One Liners from Songs that are Just Awesome!

[Solaris]

It has to be one line, not an entire verse, btw. :biggrin:


Here's one of my favorites, from U2's "Beautiful Day":

You've been all over, and it's been all over you...



and another U2, from "Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses?"

Well you left my heart empty as a vacant lot, for any spirit to haunt...

[Cam63]

Well, I left my heart to the sappers 'round Khe Sahn...

[section 8]

"I'm not made of Steel"
Peter Steele of Type O Negative "Paranoid"

[Brian Cronin]

When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose

The truth was obscure, too profound and too pure, to live it you have to explode.

Ain't it just like the night to play tricks when you're tryin' to be so quiet?

And the all-night girls they whisper of escapades out on the "D" train

The ghost of 'lectricity howls in the bones of her face

Inside the museums, Infinity goes up on trial

Sayin', "Name me someone that's not a parasite and I'll go out and say a prayer for him"

If I'd lived my life by what others were thinkin', the heart inside me would've died.

I bargained for salvation an' they gave me a lethal dose.

Behind every beautiful thing there's been some kind of pain

With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves,

Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your teeth

She said, "Even the swap meets around here are getting pretty corrupt."

Dylan is really tough to find "one-liners," because a lot of the best lines in his lyrics are typically broken up over multiple lines, which is a shame, as it makes them technically disqualified for this deal.

These are some of the best one-liners I could cobble together - "Visions of Johanna" has the most actual one-liners (although, of course, "Like a Rolling Stone" has one of his most famous one-liners - the first one on this list).

-Brian

[friginator]

"Galtieri took the union jack."

[mikekerr3]

Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose

[RyleKayner]

"There are fewer more depressing sights than that of an Englishman in a baseball cap"


and


"Hospital closures kill more than car-bombs ever will"

[worstblogever]

You tried to live life in the fast lane, but couldn't reach the pedals...

- "I'm Home" by Gym Class Heroes

[the4thpip]

I know you gotta go and free your people, but I thought your people also included me.

Eddie Hinton, Hanna's Love

[Tages]

You give me head, it makes it worse.
Take out your fucking retainer and put it in your purse.

[BnL]

Keep an eye on me, I shimmer on horizons.
- "Shimmer" by Throwing Muses

Life is unfair. Kill yourself, or get over it.
- "Child Psychology" by Black Box Recorder

[Dr Ray Palmer]

In the end it took me a dictionary to find out the meaning of "unrequited"

Billy Bragg, "The Saturday Boy"

[Stressfactor]

I'd like to find your inner child and kick it's little ass!
"Get Over It" by The Eagles.

[Romero]

"Why find a nice way, to tell you 'You Suck!'"

-"The Gym is Neutral Territory" by Lifetime

[Corrina]

I don't want to grow old gracefully
I don't want to go 'til it's too late
I'll be some old man in the road somewhere
Kneeling down in the dust by the side of the Interstate

--Renegade, Warren Zevon

Love the phrase "a state of imaginary grace" from Melt With You.

[suedenim]

Single by choice,
Never married, never ever divorced

"Single By Choice," The Bangles

[The Beast Of Yucca Flats]

"It's so easy to laugh at yourself, when all those jokes have already been written"
-Beck, "Static"

"In the kitchen, the peaceful kitchen, the lino sleeps tonight"
-Alan Moore (yes, the one you're thinking of), "Leopardman At C&A"

[bringthenoise]

"I'm just a notch on your bedpost, but you're just a line in a song"

- Fall Out Boy, "Sophomore Slump Or Comeback Of The Year"

[Romero]

"Boat on a hill, never gone to sea. Anchored, to a fixer upper's dream"

-"Boat Dreams from the Hill" by Jawbreaker

[Red Jack]

"'Cause it makes me that much stronger
Makes me work a little bit harder
It makes me that much wiser
So thanks for making me a fighter "

Aguilera & Storch

"I was playin' in the beginnin, the mood all changed
I been chewed up and spit out and booed off stage
But I kept rhymin', kept writin' the next cypher
Best believe somebody's payin' the pied piper."

Eminem

[FanboyStranger]

Not a one-liner, but one of my favorites:

"With a molotov cocktail
I won't fail.
Burn out your eyeballs,
And leave a note in braille."

Gangstarr Brainstormin'

[The Beast Of Yucca Flats]

"I'm a street-walkin' cheetah will a heart fulla' napalm"
-The Stooges, "Search & Destroy"

[worstblogever]

I got a siren on my tail, but that ain't the fine I'm looking for.

- "Hey Pretty" by Poe

[section 8]

"from Ethers tragic, I am born again"

the End is the Beginning is the End" by Smashing Pumpkins

[Tetsuo_man]

"And all the stars are on the inside."

Veteran of the Psychic Wars by Blue Oyster Cult (co-written with Michael Moorcock)

[Shisho]

"Better to be poor than be a fat man in the eye of a needle." - Sting

That one always makes me laugh. One of my brother's faves is:

"They call her Natasha but she looks like Elsie." - Elvis Costello.

I'll add more later. I know there are a few I like.

