Many of my favourite lines, when typed out don't seem that great, but when you hear them sung, they become something else entirely. For instance Rosanne Cash, in The Wheel sings:

I'm not looking for your answers
Oh darlin', don't you see
That just to know the question
Is good enough for me

On the page it's not great poetry, but when she sings it, a shiver runs down my spine.

Similarly Mary Chapin Carpenter in Outside Looking In:

Tonight I drove around and the street came up before me
I took a turn and then I found this old house come toward me
I heard the sound a heart must make when a memory's caving in
Oh baby what a hungry place, outside looking in

Every jam we play
We break two needles
There's three of us
But we're not the Beatles

I think it's the use of the word "but"...

You walked into my house last night,
I couldn't help but notice
A light that was long gone still burning strong
You were sitting, your fingers like fuses,
Your eyes were cinnamon...

"How can you lie there and think of England when you don't even know who's in the team?"

and

"I never made the first team, I just made the first team laugh"

Also - the complete works of Half Man Half Biscuit.

She was tall, thin and tarty
And she drove a Maserati
Faster than sound -
I was heaven bound...

My Maserati does one eighty five
I lost my licence, so now I don't drive

one of my all time favourite songs and featuring what is quite possibly my favourite lyric of all -

We heard the Sermon on the Mount and I knew it was too complex
It didn't amount to anything more than what the broken glass reflects

Brilliant.

Were your arms and legs wrapped round more than my memory tonight?
When the bell rang out and the air turned blue from fright
But in shameless moments you made more of me than just a mess
And a handful of eagerness says 'what do you suggest?'

I'll wear it proudly - Elvis Costello

"She said no amount of poetry could mend a broken heart
But you can put the hoover round if you want to make a start"

She was standing there in back of my chair
Said to me, "Don't I know your name?"
I muttered somethin' underneath my breath,
She studied the lines on my face.
I must admit I felt a little uneasy
When she bent down to tie the laces of my shoe,
Tangled up in blue

The Master..

... to fill it with Bob Dylan, with five off the top of my head, and I'm *sure* I'm missing some of my favourites:

She could be respectably married
Or running a whorehouse in Buenos Aires

To live outside the law
You must be honest

Your debutante just knows what you need
But I know what you want

The ghost of electricity
Howls in the bones of her face

Even the swap meets around here
Are getting pretty corrupt

Jefferson Airplane's "Wooden Ships"...

"You must try some of my purple berries
I've been eating them for six or seven weeks now
Haven't got sick once"

Guy Chadwick is a greatly under-rated writer I think, and his words can both sound great as music and pack emotional punch too.

This from the b-side "Secrets" does exactly that:

If you blab your mouth when you're drugged or you're drunk
Scream in your sleep and then wake then you weep...

She don't sweat, she sours and melts
like ice-cream in the heat

from Panic Beach. Actually for a number about the decay of vaudeville the intro is pretty good too.

Well the dog act got drunk again last night
And the king and queen of the waltz clog team
Had another fight
King was careless with his tango grip
Nearly lost his queen in a dip
Yeah she righted herself, straightened out her slip
And kicked him in the shin

'I love you like a fat kid loves cake.'

By the way you parked your car sideways
That it wouldn't last

..you said "I am as constant as the Northern Star"
I said "Constantly in darkness, where's that at?,
If you want me I'll be in the bar"

from A Case Of You, as if you needed telling!

On Again, On Again

....She also talks without stopping to me in our bed of a night
Throughout the sweetest of our intimate delights
She never gives over
Not even stopping while we go hammer and tongs towards the peak
Except maybe for a sigh and a groan and one perfunctory shriek
Then she goes on again, on again, on again on and I must
Assume she's never noticed that she's just been interrupted
Totally unruffled she is, and as far as I can see
I might just as well have been posting a letter or stirring up the tea

"If We Should Meet In Glasgow,
by Chance On A Rainy Day,
let's Sit And Drink In A Damn Good Bar,
till Evening Comes Out To Play."
I love the idea of the chance ofa rainy day meeting.
It's by Jackie Leven. It's the opening stanza from Single Father.

But especially 'The State I am in':

'and so I gave myself to God,
There was a pregnant pause before he said OK'

or

'My brother had confessed that he was gay
It took the heat off me for a while'

Of course you could almost pick anything by Dylan, including when he is talking nonsense, purely on the strength of the delivery

The hanging judge was sober, he hadn't had a drink
(Lily Rosemary)

"Is this what you wanted?", pause for three short repetitive metal guitar chords, "Because this is what you're getting" - Ticks and Leeches by Tool

Sung with such venom and anger. It makes an impression.

