Favorite Dylan Line

[dondoboy]

After reading all the posts in the favorite Dylan album thread, I started thinking of which individual lines were my favorites. My topper is "...and when she died it came to me, I can't help it if I'm lucky". Tomorrow it'll be different I'm sure.

[mpolak21]

After reading all the posts in the favorite Dylan album thread, I started thinking of which individual lines were my favorites. My topper is "...and when she died it came to me, I can't help it if I'm lucky". Tomorrow it'll be different I'm sure.

 

"I was so much older then, I am younger than that now."

 

--Mike

[anthony]

Mine is this one:

 

Suddenly I turned around and she was standin' there

With silver bracelets on her wrists and flowers in her hair.

She walked up to me so gracefully and took my crown of thorns.

"Come in," she said, "I'll give you shelter from the storm."

[Lammycat]

There's absolutely no way I can pinpoint a favorite, as there are just a mind-numbing number of them, but a few that come to immediate mind:

 

"The ghost of 'lectricity, howls in the bones of her face" and "The harmonicas play the skeleton keys and the rain." Actually, pretty much the entire tune will suffice.

 

I always got a kick out of "A lot of people don't have much food on their table/But they got a lot of forks n' knives/And they gotta cut somethin'" from "Talkin' New York."

 

And: "If dogs run free, why not me/Across the swamp of time?"

[Lammycat]

nm

[Degenerex]

this is impossible, but I've always liked -

 

"The sun's not yellow, it's chicken"

 

Not his best - but I like it anyways

[Analogman]

And anyone can fill his life up

With things he can see but he just cannot touch.

 

 

Darkness at the break of noon

Shadows even the silver spoon

The handmade blade, the child's balloon

Eclipses both the sun and moon

To understand you know too soon

There is no sense in trying.

 

Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter,

Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley,

 

 

Then they'll raise their hands,

Sayin' we'll meet all your demands,

But we'll shout from the bow your days are numbered.

 

 

Come you masters of war

You that build all the guns

You that build the death planes

You that build the big bombs

You that hide behind walls

You that hide behind desks

I just want you to know

I can see through your masks

 

The motorcycle black madonna

Two-wheeled gypsy queen

And her silver-studded phantom cause

The gray flannel dwarf to scream

As he weeps to wicked birds of prey

Who pick up on his bread crumb sins

And there are no sins inside the Gates of Eden

 

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?

 

Inside the museums, Infinity goes up on trial

Voices echo this is what salvation must be like after a while

But Mona Lisa musta had the highway blues

You can tell by the way she smiles

 

I went down to the lobby

To make a small call out.

A pretty dancing girl was there,

And she began to shout,

 

He stayed behind the assembly hall,

It was there he made his bed,

Oftentimes he could be seen returning.

 

I can still hear the sounds of those Methodist bells,

I'd taken the cure and had just gotten through,

Stayin' up for days in the Chelsea Hotel,

Writin' "Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" for you.

 

In the summertime, ah in the summertime,

In the summertime when you were with me

 

Friend to the martyr, a friend to the woman of shame,

You look into the fiery furnace, see the rich man without any name.

 

Now, too much of nothing

Can make a man feel ill at ease.

One man's temper might rise

While another man's temper might freeze.

In the day of confession

We cannot mock a soul.

Oh, when there's too much of nothing,

No one has control.

[Sir Stewart]

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,

Then I'll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin',

But I'll know my song well before I start singin'

 

---

Listen to me Mr. Pussyman

This might be your last night in a bed so soft

We're not pimps on the make, politicians on the take,

You can't pay us off.

 

We're gonna blow up your home of Voodoo

And watch it burn without any regret

We got the power we're the new government,

You just don't know it yet.

 

---

And you, you took me in,

You loved me then

You didn't waste time.

And I, I never took much,

I never asked for your crutch.

Now don't ask for mine.

 

---

Last night I danced with a stranger

But she just reminded me you were the one

You left me standing in the doorway crying

In the dark land of the sun

 

---

There's beauty in the silver, singin' river,

There's beauty in the sunrise in the sky,

But none of these and nothing else can touch the beauty

That I remember in my true love's eyes.

 

---

Her folks they said our lives together

Sure was gonna be rough

They never did like Mama's homemade dress

Papa's bankbook wasn't big enough.

 

---

As easy it was to tell black from white,

It was all that easy to tell wrong from right.

And our choices were few and the thought never hit

That the one road we traveled would ever shatter and split.

 

How many a year has passed and gone,

And many a gamble has been lost and won,

And many a road taken by many a friend,

And each one I've never seen again.

 

I wish, I wish, I wish in vain,

That we could sit simply in that room again.

Ten thousand dollars at the drop of a hat,

I'd give it all gladly if our lives could be like that.

