A winter’s day, in a deep and dark December
“You’re one sad and sorry son of a bitch, I hope you’re gone for good”
- Paul Sanchez, The Hate Song
“Ivana’s a sculptor she’s tending bar”
- Emmet Swimming, Arlington
I am a dominant gene. Live as I die
Never say forever 'cause forever’s a lie
A couple from John Prine:
It was Christmas in prison and the food was real good
We had turkey and pistols carved out of wood
The last time that I saw her
She was standing in the rain
With her overcoat under her arm
Leaning on a horsehead cane
mmm
I was going to post the opening line to Sympathy for the Devil also 
!
"Couple in the next room bound to win a prize
They’ve been going at it all night long "
-Paul Simon,* Duncan*
“The way I see it, he said
You just can’t win it”
-Joni Mitchell, Free Man in Paris
“There’s something happening here
What it is ain’t exactly clear”
-Buffalo Springfield, For What It’s Worth
*Heard of a van that is
loaded with weapons
packed up and ready to go
*
I am a lineman for the county,
And I ride the main road.
Searchin’ in the sun for another overload. Wichita Lineman, Jimmy Webb
It’s knowin’ that your door is always open
And you path is free to walk,
That tends to make me leave my sleepin’ bag rolled up
And stashed behind your couch. Gentle On My Mind, John Hartford
The place I would like to see I know
But not the place where you told me to go
So anything that moves will be okay
I’ll take anything leaving town today. Anything Leaving Town Today, Dave Dudley
Now you say you ain’t never met my wife, you ain’t never seen her befo,’
Say you ain’t been hangin’ roun’ my crib; well here’s somethin’ I wanna know…
I wanna know what in the worl’ is goin’ down,
How come my dog don’t bark when you come around? How Come My Dog Don’t Bark, Dr. John
I am just a poor boy
Though my story’s seldom told
I have squandered my resistance
For a pocket full of mumbles, such are promises
Shut up and get on the plane- Drive-By Truckers
"Well your wishes and your feelings
Your bad dreams and intuitions
Are about as much good to me right now as a brand new set of golf clubs"
If he was from Venus, would he feed us with a spoon?
If he was from Mars, wouldn’t that be cool?
— The Replacements, “Alex Chilton”
Look for a while at the China Cat Sunflower
Proud-walking jingle in the midnight sun
Copper-domed Bodhi drip a silver kimono
Like a crazy-quilt stargown
Through a dream night wind
— Grateful Dead, “China Cat Sunflower”
Everybody’s building the big ships and boats
Some are building monuments
Other are jotting down notes
Everybody’s in despair, every girl and boy
but when Quinn the Eskimo gets here
Everybody’s gonna jump for joy
— Dylan, “Quinn the Eskimo”
I woke up Sunday morning with no way to hold my head that didn’t hurt.
And the beer I had for breakfast wasn’t bad so I had one more for dessert.
Far between sundown’s finish and midnight’s broken toll
We ducked inside the doorway, thunder crashing
As majestic bells of bolts struck shadows in the sounds
Seeming to be the chimes of freedom flashing.
Some more of my favorites:
We’re in the basement, learning to print. - The B52s, “Legal Tender”
We’re gonna kill the California girls. - Sonic Youth, “Expressway to Your Skull”
Look before you leap, OK? - Sonic Youth, “I Dream I Dreamed”
“There lived, a house, in Baton Rouge.”*
“Sittin on the dock of the bay.”
“Mommy told me, yes she told me, I’d meet girls like you;
she also told me - stay away, you’ll never know what you’ll catch.”
“Don’t know much about dancin,
That’s why I write this song,
One of my legs
Is shorter than the other
And both of my feet’s too long,
'Course now right along with’em,
I got no natural rhythm,
But I go dancin every night,
Hopin one day I might get it right.”
One of my favourites, from Killdozer: “Hamburger Martyr” - NSFW
And maybe the greatest opening lyrics ever, from Captain Beefheart:
“A squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag is fast and bulbous, got me?”
(I’ll be a expecting a large, expensive prize for that.)
*just kidding! N’olins!
*Scabpicker dangit you beat me to it with the opener from the Buttholes’ “Shah Sleeps In Lee Harvey’s Grave”.
I spent my last $10 on birth control and beer;
My life was so much simpler when I was sober and queer!
~“I Spent My Last $10 on Birth Control and Beer” by The 2 Nice Girls
Talking to myself and feeling old…
~“Rainy Days and Mondays” by the Carpenters
Some will strut and some will fret;
See this, their hour on the stage.
~“Virginia Woolf” by the Indigo Girls
This is where the party ends,
'Cause I can’t stand here listening to you
And your racist friend.
~“Your Racist Friend” by They Might be Giants
Agh! I was going to suggest “Hotel Womb”
(Volcano pierce the air / Ashes block out the sun / Down in the lair where I met her there was a price for everyone)
or “Pharaoh”
(Hi to all the people that are selling me / Here’s one straight from the factory)
Can we agree on The Church in general? (And yes, I seem to recall learning that the productions of those albums, Starfish and Gold Afternoon Fix, were like a twice-suffered nightmare for the band.)
“Sideburns in the shape of a prairie province,
Bookcased his face, baby, he looked alot like Elvis…”
SNFU - Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump
(Kendall Stephen “Ken” Chinn for Canadian Parliamentary Poet Laureate 2020!)
Two more from John Prine:
Grandpa was a carpenter
he built houses, stores and banks
chain-smoked Camel cigarettes
and hammered nails in planks
Last night I saw an accident
on the corner of Third and Green
two cars collided and I got excited
just being part of that scene
It was Mrs. Tom Walker and her beautiful daughter
Pamela was driving the car
they got hit by a man in a light-blue sedan
who had obviously been to a bar
“I went home with a waitress, the way I always do–
How was I to know she was with the Russians, too?”
Warren Zevon, Lawyers, Guns, and Money