Okay, these are a few personal coices:
“This bomb-blast lightning waltz.” U2, A Sort of Homecoming.
“Set me aflame and cast me free. Away, you wretched world of tethers.” VNV Nation, Solitary
“Seek no more for hollow answers. Answers that lay within you all along.” VNV Nation, Arclight
and
“Like a roll of thunder chasing the wind.” Live, Lightning Crashes
D’oh, I actually forgot some by October Project, who write some of the most beautiful and poetic lyrics I’ve heard.
“In the empty corners of the evening,
In the vacant beauty of the wind.” - Something More Than This
“And the unforgiving arms of the cradle rock as hard as the face of the city pavement.” - Sunday Morning Yellow Sky
“If I could speak in tongues of flame I’d burn forever with your name.” - One Dream
And then there’s one that sounds absolutely georgous when sung. There isn’t really any short clip of lyrics I can give.
“In a city of faces
That never look back
Where doors never open
And eyes never meet
Someone behind me was tracing my steps
As I ran through the fog down a cobblestone street.” - After the Fall
No pecking code respected for the damned.-Pete Townshend,The Sea Refuses No River.
Your third grade teacher and your uncle Mel, and all them sinners gonna go to hell. Commander Cody,-Go To Hell.
If dreams were thunder, lightning was desire, this old house would have burned down, a long time ago. John Prine,-Angel From Montgomery.
Too many to mention, but one that comes to mind right now is, “me no wanna be no nice guy.”
Pope Bob
"You know, it coulda been me you’re listening to on your radio … "
“I’d give up forever to touch you.” (From Iris, John Rz…um, the Goo Goo Dolls)
“Still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.” (From The Boxer, Paul Simon)
“So they love Jerry Lewis in France-does that make him funny?” -Steve Taylor.
Like unto a moron, I flubbed the line I referred to before – it is, of course, “me no are no nice guy.”
But then you all know that …
**“And we’re changing our ways, taking different roads, then love, love will tear us apart” - Joy Division,Love Will Tear Us Apart
“I was the one who let you know,I was your sorry-ever-after.” - The Connells,'74-'75
“Well now everything dies baby that’s a fact,But maybe everything that dies someday comes back,Put your makeup on fix your hair up pretty,And meet me tonight in Atlantic City” - Bruce Springsteen,Atlantic City **
[/QUOTE]
Oh yeah –some of my favourite lyrics. Did you ever hear the Paul Young massacre of the Joy Division song?
I’m ashamed to admit that only the Kirsty McCOll cover of A New England comes to mind at the moment, which is why the lyrics are (I hope. My brain is fading)“I loved you then as I love you still, I put you on a pedestal, you put me on the pill”.
Also, wasn’t Billy Bragg responsible for “How can you lie back and think of England when you don’t even know who’s in the team”?
Damn damn damn damn damn. Why didn’t I find this thread earlier . I love that lyric.
Didn’t realise I was such a big Billy Bragg fan. My boyfriend’s just pointed out he lives down the road from me. I’ll have to go and stalk him 
Don’t know that one, but if you want to check, lyrics for most of his songs are here
milo
“They will tell you you can’t sleep alone in a strange place
Then they’ll tell you you can’t sleep with somebody else
Sooner or later you sleep in your own space
Either way it’s okay to wake up with yourself”
Billy Joel, My Life
Tonight we fly
Over the mountains, the beach and the sea
Over the friends that we’ve known
And those that we now know
And those whom we’ve yet to meet
And when we die
Will we be that disappointed or sad
If heaven doesn’t exist
What will we have missed
This life is the best we’ve ever had
Tell veronica the secrets of the boy you never kissed
She’s got everything to gain 'cause she’s a fat girl with a lisp
A bunch of Replacements lyrics:
If being wrong’s a crime I’m serving forever
If being strong is what you want
I need help with this feather
If being afraid is a crime, we hang side by side
At the swingin’ party down the line
Jesus rides beside me
He never buys any smokes
Hold my life until I’m ready to use it
Hold my life because I just might lose it
I used to live at home
Now I stay at the house
I’m not as ready as I’ll ever be
And I suppose your guess
Is more or less as bad as mine
And more as I think of them.
Great thread. I’m gonna need to check out some of these songs.
Welcome…or should I say goodbye?
It’s a question how close we are apart
–Alphaville
You say you don’t believe a thing I say, I say
You don’t believe a thing, you say you can’t believe
How I don’t understand
–Barenaked Ladies
When she was three
Her Barbies always did it on the first date
Now she’s with me
There’s never any need for them to demonstrate
–Barenaked Ladies
Because life, Mrs. Brown
Is just one big knees up
A night on the town, a storm in a teacup
More like a teacup in a storm
–Carter USM
Are the words to this song concise enough to follow?
Is your smart food simple enough to swallow?
