Your Favourite Musical Lines Or Lyrics?

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This thread is a place for you to list snippets of songs that you especially like for whatever reason.

A few of my favourites. See how many songs you recognize. (Mostly pop/rock, some old.)

  • Have you come here to play Jesus
    To the lepers in you head?

  • If I just lay here
    Would you lie with me and just forget the world?

  • Elvis was a hero to most

  • You don’t need to be a Weather Man
    To know which way the wind blows

  • The only girl I’ve ever loved
    Was born with roses in her eyes

  • And every handout in every town
    And every lock that ain’t locked
    When no one’s around

  • I played the pump and took the hump
    And watered whiskey down

  • I was once like you are now/ and I know that it’s not easy/ To be calm when you’ve found/ Something going on

  • Did they get you to trade/ Your heroes for ghosts?

  • His Majesty signed/ With his own rubber stamp

  • Take a sad song and make it better

  • Picture yourself in a boat on a river
    With tangerine trees and marmalade skies

  • We sick and tired of your ism-schism game
    Dyin’ an’ goin’ to Heaven in a Jesus name

  • We used to mix Hen with Bacardi Dark
    And when it kicks in you can hardly talk

  • Adolph builds a bonfire, Enrico plays with it

  • To love another person is to see the face of God

  • Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin

  • But you don’t really care for music, do ya?

  • Why am I soft in the middle?
    The rest of my life is so hard

  • Fat Charlie the Archangel sloped into the room

  • It was the myth of fingerprints

  • Emancipate yourself from mental slavery

  • It smelled like turpentine it looked like India ink

  • Don’t know about you, but I am a chein Andalusia

  • Little did I know that you were Romeo you were throwing pebbles

  • Desmond takes a trolley to the jeweller’s store

  • No you can’t go back to Constantinople
    Been a long time gone

  • There is a crack, a crack in everything
    That’s how the light gets in

  • And leaning on your window sill
    He’ll say one day you caused his will
    To weaken with your love and warmth and shelter

  • Daylight come an’ I wanna go home

  • I’ve been to Hollywood, I’ve been to Redwood
    I crossed the ocean for a heart of gold

  • Some folks inherit star-spangled eyes

  • Or in the parking lot, circling, screaming, “I don’t give a fuck!”/ With his windows down and his system up

  • And found my cleanest dirty shirt

  • To die by your side us such a heavenly way to die

  • Standin’ in the sunlight laughing’ hiding’ behind a rainbow wall

  • The buzzing of the bees in the cigarette trees

  • And the wise men don’t know how it feels to be thick as a brick

  • Does anybody really know what time it is?

  • Don’t go changing to try to please me

  • Take another shot of courage, wonder why the right words never come

  • A band is blowing Dixie double-four time, you feel alright when you hear that music ring

  • I walked out this morning and I wrote down this song, I just can’t remember who to send it to

  • Orangutans are skeptical of changes in their cages, and the Zookeeper is very fond of rum

  • She said it’s really not my habit to intrude, furthermore I hope my meaning won’t be lost or misconstrued

  • But she wants to be sure, ‘cause you know sometimes words have two meanings

  • And you wanna grow up to be just like them: Smugglers, scramblers, burglars, gamblers
    Pickpockets, peddlers and even panhandlers

  • I’ve been stretching my mouth to let those big words come right out

  • How I would push my fingers through your mouth to make those muscles move that made your voice so smooth and sweet

  • You know that I have from the start, so build me up, Buttercup

  • Wherever he laid his hat, was his home

  • Don’t criticize what you can’t understand, your sons and your daughters are beyond your command

  • Never badder than bad 'cause the brother is madder than mad at the fact that’s corrupt like a senator

  • It’s a monumental big screen kiss, it’s so deep it’s meaningless

  • I may be mad, I may be blind, I may be viciously unkind, but I can still read what you’re thinking

  • Then they send me away to teach me how to be sensible, logical, oh responsible, practical

  • Work very hard, but I’m lazy, I’ve got a lot of songs but they’re all in my head / I’ll get a guitar and a lover who pays me