Iggy's 'Some Weird Sin' - 'When things get too straight / I can't bear it/ I feel stuck / Stuck on a pin'

Who hasn't felt like that at some time?

...that is sounds daft, yet when sung, it sounds just so right, as if, why has nobody thought that before....
"You come home late and you come home early
You come on big when you're feeling small
You come home straight and you come home curly
Sometimes you don't come home at all

Chorus:
So what in the world's come over you
And what in heaven's name have you done
You've broken the speed of the sound of loneliness
You're out there running just to be on the run"

Ryan Adams: Carolina Rain

One night at the diner over eggs, over easy she showed me the length of her legs.

Fantastic!

Some early 80s prog, from the "Fact & Ficton" album, the song "Human Being":

If every time we tell a lie, a little fairy dies
They must be building death camps in the garden

Always makes me laugh...

'When I see you, I wanna do you...

right where you're standing.'

- Say Anything, from the album 'Is a Real Boy.'

I think these are all great song lines... but not so great when typed. Eeek. A 'you had to be there' moment.

"If you exorcise my devils, then my angels may leave too. When they leave, they are so hard to find"

or

"He gave her a dimestore watch
And a ring made from a spoon
Everyone is looking for someone to blame
But you share my bed, you share my name
Well, go ahead and call the cops
You dont meet nice girls in coffee shops
She said baby, I still love you
Sometimes theres nothin left to do
Oh you go to
Hold on, hold on
You got to hold on
Take my hand, Im standing right here
You got to hold on"

Etc. Etc. Etc.

Genius is an overused word but...

Somewhere Down The Crazy River, Robbie Robertson. Just a beautiful short story. So perfect you can't isolate a single line because each builds on the last.

That said, "Take a picture of this" sends a shiver down the spine every time I hear it. Doesnt look so great written down...

I agree with above..
The fields are empty, abandoned '59 Chevy
Laying in the back seat listening to Little Willie John

Bob can hit the nail on the head in devastating fashion (as well as be mysteriously and evocatively ambiguous):

Maggie's Farm

Well, I try my best
To be just like I am,
But everybody wants you
To be just like them.

Positively 4th Street

You got a lotta nerve
To say you got a helping hand to lend
You just want to be on
The side that's winning

Yes, I wish that for just one time
You could stand inside my shoes
You'd know what a drag it is
To see you

Going back to Iggy - also telling it like it is in original style of his own:

Sixteen

Go out to the funky bar
I get hurt, crying inside
cause everybody's so fine
And they don't need me.

Gimme Danger

there's nothing in my dreams
but some ugly memories
kiss me like the ocean breeze

great live version

"I was so young when I was born" from Crackerbox Palace.

It somehow makes perfect sense that he financed Life Of Brian.

Creature comfort goals
They only numb my soul and make it hard for me to see
My thoughts all seem to stray, to places far away
I need a change of scenery

... to find out the meaning of unrequited... W Bragg Esq

I used to think my dad was Elvis
But I haven't told him that yet.
I haven't told my dad, either.

From Belle and Sebastian's A Century of Elvis, a seemingly throwaway re-jig of their lovely A Century of Fakers, with the original vocal replaced by a completely different spoken recitation, in a brogue thick enough to slice, about a series of utterly banal Elvis sightings in a Scottish town. I say "seemingly" throwaway because it does end up attaining a genius of its own.

I never thought it could happen, this rappin' stuff
I was too used to packin' gats and stuff
Now honeys play me close like butter play toast

Juicy, The Notorious B.I.G. If Biggie wasn't a poet, then we need to redefine the word.

Forgot to include the final rhyme:

"From the Mississippi down to the east coast"

Somehow the shaky geography (DOWN to the east coast? really?) just adds to the greatness of it. A bit like Run-DMC apparently thinking the Beatles were a trio.

A tidbit too good not to add: legend has it that when Run-DMC first met Aerosmith, one of them excitedly told a friend that was hanging with "My homies, Toys In The Attic." If it's not true, let's just pretend it is, OK?

I've always loved the opening lines of Pink Floyd's "The Final Cut".....

