The last line of “God” by John Lennon - “The dream is over.”
Everybody Dance Now!
I was lucky to have met Annie when I was a stage hand for a Renaissance concert in Philadelphia in the early 70s. Wonderful lady! Beautiful, powerful voice.
Indeed it’s hard to beat Janice’s opening to Cry Baby for raw intensity. The lady embodied the blues.
Ever sing along with, and try to hold the note in the chorus of, “Lovely Day” the way Bill Withers does?
I could name a dozen or two lines of his that belong on this list.
- Abe said, where you want this killin’ done?
- You just kind of wasted my precious time
- Power and greed and corruptible seed seem to be all that there is
- Etc.
Nobody can sing his stuff like he can (or could) – and yet, he’s also the most cover-able rock songwriter ever. Weird.
Or “I know I know I know…” in Ain’t No Sunshine.
Love, from Zappa’s “Hungry Freaks, Daddy”, going from unfurled chaos (“Will not forestall the rising tide of hun-gry, freaks, da-deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”) and right into measly smarm (“They won’t go, for no more, great midwestern hardware store.”)
So destiny has brought us oh so close together- Judas Priest
I’ve always known that the mirror never lies- Queensryche
You’re one microscopic cog in his catastrophic plan, designed and directed by his red right hand- nick cave
In The Beatles’ “Oh! Darling,” McCartney’s delivery of the last line of verse is incredible. He’s always had an impressively strong high register, but that last line is something else. In my head, it puts the song in an unsettlingly different light. Up to that point, it’s a pretty standard begging-my-baby-not-to-leave-me kind of song, and you can feel sorry for him or not. But in that last line, the way he screams “I’ll never do you no harm!” makes him sound deranged and threatening. I wonder how much recording time went into that one and if, at any point, anyone considered using another take.
Ironically, I’ve heard a few versions of Everybody’s Talkin that I liked better because, similar to the complaint people had about Whitney’s version of IWALY, Nilsson engages in unnecessary vocal theatrics.
Then again it is still a good version. I especially like the “wah, hwah-wah-wah” parts.
Geoff Castellucci (with accompaniment by 3 other Geoff Castelluccis) singing the final line to Sixteen Tons
Thanks very much for posting that! I swear, I’d added Kansas City to my post, in parentheses just after “He’s always had an impressively strong high register,” but I deleted it before posting. It sounds clear to me that he was straining at the upper limits of his vocal range. I wonder what Lennon would have done with the vocals on that tune.
Okay, here’s a SUPER deep cut. When Glasgow hosted the Commonwealth games a few years back, Amy MacDonald (who has had some absolutely incredible line deliveries throughout her entire discography) took part in a cover of “Rhythm of My Heart” where most of the vocals were contributed by non-celeb Glaswegians. No idea if any of them are trained singers, but when I watch the video (at least once a month since 2017, TBH), some lines never fail to give me goosebumps. The “Born in the shadows” guy and the “I’m higher than a feather” woman especially. The fella who takes over for Amy after the first few lines (“Let the sun shine down on Glasgow town…”) is pretty memorable as well.
You’re welcome. I’ve heard people dismiss that song as a throwaway. It’s as if they just can’t hear singing or something like that.
Oh, who the fuck knows what’s wrong with people’s ears?!!! 
Years ago, I played something for a friend, eagerly waiting to hear his impression. One of the all-time best singers and an inspired performance. He made a face like someone had farted, and snarled, “And you mean to tell me they pay him to sing like that?!” He was incensed, and I thought for a second that he was joking. A girlfriend had a similar but less extreme reaction to another recording of the same kind of music.
Plenty of people are more adventurous about what they’ll put in their mouth than what they’ll put in their ears. Who knows what’s wrong with them?
The Who’s ‘Behind Blues Eyes’ is a potpourri of every technique Daltrey has in his arsenal. The line “I have hours only lonely, my love is vengeance, that’s never free” impressively drifts from sympathy to menace, so much emotion packed into a little space.
Aretha Franklin’s Ain’t No Way is not only a demonstration of her tremendous power and emotional delivery, but it features Cissy Houston (Whitney’s mother) singing backup. Houston hits some notes that seem impossibly in the stratosphere, and does it repeatedly.
Rick Danko does a great dance between restraint and pathos in It Makes No Difference, with the highlight around the 2:40 mark.
I love you so much, and it’s all I can do,
Just to keep myself from telling you,
that I’ve never been so alone before.