[Shisho]

It has to be one line, not an entire verse, btw. :biggrin:


Here's one of my favorites, from U2's "Beautiful Day":

You've been all over, and it's been all over you...



and another U2, from "Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses?"

Well you left my heart empty as a vacant lot, for any spirit to haunt...

Say what you want about Bono & the Boys, but lyrically, they occasionally come up with some gems. I've always loved "She wore my love like a see-through dress" from You're So Cruel. (And I still think No Line on the Horizon is no where near as bad a CD as some people said it was.)

[RobertTidwell]

I wanna set you on fire, cuz it's hot, baby cuz it's hot.

[FeminineMystique]

You wanted someone to understand you, well be careful what you wish for because I DO

Emilie Autumn "I Know where you sleep" :)

[the4thpip]

I used to think I did my best, now I know that wasn't true - 'cause my clothes smell like cigarettes, and they used to smell like you.

Cigarettes, Daniel Merriweather

[4thHorseman]

"I was born for dying"

Metallica - Disposable Heroes

[JKCarrier]

Did you exchange a walk-on part in the war for the lead role in a cage?

It's a lonely ol' night. But ain't they all?

I wish I was in Tijuana, eating barbecued iguana.

[Solaris]

Just the fact that REM mentions "Leonard Bernstein" in their song "It's the End of the World as We Know It" always makes me tingle. :biggrin: I loved Leonard Bernstein.

[Goshin]

"im droppin bombs like the green goblin" -Eightball


"cyclops, wolverine and the nightcrawler,
went to a strip club and had lotsa dollars"- Funkdoobiest

"yall ni$$az shitty like a kindergarden bathroom" -Juvenile

[JamesRitcheyIII]

So you can stick your little pins in that voodoo doll
I'm very sorry, baby, doesn't look like me at all
I'm standing by the window where the light is strong
Ah they don't let a woman kill you
Not in the tower of song

--Leonard Cohen

[sweetdreams]

Except roll down the window and let the wind blow back your hair.

[Tages]

Any artist can turn a garden to a desert
But can he turn a desert to a garden?
That's where I come in, runnin', straight gunnin'
Ready to punish, nigga I don't budge one inch
Fuck it, double the budget
Niggaz turned Hip-Hop to somethin' it wasn't
Made it hard to love it
So I come back to conquer with a monster mantra
My spiritual father is Swami Vivekananda
Rhymes promote freedom, stabilize the region
Think for yourselves, it's just like breathin'
-Can-I-Bus

[Tages]

But then you grew old
And I lost my ambition
So I gained an addiction
To drink and depression

(They are mine
My only true friends
And I'll keep them with me
Until the very end)
-Swans

Just about the saddest song I've ever heard. Note that it describes a willfulness in the process of depression rather than painting the singer as a passive victim, which makes it all the more beautiful.

Also, this one, which I had planned to get as a tattoo as a cantankerous young high school student:

'N every gimmick hungry yob digging gold from rock 'n' roll
Grabs the mic to tell us he'll die before he's sold
But I believe in this-and it's been tested by research
He who fucks nuns will later join the church

[Dark Galaxy]

I just made you say 'underwear'

"Pinch Me" by the Barenaked Ladies

[Free-Man]

Sleep, my friend, and you will see
That dream is my reality

-Sanitarium by Metallica

[Tetsuo_man]

Santa Dog's a Jesus Feutus

-Santa Dog by The Residents

Catholic Girls with their tiny little moustache

-Catholic Girls by Frank Zappa

[Red Jack]

"Though all my kingdom turn to sand and fall into the sea, I'm mad about you."
Sting

[section 8]

" 'Trust, and you will be trusted' said the liar to the fool"

"I Know You're Fucking Someone Else" by Type O Negative

[Tetsuo_man]

Do you wanna see me crawl across the floor
-Bellbottom Blues by Derek and the Dominos

[jerrymcl89]

"Barefoot girls sitting on the hood of a Dodge, drinking warm beer in the soft summer rain"

"In Jersey everything's legal, as long as you don't get caught"

"I saw a werewolf drinking a Pina Colada at Trader Vics, and his hair was perfect"

[DubipR]

"The beginning was the end
Of everything now
The ape regards his tail
Hes stuck on it
Repeats until he fails
Half a goon and half a god
A mans not made of steel"
- Gates of Steel, Devo

"Freedom of choice
Is what you got
Freedom from choice
Is what you want"
- Freedom of Choice, Devo

[Night Swordsman]

Hmm. Two of my favorites come from the same song, Zero by Smashing Pumpkins:

Emptiness is loneliness,and loneliness is cleanliness, and cleanliness is godliness,and god is empty just like me

Wanna go for a ride?

[Michael P]

"And the people bowed and prayed to the neon god they made" - Simon & Garfunkel

"The life I love is making music with my friends" - Willie Nelson

"All the lonely people, where do they all come from?" - Paul McCartney

"You're always 17 in your hometown" - Cross Canadian Ragweed

"Highways lined with broken heroes on a last chance power drive" - Bruce Springsteen

[Shot]

"On this day which began as execution day
And true to form became execution day" - The New Pornographers

"I am ahead. I am a man. I'm the first mammal to shit my pants." -Pearl Jam