best ever line(s) from a song

Is that a fart reference?

i did read the whole thread, and no question about it, the best line from a song is,

Your mind is on vacation and your mouth is working overtime -- Mose Allison

A couple of favs...

Born under a bad sign
Been down since I began to crawl
If it wasn't for bad luck I wouldn't have no luck at all

I'm a crosscut saw
Just drag me across your lawn
I'll cut your wood so good for you baby
You can't help but say hotdog

I smoke two joints in time of peace and two in time of war.
I smoke two joints before I smoke two joints, and then I smoke two more.

I built my house from barley rice
Green pepper walls and water ice
Tables of paper wood, windows of light
And everything emptying into white.

Sounds like the author could be a terrorist

Albert king was an interesting guitarist. He strung his strings backwards and tuned in open C...so I've never met anyone that could play his style of blues.

I see you laughin'
Right in my face
I guess I'm gonna have to
Put you in your place

Because if silence was golden
You couldn't raise a dime
Because your mind is on vacation
And your mouth is working overtime


And on "Lost Mind" Mose sings:

" If you would be so kind

To help me find my mind

I want to thank you in advance

from the song levi stubb's tears by billy bragg

and her husband was one of those blokes
the sort that only laughs at his own jokes
the sort that war takes away
and when there wasn't a war, he left anyway

poignant dj

bragg's a very good songwriter, started out in the early 80's as a sort of punk protest singer, but he's always had an ear for a good tale of unrequited love

speaking of which, this line is a classic

"in the end it took me a dictionary
to find out the meaning of unrequited
while you were giving yourself for free
at a party to which i was never invited"

another brit from the 80's tracey ullman (yes that tracey ullman), with her tune you broke my heart (in 17 places)

'Cause you broke my heart in 17 places
Shepherds Bush was only one

One of the 10 best all time LP covers. Worth another look

Kirsty MacColl, A New England, great song, great lyrics, best line:

"I put you on a pedestal / you put me on the pill"



The Pogues & Kirsty MacColl, Fairytale of New York, one of the most beautiful songs on earth, includes this brilliant bit:

"You scum bag / You maggot / You cheap lousy faggot / Happy Christmas your arse / I pray God it's our last"

... before it turns all moving in the last verse. (The lyrics there only make sense if you know which is line is sung by whom, Shane or Kirsty, though.)

However, one of the most striking lines in music history must be one from Andre Hazes's "Eenzame Kerst" (Lonely Christmas). <nods>

The character singing, you have to know, is in jail, all alone .. "lonely in this cold, damp cell". The other jailbirds all got a package from home for Christmas, with the Christmas wish "Oh father, please come back home soon", but not he ... because, although he's there in the first place for "stealing for our family", his wife now "celebrates Christmas with someone else". "Why is another man now, sitting on my chair?". He's estranged from "my children, who now sing Silent Night / Yeah, silent it will be for me for sure", but he still pleads, "Perhaps I may still give something to my children / give something from the deepest of my heart". Sad, he is, and unable to forget, and "therefore this Christmas song / A song so full of grief", and how more telling can the apotheosis be than in these two lines?:

"Voor mij zullen hier geen kaarsen branden
Ik voel mij als een kerstboom zonder piek",

ie:

"For me no candles will burn here
I feel like a Christmas tree without a star"

I feel like a Christmas tree without a star, yep. Have you ever felt like a Christmas tree without a star? I know I have...

interestingly enough, billy bragg wrote "a new england"

following in the christmas theme

tom waits - christmas card from a hooker in minneapolis

where to begin, oh how about the opening lines, better yet, the whole goddamn song is just clasic

hey charlie i'm pregnant
and living on the 9th street
right above a dirty bookstore
off euclid avenue
and i stopped takin dope
and i quit drinkin whiskey
and my old man plays the trombone
and works out at the track

and he says that he loves me
even though its not his baby
and he says that he'll raise him up
like he would his own son
and he gave me a ring
that was worn by his mother
and he takes me out dancin
every saturday night.

and hey charlie i think about you
everytime i pass a fillin station
om account of all the grease
you used to wear in your hair
and i still have that record
of little anthony & the imperials
but someone stole my record player
now how do you like that?

