Favorite Lines?

Maze Runner

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... neat song. Kinda brings me back to my first post. One of my favorite, post-1951-movies, is Man With a Golden Arm, staring none other. Sinatra was a good solid singer too. That youtube song reminded me of another on a slightly related note, staring Jo Stafford. I recently got into her about a year back.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUFO2tUBV4c

I'll check out Pocketful and get back to you on my impression. I am not as up on songs with lyrics as instrumental ones. Am always open to suggestions.

That's very cool you saw Sarah perform. I watched several full-length videos of her live performances. Got them out of the library, years back. Some voice. Wow.

Dylan's bio sounds interesting. I'll have a look and read a chapter. Sounds like a style I'd appreciate. Good luck with your current work. Changes of pace are good. I need them myself. That's also true with reading as well as listening to music.

Wow, Jo Stafford could really sing. I don't know if I'd ever heard her solo- great voice and she could really swing!

Billie Holiday- "God Bless the Child"

Rich relations give
a crust of bread and such
You can help yourself
Just don't take too much
 

Maze Runner

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Joni Mitchell "Both Sides Now"

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
 

poetinahat

say it loud
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GREAT calls, Bebop. Joni Mitchell is another great songwriter whom I didn't pay enough attention to when I was young and into all things new. Same with Paul Simon. I'm even getting over my James Taylor gag reflex!

In fact, your mentioning Billie brings to mind another great lyric:

Southern trees bear strange fruit
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees

Pastoral scene of the gallant south
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh

Here is fruit for the crows to pluck
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop
Here is a strange and bitter crop
 

Maze Runner

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GREAT calls, Bebop. Joni Mitchell is another great songwriter whom I didn't pay enough attention to when I was young and into all things new. Same with Paul Simon. I'm even getting over my James Taylor gag reflex!

In fact, your mentioning Billie brings to mind another great lyric:

Southern trees bear strange fruit
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees

Pastoral scene of the gallant south
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh

Here is fruit for the crows to pluck
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop
Here is a strange and bitter crop

Powerful! First word that comes to mind. Know the song, but had to google to see who wrote it. A HS teacher from the Bronx- Abel Meeropol.

The imagery, the contrasts of life and death, make what he's describing even more stark and sickening. Powerful!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4ZyuULy9zs
 

Maze Runner

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Michael Frank's great song dedicated to Antonio Carlos Jobim.

Antonio loves the desert
Antonio prays for rain
Antonio knows that pleasure is the child of pain
Lost in LaCalifusa, when most of my hope was gone
Antonio's samba led me to the Amazon

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Mo6heu6I8s
 

justbishop

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I am taking a few years to contemplate the line in my signature as a tattoo, so I would consider it a favorite. It's from a song called "Secret Crowds" by Angels and Airwaves.

And this one from Billy Joel's "Only the Good Die young" is a classic:

I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints
The sinners are much more fun

Adding a couple from one of my favorite bands, Anberlin:

From "Stationary Stationery"

Dance by yourself and
Think of me when you do

From "Dismantle. Repair."

If life had background music, I'd play your song
I've got to be honest, I tried to escape you
But the orchestra plays on
 
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Ed Panther

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"In your fear of what we have become, take to the fire. Now we must burn all that we are; rise together through these clouds, as on wings." - David Bowie

Black sky in the daytime
And I don’t much mind dying
When there is nothing left
To care for anymore
-Morrissey

That David Bowie song is astonishing. I swear, the song IS about 9/11, but was written just a few months BEFORE.

It wasn't the first time for him. I swear his masterpiece "Teenage Wildlife" is about John Lennon's assassination, but again, written a few months before.

"You fall to the ground like a leaf from a tree/and look up and sigh at that vast blue sky/scream out aloud as they shoot you down. No no I'm not a piece of teenage wildlife. "

"As ugly as a teenage millionaire thinking its a whiz kid world." (Justin bieber? Haha)
 
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Lavern08

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Freddie's dead, that's what I said.


------> Curtis Mayfield
(from the Shaft Superfly soundtrack) ;)
 
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SirOtter

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Freddie's dead, that's what I said.


------> Curtis Mayfield
(from the Shaft soundtrack) ;)

No, that's from the Superfly soundtrack. Close, though, and a great song regardless.
 

Priene

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That said, violence is like drink:
One's too many and a hundred's not enough


From Weightless by The Blue Aeroplanes
 

justbishop

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Pretty much every line of "Round Here" by Counting Crows is amazing, but this is one of my most favorite portions:

Round here we talk just like lions
But we sacrifice like lambs
 

Maze Runner

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You can't petition the Lord with prayer- Morrison

Don't care about pollution, I'm an air condition gypsy- Townsend

Oz never did give nothin' to the Tin Man, that he didn't already have- Bunnell
 

writergirl1994

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I have a ton of choices for great lyrics, so I'll only share one for now... :)


The guy downstairs is also crazy.
He spent some time in an institute.
It did him not much good
He's off his medication,
And he starts screaming,
"Virgin Mary, you fucking alien!"
According to him Jesus Christ smokes crack,
And other sundry things.
But it's the man upstairs who pulls the strings,
Won't let me sleep.
- "The Man Upstairs" by Voltaire
 

writergirl1994

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I'm not particularly familiar with Counting Crows, but I really like that song. :) I'm not entirely sure what that line means though, what do you make of it?
 

Maze Runner

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Paul Simon was mentioned upthread, and this one, this whole lyric but especially this part:

And I don't know a soul who's not been battered
I don't have a friend who feels at ease
I don't know a dream that's not been shattered
or driven to its knees
But it's alright, it's alright
for we've lived so well so long
Still when I think of the road we're traveling on
I wonder what's gone wrong
I can't help but wonder...
what's gone wrong

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AE3kKUEY5WU
 

DanielSTJ

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I met a girl who sang the blues
And I asked her for some happy news
But she just smiled and turned away

I went down to the sacred store
Where I'd heard the music years before
But the man there said the music wouldn't play

And in the streets the children screamed
The lovers cried, and the poets dreamed
But not a word was spoken
The church bells all were broken

-American Pie, Don McLean.
 

Kjbartolotta

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Beware!
I bear more grudges
than lonely high court judges
when you sleep
I will creep
into your thoughts
like a bad debt
that you can't pay
take the easy way
and give in
yeah, and let me in
IT'S WAR

The More You Ignore Me, the Closer I Get- Morrissey (who's kind of a bad person, btw)