Favorite Bob Dylan one- or two-liners...

[mchchef1]

"I was thinkin' 'bout turquoise."

"I was thinkin' 'bout gold."

Isis

and the worlds biggest necklace

 

the snow was outrageous

 

She said where you been

I said nowhere special

she said you look different

I said well I guess

she said you been gone such a long time

I said that it's only natural

She said you gonna stay

I said if you want me too YeSSSS!

 

Man I have not thought about that song in a long time

Thank you

[Mr. Heartbreak]

"It's easy to see without looking too far

That not much

Is really sacred."

It's Alright Ma

 

"And if my thought-dreams could be seen

They'd probably put my head in a guillotine"

It's Alright Ma

 

"They're selling postcards of the hanging"

Desolation Row

 

"Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot

Fighting in the captain's tower

While calypso singers laugh at them

And fishermen hold flowers

Between the windows of the sea

Where lovely mermaids flow"

Desolation Row

 

"All these people that you mention

Yes, I know them, they're quite lame

I had to rearrange their faces

And give them all another name"

Desolation Row

 

"I helped her out of a jam, I guess,

But I used a little too much force"

Tangled Up In Blue

 

"So I drifted down to New Orleans

Where I happened to be employed

Workin' for a while on a fishin' boat

Right outside of Delacroix"

Tangled Up In Blue (that is one clever rhyme!)

 

"And every one of them words rang true

And glowed like burnin' coal

Pourin' off of every page

Like it was written in my soul from me to you"

Tangled Up In Blue

 

"She had to sell everything she owned

And froze up inside"

Tangled Up In Blue

 

"And I'll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it,

And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it"

A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall

 

"Upon four-legged forest clouds

The cowboy angel rides"

Gates of Eden

 

"Upon the beach where hound dogs bay

At ships with tattooed sails"

Gates of Eden

 

"Twenty years of schoolin'

And they put you on the day shift"

Subterranean Homesick Blues

 

"Leave your stepping stones behind, something calls for you.

Forget the dead you've left, they will not follow you."

It's All Over Now, Baby Blue

 

"How does it feel

To be on your own

With no direction home"

Like A Rolling Stone

 

"A saxophone someplace far off played

As she was walkin' by the arcade.

As the light bust through a beat-up shade where he was wakin' up"

Simple Twist Of Fate

 

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

Visions of Johanna

 

And, my personal favorite:

 

"The harmonicas play the skeleton keys and the rain"

Visions of Johanna

 

By the time I reach that point in the song, I'm practically in a trance, and it gives me goose bumps. What a work of art that thing is.

[darkstar]

Well I'm waist deep, waist deep in the mist

It's almost like, almost like I don't exist

 

Cold Irons Bound

 

 

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

 

Positvely 4th street

 

With your mercury mouth in the missionary times,

And your eyes like smoke and your prayers like rhymes,

And your silver cross, and your voice like chimes,

Oh, who among them do they think could bury you?

With your pockets well protected at last,

And your streetcar visions which you place on the grass,

And your flesh like silk, and your face like glass,

Who among them do they think could carry you?

Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands,

Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes,

My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums,

Should I leave them by your gate,

Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?

 

Sad Eyed Lady of the Low-Lands

 

You may be a preacher with your spiritual pride,

You may be a city councilman taking bribes on the side,

You may be workin' in a barbershop, you may know how to cut hair,

You may be somebody's mistress, may be somebody's heir

 

But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed

You're gonna have to serve somebody,

Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord

But you're gonna have to serve somebody

 

Gotta Serve Somebody

 

I could go on and on and on all day

Edited August 18, 2006 by darkstar

[Atticus]

"It's easy to see without looking too far

That not much

Is really sacred."

It's Alright Ma

 

"And if my thought-dreams could be seen

They'd probably put my head in a guillotine"

It's Alright Ma

 

"They're selling postcards of the hanging"

Desolation Row

 

"Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot

Fighting in the captain's tower

While calypso singers laugh at them

And fishermen hold flowers

Between the windows of the sea

Where lovely mermaids flow"

Desolation Row

 

"All these people that you mention

Yes, I know them, they're quite lame

I had to rearrange their faces

And give them all another name"

Desolation Row

 

"I helped her out of a jam, I guess,

But I used a little too much force"

Tangled Up In Blue

 

"So I drifted down to New Orleans

Where I happened to be employed

Workin' for a while on a fishin' boat

Right outside of Delacroix"

Tangled Up In Blue (that is one clever rhyme!)

 

"And every one of them words rang true

And glowed like burnin' coal

Pourin' off of every page

Like it was written in my soul from me to you"

Tangled Up In Blue

 

"She had to sell everything she owned

And froze up inside"

Tangled Up In Blue

 

"And I'll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it,

And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it"

A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall

 

"Upon four-legged forest clouds

The cowboy angel rides"

Gates of Eden

 

"Upon the beach where hound dogs bay

At ships with tattooed sails"

Gates of Eden

 

"Twenty years of schoolin'

And they put you on the day shift"

Subterranean Homesick Blues

 

"Leave your stepping stones behind, something calls for you.

Forget the dead you've left, they will not follow you."

