Mose Allison’s Parchman’s Farm has the most powerful ending line in music. The song sets you up to think of the poor man is suffering in prison with the line “And I ain’t never done no man no harm.”
Then you get to the final verse.
It’s best to listen to it for the full effect. But here are the lyrics if you want the short version.
Well I’m gonna be here for the rest of my life
I’m gonna be on this farm for my natural life
Well I’m a gonna be here for the rest of my life
And all I did was shoot my wife
This is from Fairport Convention’s “Matty Groves”, their version of a 1700s folk ballad. They sing it a bit too fast for the words to have the full effect. Lord Donald surprises his wife in bed with young Matty:
Lord Donald struck the very next blow and Matty struck no more
And then Lord Donald took his wife and he sat her on his knee
Saying “Who do you like the best of us, Matty Groves or me?”
And then up spoke his own dear wife, never heard to speak so free
“I’d rather a kiss from dead Matty’s lips than you or your finery”
Lord Donald he jumped up and loudly he did bawl
He struck his wife right through the heart and pinned her against the wall
"A grave, a grave, " Lord Donald cried, “to put these lovers in
But bury my lady at the top for she was of noble kin”
I guess that one’s part of the disturbing subgenre of songs about guys killing their girlfriends down by the river, along with Sugar’s “A Good Idea” and Nick Cave’s “Where The Wild Roses Grow.”
Yeah, that’s an age old genre of American and British folk. My favorite is “Knoxville Girl”, here are my two favorite versions, by the Louvin Brothers and the Lemonheads:
Attention all Planets of the Solar Federation
Attention all Planets of the Solar Federation
Attention all Planets of the Solar Federation
We have assumed control
We have assumed control
We have assumed control =============*
Neil Peart of Rush {RIP, Professor} wrote MANY great lyrical lines in his career but the dramatic closing lines of “2112” still electrify me!
Look my eyes are just holograms Look your love has drawn red from my hands From my hands you know you’ll never be More than twist in my sobriety More than twist in my sobriety Look my eyes are just holograms
Look your love has drawn red from my hands From my hands you know you’ll never be More than twist in my sobriety More than twist in my sobriety More than twist in my sobriety
We get so close, near enough to fight When a Russian gets me in his sights He pulls the trigger and I feel the blow A burst of rounds take my horse below And as I lay there gazing at the sky My body’s numb and my throat is dry And as I lay forgotten and alone Without a tear, I draw my parting groan
And his heart is laughing, screaming, pounding,
The poem across the tracks rebounding.
Shadowed by the exit light,
His legs take their ascending flight
To seek the breast of darkness
And be suckled by the night.
