share your favorite lyrics

[Not Heidi]

Mine come from Shawn Colvin.

Ricochet in Time: (album: Steady On)

I wanted to know if dreams would lie
they said they would try and I said,
"Let them - you just let them"

So many more of her songs speak to me. I may post more.

What are your favorite lyrics?

[Aristus]

1. "There ain't no moral to this story at all.

Everything I tell you very well could be a lie
Been away from the living
I don’t need to be forgiven
I’m just waiting for that
Coal-black, sun-cracked, dead-inside
Soul of mine
To come alive…”

Nada - by Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers.

[pscot]

2. If my words did glow

with the gold of sunshine
And my tunes were played
On the harp unstrung
Would you hear my voice
Come through the music
Would you hold it near
As it were your own

Ripple, written by Robert Hunter for the Grateful Dead

[Mister Ed]

3. Perhaps my all-time favorites favorite line from a song is just "She was an American girl."

It's odd, because I'm a big fan of such deft and adroit lyricists as Leonard Cohen and Elvis Costello. So why am I so charmed by Tom Petty's plain, blunt statement? I dunno, it just seems as though that simple line somehow explains the whole song, and explains the character it portrays.

I recently happened upon this beautiful voice-and-piano cover of the song, by Taylor Swift:

[50 Shades Of Blue]

4. First one that came to mind - from "Wasn't Born to Follow"

Oh I'd rather go and journey
Where the diamond crest is flowing
And run across the valley
Beneath the sacred mountain
And wander through the forest
Where the trees have leaves of prisms
And break the light in colors
That no one knows the names of

And when it's time I'll go and wait
Beside a legendary fountain
Till I see your form reflected
In its clear and jeweled waters
And if you think I'm ready
You may lead me to the chasm
Where the rivers of our vision
Flow into one another

~ Carole King & Gerry Goffin
Performed by the Byrds

[Not Heidi]

5. The Story

Well, our father he married our mother too young
and he took on the world as a fortunate son
but in the cellar downstairs
waiting for the bomb scare
he would hide from us under the kitchen
where she simmered so soft with her weapons of tin
and like so many suppers, she just gave us to him
and we never did guess
in her cast iron dress
she was burning beyond recognition

Sometimes I feel so reckless and wild
sometimes I feel like a motherless child
I gave nobody life*
I am nobody's wife
and I seem to be nobody's daughter

(*After writing this song, Colvin became a mother)

[Scrivener7]

6. I listened obsessively to that album for a few years when it came out. The Story is one of my

favorites. Also Shotgun Down the Avalanche.

When you asked about favorite lyrics, I don't think I could pick one, but what jumped into my mind today was her cover of David Byrne's Naive Melody.

A snippet:

I can't tell one from the other
Did I find you, or you find me?
There was a time before we were born
If someone asks, this is where I'll be, where I'll be

Oh, we drift in and out
Oh, sing into my mouth
Out of all those kinds of people
You got a face with a view

I'm just an animal looking for a home and
Share the same space for a minute or two
And you love me 'til my heart stops
Love me 'til I'm dead

[Not Heidi]

7. "Oh, sing into my mouth"

Love that line . . . love that song. I've only ever heard her cover. I'll have to look up Byrne's recording.

[Whiskeytide]

8. "I was flying back from Lubbock,...

… and I saw Jesus on the plane.
Or maybe it was Elvis.
You know, they kind of look the same”.

Don Henley. “If Dirt Were Dollars.”

That line said a lot to me about where our society was headed. And I think he was right.

[MOMFUDSKI]

9. I can see you -

your brown skin shining in the sun -

[KarenS]

10. 2 Favorites of mine

"Would someone please let me know how we have spun out of control?
Has the captain let go of the wheel?
Or could we please try to find a way to be a bit more kind?
I see the road to tomorrow in the haze!"
Sign of the Times ~ Queensryche

and

"You can spend all your time making money,
You can spend all your love making time."
Take it to the Limit ~ Eagles

[Hugh_Lebowski]

11. There's absolutely no way I'm nailing down something like this ... but I'll give a big fave

Last edited Sun May 7, 2023, 06:01 AM - Edit history (1)

Jeff Buckley - Lover, You Should Have Come Over

Lonely is the room, the bed is made, the open window lets the rain in
But burning in the corner is the only one who dreams he had you with him
My body turns and yearns for a sleep that won't ever come

It's never over ... my kingdom for her kiss upon my shoulder
It's never over ... all my riches for her smiles when I slept so soft against her
It's never over ... all my blood for the sweetness of her laughter
It's never over ... she's the tear that hangs inside my soul forever

Oh, but maybe I'm just too young
To keep good love from going wrong

If I had to pick a single song in it's entirely, well ... this one would be really close to the top.

[highplainsdem]

12. There are so, so many...

But one song that immediately came to mind...

Leaves are falling all around
It's time I was on my way
Thanks to you I'm much obliged
For such a pleasant stay
But now it's time for me to go
The autumn moon lights my way
For now I smell the rain
And with it pain
And it's headed my way

[hippywife]

13. Waaay too many to choose one, but...

first that comes to mind is Dave Carter. He's one of my top three poet laureate singer-songwriters.

