Board 8 > What're your favorite individual lines in songs?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I've been listening to a song called Hesitate by Hazlett and there's this line "We don't ever make time for talking and wine, we keep it bottled up." and it's just so good. Delicious double entendre.

So now I'm curious what lyrics b8 likes!

*Points down at signature*
It's from the song Silent Hill, by Seanan McGuire.

Another of my favourites from her, in the song Wicked Girls goes:
"Our roads may be golden or broken or lost, but we'll walk on them willingly, knowing the cost"

"I wouldn't trade one stupid decision for another five years of life"
-LCD Soundsystem, "All My Friends"

"Ooh, I just know that something good is gonna happen
I don't know when, but just saying it could even make it happen"
-Kate Bush, "Cloudbusting"

"Yes, I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes
Youd know what a drag it is to see you"
-Bob Dylan, "Positively 4th Street"

This is a great idea for a topic! And that's a good line you picked.
I almost exclusively listen to showtunes and here are my favorite parts from some of them, though whoops some are more than a line due to the structure.

"Everyone tells tiny lies, what matters really is the size." - Maybe They're Magic, Into the Woods

"Into the woods but mind the past, into the woods but mind the future." - Finale, Into the Woods

"For your foes are fierce and ruthless
False, unmerciful, and truthless
Young and tender, old and toothless
All in vain their mercy crave!" - When the Foeman Bares His Steel , The Pirates of Penzance (though for an individual line I also like "Go ye heroes, go and die!")

Lyric in the topic post reminded me of

"And if you swear that there's no truth, and who cares
How come you say it like you're right?"

Bright Eyes - We Are Nowhere and It's Now. OP reminded me because the lyric also follows a line involving wine.

"You're never not you, that's the trip."

Eyedea - The Walls Came Tumbling Down. A song about a first time experience on psychedelics, and is just such an absolutely brilliant distillation of that experience.

Ehhhhh put that pussy in a sarcophagus

"The things that pass for knowledge I can't understand" - Steely Dan, Reelin' in the Years

"What's deserved always gets served" - Corrosion of Conformity, Heaven's Not Overflowing

"Because I was afraid to change, but that's not an excuse to stay" - La Dispute, Extraordinary Dinner Party

"I ain't no goddamn son of a bitch" - Misfits, Where Eagles Dare

some great replies! Other favourites of mine include:

Poets of the Fall - Carnival of Rust - And more than ever I hope to never fall where enough is not the same it was before.

Lucius - Dusty Trails - Oh am I halfway to misery? Some say when you go halfway youve got plenty of time to return. Or am I halfway to paradise? Some say when you go halfway youve only got halfway to go.

Mogli - Echo - And the splinter in your heart says this is not who I want to be. Cause you dont smile like you used to.

Honestly the entirety of Echo is just a lyrical masterclass and everyone should listen to it.

I could probably post a hundred but here are some more that quickly popped into my head.

"Our ideas held no water, but we used them like a dam"

Modest Mouse - Missed the Boat. Brilliant lyric in a song full of brilliant lyrics

"Not just a manic depressive, toting around my own crown
I've got a positive message, sometimes I can't get it out"

Brand New - Can't Get It Out. Like everything on their final album, particularly resonant for fans of the band. Both Brand New and Modest Mouse I could populate a large list with from their songs alone.

"We ceased to ask the most important things,
Conditioned into silence, we learned to shut our wings"

Seabound - Black Feathers. This one's difficult because the entirety of the chorus contains some of the best lyrics ever. But if I had to pick my favorite line, it's probably that.

"To swing on the spiral of our divinity,
And still be a human"

Tool - Lateralus. Classic Tool and another case of "the lyrics in this whole part are so good it's hard to pick"-itis. This one's just a personal favorite for me.

"And an obsession with the past is like a dead fly"

Animal Collective - Peacebone. Classic Animal Collective.

I think my favorite Tool line is "We are eternal, all this pain is an illusion".

Man, Brand New has some bangers too. I've always liked the lyric "He was bored and tired of my laments, said, 'I died for you one time, but never again'"

Trying to think of my favorite Taylor Swift individual lyric. "I don't wanna keep secrets just to keep you" keeps popping in my mind from Cruel Summer. And the way she just screams it - amazing.