  • When he knew for certain only dying men could see him he said all men would be sailors then

  • My thoughts are many miles away, they lie with you when you’re asleep, and kiss you when you start your day

  • I drank forty cups of coffee just waiting for you to get home

  • And you won’t make me jealous if I hear that they sweetened your night, we weren’t lovers like that and besides, it would still be alright

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  • I walk through her hills 'cause she knows who I am, she sees my good deeds and she kisses me windy

  • I’ve just seen a face I can’t forget the time or place

  • And it’s hard to hold a candle
    In the cold November rain

  • And Superman unrolls a suit before he lifts
    But I’m not the kind of person that it fits

  • Hush my darling, don’t fear my darling, the lion sleeps tonight

  • Moon lights up the night, I light up when you call my name

  • Then came the churches, then came the schools, then came the lawyers, then came the rules, then came the trains and the trucks with their loads

  • Sippin’ on gin and juice (laid back), with my mind on my money and my money on my mind)

  • You can’t start a fire without a spark

  • When the drinks finally hit her, she said, "I’m no quitter but I finally quit living on dreams”

  • I’m not big on social graces, think I’ll slip on down to the oasis

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Beat on the brat
Beat on the brat
Beat on the brat with a baseball bat

Heroin, be the death of me
Heroin, it’s my wife and it’s my life

I’m so lazy
I can’t even be bothered

You’re the one for me, fatty

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Maybe you should stay with yo mama…

I got a cheerleader here wants to help with my paper, let her do all the work and maybe later I’ll rape her…

Ali babba and the 40 thieves!
Ali babba and the 40 thieves!
Ali babba and the 40 thieves!

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  • “And I descend from grace / In arms of undertow / I will take my place / In the great below” (The Great Below, Nine Inch Nails)

  • “In the clearing stands a boxer / And a fighter by his trade / And he carries the reminder / Of every glove that laid him him down / Or cut him, ‘til he cried out / In his anger and his shame / ‘I am leaving, I am leaving’ / But the fighter still remains” (The Boxer, Simon and Garfunkel) [Distinctly remember listening to this while driving to an early-morning wrestling tournament in high school. Fittingly.]

  • “He hath loosed the faithful lightning of his terrible swift sword” (Battle Hymn of the Republic) [I am never more patriotic than when listening to this song lol]

  • “Drink up baby / stay up all night / with the things you can do / you won’t but you might” (Between the Bars, Elliot Smith)

  • “Though nothing will drive them away / We can beat them, just for one day / We can be heroes, just for one day” (Hereos, David Bowie)

  • “You know that good lives make bad stories […] We were wrecks before we crashed into each other” (Sober to Death, Car Seat Headrest)

  • “Texas Red had not cleared leather ‘fore a bullet fairly ripped / And the ranger’s aim was deadly with the big iron on his hip” (Big Iron, Marty Robbins)

  • “Missing pieces of my skull / I’ll sew on patches of my soul” (Meteor Shower, Cavetown)

  • “They were connected / At the back of the head / They had a conduit / Their minds were the same” (Twin Fantasy/Those Boys, Car Seat Headrest)

  • “Can I still get into heaven if I kill myself?” (King Park, La Dispute) [not so much for the line itself as the way it brings the song to a climax perfectly. I love storytelling in music]

  • “But this wouldn’t be the first or last time that / Both my tears and I have come/cum” (Wet, Dazey and the Scouts) [silly]

  • “All pain disappears / It’s the nature of / Of my circuitry / Drowns out all I hear / No escaping this / My new consciousness” (The Becoming, Nine Inch Nails)

  • “You galvaniatic young boy / You galvanistic young man / You galvanistic young inhuman / You understand” (Nervous Young Inhumans, Car Seat Headrest) [galvanistic_young_man would’ve been a fun username if I had the foresight lol]

  • “I wanna shoplift shit from Walmart with you while I blow / My dab pen into your throat / That might happen if you don’t go” (8 Now, Food House) [silly]

  • “I can’t last too much longer / I’m already starting to run out of places / For faces in my brain / They’re all starting to look the same” (Strangers, Car Seat Headrest)

  • “Love isn’t love enough / I think this is the other thing” (Beast Monster Thing, Car Seat Headrest)

  • Ditto on the Neutral Milk Hotel lines in the original post

  • “I want to fuck you / I want to taste you / I want to feel you / I want to be you” (Closer to God, Nine Inch Nails) [notably a different line than in the main-album version of the song. Anyone’s guess what the significance of the change is.]

