Favorite Song Lyrics - Out of Context

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Nokomis

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What are some of your favorite lyrics, even taken out of the context of the song. They're just straight up cool lines. Some of my favorites:

I run on whiskey and risk and ennui and impatience.
I like to sleep with the windows open, and you keep the windows closed, so goodbye.
This really blew my mind; the fact that me, an overfed long-haired leaping gnome, should be the star of a Hollywood movie, but there I was!
 

Too much living is no way to die.

Loose String/Son Volt-Jay Farrar.

Telling the same old story to everyone that she knows,
She's just sitting in her room reading books about UFOs.

Books About UFOs/Hüsker Dü-Grant Hart.

She walked out to the lobby for a box of Junior Mints.

Eiffel Tower High-Bob Mould.

If he was from Venus would he feed us with a spoon?
If he was from Mars that'd be cool.

Alex Chilton/The Replacements-Paul Westerberg

You were thinking I was distressed about some universal press, I was just depressed about my last... pinball game.

Never Really Been/Soul Asylum-Dave Pirner.
 
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Nokomis said:
What are some of your favorite lyrics, even taken out of the context of the song. They're just straight up cool lines. Some of my favorites:

I run on whiskey and risk and ennui and impatience.
I like to sleep with the windows open, and you keep the windows closed, so goodbye.
This really blew my mind; the fact that me, an overfed long-haired leaping gnome, should be the star of a Hollywood movie, but there I was!
Click to expand...
latest
 

And with her knees up on the glove compartment
She took out her barrettes and her hair spilled out like root beer - Tom Waits, "Burma Shave"

I don't know how much more of this I can take
She's filing her nails while they're dragging the lake - Elvis Costello "Watching the Detectives"

and almost any Frank Zappa song.
 

She said "there is no reason"
And the truth is plain to see
But I wandered through my playing cards
Would not let her be
One of sixteen vestal virgins
Who were leaving for the coast
And although my eyes were open
They might have just as well've been closed
 


Pickin up the pieces of my sweet shattered dream. I wonder how the old folks are tonight.
 

I'm Buddy Rich when I fly off the handle.
(I like this line because it introduces a generation of rap fans to the greatest drummer of all time and also knows enough about him to know he would berate his band).

I got mad hits like was Rod Carew.
 

I have always wondered just how much of this song is autobiographical from Jason Isbell. Regardless, I marvel about working "Fungo bat" into the lyric. From Super 8:

------

Then a big boy busted in
Screaming at his girlfriend
Waving around a Fungo bat
Bass player stepping up
Brandishing a coffee cup
Took it in the baby fat

I don’t want to die in a Super 8 Motel
Just because somebody’s evening didn’t go so well
 
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forgot to include this: the great Warren Zevon -

Big gorilla at the L.A. Zoo
Snatched the glasses right off my face
Took the keys to my BMW
Left me here to take his place

I wish the ape a lot of success
I'm sorry my apartment's a mess
Most of all I'm sorry if I made you blue
I'm betting the gorilla will, too
 



Jesus rides beside me
He never buys any smokes
Hurry up, hurry up, ain't you had enough of this stuff?
Ashtray floors, dirty clothes and filthy jokes

Can't Hardly Wait - The Replacements/Paul Westerberg
 

You know, just the other morning, I was hanging around in my house
I had that new book with pictures of Madonna naked, I was checking it out
Just then a friend of mine came through the door
Said she'd never picked me for a scumbag before
Said she didn't ever want to see me anymore
And I still don't know why

I think I'm an alright guy
I think I'm an alright guy
I just wanna live until I gotta die
I know I ain't perfect, but God knows, I try
I think I'm an alright guy
I think I'm alright

Now maybe I'm dirty, and maybe I smoke a little dope
It ain't like I'm going on TV and tearing pictures of the pope
I know I get wild and I know I get drunk
But it ain't like I gotta bunch of bodies in my trunk
My old man used to call me a no-good punk
And I still don't know why

I think I'm an alright guy
I think I'm an alright guy
I just wanna live until I gotta die
I know I ain't perfect, but God knows, I try
I think I'm an alright guy
I think I'm alright
I think I'm alright; hell yeah!

You know, just the other night, these cops pulled me over outside a bar
They turned on their lights, and ordered me outta my car
And I was only kidding when I called 'em a coupla dicks
But still they made me do the Stupid Human Tricks
And now I'm stuck in this jail with a bunch of dumb hicks
And I still don't know why

I think I'm an alright guy
I think I'm an alright guy
I just wanna live until I gotta die
I know I ain't perfect, but God knows, I try
I think I'm an alright guy
I think I'm alright
I think I'm an alright guy
I think I'm alright

You know, I think I'm an alright guy... I really do; I'm alright!

Alright Guy - Todd Snider
 


Well we laid a strip for the Jersey shore
prepared to cross the line.
I could see the bridge was lined with bears
But I didn't have a doggoned dime.
I says, "Pig Pen this here's the rubber duck,
We just ain't agonna pay no toll."
So we crashed the gate doing ninety-eight
I says, "Let them truckers roll, 10-4."
 



I had 6 White Russians last night
And two of them were people.

The Minus 5, Out There on The Maroon
 


For SoN.

And go-cart Mozart was checkin' out the weather chart to see if it was safe outside
And little Early-Pearly came by in his curly-wurly and asked me if I needed a ride
 

A few of my favorites...

Pink Floyd - On The Turning Away:

No more turning away
From the weak and the weary
No more turning away
From the coldness inside
Just a world that we all must share
It's not enough just to stand and stare
Is it only a dream that there'll be
No more turning away?

Pearl Jam - Black:

And now my bitter hands cradle broken glass
Of what was everything
All the pictures have all been washed in black
Tattooed everything
All the love gone bad turned my world to black
Tattooed all I see, all that I am, all I'll be yeah
Oh oh ooh
I know someday you'll have a beautiful life
I know you'll be a star in somebody else's sky, but why
Why, why can't it be, oh can't it be mine?

Alice in Chains - Down in a Hole:

Down in a hole
And they've put all the stones in their place
I've eaten the sun so my tongue
Has been burned of the taste
I have been guilty of kicking myself in the teeth
I will speak no more of my feelings beneath
Down in a hole, feelin' so small
Down in a hole, losin' my soul
I'd like to fly
But my wings have been so denied

The entire song "If we were Vampires" by Jason Isbell.
 




A few from The Hold Steady, with local references.

"He loved the Golden Gophers, but he hated all the drawn out winters" Stuck Between Stations.

"And the carpet at the Thunderbird has a burn for every cowboy that got fenced in" Stevie Nix.
 


balds said:
A few from The Hold Steady, with local references.

"He loved the Golden Gophers, but he hated all the drawn out winters" Stuck Between Stations.

"And the carpet at the Thunderbird has a burn for every cowboy that got fenced in" Stevie Nix.
Click to expand...
The Hold Steady drip with local references. I like:

Sweet St. Paul, that must be the hardest luck saint of them all.
 

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