As someone who sometimes gets overwhelmed by how long I perceived life to be and that I might not even be halfway through it and in addition to being prone to "all or nothing" thinking, the ending lyric to Spanish Love Songs "Brave Faces Everyone" (and the album actually) has hit particularly hard for me.

"We don't have to fix everything at once. We were never broken -- Life's just very long. Brave faces, everyone."

"Fear is his name, but his friends still call him God" - One Thing Left to Try by MGMT

"Out of all those kinds of people, you got a face with a view" - This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody) by Talking Heads

"Where every ghost unto me known, haunted me" - Tonight in Bilbao, Sun Kil Moon

Ooh I have a lot but of course I'm blanking on most of them right now. But lately I've been obsessed with this line from Taylor Swift's Would've, Could've, Should've:

Living for the thrill of hitting you where it hurts,
Give me back my girlhood, it was mine first

Such a raw fucking line especially in the context of the full song. I think I said "oh shit" out loud the first time I heard it.

"Why did Constantinople get the works? That's nobody's business but the Turks"
- They Might Be Giants

"And it came to me then that every plan is a tiny prayer to Father Time." - What Sarah Said by Death Cab For Cutie

No lyric has ever captured how suddenly things can change and how out of your control it could be like that one.

"Siam's gonna be the witness
to the ultimate test in cerebral fitness"

From One Night in Bangkok

"I ain't scared of death I'm scared to live wanting to die." Army of the Pharaohs - Black Christmas

Sweater Song:

Oh no
It go
It gone
Bye bye

"We're all working on ourselves, and we're praying that the rest don't mind how much we've changed"
-Black Country, New Road, "Basketball Shoes"

Probably my favorite line from last year. BCNR tend to speak in abstract terms, so this straightforward line hits especially hard in the final track of its album.

"You've been in his fist ever since you were a kid, but you don't owe him shit even if he said you did"
-Lucy Dacus, "Thumbs"

This one is more personal. The entirety of "Thumbs" is sung to a partner who feels guilted into keeping contact with their abusive father. This particular line feels like exactly what I wanted someone to say to me growing up. I finally cut ties with my father after getting a new phone number a few years back, but this song was the first thing to make me feel right about doing so. I think this line has made me cry more than anything else.

this topic is giving much more interesting insights into what touches people than I expected, very cool stuff all

A few that came to mind relatively quickly:

Come on, take me to a place, I don't know

--Daniel Olsn & Jonathan Eng (feat. Linnea Olsson), A Place I Don't Know

All that song's lyrics, really, but the last line sums it up.

And each day I learn just a little bit more
I don't know why but I do know what for

--Elton John & Bernie Taupin, This Song Has No Title

So without love and a promised land
We're fools to the rules of a government plan

--Tears for Fears, Sowing the Seeds of Love

If you're lost, you can look and you will find me
Time after time

--Cyndi Lauper, Time After Time

There's also quite a few lines from Peter Gabriel's Solsbury Hill and the entirety of Portishead's Third that speak to me to a similar extent.

I like

"we're living in a powder keg and giving off sparks" From Total Eclipse of the Heart

Also

"never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down"

(how has no one done that one yet?)

Said your mother told you all that I could give you was a reputation
Aw, she never cared for me
But did she ever say a prayer for me?

-Billy Joel, "Only The Good Die Young"

^
"Come out, come out, come out, Virginia, don't let me wait
You Catholic girls start much too late."

I could choose almost anything from Fair to Midland but I think their absolute peak comes from "The Greener Grass."

Get outta this town
Hatchet men yelling timber will get us chopped down
Get outta this hell
Off this rusted train track you still take lying down

And since I also enjoy the lyrical double entendre, the one that always springs to mind first is The Dear Hunter's exceedingly clever jab at organized religion in "Bitter Suite IV and V": We can lead you to salvation with the right denomination.

But I think my absolute #1 favorite is

But please, remember me fondly
I heard from someone you're still pretty
-Iron and Wine, "The Trapeze Swinger"

Because the song as a whole is maybe the most emotional piece of art I've ever experienced and its overall feel is captured so beautifully in such a simple line.

