Memorable Lyrics

"Danger/Slow" says the sign ahead
Exhaust fumes, Thin Lizzy instead

 

I ain't here to save no souls and even if I could
I could never save enough to put back half the ones I took
So if they rest in torment, you can't say it's 'cause of me
They'd long been bought and paid for like that fool's in Tennessee

 

Thin Lizzy has some good ones, too.

“Now we go steady to the pictures,
I always get chocolate stains on my pants …”

 

Unless I missed a @Sam Mills 51 post, we've left out some great early-1970s Genesis lyrics from this thread. In order of appearance:

"Waste no time!
They are approaching
Hurry now, we must protect ourselves and find some shelter
Strike by night!
They are defenseless
They all need the sun to photosensitize their venom
Still they're invincible
Still they're immune to all our herbicidal battering ..."

"Look, look into my mouth he cries
And all the children lost down many paths
I bet my life, you'll walk inside
Hand in hand gland in gland
With a spoonful of miracle
He's the guaranteed eternal sanctuary ..."

And a personal favorite, as someone who uses a reel lawnmower:

"When the sun beats down, and I lie on the bench,
I can always hear them talk.
Me, I'm just a lawn mower,
You can tell me by the way I walk!"

 

Not profound, but pitch perfect and sets the scene with his normal economy of words:

“I was in Tulsa and didn’t have anything going;

she lived in Tulsa and didn’t have anything on…”

Tom T. Hall

 

Whiskey bottle over Jesus
Not forever, just for now
Not forever, just for now

 

Standing on the corner
Suitcase in my hand
Jack is in his corset, and Jane is in her vest
And me, I'm in a rock'n'roll band.

 

I saw two shooting stars last night,
I wished on them,
But they were only satellites.
Is it wrong to wish on space hardware,
I wish, I wish, I wish you'd care.

 

I wish I didn’t know now
What I didn’t know then

 

Yeah, Bobby baby kept me from the cold
One day up near Salinas, Lord, I let him slip away
He's lookin' for that home, and I hope he finds it
But I'd trade all of my tomorrows for one single yesterday
To be holdin' Bobby's body next to mine





Pancho was a bandit boy
His horse was fast as polished steel
He wore his gun outside his pants
For all the honest world to feel

 

It was the 23rd of May
When I heard the sergeant say
"Fuck it, round up the usual suspects and call it a day.
"We've got no time to mess around
"And I'm not dyin' in this shit-hole town
For a soldier's pay."

 

These came to mind as I thought of newspapers lately:

"Some people are in charge of pens, that shouldn't be in charge of brooms,
They have the nerve to rip up a man's life, in a paragraph or two." -- Graham Parker

"Brother's heading that way now, I guess
He just read something, made his face turn blue
Well I got nothing against the press
They wouldn't print it if it wasn't true.
If you want to know about the gay politician,
If you want to know how to drive your car,
If you want to know 'bout the new sex position,
You can read it in the Sunday papers ..." -- Joe Jackson