Dylan's entire catalogue near enough.
Morphine - Thursday
Cake - Commissioning a Symphony in C / Opera Singer / Sheep Go To Heaven / Daria / Satan Is My Motor
Faith No More - RV and Everything's Ruined
Sublime - April 29th 1992

Definitely have to agree with - TMBG: Dead, Cohen: Hallelujah, and Pixies: Monkey Gone To Heaven.

I am however missing out loads. Damnit. Sometimes it frustrated me liking music as much as I do!

[slink]

I also have to add this. Much as it pains me to do so...

Springsteen - Lost in the Flood

The ragamuffin gunner is returnin' home like a hungry runaway
He walks through town all alone--"He must be from the fort," he hears the high school girls say
His countryside's burnin' with wolfman fairies dressed in drag for homicide
The hit-and-run plead sanctuary, 'neath a holy stone they hide
They're breakin' beams and crosses with a spastic's reelin' perfection
Nuns run bald through Vatican halls, pregnant, pleadin' immaculate conception
And everybody's wrecked on Main Street from drinking unholy blood
Sticker smiles sweet as Gunner breathes deep, his ankles caked in mud
And I said, "Hey, gunner man, that's qucksand, that's quicksand, that ain't mud
Have you thrown your senses to the war, or did you lose them in the flood?"

That pure American brother, dull-eyed and empty-faced
Races Sundays in Jersey in a Chevy stock super eight
He rides 'er low on the hip, on the side he's got "Bound for Glory" in red, white and blue flash paint
He leans on the hood telling racing stories, the kids call him Jimmy the Saint
Well, that blaze-and-noise boy, he's gunnin' that bitch loaded to blastin' point
He rides head first into a hurricane and disappears into a point
And there's nothin' left but some blood where the body fell, that is, nothin' left that you could sell
Just junk all across the horizon, a real highwayman's farewell
And I said, "Hey kid, you think that's oil? Man, that ain't oil, that's blood"
I wonder what he was thinking when he hit that storm, or was he just lost in the flood?

Eighth Avenue sailors in satin shirts whisper in the air
Some storefront incarnation of Maria, she's puttin' on me the stare
And Bronx's best apostle stands with his hand on his own hardware
Everything stops, you hear five quick shots, the cops come up for air
And now the whiz-bang gang from uptown, they're shootin' up the street
And that cat from the Bronx starts lettin' loose, but he gets blown right off his feet
And some kid comes blastin' 'round the corner, but a cop puts him right away
He lays on the street holding his leg, screaming something in Spanish, still breathing when I walked away
And somebody said, "Hey man, did you see that? His body hit the street with such a beautiful thud"
I wonder what the dude was sayin', or was he just lost in the flood?
Hey man, did you see that, those poor cats are sure messed up
I wonder what they were gettin' into, or were they just lost in the flood?

[Choop]

The Postal Service, Such Great Heights:
"I
think that it's a sign
that the freckles in our eyes
are mirror images and when we kiss they're perfectly aligned
And I
have to speculate
that god himself did make
us out of corresponding shapes like puzzle pieces from the clay"

-and-

"They will see us waving from such great heights -
'Come down now,' they'll say,
But everything looks perfect from such great heights -
'Come down now - '
but we'll stay.'

Best lyrics of 2003.

[jough]

Violent Femmes - Kiss Off
"I take one, one, one 'cause you left me, and two, two, two for my family, and three, three, three for my heartache, and four, four, four for my headache, and five, five, five for my lonely, and six, six, six for my sorrow, and seven, seven n n n n no tomorrow, and eight, eight I forget what eight was for, but nine, nine, nine for the lost god, and ten, ten, ten, ten for everything everything everything everything"

Actually, they repeat the word "eleven" after ten - "ten ten ten ten for everything, eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven!"

At least they do live.  I haven't listened to the album version in years, but I'm pretty sure it was the same.

And oddly enough I was singing this in the shower this afternoon.  How odd.

