The Beatles, from “A Day in the Life” - Lennon doing that wail right after McCartney says “Found my way upstairs and had a smoke/ And somebody spoke and I went into a dream”…
Another vote for Heart. In “Crazy On You”, the power of the titular line just floors me.
Not quite music; on Yessongs there’s a little acoustic guitar preamble to Rick Wakeman’s piece, where the singer does this super-understated introduction. You bug up because you know it’s about to get wild.
The Mountain Goats - This Year
“There will be feasting and dancing in Jerusalem next year.”
I don’t know why, either, because that line seems pretty random in a song that’s otherwise lyrically cohesive.
Richard Thompson singing “1952 Vincent Black Lightning”:
“I see angels on Ariels in leather and chrome,
Swooping down from the heavens to carry me home!”
Grateful Dead singing “Scarlet Begonias”:
“She had rings on her fingers and bells on her shoes;
And I knew right then she was into the blues.”
Gary Jules singing the chorus to “Mad World”:
“And I find it kinda funny, I find it kinda sad;
The dreams in which I’m dying are the best I’ve ever had.”
The Who singing “Squeeze Box”:
“Come on and squeeze me like you do;
I’m so in love with you…”
For your reading pleasure, here’s an old thread I started along similar lines.
As I did then, I nominate “SMUGGGGLER’S BLUES!”
Sir Rhosis
The first thing that came to mind was Marc Cohn, in Walking in Memphis, when he just wails:
“Tell me are you a Christian child?”
And I said “Ma’am I am tonight”
And one I’m currently listening to over and over again lately, the spectacular Baby I Love You by Aretha Franklin, which is all awesome, but especially the line:
And, oh, what you want, little boy you’re know you got it
I’d deny my own self before I’d see you without it.
Damn, I love Aretha.
I was reading this thread and not being able to think of a particular line or song, but this - I love this one too. CHILLS, man.
Helter skelter in the summer swelter
Where the birds flew off in a fallout shelter
Eight miles high and falling fast
You can almost see “it” falling fassssssst.
Glen Phillips (Toad the Wet Sprocket): Come Back Down
“…just one more time…I’ll be okay…”
(his voice cracks)
The song Strange Fruit by Billie Holiday is haunting from start to finish, but her unbroken crescendo/descendo during the line "For the trees to drop " freaks me out more than anything.
I think it’s something about how the way her pitch doesn’t change in steps; it’s continous. It’s kind of hard to explain but you know it if you hear it.
“It ain’t Coca-Cola, it’s rice”
The Clash, “Straight to Hell”
Regina Spektor in Samson sings “And he told me that I’d done all right…” with just the perfect mix of frightened defiance, appropriate for a woman who just knowingly crippled the strength of one of God’s heroes for her own gains.
Banks of the Nile by Sandy Denny (actually her group Fotheringay): “They’ve robbed us of our sweethearts while their bodies they feed the lions,
On the dry and sandy deserts which are the banks of the Nile.”
Hold On, Hold On by Neko Case: “I leave the party a 3 am, alone thank God.”
Am I remembering right that it’s Bono who sings that particular line?
There’s a spoken bit in the middle of the Kinks song “Cliches of the World (B Movie)” that Ray Davies pulls off brilliantly,
but I especially love the way he says the words “unimaginable pleasures.”
(There’s also a live version of the song, which is interesting and maybe even better overall, but the spoken part isn’t as good as in the original studio version from the State of Confusion album.)
Also from the same album, in the song “Don’t Forget To Dance,” I love the tenderness with which Ray sings the line “And when they asked me how you dance, I said that you dance real close.”