Reggie Watts, “Song about Apples”, when he sings “Hey baby, I like the way that you smile at me”
About the 5 minute mark: Reggie Watts - A Song About Apples (Always Love Yourself) - YouTube
The whole song is fantastic, but that part is particularly special.
Whitney Houston, “Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii will always love yooooooooouuuuu”, “The Bodyguard” - 1992
“Hello” by Evanescence. The final lines of the song are hauntingly and beautifully sung.
“Suddenly, I know I’m not sleeping. Hello, I’m still here, all that’s left of yesterday.”
I’ve always liked Dylan’s opening to Hurricane: “Pistol shots rang out in the barroom night…” Jumps out right at you out of nowhere, exactly like a pistol shot would.
Special mention to Lindsey Buckingham for “Holiday Roe oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh ode”
Grace Slick singing Silver Spoon:
Where are the bodies
For dinner?
I want my food!
For the chill it brings, Emmylou singing in Boulder to Birmingham
The last time I felt like this
I was in the wilderness and the canyon was on fire
“Rape, murder, it’s just a shot away”
Janis Joplin’s Booby McGee but not the line that everyone quotes - “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose” but the heartrending “I’d trade all my tomorrows for one single yesterday” Never has the pain of lost love been so eloquently expressed.
Ok - it’s a verse, not a line, but it’s sung so damn quickly and synced up…
Frank Zappa and co.
And booger bears.
Did a booger-bear
Come from somewhere out there
Did a booger-bear
Come from somewhere out there
Did the Indians, first on the bill
Carve up her hill?
FOR THE AND OF THE FREEEEEEEEEEEEE AND THE HOME OF THE BRAVE.
I fall asleep listening to trains and highway traffic, and I often think of another line, later in that song…
(a song that’s one of the most plaintive I’ve heard).
.
I’ve come to listen for the sound
of the trucks as they move down, out on 95 …
And pretend that it’s the ocean
Coming down to wash me clean,
to wash me clean…
One of my favorites is at the end of Zeppelin’s “South Bound Suarez,” when Plant repeats a third time “You know it makes me feel back on the ground.” The way he sings it the third time sounds a little like some of his harmonica lines. He sings it the first time at 2:47 and the third time (the one I like) at 3:07.
I can’t not smile when I hear Lowell George sing the words “Spanish Moon” in the Little Feat song of the same name (especially on the live Waiting for Columbus version). It’s some kind of horny snarl in which he pronounces “moon” like no one else ever:
And if that don’t kill you soon,
The women will, down at the Spanish Mrrrrn!
Singing “Walking on a Wire” in concert, Richard Thompson drops the “and” to make this line two sentences, and for some reason the effect is even more devastating than when Linda sang it as one sentence:
I’m walking on a wire. I’m falling.
For individual lines that are absolutely sublime to my ears:
“Sail on silver girl…” (from “Bridge Over Troubled Water”)
“Could anybody love him/Or is it just a crazy dream?” (from “The Final Cut” by Pink Floyd)
“I know what I am and I’m glad I’m a man and so is Lola!” (from “Lola”)
“Has he got a friend…for me?” (Linda Thompson from the song of the same name)
Nobody can put sneering contempt into his singing like Dylan:
Idiot wind
Blowing every time you move your teeth
You’re an idiot, babe
It’s a wonder that you still know how to breathe
Dolly Parton sang it better.
Harry Nilsson - “Everybody’s Talkin’”
I won’t let you leave my love behind
I won’t let you le-(slide up six octaves; hold note for 13 minutes)-eeeeeeeeeeeeeave.
Apparently, I’m a sucker for pathos, because every line I immediately thought of for this is full of heartbreak. First one was the plaintive line that kicks off the Beatles For Sale album:
This happened once before
When I came to your door
No reply…
As if that didn’t hit your “abject rejection” nerves enough, he hits the line “I nearly died…” with some pretty raw emotion.
Do you hate Christmas music? So do I, except for absolutely every single last line of Darlene Love singing Baby Please Come. Just check it out on this supercut of her appearances on David Letterman.
Somehow have to put in an honorable mention for Del Shannon singing Runaway in that inimitable style,
I’ve always been impressed by The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, by Genesis. The first song of the concept album, the title track, sets the mood. Here is a young man who thinks he knows who he is, but doesn’t really.
Wonder women, you can draw your blind!
Don’t look at me! I’m not your kind.
I’m Rael!
Something inside me has just begun,
Lord knows what I have done,
And the lamb lies down on Broadway.
That fortissimo shriek that Peter Gabriel gives to “I’m Rael!” followed by his forte lyrics about “Something,” then the pianissmo vocals by the rest of the band, set the scene. Rael thinks he knows who he is, but he’s got a lot to learn about who he really is.