What is your favorite song lyric?

There are wayyyyyyyy too many. I’d be typing ‘til I die. This is a problem because I have somewhere I need to be tomorrow. =]

It’s a Sondheim lyric from “Into the Woods”.
“Best to take the moment present as a present for the moment.”

Oh won’t you be my, be my baby
My one and only baby
Be my, be my baby nowoowow,
Wo wo wo-o-o-oh.

“I don’t know the dimensions of outer space, but if our ability to feel love turns out to be just a cosmic accident, I’d like to think this means that the universe is on our side.”
—Flaming Lips, “Sunship Balloons”

Maybe not a lyric per se, since it’s spoken, but it’s probably my favorite. Also

“You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.”
—John Lennon, “Imagine”

“You need to the cut the noose but you don’t believe in scissors.”
—Sage Francis, “Slow Down Ghandi” (but get “Hands Down Ghandi” instead, if you’re interested)

“And it’s the look in your eyes that I relate to the fall of Rome.”
—Victory Party, “Is It Safe to Put Neosporin On Your Heart”

And many more. I probably could make a list…

edit: “Simple Man” by Lynard Skynard. (Yes, the whole song.)
edit: Sorry, one more:

“I’m gonna lay my weary head
On some lonesome railroad line
And let the 2:19 train ease my troubled mind.”
—Janis Joplin, “Trouble in Mind”

“New York, London, Paris, Munich
Everybody’s talkin’ about pop music.”
-M

“Disjointed tales that flit between
Short trousers and a full dress uniform
And he talks of people ten years gone
Like I’ve known them all my life
Like scattered black & whites
I come back here from time to time
I shelter here somedays…”
—Elbow’s Scattered Black and Whites

I am dreaming my life away by the Everly Brothers
Its yesterday once more by the carpenters
have all gone to look for america by simon and garfunkle
the lunatic is in my mind by pink floyd

i have more – will post tomorrow

“The sound of the engines and the smell of the grain,
We go riding on the abolition grain train
Steven A. Douglas was a great debater,
But Abraham Lincoln was the great emancipator ”
- Decatur, or, Round Of Applause For Your Stepmother by Sufjan Stevens.

“I read the news today oh, boy
Four thousand holes in blackburn, lancashire
And though the holes were rather small
They had to count them all
Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the albert hall”
-Day in the Life by The Beatles.

“God speed all the bakers at dawn may they all cut their thumbs,
And bleed into their buns ‘till they melt away.”
-New Slang by The Shins.

“Well life is a dream ‘cause we’re all walking in our sleep
You could see us stand in lines like we’re dead upon our feet
And we build our house of cards and then we wait for it to fall
Always forget how strange it is just to be alive at all”
-Life is a Song by Patrick Park.

“Got weight on my shoulders and things on my mind
The sky is falling and I’m falling behind”
-The Move by Beastie Boys.

“I thought I had something more to say” Pink Floyd

“You got to scrape the shit right off your shoes” The Rolling Stones

etc etc

“and if California slides into the ocean
like the mystics and statistics say it will
I predict this motel will be standing
until I pay my bill”

Warren Zevon-Desperados under the eves

Imagine by John Lennon, probably the greatest song ever written.

Through the eye
Of the storm
You are never alone
Even through, the shadows
You are never alone

Together we stand
Never fall
No matter the trial
We will over come

-Killswitch Engage

I’m an adoption counselor at a humane society. Anytime an animal I love gets put to sleep, I listen to this song. It really help me through the rough times. This song means so much to me. I have heard it a million times and it still gives me goosebumps. This is my song to the animals of the Maui Humane Society. “We will overcome”.

It very much depends on mood and the type of day I’m having, but I can certainly go along with Maverick’s suggestion of “Imagine” by John Lennon and “Wonderful World” by Louis Armstrong.

There’s also a number of Bon Jovi’s songs that I hook me:
“We gotta hold on to what we got, doesn’t make a difference if we make it or not, we’ve got each other and that’s a lot for love”
Living on a Prayer
“When she laughs, she wants to cry, she’ll draw a crowd and try to hide, don’t know if it’s love or just my mind I’m losing”
Wildflower
“As I sit in this smoky room, the night about to end, I pass my time with strangers, but this bottle’s my only friend”
Never Say Goodbye
“Life changes like the weather”
Lost Highway
“You say it ain’t fair that a man walks, when a bird can fly, we have to kick the ground, the stars kiss the sky”
Miracle (Jon Bon Jovi)
“I like the bed I’m sleeping in, just like me it’s broken in, it’s not old, just older, like my favorite pair of torn blue jeans, the skin I’m in’s alright with me”
Older
“I went as far as I could, I tried to find a new face, there isn’t one of these lines that I would erase”
Who says you can’t go home

…to name but a few.

