I woke up this morning
With a bad hangover
And my penis was missing again
“Detachable Penis” by King Missile
It’s almost not part of the song, but the perfect introduction to the song.
Which immediately made me think of another “intro” line:
I am the God of Hellfire!
And I bring you…
.
.
Fire…
(Arthur Brown, all over the “cool” radio stations in the '60s.)
Joe Jackson- - Is She Really Going Out With Him?
“Pretty women out walking with gorillas down my street
From my window I’m staring while my coffee grows cold-”
BBC radio had a poll on this a few years ago and the clear winner was,
‘I saw a werewolf with a chinese menu in his hand
Walking through the streets of Soho in the rain.’
Warren Zevon’s Werewolves of London
Earlier today i heard 'River of Orchids by XTC, which starts with -
‘I heard a dandelion roar in Piccadilly Circus’
MiM
I rather like L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N. by Noah And The Whale.
Lisa likes brandy and the way it hits her lips
She’s a rock ‘n’ roll survivor with pendulum hips
She’s got deep brown eyes
That’ve seen it all…
So far as I can tell the song did nothing in the US, so here it is for the curious - spoilered for a slightly rude line.
j
‘Graceful fat Sheba, she works with a meatcleaver
Sweating behind the meat counter
Her skin, it leaks liquid, the odour is sickly
Her features aren’t unlike a swan
Her poetic, gluttonic waist is impressive
She smiles as she hacks up a pig.’
Tyrannosaurus Rex, from ‘My People Were Fair and Had Sky in Their Hair… But now they’re Content to Wear Stars on Their Brows’,
The more Bruce Cockburn I hear, the more I’m intrigued by his lyrics:
(Sorry, I edited out a bunch, but there are lots…)
.
Tokyo
They’re getting prepared to haul a car out of the river
Noise and smoke and concrete seem to be going on forever
Grinding gears and drivers getting high on exhaust
I’m thinking about the water down below and what got lost
Pachinko jingle and space torpedo beams
Comic book violence and escaping steam
Grey suited business men pissing against the wall
Cut to crumbling guardrail, slow motion, car fall…
.
Pacing The Cage
Sunset is an angel weeping
Holding out a bloody sword
No matter how I squint I cannot
Make out what it’s pointing toward
Sometimes you feel like you’ve lived too long
Days drip slowly on the page
And you catch yourself…
Pacing the cage.
.
Hoop Dancer (spoken)
Tokyo. Jetlag.
Evening. Walking.
Out of my throat appears this chuckle,
a true 20th Century sound…
a little crazed and having no tonal centre.
The echoes of this laugh fade for a long time
Snaking among those jumbled pedestrians
Following that struggling Cedric taxicab
Sliding over the seeming infinity of white light and neon…
.
Sometimes they’re just fun:
Peggy’s Kitchen Wall
Crashing in the kitchen, noises in the hall
Roll over and go back to sleep, it’s just a dream, that’s all
So how come the window’s broken?
What caused the glass to fall?
And who put that bullet hole in Peggy’s kitchen wall?
.
You Pay Your Money And You Take Your Chance
Woman cry, chase man down street, crying “No Chuckie, no, please don’t!”
Another girl comes, they run along St. Andrew, turn south on Kensington.
Meanwhile Chuckie beats it down the alley by the chicken packer’s,
By the time I reach the corner they’ve all vanished.
Just a deaf kid talking like Popeye to a large fleshy laughing man in a blue shirt.
.
The Gift
May you never tire of waiting,
never feel that life is cheap.
May your life be filled with light
(except for when you’re trying to sleep).
.
The Trouble With Normal (Early 80s, but still relevant)
Strikes across the frontier and strikes for higher wage
Planet lurches to the right as ideologies engage
Suddenly it’s repression, moratorium on rights
What did they think the politics of panic would invite?
Person in the street shrugs, “Security comes first”
But the trouble with normal is it always gets worse
The trouble with normal is it always gets worse
.
And maybe his most well known: Wondering Where The Lions Are
Sun’s up… uh huh, looks okay
The world survives into another day
And I’m thinking 'bout eternity
Some kinda ecstasy got a hold on me
(I often say those first two lines as I walk out into the morning.)
.
And finally, an early, quiet song that he ends many of his concerts with:
All the Diamonds
All the diamonds in this world
That mean anything to me
Are conjured up by wind and sunlight
Sparkling on the sea
Too much Elvis is barely enough:
It’s at times such as this, she’d be tempted to spit
If she wasn’t so ladylike
She imagines how she might have lived
Back when legends and history collide
So she looks to her prince finding he’s so charmingly
Slumped at her side
Those days are recalled on the gallery wall
And she’s waiting for passion or humour to strike
[Chorus]
What shall we do, what shall we do
With all this useless beauty?
All this useless beauty
My child arrived just the other day…
Harry Chaplin
Something about the way you taste
Makes me want to clear my throat.
There’s a message to your movements
That really gets my goat.
-DEVO, Gut Feeling
Here come old flat top
He come grooving up slowly
He got joo joo eyeball
He one holy roller
He got hair down to his knee
Got to be a joker he just do what he please
I touch your lips, that’s when the trouble starts a-brewin’
I can’t resist the brand of ‘bacca you are chewin’
LI’L OLE KISS OF FIRE
(Lester Allen / Robert Hill) Homer & Jethro - 1952
Shot through the heart
And you’re to blame
Darlin’, you give love a bad name
THEN the music starts. Epic.
Some good ones already mentioned from Warren Zevon, who was incapable of writing poor lyrics I think. Here’s a couple of my favorites:
I was sitting in the Hollywood Hawaiian Hotel
I was staring in my empty coffee cup
I was thinking that the gypsy wasn’t lyin’
All the salty margaritas in Los Angeles
I’m gonna drink 'em up
And if California slides into the ocean
Like the mystics and statistics say it will
I predict this motel will be standing until I pay my bill
Desperadoes Under the Eaves
The phone don’t ring
And the sun refuse to shine
Never thought I’d have to pay so dearly
For what was already mine
For such a long, long time
Accidentally Like A Martyr
Most any random line in a Zevon song is a “best line” contender.
Al Stewart ‘Year of the Cat’
“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”
Put down that chainsaw and listen to me.
Dare to be Stupid, “Weird” Al Yankovic
I’m a street walking cheetah with a heart full of napalm.
Search and Destroy, Iggy Pop and the Stooges
I am woman, hear me roar.
I Am Woman, Helen Reddy
Oh. My. God. Debbie, look at her butt.
Baby Got Back, Sir Mix-A-Lot
I had a dream decades ago about a choir singing “Desperados Under the Eves”, and still remember it vividly.
Was that intentional?
+1 
That’s just how good that line is! 