Excerpt of Merlin's Lament, from Drum Hat Buddha album:

And joy my love was a dancin' spring, and life was the touch of her lips
And a brook ran mad to my cave down the stream from the miracle hills of her hips

[vanlassie]

14. One from Van

I forgot that love existed, trouble in my mind
Heartache after heartache, worried all the time
I forgot that love existed
Then I saw the light
Everyone around me make everything alright

[Skittles]

15. this verse always gets to me

Oh, if you need a friend
I'm sailing right behind
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will ease your mind
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will ease your mind

[Mister Ed]

17. In an interview I once read, Paul Simon said that was his farewell to his wife as they divorced.

If only all divorces could be so kindhearted.

[Upthevibe]

19. Mister Ed,,,,,,

I wonder if that was Carrie Fisher? They were together for 12 years but only officially married for about a year.

It wasn't Carrie Fisher (I just checked myself). It must have been Peggy Harper (he was married to her from 1969 to 1975) but the song came out in 1970...

[Mister Ed]

26. Now I'm perplexed.

I was so sure, for so many years, that I had read it in an interview - specifically, his 1984 Playboy Magazine interview. But now it's clear to me that the verse, written late in 1969, could not have been about the breakup of his then-recent marriage to Peggy Harper.

The Wikipedia page about the song quotes a 2011 Rolling Stone article that says:

At the suggestion of Garfunkel and producer Roy Halee, Simon wrote an extra verse and a "bigger" ending, though he felt it was less cohesive with the earlier verses.[17] The final verse was written about Simon's then-wife Peggy Harper, who had noticed her first gray hairs ('Sail on, silvergirl').

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridge_over_Troubled_Water_(song)

I wonder if I somehow conflated two facts after reading the Playboy interview: first, that the verse was written about his wife, and second, that they were now divorced.

[lpbk2713]

22. In the clearing stands a boxer

And a fighter by his trade
And he carries the reminders
Of every glove that laid him down
Or cut him till he cried out
In his anger and his shame
"I am leaving, I am leaving"
But the fighter still remains

[rurallib]

24. There is so much that Paul Simon wrote that is great

From America:

"Kathy I said though I knew she was sleeping
I'm empty and aching and I don't know why
Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike
They've all come to look for America"

Or the end of Sounds of Silence:

"And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
Then the sign said, "The words on the prophets are written on the subway walls
And the tenement halls"
And whispered in the sound of silence"

[Iggo]

28. Another one from the same album (and my current favorite on that album, if you can believe it)

Everywhere I go I get slandered, libeled.
I hear words I never heard in the bible.
And I’m so tired.
I’m oh so tired.
But I try to keep the customers satisfied.

And I’m cackling like an idiot by the end of the song, because I imagine it’s about his record company. And if you notice, the song starts with two voices and a guitar, and ends up with a full orchestra behind them. And the last bit where the trumpet player is blasting his lungs out through his horn, I think of the musical director going, “Again. But BIGGER!“

I die every time.

[cbabe]

16. Flowers on the wall/Statler Brothers

The Statler Brothers - Flowers On The Wall

Kurt Vonnegut quotes the song's complete lyrics in his 1981 book Palm Sunday, calling the song "yet another great contemporary poem by the Statler Brothers"

Flowers on the Wall won the 1966 Grammy award for Best Contemporary (Rock and Roll) Performance by a Group, Vocal or Instrumental. The Statlers won the vote for the award over their competitors, a quartet of mop-haired lads from Liverpool.

…

I keep hearing you're concerned about my happiness
But all that thought you're giving me is conscience, I guess
If I were walking in your shoes I wouldn't worry none
While you and your friends are worrying about me, I'm having lots of fun

Counting flowers on the wall, that don't bother me at all
Playing solitaire 'til dawn with a deck of fifty one
Smoking cigarettes and watching Captain Kangaroo
Now don't tell me I've nothing to do

https://m.

[Upthevibe]

20. cbabe.......

I remember this song was playing in the movie Pulp Fiction while Bruce Willis' character was sitting at a red light singing along to it.

[cbabe]

23. Cool. The sacred clown, or trickster.

[Mad_Dem_X]

18. There are many, but right now my fave is:

I know I was born, and I know that I'll die
The in-between is mine.

Pearl Jam - "I Am Mine"

[lpbk2713]

21. I could go on and on, but many would be written by Kristofferson.

Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose
Nothin', don't mean nothin' if it ain't free,
Feelin' good was easy, Lord, when she sang the blues
You know feelin' good was good enough for me
Good enough for me and my Bobby McGee





I have seen the mornin' burnin' golden on the mountain in the skies
Achin' with the feelin' of the freedom of an eagle when she flies
Turnin' on the world the way she smiled upon my soul as I lay dyin'
Healin' as the colors in the sunshine and the shadows of her eyes

Wakin' in the mornin' to the feelin' of her fingers on my skin
Wipin' out the traces of the people and the places that I've been
Teachin' me that yesterday was somethin' that I'd never thought of trying'
Talkin' of tomorrow and the money love and time we had to spend
Lovin' her was easier than anything I'll ever do again

[rogerballard]

25. Embrace Me You Child...

Carly Simon

"Then one night Daddy died and went to Heaven
And God came down to earth and slipped away
I pretended not to know I'd been abandoned
But no one sang the night into the day
And later night time songs came back again
But the singers don't compare with those I knew
And I never figured out where God and Daddy went
But there was nothing those two couldn't do

Embrace me you child, you're a child of mine
And I'm leaving everything I am to you
Go chase the wild and night time streets sang Daddy
And God sang: Pray the devil doesn't get to you"

[Iggo]

27. Lotta hippie songs. Here's from one of the best.

I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down, and still somehow
It’s cloud illusions I recall.
I really don’t know clouds at all.