It's All Over Now, Baby Blue

 

"How does it feel

To be on your own

With no direction home"

Like A Rolling Stone

 

"A saxophone someplace far off played

As she was walkin' by the arcade.

As the light bust through a beat-up shade where he was wakin' up"

Simple Twist Of Fate

 

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

Visions of Johanna

 

And, my personal favorite:

 

"The harmonicas play the skeleton keys and the rain"

Visions of Johanna

 

By the time I reach that point in the song, I'm practically in a trance, and it gives me goose bumps. What a work of art that thing is.

 

 

Great addition. I'm with you on "Visions of Johanna." I can't imagine ever getting tired of listening to that song...

[farva]

"The harmonicas play the skeleton keys and the rain"

Visions of Johanna

 

By the time I reach that point in the song, I'm practically in a trance, and it gives me goose bumps. What a work of art that thing is.

 

Hearing Garcia sing that song is the best, especially on a top notch version like Fallout From the Phil Zone.

 

Neko Case also does a great version of Buckets Of Rain ... wonderful take on the phrasing.

 

Now Ophelia, she's 'neath the window

For her I feel so afraid

On her twenty-second birthday

She already is an old maid

(Desolation Row)

[Lammycat]

Hearing Garcia sing that song is the best, especially on a top notch version like Fallout From the Phil Zone.

Agreed. There was something very magical about the way JG did that tune. Top-notch all the way and very moving, emotional, and heartfelt.

[tapmyglass]

"If you get close to her, kiss her once for me

I always have respected her for busting out and gettin' free

Oh, whatever makes her happy, I won't stand in the way

Though the bitter taste still lingers on from the night I tried to make her stay"

 

I love this one, but on the early versions of the song he sings

"if you're making love to her, kiss her for the kid

I've always respected her for doing what she did"

 

that line breaks my heart

 

other favorites include:

 

"give me a flute and a gun that shoots

tailgates and substitues

strap yourself to the tree with roots

you ain't going nowhere"

 

"yonder stands your orphan with his gun

crying like a fire in the sun"

 

"my girl's got a face like a teddy bear"

 

"then again their's only one I met

and he just smoked my eyelids and punched my cigarette"

[Artifice]

"You just kinda wasted my precious time, but don't think twice, it's alright" (Don't Think Twice)

 

Found out just recently that is my dad's favorite line, and one of mine as well. Good bonding moment between father & son.

[Mr. Heartbreak]

Hearing Garcia sing that song is the best, especially on a top notch version like Fallout From the Phil Zone.

I second that emotion.

[jahilia]

Great thread! I was obsessed with Dylan from the time I was 16 to about 24. A few years ago I started growing bitter about all the music I missed out on, because literally all I listened to was Dylan for months at a time. Anyway, I haven't put on any of his music in about 3 years now...thanks to this thread, I can't decide which of his albums to put on first.

A few of my favorites:

 

I don't need your organization, I've shined your shoes,

I've moved your mountains and marked your cards

But Eden is burning, either brace yourself for elimination

Or else your hearts must have the courage for the changing of the guards.

-Changing Of The Guards

 

It was gravity which pulled us down and destiny which broke us apart

 

and

 

The priest wore black on the seventh day and sat stone-faced while the building

burned.

I waited for you on the running boards, near the cypress trees, while the springtime

turned slowly into autumn.

-Idiot Wind...this last part is just so visual for me. And I love the springtime turning to autumn part - straight from the fresh and new to weary and dying

 

 

I hate myself for lovin' you and the weakness that it showed

-Dirge

 

 

Someone else is speakin' with my mouth, but I'm listening only to my heart.

I've made shoes for everyone, even you, while I still go barefoot

-I and I

[run_run_run]

For you don't count the dead

When God's on your side.

[Skian]

On the rising curve where the ways of nature will test every nerve

You don't get anything you don't deserve where we were born in time.

 

 

Don't worry, baby, I don't mind leaving

I'd just like it to be my idea.

 

 

Last night I danced with a stranger

But she just reminded me you were the one.

 

 

Well I've been to the mountain and I've been in the wind

I've been in and out of happiness

I have dined with kings, I've been offered wings

And I've never been too impressed.

 

 

Suddenly I found you and the spirit in me sings

Don't have to look no further, you're the soul of many things

 

 

 

I could say what songs these were from, but that would be too easy.

If you don't know, it might be fun finding out.

[mchchef1]

I could say what songs these were from, but that would be too easy.

If you don't know, it might be fun finding out.

 

I don't know this song?

[jc4prez]

Sleeping is like a temporay death-Working Man's Blues #2

[JesusEtc]

And, my personal favorite:

 

"The harmonicas play the skeleton keys and the rain"

Visions of Johanna

 

By the time I reach that point in the song, I'm practically in a trance, and it gives me goose bumps. What a work of art that thing is.

 

amen. I love how that is complimented by the faint organ fill in the background.

[Mick]

This is all well and good, but how about Bob's worst one liners:

http://www.expectingrain.com/jokes.html

 

"Thanks everybody, you're too kind...