  • “As I casually scroll through the fetish-based forum of which I am an active member” (Portrait of the Artist as a Young Fag, Will Toledo)

  • “I’m a man without conviction / I’m a man who doesn’t know / How to sell a contradiction / You come and go, you come and go” (Karma Chameleon, Culture Club)

  • “You are coming down with me / Hand in unlovable hand” (No Children, The Mountain Goats)

  • “So if you need to be mean, be mean to me / I can take it and put it inside of me / If your hands need to break more than trinkets in your room / You can lean on my arm while you break my heart” (I Don’t Smoke, Mitski)

  • The extra lines sung in the chorus of “Dixieland Delight” at University of Alabama football games

  • “I am your savior / I am corruption / I am the angel / Of your destruction / I am perversion / Secret desire / I am your future / Swallowed up in fiiiiirrrrrreeeeee” (Burn, Nine Inch Nails)

  • “I bow my head to confess / The temple walls are made of flesh” (Suck, Pigface) [somehow didn’t pick up on this one until my second or third time listening to the song)

  • “Seasons don’t fear the reaper / Nor do the wind, the sun or the rain (we can be like they are” (Don’t Fear the Reaper, Blue Öyster Cult)

  • “What is up? It is Frax from Massachusetts” (Fly With Ü, Fraxiom) [silly]

  • “Back he spurred like a madman / Shrieking a curse to the sky / With the white road smoking behind him / And his rapier brandished high” (The Highwayman, Phil Ochs) [although it’s just his rendition of a much older poem]

  • “How does it feel? / To be on your own? / With no direction home? / A complete unknown? / Like a rolling stone?” (Like a Rolling Stone, Bob Dylan)

I may come back to this later, cool idea for a thread :]

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I love the one from Sunday Morning Coming Down, one of my favorites

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Eleven long haired friends of Jesus in a chartreuse micro bus

She put him out, like the burning end of a midnight cigarette

And when my mind is free, you know a melody can move me

You picked a plastic rose and overlooked a field of daisies

Like a picture she was laying there, moonlight dancing off her hair

He brought the woman out of me, too times easily

Once inside a woman’s heart, a man must keep his head, heaven opens up the door, where angels fear to tread

Won’t you lay me down in tall grass and let me do my stuff

His money buys you everything but my lovin, So I guess I’m good for something after all

Kay I showed some drunk your picture and he made a smart remark, I hit him in the mouth, boy was mad

When we were down to nothing, nothing sure looked good on you

Smoking cigarettes and watching Captain Kangaroo

But everyone here in this place is very strange. If you hand me my crayons I’ll be glad to take your name

Well I, made a mess, of my life, each time I went left, I shoyld have gone right.

If French fries were fat free, and you still loved me, what a wonderful world it would be

She said, Tell me are you a Christian, and said, Ma’am I am tonight

Turning back, she justs laughs, the boulevard is not that bad

Too many more to list right now…lol :laughing:

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image

Does this count?

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Such an odd coincidence. The lyrics are the same as in all Tom Waits’ instrumental songs.

How could this same moon
Overlooking this Chinatown fair
Look down on Illinois
And find you there?

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The piccolo “solo” in Shostakovich’s 9th symphony

  • World class trolling, was also really fun to play.
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I ain’t got no motherfuckin’ friends (sucka-ass)
That’s why I fucked yo’ bitch, you fat motherfucker
West side, Bad Boy killers (take money, take money)
You know who the realest is, niggas, we bring it to you (take money)
That’s aight
(Take money)

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Some great stuff on these lists.