[slink]

At least they do live.  I haven't listened to the album version in years, but I'm pretty sure it was the same.

And oddly enough I was singing this in the shower this afternoon.  How odd.

You've seen them live? You sonofabitch!
Like Cake, they're a band who are truly impossible to catch live in the UK. And well, too many other bands as well. At least, living closest to Edinburgh, and most bands play Glasgow instead.
I so nearly went to London to see Cake at one point, but they were sold out.

And Violent Femmes, particularly that album, are just perfect for singing.

edit: and on the record it is everything repeated.

[sjlimmer]

I should probably stay out of this, before I start obsessing like everyone else, but oh well.

I don't imagine he'll get much love around here, but Dickey Barret can craft some good lines when he's properly motivated (read: writing about booze).  One favorite is:

"Gonna dive into a dive I dove into before
Gonna haunt a haunt I've haunted
Like a million times or more
A familiar joint
Where getting drunk's the only point
To frequent this place
With any frequency at all"
      --"Another Drinkin' Song", The Mighty Mighty Bosstones
(But that could be the Tanqueray talking)

I've also got to mention The The "This Is The Day" (to pick just one):

"Well... you didn't wake up this morning
Because you didn't go to bed.
You were watching the whites of your eyes
Turn red!"

[V-Adore]

Much goodness about Cake lyrics

COOL BLUE REASON

Cool blue reason comes into your life; there's one more dead in Kansas and it's probably your wife
Cool blue reason wraps around your throat; the minutes change like seasons -- only eight more hours to go

[Bozack]

Apologies for length; the worst is once I'll read some more answers, I'll have many many more ideas.

One day, I WILL post before you, Andalucia. And then I will be the one who posts all of the good lyrics!
GET OUT OF MY HEAD

Anyway, there are a FEW I can still grab.
 
this morning they killed the candymaker
three shots to his head from a forty five
I don't want to end up in the paper
or kill a man just to watch him die
I don't mean to judge the man that murders
I don't care to un-sympathize
I am neither victim nor killer
I see myself in both of their eyes
but what drives a man to kill another
and leave his body in the dirt to bleed
ain't he also my brother
ain't you happy you are here with me- "Glad You're Here With Me", Papa M

love is a many splendored thing
when your heart is ready
you may hear it sing
love is a many splendored thing
she is a dream of the sea
in that perfect water
I have never been so free
she is a dream of the sea
love is a many splendored thing
both of us together
listen to it sing
love is a many splendored thing- "Many-Splendored Thing", Papa M (at live shows, he sings, "love is when many spread their things", and "you and me together, sucking ding-a-lings")

I've been down, I've been down too far to care -
I keep getting in my car but I'm not going anywhere.
And I've been had, well at least that's how it looks -
And it's not funny like on TV and it's not smart like it is in books.- "Streets of Where I'm From", The Old 97's

I've been to a minor place
and I can say I like it's face
if I am gone and with no trace
I will be in a minor place
well I put the shoes in line
separate the women mine
as we do what we do fine
so victorious, so benign- "A Minor Place", Bonnie "Prince" Billy

I drive alone, home from work
And I always think of her
Late at night I call her
But I never say a word
And I can see her squeeze the phone between her chin and shoulder
And I can almost smell her breath faint with a sweet scent of decay
She serves him mashed potatoes
And she serves him peppered steak, with corn
Pulls her dress up over her head
Lets it fall to the floor
And does she ever whisper in his ear all her favorite fruit
And all the most exotic places they are cultivated- "All Her Favorite Fruit", Camper Van Beethoven

Sorry there are so many, and they're very long. It's amazing how much you can write when you're just cutting and pasting.

[slink]

Cool blue reason comes into your life; there's one more dead in Kansas and it's probably your wife
Cool blue reason wraps around your throat; the minutes change like seasons -- only eight more hours to go

I know! *shakes head* I thought of that while listening to it just after I posted last night. It's one of my favourite lines.
Also I reall, really like the lyrics to Jolene from their first album.