Best single lines in rock lyrics

Cafe Society
241

So many possibilities…

Have you come here to play Jesus
To the lepers in you head?

If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?

Elvis was a hero to most

You don’t need to be a Weather Man
To know which way the wind blows

The only girl I’ve ever loved
Was born with roses in her eyes

And every handout in every town
And every lock that ain’t locked
When no one’s around

I played the pump and took the hump
And watered whiskey down

I was once like you are now/ and I know that it’s not easy/ To be calm when you’ve found/ Something going on

Did they get you to trade/ Your heroes for ghosts?

His Majesty signed/ With his own rubber stamp

Take a sad song and make it better

Picture yourself in a boat on a river
With tangerine trees and marmalade skies

We sick and tired of your ism-schism game
Dyin’ an’ goin’ to Heaven in a Jesus name

We used to mix Hen with Bacardi Dark
And when it kicks in you can hardly talk

Adolph builds a bonfire, Enrico plays with it

To love another person is to see the face of God

Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin

But you don’t really care for music, do ya?

Why am I soft in the middle?
The rest of my life is so hard

Fat Charlie the Archangel sloped into the room

It was the myth of fingerprints

Emancipate yourself from mental slavery

It smelled like turpentine it looked like India ink

Don’t know about you, but I am a chein Andalusia

Little did I know that you were Romeo you were throwing pebbles

Desmond takes a trolley to the jeweller’s store

No you can’t go back to Constantinople
Been a long time gone

242

There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in

And leaning on your window sill
He’ll say one day you caused his will
To weaken with your love and warmth and shelter

Daylight come an’ I wanna go home

I’ve been to Hollywood, I’ve been to Redwood
I crossed the ocean for a heart of gold

Some folks inherit star-spangled eyes

Or in the parking lot, circling, screaming, “I don’t give a fuck!”/ With his windows down and his system up

And found my cleanest dirty shirt

To die by your side us such a heavenly way to die

Standin’ in the sunlight laughing’ hiding’ behind a rainbow wall

243

bad religion :
Better off dead
A smile on the lips and a hole in the head
Better off dead
Yeah, better than this
Take it away, 'cause there’s nothing to miss
Better off dead
You’re better off dead
Why don’t you try pushing daisies instead?
Better off dead
You’re better off dead
A smile on the lips and a hole in the head
And I’ll never make
The same mistake
The next time I create the universe, I’ll make sure you participate
Oh yeah

and “I want to conquer the world and show all the idiots a brand new religion”

one more: have you ever done everything you’ve ever wanted to ? well that’s just what I do so hooray for me and fuck you "

244

Having done this once or thrice in my lifetime … I always hear Johnny Cash in my head when I do.

245

The buzzing of the bees in the cigarette trees

And the wise men don’t know how it feels to be thick as a brick

Does anybody really know what time it is?

Don’t go changing to try to please me

246

Another great line about wise men:

Although the masters make the rules, for the wise men and the fools

Bob Dylan, It’s Alright Ma, I’m Only Bleeding

247

There’s something in the way she moves
Or looks my way, or calls my name
That seems to leave this troubled world behind

-James Taylor

248

So many of Cockburn’s best lines need the rest of the stanza for context, but not this one.

May your life be filled with light…
Except for when you’re trying to sleep.

.

(ETA: Eh, I’ll include them anyhow)

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.

249

Merry Christmas everyone,

Just for a moment I was back at school, and felt that old familiar pain,
and as I turned to make my way back home, the snow turned in to rain.
Dan Fogelberg

Hey, Santa, pass us that bottle, willya?
Jethro Tull

When what to my wondering eyes should appear, in the line it’s that guy I’ve been chasing all year.
The Waitresses

250

“Cold and misty morning, I heard a warning borne in the air” - ELP.

“I drank a jar of coffee, and then I took some of these” - The Fall. Don’t get me even started on Mark E. Smith

“Housewife heroines, addicts to their homes” - Gang of Four

“If you like piña coladas, and gettin’ caught in the rain” - Do I even need to say? Um, like, the Smooth One, himself? What can I say? He’s slick, he can’t help it.

251

And I wondered how the same moon outside this chinatown fair; could look down on Illinois and find you there

252

Lyric from the Central Park Concert:

I am older than I once was
And younger than I’ll be
That’s not unusual
No, it isn’t strange
After changes upon changes
We are more or less the same

253

May your heart always be joyful
May your song always be sung
And may you stay forever young

Bob Dylan

254

Two from the same song:

“You consider me the young apprentice
Caught between the Scylla and Charibdes”

“Mephistopheles is not your name
I know what you’re up to just the same”

That’s some serious wordsmithing there.

255

“Didn’t need no Welfare State,
everybody pulled his weight.”

Those were the Days, Archie and Edith

256

“Desire is hunger is the fire I breathe, Love is the banquet on which we feed.” - Patti Smith, Because the Night (Springsteen is on record as saying he only did the music and the chorus, every other lyric was Patti)

“It was a pretty big year for fashion
A lousy year for rock and roll
The people gave their blessing to crimes of passion
It was a dark, dark night for the collective soul.” - Don Henley, The Garden of Allah

“At a tombstone bar in a juke joint car, he made a stop
Just long enough to grab a handle off the top.” - Boz Scaggs, Lido Shuffle

“Spanish Johnny drove in from the underworld last night
With bruised arms and broken rhythm and a beat-up old Buick but dressed just like dynamite” - Bruce Springsteen, Incident On 57th Street

257

Now Hobnail Kelly and the Beefcake Kid
Just rolled into town from the land of sewn-up faces
Looking for a woman who can punch and kick and bite
Slide on down to the Egypt Room
Find the only woman who’s holding all the aces
The Princess is dancing at the Egypt Room tonight

258

“…everybody funny, now you funny, too.”

—George Thorogood & The Destroyers, “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer”

259

Just a stranger on the bus ,trying to make his way home.

260

Well she might be nasty she might be fat
But I never met a person who would tell her that
She’s my big blonde bomber
My heavy handed Hackensack mama