You’ll Never Leave Harlan Alive (Darrell Scott)
In the deep dark hills of eastern Kentucky
That’s the place where I trace my bloodline
And it’s there I read on a hillside gravestone
“You’ll never leave Harlan alive”
Came to post the exact same lyrics. Talk about vivid imagery.
Her hair is Harlow gold
Her lips a sweet surprise
Her hands are never cold
She’s got Bette Davis eyes
She’ll turn her music on you
You won’t have to think twice
She’s pure as New York snow
She got Bette Davis eyes
And she’ll tease you, she’ll unease you
All the better just to please you
She’s precocious, and she knows just what it
Takes to make a pro blush
She got Greta Garbo’s standoff sighs, she’s got Bette Davis eyes
—Bette Davis Eyes, Kim Carnes
Tik Tok (Ke$ha)
Wake up in the mornin’ feelin’ like P Diddy (hey, what up girl?)
Grab my glasses, I’m out the door, I’m gonna hit this city (let’s go)
Before I leave, brush my teeth with a bottle of Jack
‘Cause when I leave for the night, I ain’t comin’ back
Plenty of Dylan already but this one wins it for me:
God said to Abraham, kill me a son
Abe said man, you must be puttin’ me on
Yes, a great opening, but these lines later on might be the best he ever wrote:
There were ghosts in the eyes of all the boys you sent away
They haunt these dusty beach roads in the skeleton frames
Of burned-out Chevrolets
At the risk of turning this in to a Bob Dylan thread…
They’re selling postcards of the hanging
They’re painting the passports brown
The beauty parlor is filled with sailors
The circus is in town
from Desolation Row.
Hey, hey, Mama said the way you move
Gonna make you sweat, gonna make you groove.
So much raw energy right out of the gate.
I can see her lying back in her satin dress
In a room where you do what you don’t confess
Sundown - Gordon Lightfoot
Hallelujah (L. Cohen)
Now I’ve heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don’t really care for music, do you?
It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth
The minor falls, the major lifts
The baffled king composing Hallelujah
Year of the Cat - Al Stewart
"On a morning from a Bogart movie
In a country where they turn back time
You go strolling through the crowd like Peter Lorre
Contemplating a crime"
He was born in the summer of his twenty-seventh year
Comin’ home to a place he’d never been before
My all-time favorite opening line, written by Paul Simon:
“Fat Charlie the Archangel sloped into the room”
It’s a little weird, it’s extremely evocative, and it makes me want to know more about Fat Charlie, and where his nickname came from.
No I would not give you false hope
On this strange and mournful day
But the mother and child reunion
Is only a motion away…
For those who don’t know,
The title has its origin in a chicken-and-egg dish called “Mother and Child Reunion” that Simon saw on a Chinese restaurant’s menu.[4] The song’s lyrics were inspired by a pet dog that was run over and killed.
“I woke up alarmed”
___Liz Phair, Fuck and Run
“Well I didn’t come here to deal with a doggone thing
I just came here to hear the drummer’s cymbal ring
There ain’t no way you can put me down
I just wanna say that hell’s my wife’s home town”
___Bob Dylan, My Wife’s Home Town
“She used to work in a diner
Never saw a woman look finer
I used to order just to watch
her float across the floor”
___Neil Young, Unknown Legend
I didn’t realize what an awesome song this was until I was waiting for a movie to start and they were piping music before the coming attractions. Are the lyrics zen or something? Enigmatic? I really listened to it because I had no choice. Very nice, and an excellent vocal performance with some great harmony at the end.
Isn’t it interesting that he also sang about the mountains in West Virginia…then it seemed to be all Colorado? Mrs. L and I are the opposite. Much as we like Colorado, we gravitate to the mountains in the eastern US.
More about the song, including lyrics
@Mean_Mr.Mustard my favorite song on that album, You and Me:
Open up your eyes
See how life time flies
Open up and let the light back in
Open up your heart
Let the lovin’ start
Open up and let the light back in
Cream - “Pressed Rat and Warthog”
“Pressed rat and warthog have closed down their shop.
They didn’t want to; 'twas all they had got.
Selling atonal apples, amplified heat,
And pressed rat’s collection of doglegs and feet.”
Yeah, Neil.
Once I thought I saw you
In a crowded, hazy bar
Dancing on the lights
From star to star
Tom Waits. “Mr. Siegal”
I spent all my money in a Mexican whorehouse,
Across the street from a catholic church,
I got green and I got blues
And every day there’s a little less difference between the two.
I belly up and disappear
Well, I ain’t really drownin’ 'cause I see the beach from here
Goddamn Lonely Love
Drive By Truckers The Dirty South
One of the best lost love songs ever recorded, with possibly the best lost love song title ever written. Made me a Jason Isbell fan.
“Alison”, Elvis Costello:
Oh, it’s so funny to be seeing you after so long, girl
And with the way you look, I understand that you are not impressed
But I heard you let that little friend of mine
Take off your party dress
I’m not going to get too sentimental
Like those other sticky valentines
'Cause I don’t know if you were loving somebody
I only know it isn’t mine