Noyes old poem quite different from Ochs interpretation.

Nitpick:
Now Muriel, plays piano
Every Friday at the Hollywood
And they brought me down to see her
And they asked me if I would
To do a little number
And I sang with all my might
She said, “Tell me are you a Christian child?”
And I said, “Ma’am, I am tonight”
(Walking in Memphis, Marc Cohn)

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You’re right. The Lonestar cover is the one that popped in my head and for some reason they left out “child”.

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I only know the one version. Good song, like many on your list.

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So many great lyrical songs… Two that always stood out:

  • They say music can alter moods and talk to you/can it load a fun for you and cock it too?/if it can, then the next time you assault a dude tell the judge it was my fault and I’ll get sued

  • freedom has a scent, like the top of a newborn babies head

Edit: this one has been on mind lately

  • I’m not as good as I once was, but I’m as good once as I ever was.

Was at a 4th of July festival and they had a radar pitch. A group of HS teens with Bass Pro shop hats were trying to crack 70, eventually 2 of them hit 74/75. I step up and throw one pitch, 83. That’s all I got.

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  • Freedom isn’t free. There’s a hefty f*cking fee. But if you don’t throw in your buck-oh-five who will? Freedom costs a buck-oh-five.

  • Just a stranger on the bus trying to make his way home.

  • Make your mama sad type
    Make your girlfriend mad tight

  • Try and play the role and yo’ the whole crew’ll act up
    Get up, stand up, see’mon throw your hands up
    If you’ve got the feeling, jump across the ceiling

  • An old man sits, collecting stamps
    In a room all filled with Chinese lamps
    He saves what others throw away
    He says that he’ll be rich someday

  • Sleep with one eye open
    Gripping your pillow tight

  • They tried to make me go to Rehab
    But I said no, no, no
    Yes I’ve been black, but when I come back
    You’ll know, know, know
    I ain’t got the time

  • Come on, baby, don’t say maybe
    I gotta know if your sweet love
    Is gonna save me
    We may lose, and we may win
    Though we will never be here again

  • But I keep cruisin’
    Can’t stop, won’t stop movin’
    It’s like I got this music in my mind
    Sayin’ it’s gonna be alright

  • Where is the ritual?
    And tell me where, where is the taste?
    Where is the sacrifice?
    And tell me where, where is the faith?

  • Got my first real six string
    Bought it at the five and dime
    Played it ‘til my fingers bled

  • And you, to whom adversity has dealt the final blow
    With smiling bastards lying to you everywhere you go
    Turn to, and put out all your strength of arm and heart and brain
    And, like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again

  • 오빤 강남 스타일, uh
    강남 스타일
    옵, 옵, 옵, 옵 오빤 강남 스타일, uh
    강남 스타일
    옵, 옵, 옵, 옵 오빤 강남 스타일
    에, sexy lady
    옵, 옵, 옵, 옵 오빤 강남 스타일
    에, sexy lady
    옵, 옵, 옵, 옵 에-에-에, 에-에-에

  • Ring. Ring. Boom.
    (1812 Overture)

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Daughter of Aphrodietes
Hear my words and take heed
I was born on Olympus
To my father a son

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Lyrically one of the best songs ever…

(The video of that one was cute too.)

Here’s another good one that got better with time (acoustic version):

"So needless to say
I’m odds and ends
But I’ll be stumbling away
Slowly learning that life is okay

Say after me
It’s no better to be safe than sorry"

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I still contend the three best lyricists of modern music are Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Paul Simon. Of course others will disagree. I’d argue for the Beatles way before Taylor Swift.

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  • Quiero ver bailar tu pelo, quiero ser tu ritmo
    Que le enseñes a mi boca tus lugares favoritos

  • Don’t you draw the Queen of Diamonds boy/ she’ll beat you if she’s able/ you know the Queen of Hearts is always your best bet/ And it seems to me some fine cards/ have been laid out on your table/ but you only want the ones that you can’t get

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