However, for a bad mood, nothing tops Dead Horse by Guns’n’Roses

This is how it works
You’re young until you’re not
You love until you don’t
You try until you can’t
You laugh until you cry
You cry until you laugh
And everyone must breathe
Until their dying breath

No, this is how it works
You peer inside yourself
You take the things you like
And try to love the things you took
And then you take that love you made
And stick it into some
Someone else’s heart
Pumping someone else’s blood
And walking arm in arm
You hope it don’t get harmed
But even if it does
You’ll just do it all again
On the Radio by Regina Spektor

I agree with bluemukaki on the Patrick Park lyrics, Here we Are is another great song by him, but most of his songs have pretty awesome lyrics.

I also love La Mar by The Beautiful Girls. A sample:
This day is getting older,
in fading light it’s beautiful.
This wind is blowing colder,
and too soon I’ll feel it’s pull.

Still, I took all my chances,
earned myself an even score.
Try to learn my lessons well.
And I don’t have the answers,
for those questions anymore.
Only love can be both heaven and hell.

Freedom and Ashes are also by The Beautiful Girls and have great lyrics.

Brand New – “I Will Play My Game Beneath the Spin Light”

” If looks could really kill, then my profession would be staring”

“I seem to recognize your face, haunting familiar yet i cant seem to place it
Cannot find a candle of thought, to light your name” Pearl Jam

“I got to do the right thing for shorty, and that means no more gettin’ high, drinkin’ 40s!”
– DMX

“You’re the reason I sing, you’re the reason why the opera is in me…”

- U2, Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own from How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb

“Set the gearshift for the high gear of your soul
You’ve got to run like an antelope out of control”
-Phish (and the Dude of Life)

“Like Sam the Butcher, I’m giving Alice the meat, Like Fred Flinstone hopping around on both feet.”
– Shake Your Rump, Beastie Boys

I don’t know why, but that line has always stuck out for me.

Right now it’s: “You can’t appreciate the time it takes to kick a love I always knew was kind of wrong.” – Bring me Down, Miranda Lambert

“It’s been a long, a long time comin’, but I know, a change gon’ come.”-Sam Cooke

“I had some dreams, they were clouds in my coffee.” ~Carly Simon

Learn to survive in the nine-tre’
I make rhyme pay, others make crime pay.
Whatever it takes to live and stand
Cause nobody else’ll give a damn.
So we live like caged beasts
Waitin for the day to let the rage free.
Still me, till they kill me
I love it when they fear me –
Holla if you hear me!

(Tupac Shakur)

“if I turn into another
take me out from under
what is covering
the better part of me
sing this song
remind me that we’ll always have eachother
when everything else is gone”
incubus

There’s more, but I’m in school- so I will add on later

There are, of course way too many to list, but this one is enduringly one of my favorites:

THINKING LIKE A MOUNTAIN
Words and music by Libby Roderick
c Libby Roderick Music 1991
BMI. All rights reserved
From Thinking Like a Mountain

Thinking like a mountain and trusting like the dawn
Raging like a wildfire and loving like the black-necked swan
Moving like the lightning and dreaming like a stone
Thinking like a mountain, honey, we will make it home.

Thinking like a mountain and breathing like a whale
Bending like the birch trees when the heavens blow we cannot fail
Roaming like a turtle, growing like a seed that’s sown
Thinking like a mountain, honey, we will make it home

Make it home, like a mountain, make it home, like a stone
Find the mountain deep within your heart, nobody is alone
The wilderness calls out our names from deep inside our bones
And thinking like a mountain, honey, we will make it home.

Watch the eagle circle, smell the bear upon the land
Feel the ocean, hear the wind, our bodies understand
With spirits open to the sky and feet on living ground
Thinking like a mountain we will turn this thing around
Thinking like a mountain we will turn this thing around

Thinking like a mountain and yielding like a stream
Patient as a porcupine and steady as an evergreen
Singing like the wild geese as they wend their way along
Thinking like a mountain, honey, we will make it home.

Make it home…

Find the mountain deep within your heart, it’s calling you back home!

You stick to me like Cling-Free.
In the dryer, you’re my sock.

—by Wavetrain

I also have always been partial to: “I saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic’s.”

