Whether it’s advice, or just a wise saying, what is the best bit of wisdom that comes from a song?
When my sister, who desperately was hoping to have a girl found out she was pregnant with twin boys, I quoted to her from the wise sage Mick Jager, “You can’t always get what you want, but… you get what you need!”
(The boys are 10 now, and she’s so happy she has them and not the girl she thought she wanted)
I quite like the chorus of Van Morrison’s Precious Time.
“Precious time is slipping away
You know you’re only king for a day
It doesn’t matter to which God you pray
Precious time is slipping away”
Bob Seger, Against the Wind:
-“wish I didn’t know now what I didn’t know then”
Bob Dylan, My Back Pages:
-“I was so much older then. I’m younger than that now”
Paul Simon: “There must be 50 ways to leave your lover”
Paul McCartney: “We live in hope of deliverance from the darkness that surrounds us.”
Sung by George Jones:
"She asked if I had quit drinking,
Like I promised her long ago.
The words wouldn’t come,
When I called and she answered.
but I found a way to say no.
I sent her some wine colored roses"
A more uplifting gem sung by Billy Preston:
“Nothing from nothing leaves nothing; you gotta have something, if you want to be with me.”
“You don’t tug on supermans cape, you don’t spit into the wind, you don’t take the mask offf the old lone ranger and you don’t mess around with Jim”
“You never count your money until the deal is done”
From Traffic’s “(Sometimes I Feel) So Uninspired”
Honestly it resonated with me when I was discouraged. Even though the “There is no reason for not failing” line doesn’t quite make the sense that they intend it to, the intended meaning comes through: you might not win, but there is no reason that you can’t at least not fail. And it really did sometimes help get me to get back up off the canvas metaphorically in my younger days.
“Until you learn to laugh you’ll never come to any parties at my house
And if you go on like this the only house you’ll ever visit is the nut house
You’re such a misery, why don’t you learn to laugh?
Look in the mirror and don’t take yourself so seriously”
-The Kinks: “Misery”
Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end. (“Closing Time,” Semisonic)
The question to everyone’s answer is usually asked from within. (“Jungle Love,” Steve Miller Band)
You gotta start from the start- Loverboy
You can’t get there from here- REM
I think she likes me, thats what I think- Morphine
And the best:
Only time will tell if we stand the test of time- Van Halen
“Don’t go home with your hard-on.” - Leonard Cohen
“All we are is dust in the wind.” -Kansas
Ha! A favorite line from one of my favorite songs. I’ve left a trail of scribbled lyrics from Steve Miller in notebooks and on scratch paper for most of my life. (Might be just a bit of rhyming nonsense from a recording artist; might be ancient wisdom stolen from some obscure philosopher. Either way, makes some weird sense, don’t it? 
“It’s no better to be safe than sorry.”
“There is a crack in everything; that’s how the light gets in.” …Leonard Cohen
“If you wait for what’s coming
And you listen to her lies,
Then she’ll say the things you need to hear
And the only one who’ll disappear is you”
And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make
Always be a good boy, don’t ever play with guns.
“One man gathers what another man spills.”
Don’t know why, but I found that profound from the very first time I heard it many years ago.