You know, I was talking to Neil Young yesterday (audience cheers

at the mention of Young) and he said to me, he said 'Bob, you

just can't hear cool music on the radio anymore...' and I says

to Neil, I says 'sure you just... (a decent pause) you just need

to stick your radio in the refrigerator."

[miss jayne]

Let me ask you one question

Is your money that good

Will it buy you forgiveness

Do you think that it could

I think you will find

When your death takes its toll

All the money you made

Will never buy back your soul

 

Masters of War (Now more than then)

 

And on a lighter note:

 

Flowers on the hillside, bloomin' crazy,

Crickets talkin' back and forth in rhyme,

Blue river runnin' slow and lazy,

I could stay with you forever

And never realize the time

 

You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go

[Synthesizer Patel]

Sleeping is like a temporay death-Working Man's Blues #2

 

If by that you mean that you have the album, I don't suppose you can help me out please, could you?

[mountain bed]

Man,the topic here is so overwhelming to consider...Bob's got more one/two liners that just drill you to the floor than anyone else in RXR.I didn't know where to start so I thought I'd consult the book...

 

Where black is the color,and none is the number...

 

In the night a hound dog bayed

In the night the grounds were groanin'

In the night the price was paid...

 

Your brain is a-bleedin'

And your legs can't seem to stand

Your eyes fix on the shotgun

That you're holdin' in your hand...

 

I can see that your head

Has been twisted & fed

By worthless foam from the mouth...

 

In a soldier's stance I aimed my hand

At the mongrel dogs who teach..

 

Even the President of the United States

Sometimes must have to stand naked..

 

Mona Lisa musta had the highway blues

You can tell by the way she smiles...

 

You hurt the ones I love best,& cover up the truth with lies

One day you'll be in the ditch,flies buzzin' around your eyes

Blood on your saddle...

 

I've never gotten used to it,I've just learned to turn it off

Either I'm too sensitive,or else I'm gettin' soft...

 

I said a quick prayer just to feel satisfied..

 

Let's disconnect these cables

Overturn these tables

This place don't make sense to me no more...

 

Ain't seen her since January

She could be respectably married

Or runnin' a whorehouse in Buenos Aires...

 

The rifleman's stalking the sick & the lame

Preacherman seeks the same,who'll get there first is uncertain...

 

He's hell-bent for destruction,he's afraid & confused

And his brain has been mismanaged with great skill...

 

When it costs too much to build it at home

You just build it cheaper someplace else...

 

He can ride down Niagra Falls in the barrels of your skull..

 

Sometimes Satan comes as a man of peace..

 

Quite possibly my favorite song,and favorite line...is..

Nobody has any respect

Anyway they already expect you

To just give a check

To tax-deductible charity organizaaaaashuuuuuuns

[oceanman]

It might be my opinion and maybe right or wrong,but you can find them both in Grand Canyon at sundown.

[tapmyglass]

children cry for mother, I tell them mother took a trip

children cry for mother, I tell them mother took a trip

I walk on pins and needles, hope my toungue don't slip

[mountain bed]

It might be my opinion and maybe right or wrong,but you can find them both in Grand Canyon at sundown.

I know it's one or two liners,but that whole poem is just about the best thing from Bob I've ever heard...it really contains the soul of the Z-Mam,imo

[Sweet Papa Crimbo]

I was listening to Highway 61 yesterday afternoon on the way home in the traffic, and some of those lines just floored me. A few of my favorites (please try and include song title):

 

"The sun's not yellow, it's CHICKEN" (Tombstone Blues)

 

"Because the cops don't need you, and man, they expect the same" (Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues)

 

"You just kinda wasted my precious time, but don't think twice, it's alright" (Don't Think Twice)

 

"The ghost of 'lectricity howls in the bones of her face" (Visions of Johanna)

 

"jewels and binoculars hang from the head of the mule" (Visions of Johanna)

 

"I stood a-wondering which way to go, I lit a cigarette on a parking meter

And walked on down the road. It was a normal day." (Talkin' World War III Blues)

 

"I'll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours,"

I said that. (Talkin' World War III Blues)

 

"And don't go mistaking Paradise, for that home across the road." (The Ballad of Frankie Lee & Judas Priest)

 

"Don't even remember what her lips felt like on mine--most of the time." (Most of the Time)

 

thanks, Bob.

 

At dawn my lover comes to me

And tells me of her dreams

With no attempts to shovel the glimpse

Into the ditch of what each one means

At times I think there are no words

But these to tell what's true

And there are no truths outside the Gates of Eden

[Sir Stewart]

As good a thread as any to mention this:

In the version of "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again" from the No Direction Home soundtrack, Bob says of Grandpa: "I knew he'd lost control/When I saw him build a fire..."

This explains the verbal fumble from the album version "When ahh-ss, he built a fire on Main Street..."

[Synthesizer Patel]

As good a thread as any to mention this:

In the version of "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again" from the No Direction Home soundtrack, Bob says of Grandpa: "I knew he'd lost control/When I saw him build a fire..."

This explains the verbal fumble from the album version "When ahh-ss, he built a fire on Main Street..."

 

I always thought he was saying "When asked, he built a fire on Main Street" But then I do mishear an awful lot of what Dylan is saying sometimes.