Werewolves of London Warren Zevon

Any discussion of great lyrics cries out for its opposite: awful lyrics. Unsurpassed in that regard for me is the great George Harrison in While My Guitar Gently Weeps. The worst song line of all time: “I look at the floor and I see it needs sweeping.” There was a man desperate for a rhyme.

For awful lyrics, how about “I told you I’m just like a clock when I tick and I tock”

Dr. Dre

If we’re talking bad lyrics, I’m voting for either Oasis (anything goes as long as it rhymes – is that really a good basis for a song?) or Destiny’s Child (???......I am at a loss….does not compute).

If you want to go with bad lyrics, the Beatles (who I picked for best lyric, see comments under my question) with “Love Me Do” is pretty lame.
“Love, love me do
You know I love you
I’ll always be true
So please love me do.”

It would be nice to have a blowjob

blink 182

You are the precious bud of springtime
that makes the lonely winter seem long.
You are the something something something
that trembles on the brink of a lovely song.
You are the angel glow
that lights a star.
The dearest things I know
Are what you are.
Someday my happy arms will hold you
And someday I’ll know that moment divine
When all the things you are
are mine.

f*ck her gently by tenacious d or honey honey by feist

I tend to like Weezy lyrics. Some of them are pretty tight.
“I rock like a fuckin fossil” is probably one of my favorites. I like “I’m sharper than a yellow number two,” also.

Lol, he’s so corny! But in a semi-good way

Seemed appropriate, after watching yet another political soundbite on TV:

Please don’t dominate the rap, jack, if youve got nothing new to say.
If you please, dont back up the track – this trains got to run today.

New Speedway Boogie, Grateful Dead

Ton corps est trop crunk pour assurer les dunks.
-Yelle, Je Veux Te Voir

(it’s french, and it’s ridiculous. I will come up with something more touching or inspirational later.) (Actually, all of the lyrics to this song are amazing. google it and watch the youtube video even if you dont speak french, which I dont.)

@susanc: Not something something something… (although Frank could get away with that :)

You are the promised kiss of springtime

That makes the lonely winter seem long.

You are the breathless hush of evening

That trembles on the brink of a lovely song.

You are the angel glow that lights a star,

The dearest things I know are what you are.

Some day my happy arms will hold you,

And some day I’ll know that moment divine,

When all the things you are, are mine!

“I’m addicted to words, and they are useless, in this department”

Thanks, breed. I could have looked it up, couldn’t I? Breathless hush of evening -
that’s a beautiful phrase, and “something something something” really doesn’t carry the imagery.
I Great-Answered you btw.

“Are we alive or just breathing?”
~Killswitch Engage

“How long? Not long, cause what you reap is what you sow”
~Rage Against the Machine

“Never wanted your approval
Never wanted your acceptance
Never wanted to be anything but me
Never wanted to be anywhere but here.”
~Lamb of God

“just forget me, its that simple”

and my all time favorite (I think)...

“So, is that what you call a getaway?
Tell me what you got away with.
Cause I’ve seen more spine in jellyfish.
I’ve seen more guts in eleven-year-old kids.
Have another drink and drive yourself home.
I hope there’s ice on all the roads.
And you can think of me when you forget your seatbelt,
and again when your head goes through the windshield.

And is that what you call tact?
You’re as subtle as a brick in the small of my back.
So let’s end this call, and end this conversation.
and is that what you call a getaway?
well tell me what you got away with.
cause you left the frays from the ties you severed
when you say best friends means friends forever”
~Brand New

Yeah yeah! Brand New = Best band EVER!

Are you dead or are you sleeping?
Are you dead or are you sleeping?
Are you dead or are you sleeping?
God I sure hope you are dead
Satin in a Coffin by Modest Mouse

@misterbluesky. hands down gandhi is a great song

“This is probably the best,
not to mention the worst idea,
that I have ever had.”
-Baby, You Wouldn’t Last a Minute on the Creek – Chiodos

Bob Dylan’s : “mama’ in the basement mixin up the medicine…” Most any of dylan’s early lyrics are so great

And she bought it….warren zevon

“I just can’t find the time to write my mind the way I want it to read”

Box Full of Letters – Wilco

To:Susanc You are the promised breath of springtime,
that makes the lonely winters seem long,
And you are the gentle flow of evening,
that makes my life seem like a lovely song.

You are the angels glow, that light the fire.
The dearest thing I know, that’s what you are,
And some day my longing arms will hold you,
And some day I’ll know that moment devine,
when all the things you are! are mine.
I think these are the words to that song. reminds me of long ago at 71 years of age myself. smile