A great idea for a thread - as is apparent from the number of posts.
The limitation of a couple of lines really makes it a thought provoking task.
As I've so little time during the week, I'll blitz a few choices now, and come back in a few days to look again.
Some great lines already posted!
Mark
Here we go .....
Tuomas Holopainen (Nightwish):-
Without you
The poetry within me is dead
(Gethsemane)
Oh how I wish to go down with the sun
Sleeping - Weeping - With you
(Sleeping Sun)
Most of his best lyrics span several lines and need to be fully read for their impact.
Peter Hammill (solo and Van Der Graaf Generator):-
Looking out to sea, a flattened plane of weeds which bear no living
You crush life in your fist as your heart is kissed by the lips of death
(The Emperor in his War Room)
Yes and every bloody emperor claims that freedom is his cause
as he buffs up on his common touch as a get-out clause.
(every Bloody Emperor)
because every bloody emperor thinks his right to rule divine
so he'll go spinning and spinning and spinning into his own decline.
(Every Bloody Emperor)
The angels live inside me, I can feel them smile;
their presence strokes and soothes the tempest in my mind
(Man-Erg)
I am a lonely man, my solitude is true,
my eyes have borne stark witness and now my nights are numbered, too.
(A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers)
Richard Thompson Beeswing - a beautiful song:-
She was a rare thing fine as a bee’s wing
So fine a breath of wind might blow her away
She was a rare thing, fine as a bee’s wing
I miss her more than ever words can say
(change of second line - also heartbreaking)
Maybe that's the price you pay for the chains that you refuse
(already mentioned in a post but a killer single line that is so good it deserves more than one mention)
Joni Mitchell - three choices from Magdalene Laundries, a monumentally great song
Peg O’Connell died today.She was a cheeky girl,they stuffed her in a hole.
Why do the call this place Our Lady Of Charity?
Of Charity?
They’re trying to wash things as white as snow,all of those woe-begotten daughters
in the steaming stains of the Magdalen laundries.
Jimmy McCarthy - three from Missing You - a very powerful and bitter song indeed.
To where you’re a Paddy, a Biddy or a Mick
Good for nothing but stacking a brick
Now I just drink red biddy for a permanent high
I laugh a lot less and I’ll cry till I die
And I’ll never go home now because of the shame
Of misfit’s reflection in a shop window pane.
Ralph McTell :-
And clown goes back into his caravan
Hangs up his smile on a hook by the door
(Clown)
And inside the garden Michael is smiling, at peace in his world.
At one with the insects, the flowers, and the trees, and the wind and the birds
(Michael in the Garden)
Then he heard the river laughing, and he heard the river crying
And in it was the beauty and the sadness of the world
(The Ferryman)