hey charlie i almost went crazy
after mario got busted
so i went back to omaha to
live with my folks
but everyone i used to know
was either dead or in prison
so i came back to minneapolis
this time i think i'm gonna stay.

hey charlie i think i'm happy
for the first time since my accident
and i wish i had all the money
that we used to spend on dope
i'd buy me a used car lot
and i wouldn't sell any of em
i'd just drive a different car
every day, dependin on how
i feel

hey charlie for chrissakes
do you want to know the
truth of it?
i don't have a husband
he don't play the trombone
and i need to borrow money
to pay this lawyer
and charlie, hey
i'll be eligible for parole
come valentines day


more great tom waits lines


from heartattack and vine

"see that little jersey girl with the see through top
in the pedal pushers sucking on a soda pop
well i'll bet she's still a virgin and it's only twenty five to nine
you can see a million of them on heartattack and vine"


from invitation to the blues

"but you can't take your eyes off her
get another cup of java
and it's just the way she pours it for you
joking with the customers
and it's mercy mercy Mr. Percy
there ain't nothin back in Jersey
but a broken-down jalopy of a
man I left behind
and a dream that I was chasin
and a battle with booze
and an open invitation to the blues"


from time

"And they all pretend they're orphans and their memory's like a train
You can see it getting smaller as it pulls away
And the things you can't remember tell the things you can't forget
That history puts a saint in every dream"

Let them leave you up in the air
Let them brush your rock and roll hair


Let the Good Times Roll, The Cars

from the rainmakers - drinkin' on the job

"the farmer he got ploughed, the bricklayer got plastered
the mechanic he got tanked, and the construction worker got blasted
and daddy beat up mommy, and broke her collar bone for good luck
and everbody's drunk, and everybody's wasted
and everbody's drinking on the job


one more from the rainmakers - government cheese

"give a man a free ticket on a dead end ride, and he'll climb in the back even though nobody's drivin'
too goddamn lazy to crawl out of the wreck, and he'' rot while he waits for the welfare cheque
go to hell in a hand bag, can't you see, i ain't gonna eat np government cheese"

This song is relatively new to me, but already it has become a favorite. And it pretty much rips my heart out. It's like an account of what I know I'm up against the second I finish grad school in May in move back to Chicago.

In Tall Buildings
By John Hartford, 1976

Someday, baby, when I am a man,
and other's have taught me
the best that they can
they'll sell me a suit
and cut off my hair
and send me to work in tall buildings

and it's goodbye to the sunshine
goodbye to the dew
goodbye to the flowers
and goodbye to you
I'm off to the subway
I must not be late
going to work in tall buildings

now when I retire
and my life is my own
I made all the payments
it's time to go home
and wonder what happened
betwixt and between
when I went to work in tall buildings

and it's goodbye to the sunshine
goodbye to the dew
goodbye to the flowers
and goodbye to you
I'm off to the subway
I mustn't be late
going to work in tall buildings

Along the same lines:

When I'm lyin' in my bed at night
I don't wanna grow up
nothin' ever seems to turn out right
I don't wanna grow up
how do you move in a world of fog
that's always changing things
makes me wish that I could be a dog
when I see the price that you pay
I don't wanna gow up
I don't ever wanna be that way
I don't wanna grow up

Seems like folks turn into things that they'd never want
the only thing to live for is today...
I'm gonna put a hole in my T.V. set
I don't wanna grow up
open up the medicine chest
and I don't wanna gow up
I don't wanna have to shout it out
I don't wanna be filled with doubt
I don't wanna be a good boy scout
I don't wannt have to learn to count
I don't wanna have the biggest amount
I don't wanna grow up

Well when I see my parents fight
I don't wanna gow up
they all go out and drinking all night
and I don't wanna grow up
I'd rather stay here in my room
nothin' out there but sad and gloom
I don't wanna live in a big old tomb
on Grand Street

When I see the 5 o'clock news
I don't wanna grow up
comb their hair and shine their shoes
I don't wanna grow up
stay around in my old hometown
I don't wanna put no money down
I don't wanna get me a big old loan
work them fingers to the bone
I don't wanna float a broom
fall in love and get married then boom
how the hell did it get here so soon
I don't wanna grow up

Your so vain, I bet you think this song is about you...