(Simple sentiment in a simple rhyme. Packs a punch, though. Don’t it?)

[Bayard]

29. The Last Resort, The Eagles

Don Henley is a brilliant lyricist.

They even brought a neon sign
"Jesus is coming"
Brought the white man's burden down
Brought the white man's reign
Who will provide the grand design?
What is yours and what is mine?
'Cause there is no more new frontier
We have got to make it here
We satisfy our endless needs
And justify our bloody deeds
In the name of destiny
And in the name of God
And you can see them there
On Sunday morning
Stand up and sing about
What it's like up there

[Danmel]

30. Pure and Easy by Pete Townshend

There once was a note
Pure and easy
Playin' so free, like a breath rippling by
The note is eternal
I hear it it sees me
Forever we blend
And forever we die
I listened and I heard
Music in a word
And words when you played your guitar
The noise that I was hearing was a million people cheering
And a child flew past me riding in a star
As people assemble
Civilization
Is trying to find a new way to die
But killing is really
Merely scene changer
All men are bored
With other men's lies
I listened and I heard
Music in a word
And words when you played your guitar
The noise I was hearing was a million people cheering
And a child flew past me riding in a star
Gas on the hillside
Oil in the teacup
Watch all the chords of life lose their joy
Distortion becomes somehow
Pure in its wildness
The note that began all
Can also destroy
We all know success
When we all find our own dreams
And our love is enough
To knock down any walls
And the future's been seen
As men try to realize
The simple secret of the note in us all
I listened and I heard
Music in a word
And words when you played your guitar
The noise I was hearing was a million people cheering
And a child flew past me riding in a star
There once was a note
Pure and easy
Playing so free, like a breath rippling by
There once was a note
Listen
Listen
Listen
Listen
Listen
Listen
Listen
Listen

[Mr.Bill]

31. Within You Without You

by George Harrison.

https://www.google.com/search?q=within+you+without+you+lyrics&source=hp&ei=EnBYZK-lJ4S20PEPtayE0AQ&iflsig=AOEireoAAAAAZFh-IgfXD2sWVLr8Zg0a5Chpy5TqPumf&oq=within+you&gs_lcp=Cgdnd3Mtd2l6EAEYATIICC4QgAQQ1AIyBQgAEIAEMgUIABCABDIFCC4QgAQyBQgAEIAEMgUIABCABDIFCAAQgAQyBQgAEIAEMgUIABCABDIFCAAQgAQ6CwgAEIAEELEDEIMBOgsILhCABBCxAxCDAToRCC4QgAQQsQMQgwEQxwEQ0QM6CAgAEIAEELEDOgsIABCKBRCxAxCDAToLCC4QigUQsQMQgwE6CwguEIAEEMcBENEDOggILhCABBCxAzoLCC4QgAQQsQMQ1AI6DQgAEIAEELEDEEYQ-QE6CAgAEIoFELEDOgsILhCABBDHARCvAToOCC4QgAQQsQMQxwEQ0QM6CAguELEDEIAEUABYtiFgqkBoAHAAeACAAU2IAYcFkgECMTCYAQCgAQE&sclient=gws-wiz#cobssid=s

This song will be played at my funeral and everyone will be given a copy of the lyrics. If it brings them some peace of mind that will be my final gift to my family and friends.

[TheBlackAdder]

32. Boofo The Supreme Court Judge (parody of Kinko the Kid Loving Clown)

.

(Fully lyrics are at the YouTube video post)

Boofo, Boofo, the Supreme Court Judge
Everyone hates Buffo, but he’ll never hold a GRUDGE
Boofo, Boofo, the Supreme Court Judge
Little rough at parties, Wouldn’t even think to BUDGE
Shut up you little tease, Turn up the volume
.
.
Boofo, Boofo, the Supreme Court Judge
Shoving dongs in faces, trying to pack a little FUDGE
No means Yes, Yes means Anal!
Boofo, Boofo, the Supreme Court Judge
He’s so smooth with ladies, Gives them all a little NUDGE
I like beer, liquor, ludes, and running a train.
.
.
Boofo, Boofo, the Supreme Court Judge
Several women speak out and give his good name a SMUDGE
It’s nothing but a farce, a national disgrace
Boofo, Boofo, the Supreme Court Judge
Bogus FBI checks put the ending to his TRUDGE
The FBI is corrupt—unless it does what WE want

And the original inspiration.

.