While she’s livin’ like a queen
On alimony
I’m workin’ two shifts
Eatin’ baloney
Askin’ myself, “Why didn’t you just learn how to cook?”
Goes to refrain.
She Got The Goldmine (I Got The Shaft) - Jimmy Dean
And the world will be better for this,
that one man, scorned and covered with scars,
still strove, with his last ounce of courage
to reach the unreachable stars.
Leigh Mitch / Darion Joseph Man of La Mancha
But I love you in a place
Where there’s no space and time
I love you for my life
You are a friend of mine
And when my life is over
Remember when we were together
We were alone and
I was singing this song for you.
A Song For You - Leon Russell
Four dead in Ohio.
Enforced by Crosby crying Why and How many more? beneath the chorus.
Ohio by CSNY
So leave your world behind you,
you can come with me.
Sing a song I’ll teach you,
live your fantasy.
Love you in a natural way.
Doesn’t matter what time of day
you and I play.
You can come with me.
Won’tcha come with me?
You can come with me!
—You Can Come with Me (Theme from Hawaii Five-O), Don Ho
Jerry Reed?
And the Jedi I admire most
Met up with Darth Maul and now he’s toast
Well, I’m still here and he’s a ghost
I guess I’ll train this boy
(To refrain)
More Dylan:
I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes
And just for that one moment I could be you
Yes, I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes
You’d know what a drag it is to see you
- Positively 4th Street
Two from Joni Mitchell:
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot
(which is also the great opening line of "Big Yellow Taxi)
and
I’ve looked at life from both sides now
From win and lose and still somehow
It’s life’s illusions I recall
I really don’t know life at all
“Both Sides Now”
Vernon Dalhart’s “The Prisoner’s Song” from 1925:
Now if I had wings like an angel
Over these prison walls I would fly
And I’d fly to the arms of my darlin’
And there I’d be willing to die
“Age of Aquarius”
Let the sun shine in
Mine were stolen by @terenti and @Kent_Clark so I’m going see who remembers these . . .
Now they stood beside the treasure
On the mountain, dark and red
Turned the stone and looked beneath it
“Peace on Earth” was all it said
One Tin Soldier - Coven
I heard his fiancee got a letter
That told how Billy died that day
The letter said that he was a hero
She should be proud he died that way
I heard she threw that letter away …
Billy Don’t be a Hero - Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods
Now there’s no more oak oppression
For they passed a noble law
And the trees are all kept equal
By hatchet, axe and saw
The Trees - Rush
I knew Jimmy Dean was wrong when I wrote it, but couldn’t figure out why.
They gaped upon me with their mouths
As a ravening and a roaring lion
I am poured out like water
And all my bones are out of joint
My heart is like wax
It is melted in the midst of my bowels
My strength is dried up like a potsherd
And my tongue cleaveth to my jaws
And thou has brought me into the dust of death.
From The Guess Who, Hang on to Your Life.
And I think that I just fell in love with you
I Hope That I Don’t Fall In Love With You Tom Waits
1952 Vincent Black Lightning by Richard Thompson
“Well he reached for her hand and he slipped her the keys.
He said, “I’ve got no further use for these.
I see Angels on Ariels in leather and chrome,
Swoopin’ down from Heaven to carry me home.”
And he gave her one last kiss and died.
And he gave her his Vincent
To ride.”
Maybe not the ‘best’ closing stanza but a nice dark twist, I always thought-- The first 3 verses of The Doors’ “Moonlight Drive” sounds like a fairly conventional love song, then Jim hits you with the outro:
Come on baby, gonna take a little ride
Down, down by the ocean side
Gonna get real close
Get real tight
Baby gonna drown tonight
Goin’ down, down, down
A little Dire Straits?
And a lovestruck Romeo sings the streets a serenade
Laying everybody low with a love song that he made
Finds a convenient streetlight, steps out of the shade
Says something like, “You and me babe, how about it?”
“You and me babe, how about it?”
or
Now the sun’s gone to hell
And the moon riding high
Let me bid you farewell
Every man has to die
But it’s written in the starlight
And every line of your palm
We’re fools to make war
On our brothers in arms
j
In my youth we considered this to be one of the finest endings ever, though it actually closes out an album. Some of us did consider Days Of Future Past to be one long song though.
The Moody Blues:
Breathe deep the gathering gloom
Watch lights fade from every room
Bedsitter people look back and lament
Another day’s useless energy spent
Impassioned lovers wrestle as one
Lonely man cries for love and has none
New mother picks up and suckles her son
Senior citizens wish they were young
Cold-hearted orb that rules the night
Removes the colors from our sight
Red is grey and yellow, white
But we decide which is right
And which is an illusion