NBIceman posted...

I could choose almost anything from Fair to Midland but I think their absolute peak comes from "The Greener Grass."

If opportunity knocks, let's make him beg

"And at once I knew, I was not magnificent" - Bon Iver, Holocene

"Down on your knees, begging us please, praying that we don't exist. But we exist" - Arcade Fire, We Exist

"Tried living in the real world instead of a shell but before I began, I was bored before I even began" - The Smiths, Shoplifters of the World Unite

Since most of mine have been serious, here's one that always makes me laugh

"I want you to touch that lil' dangly thing that swing in the back of my throat"
-Cardi B, "WAP"

A lot of the song deals in surprisingly colorful and specific language, so this one line where she seemingly forgets a word but goes with it anyway really stands out

"I'm not afraid of being jumped at midnight because I'd force my ghost to follow them home for a fight" - Handguns, "Queens"

"Look at all our trials and tribulations
Sinking in a gentle pool of wine." - The Last Supper, Jesus Christ Superstar

"Disembodied, just a trace of what it was like then. With you here, we shared a space that's always half empty." - Rainier Fog by Alice in Chains

"I know I was born and I know that I'll die, the in-between is mine." - I Am Mine by Pearl Jam

"Face up, make your stand, and realize you're living in the golden years." - Wasted Years by Iron Maiden

Probably more later

"Between the click of the light and the start of the dream" - Arcade Fire, No Cars Go

FoolFantastic posted...

Since most of mine have been serious, here's one that always makes me laugh

I think my favorite just funny, not serious line might be:

"Tell your boyfriend if he says he's got beef,
That I'm a vegetarian and I ain't fucking scared of him" - DONTTRUSTME by 3OH!3

Pretty much anything that John Darnielle or Elliott Smith have ever written

Well, don't stop calling, you're the reason I love losing sleep

Manchester Orchestra
_____
Looking for somebody's arms to
Wave away past harms
I'm walking out on center circle
The both of you can just fade to black

Elliot Smith
______
I swear that even with the distance slowly
Wearing out your name
Your hands still catch the light the right way
And our hearts still beat the same

La Dispute

....of course someone immediately quotes one of the few Elliott Smith songs I don't especially like

jcgamer107 posted...

....of course someone immediately quotes one of the few Elliott Smith songs I don't especially like

Waaaaaaat

That line just hits cause it got me thru a break up with a girl who cheated on me

Also how can you not like a single song on that album?!?

I like most of them!

"Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine."
- Patti Smith, "Gloria"

"I leave you with photographs, pictures of trickery
stains on the carpet and stains on the memory."
- The Cure, "Disintegration"

"The only certain thing that is left about me
There's no part of my body that has not been used"
- Manic Street Preachers, "Yes"

"His nurse, some local loser
she's in charge of the cyanide hole
and she also keeps the cards that read
Have mercy on his soul"
- Bob Dylan, "Desolation Row"

And this one is probably a touch long to be called a single line but:

"Things will shortly get completely out of hand
I can feel it in the rotten air tonight
in the tips of my fingers, in the skin on my face
in the weak last gasp of the evening's dying light
in the way those eyes I've always loved illuminate this place
like a trashcan fire in a prison cell"
- The Mountain Goats, "Old College Try"

Kenri posted...

I think my favorite just funny, not serious line might be:

"Tell your boyfriend if he says he's got beef,
That I'm a vegetarian and I ain't fucking scared of him" - DONTTRUSTME by 3OH!3

oh man this is a good one, haven't thought about this song in a while

"So leave your house, come into my shed
Please stop my world from raining through my head"

I'll have to say the strongest line(s) for me is Linkin Park "Leave Out All The Rest". I found solace in it when Chester passed away. He was my hero growing up and losing him, the way we lost him, was truly heartbreaking.

"When my time comes, forget the wrong that I've done; help me leave behind some reasons to be missed. And don't resent me, and when you're feeling empty, keep me in your memory...leave out all the rest...leave out all the rest"

It was almost prophetic, like he left us instructions for when that day came.