–Chumbawamba
Of course it’s peace we’re for
This is war to end all war
–Mark Blitzstein, Cradle Will Rock
You’d set the table for the barber Sweeney Todd
You’d clip the wings of any rising god
But man can’t live on hope alone
It can be cut, all that is grown
Broke your spirit but not your bones
And on the river flows
–The Levellers
‘Moon of Alabama’ is my favorite country tune
It’s got lyrics by a Communist and music by a Jew
And when those fellers wrote it they were living in Berlin
I guess that is a symbol of the world we’re living in
–Momus
One perfect couple on four perfect blades
We execute two perfect figures of eight
But the ice is a mirror in which people see
Their nation and their sexuality
–Momus
I left the normal world behind and started living in
A hinterland between dissolution and self-discipline
I burned the midnight oil to build my way of seeing
Like a miner at the coal face of meaning
–Momus
If looks could kill I’d kill the men
Whose looks would kill you if looks could kill
And the men who say ‘No competition’
Know the competition love instills
–Momus
When I left home I already had five years
Of self-abuse under my belt
I found certain women who’d let me try anything
Just to find out how it felt
–Momus
I was the last of the window-cleaners
I was sacrificed as such
When they singled out the ringleaders
They said I’d seen too much
I only saw what the butler did
The chambermaid also
I never saw how the other half lived
I just washed their windows
–Momus
Worst of all I stopped loving your body
Making you feel so low
But my lawyer says no blame can be apportioned
For circumstances beyond my control
–Momus
Originator man, originator man
Make me a sun in the palm of your hand
A rising and setting sun
Deflowering, 24 hours, reflowering
Going out of fashion
Coming back into fashion
Catch the fruit as it falls for me
Hang it on the tree again
–Momus
If I slipped away
Maybe nobody’d notice
They’d probably say
It’s just one of those things
With a little dismay
And a shrug of the shoulders
You’d buy a coat
Against the cold
–Momus
Thank you for the memory, this curse you’ve laid on me
Like a shooting star I burst into obscurity
Live this second first because the rest is history
Nothing’s gonna save us now
–Momus
In the doctor’s surgery
I keep my fingers crossed because I know the cost
This test for positivity implies
Still I do this willingly
Because I want to know what I don’t want to know
Unthinkable thoughts are thoughts we have to try
–Momus
Listen to the shells my darling, what you hear is not the sea
But whispering, malicious human hearts
Adults who don’t wish to know the Duc De Berry’s great chateau
And hate the world of childhood and of art
We who paint or photograph to stop the dying in its path
And fix you in the permanence of spring
Can’t stop the prattlers prattling, the rattlesnakes who, rattling
See ugliness in every living thing
–Momus
I wrote this song two hours before we met
I didn’t know your name or what you looked like yet
–Pulp
One man’s whiskey is another man’s tea
And I’m not certain if that wisdom applies to me
I been learning about life
Watching my TV
And you should see all the notes I’m taking
–Wyrd Sisters
I dance in a graveyard of carousel horses
I search murky waters for Athena’s sources
–Wyrd Sisters
“If you were a priest
I would wait at least
up untill confession time
then crawl into your box.” - Robyn Hitchcock
Not the lyrics, but the title of the song Les Bons Bons des Raison by stereolab is pretty clever imho.
“Did you exchange a walk on part in the world for a lead role in a cage?” - Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd
Damn that’s just a cool line from a great song.
Although I’m not religious I always liked this line from U2’s Mysterious Ways
“If you want to kiss the sky, you better learn how to kneel.”
A planet of playthings
We dance on the strings
Of powers we cannot perceive
Rush
“You look good in that sweater, and that aluminum crutch.
I’m gonna let you down easy, I’ve got a delicate touch.”
Beck
“A penny for your freedom
is worth a thousand more of hollow freedom
the world is feeling twice as cold today
and there’s no more disguising its decay”
—Dillinger Four
oops…should be “penny for your treason”
Though you pound this bitter heart,
down to molten steel.
Cast it in the furnace,
of your burning, spinning wheel.
I will rise up through the flames,
to wrap you in my arms.
Brand you with my loving seal,
and steal your tender charms.
“Hammer of Love” Bad Company
Did my best to love you,
Now do your best to leave…
“Still Around” Robert Cray
Skating away,
on the thin ice of a new day
Jethro Tull-LOTS more from them
“Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose,
and nothin’ ain’t worth nothin’ but it’s free,”
“Well I woke up Sunday morning
with no way to hold my head, that didn’t hurt
and the beer I had for breakfast
wasn’t bad so I had one more for dessert
then I fumbled through my closet for my clothes
and found my cleanest dirty shirt”
"If you hurt me, you won’t be the first or the last
In a lifetime of many mistakes.
But I won’t spend tomorrow regretting the past
For the chances that I didn’t take.
'Cause I’ll never know 'til it’s over
If I’m right or I’m wrong loving you,
But I’d rather be sorry for something I’ve done
Than for something that I didn’t do."
Kristofferson was popular in a period of my life when I was feeling sorry for myself. So I guess that his lyrics appealed. Not great poetry, but he could turn a phrase.