What's your favorite lyric from a song?


Just curious what stays with people...
arthursmuck
Some great lines stay in the memory from the Sex Pistols ’The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle’, but the best might be the intro,

"People said we couldn’t play
They called us foul-mouthed yobs
But the only notes that really count
Are the ones that come in wads"

Another example of a great song coming at a bad time for the band.
The outro still kicks hard 40 years later,

"Elvis Presley died in 1959
Chuck Berry you’re a big ugly fucker (?)
Ian Dury Cockney Fraud
Mick Jagger white nigga
Bob Dylan got a parking ticket stuck to his arsehole
David Bowie you are a bloody cunt

Rod Stewart‘s got a luggage label tied to his tonsils
Elton John hair transplant
Sid Vicious Rock and Roll Cliché
Paul Cook bare bones
Johnny Rotten he’s got his knickers knotted (?)
Rock and roll swindle
Swindle
It’s a swindle!"

https://youtu.be/FfFbcbGaTMY
Can't think of the best Scott Walker lyric but this is one I never tire of. Walker did a lot to popularise Brel, rightly so.

"If I became deaf, dumb and blind
Because I pitied all mankind
And broke my heart to make things right
I know that every single night
When my angelic work was through
The angels and the Devil too
Would sing my childhood song to me
About the time they called me "Jacky"

If I could be for only an hour
If I could be for an hour every day
If I could be for just one little hour
Cute in a stupid ass way"

Love Is Strange 

"Love - love is strange
Lot of people take it for a game
Once you get it - you're in an awful fix
After you've had it - you never want to quit

Many people don't understand, no no
They think lovin', yeah yeah - is money in the hand
Your sweet lovin' - is better than a kiss, yeah yeah
When you leave me - sweet kisses I miss"


As for Buddy Holly's (overdub) version here -
https://youtu.be/6Nwr4nh2oOE

- all I want to say is that so, so beautiful this record is.
"Damn the lump in my throat
damn the hole in my coat
damn the rain that just won't quit
damn the sorry waste of it

Damn the truth, damn the lies
Damn the look behind your eyes
Damn the day, damn the night
Goddamn the losing light

  There ain't no boat, there ain't no train
  To take us back, the way we came
   Ain't no shelter from this hard rain
   The cure for the pain is the pain
   The cure for the pain is the pain

It's not like we think it's gonna be
Not like the movies that you see
Ain't no soaring violins
Just machines an medicines

So bless these pills  bless these sheets
Bless the food you can't eat
Bless the damned who walk these halls
And God have mercy on us all

  There ain't no drug, there ain't no cure
  To make it like it was before
  Ain't no shelter from this hard rain
  The cure for the pain is the pain
  The cure for the pain is the pain"

Gretchen Peters  "The Cure for the Pain"