Through the fish-eyed lens of tear stained eyes.
I can barely define the shape of this moment in time

Shelley needed a whole sonnet, Boz Scaggs takes just two lines-

'There's a pile of bone out on the desert floor
All that's left of El Conquistador....'

and later-

'That old soul stirrer slamming through the night
Tombstone train cuts it's own daylight'

Great evocative writing from King of El Paso, off Dig, one of the great mislaid albums of recent years.

How heavy the empty heart, how light the heart that's full

It's not having what you want, it's wanting what you've got

Odyssey - Native New Yorker

Love is just a passing word
It's a thought you had in a taxi cab
That got left on the kerb
When he dropped you off at East 83rd

and

Where did all those yesterdays go?
When you still believed
Love could really be like a Broadway show
You were the star
When did it close?

you came into my life
like a brick through a window
and i
cracked a smile

'the best man's fall'

"It's a waste of time if you know what I mean
Try shaking your box in front of the Queen
Cos her purse is fat and it's bursting at the seams
It's a waste of time if you know what I mean."

Idealistic, simplistic, even immature. But brilliant.

are washing their cars on their lunch breaks
hosing and scrubbing as best they can
in skirts and suits'

Leaving Las Vegas - Sheryl Crow

"I was a teenage werewolf, braces on my fangs" - from Teenage Werewolf.

"I saw Elvis with your mother, on the Drug Train" - Drug Train

"You put one foot up, you put another foot up, you put another foot up and you're on board - the Drug Train!" - Drug Train

If I ever loved you, shouldn't I be crying?
Shouldn't I be cracking up, and drinking all the time?
If I ever loved you, how come I feel alright?
How come the nights are so easy, and the mornings look so bright?

'If I ever loved you'. One of many gems from the criminally underrated Justin Currie, IMHO. The kind of thing that would be far more lauded if it came from the pen of such elder statesmen as Nick Lowe or even Chris Difford.

"Don't you give me no dirty looks,
Your father's hip he know what cooks,
Just tell your hoodlum friends outside -
You ain't got time to take a ride"
(Yakety-Yak)

"Did you ever hear a tenor sax,
swinging like a rusty axe,
honking like a frog
down in a hollow log,
baby that is rock & roll"
(That Is Rock & Roll)

I'd pick the Coasters versions, but the Supersuckers do a cracking version of "That Is Rock & Roll" too.

Protection:

"You say the magic's gone, well I'm not a magician.
You say the spark's gone, well get an electrician."

Typing this just proves the point that the music changes everything. Those words are clever but when I see them in black and white it could almost as easily suit Half Man Half Biscuit as Tracy Thorn's world-weary melancholia.

are a three girl combo from Albequerque (spelt correctly?), big in Germany apparently. From The song Tarmac.... "Hold me tight, kiss me now, and fuck me like Batman".
Now is that something, or do I need help?

Jenny Lewis - Rise up with fists

Are you really that pure, Sir?
Thought I saw you in Vegas
It was not pretty, but she was
But she will wake up wealthy
And you will wake up 45

And that man McAloon again...

Should a love be tender, and bleed out loud?
Or be tougher than tough, and prouder than proud.
If I'm troubled by every folding of your skirt,
am I guilty of every male inflicted hurt?
But I don't know how to describe the Modern Rose,
When I can't refer to her shape against her clothes.
With the fever of purple prose.

Cruel - Prefab Sprout

As said above pretty much any belle and Sebastian, but how about

You know a girl who's tax free on her back and making
Plenty cash; While you are working for the joy of giving (Lazy Line)

or

Is he your husband?
Or just your boyfriend?
Is he the moron who's been beating you and keeping you inside?
I've never done this kind of thing
But if I kill him now, who's going to miss him?
I went up to the school
I went up Castlehill
For every step there is a local boy who wants to be a hero
Do you want to do it now?
Outside the butchers with a knife and a bike chain
(from I Could be Deaming - who mentioned twee!)

I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.

I always admired the opening lines of Tunnel of Love. Using very simple language Springsteen paints a complete picture in very few words, it's worthy of Chuck Berry and there is no higher praise than that.

Fat man sitting on a little stool
Takes the money from my hand while his eyes take a walk all over you.
Hands me a ticket, smiles, and whispers "Good luck"

Not a syllable is wasted, that's great writing.

Yet more versions of "You ain't going nowhere" and hearing it twice in quick succession reminded what utter nonsense it is:"Oo-ee! Ride me high
Tomorrow's the day
My bride's gonna come
Oh no, are we gonna fly
Down in the easy chair!"
Aren't we just...
Mind you, the lyrics thru'out Basemant Tapes are a bit outre.