[Lammycat]

I met a young child beside a dead pony,

I met a white man who walked a black dog,

I met a young woman whose body was burning,

I met a young girl, she gave me a rainbow,

I met one man who was wounded in love,

I met another man who was wounded with hatred....

[Atticus]

yes I received your letter yesterday

about the time the doorknob broke

when you asked me how I was doing

was that some kind of joke?

 

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

 

right now

I can't read too good

don't send me no more letters, no

not unless, you mail them from

desolation row

[Analogman]

She gave her heart to the man

In the long black coat.

 

We live in a political world

Where peace is not welcome at all,

It's turned away from the door to wander some more

Or put up against the wall.

 

Every time you leave and go off someplace

Things fall to pieces in my face

 

Now, there's a woman on my block,

She just sit there as the night grows still.

She say who gonna take away his license to kill?

 

They say that patriotism is the last refuge

To which a scoundrel clings.

Steal a little and they throw you in jail,

Steal a lot and they make you king.

 

Take the rag away from your face.

Now ain't the time for your tears.

 

Black crows in the meadow

Across a broad highway.

 

To your tambourine in time, it's just a ragged clown behind,

I wouldn't pay it any mind, it's just a shadow you're

Seein' that he's chasing.

 

Everybody is making love

Or else expecting rain

 

Down the street the dogs are barkin'

And the day is a-gettin' dark.

As the night comes in a-fallin',

The dogs 'll lose their bark.

An' the silent night will shatter

From the sounds inside my mind,

For I'm one too many mornings

And a thousand miles behind.

[froggie]

"i'll bid farewell and not give a damn" - and thats what happened in that chapter of his career

 

 

oh, and i forgot "wiggle wiggle wiggle like a bowl of soup"

[Pocahontas]

I will follow your casket

on a pale afternoon

and I'll watch as you're lowered

down into your death bed

and I will stand over your grave

til I am sure that you're dead.

 

In soldiers stance, I aimed my hand

at the mongrel dogs who teach

[Guest Speed Racer]

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

We sit here stranded, though we're all doin' our best to deny it

And Louise holds a handful of rain, temptin' you to defy it

Lights flicker from the opposite loft

In this room the heat pipes just cough

The country music station plays soft

But there's nothing, really nothing to turn off

Just Louise and her lover so entwined

And these visions of Johanna that conquer my mind

 

I'll stop and restart the song over and over again because I like the first stanza so much.

[Gobias Industries]

And if my thought-dreams could be seen

They'd probably put my head in a guillotine

But it's alright, Ma, it's life, and life only

-It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)

 

They say that it's a crime

to feel too much at any one time

-Simple Twist of Fate (Rolling Thunder Revue)

[Kalle]

Too many to pick but this one sticks out right away.

 

 

Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your teeth,

You're an idiot, babe.

It's a wonder that you still know how to breathe.

[HungryHippo]

"Beauty walks a razor's edge, someday I'll make it mine."

 

"Well, the emptiness is endless, cold as the clay

You can always come back, but you can't come back all the way."

 

"he just smoked my eyelids and punched my cigarette."

[sgtpepper64]

"I was so much older then, I am younger than that now."

 

--Mike

 

That's probably my favorite by far. Runner(s) up include:

 

So sing your praise of progress and of the Doom Machine,

The naked truth is still taboo whenever it can be seen.

Lady Luck, who shines on me, will tell you where I'm at,

I hate myself for lovin' you, but I should get over that. - Dirge

 

Someday everything is gonna be different when I paint my masterpiece. -When I Paint My Masterpiece

[bjorn_skurj]

These lines are like a prayer to me:

 

I been double-crossed now for the very last time and now I'm finally free,

I kissed goodbye the howling beast on the borderline which separated you from me.

You'll never know the hurt I suffered nor the pain I rise above,

And I'll never know the same about you, your holiness or your kind of love,

And it makes me feel so sorry.

[stooka]

Bird on the horizon, sittin' on a fence,

He's singin' his song for me at his own expense.

And I'm just like that bird, oh, oh,

Singin' just for you.

I hope that you can hear,

Hear me singin' through these tears.

[junkiesmile]

Oh no, I don't need any reminder

To know how much I really care

But it's just making me blinder and blinder

Because I'm up on a hill and still you're not there.

[Guest Moses]

If not for you

My sky would fall,

Rain would gather too.

Without your love I'd be nowhere at all,

Oh, what would I do

If not for you.

[mountain bed]

There's a black Mercedes rollin' through the combat zone

 

---------------------------------------------------------------

 

Well, they used to grow food in Kansas

Now they wanna grow it on the moon, and eat it raw

I can see the day comin when even your home garden

Is gonna be against the law

 

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Maybe he had some problems

Some things he couldn't work out

But he sure was funny

And he sure told the truth

And he knew what he was talkin' about

 

---------------------------------------------------------------------

 

In the time of my confession

In the hour of my greatest need

When the pool of tears beneath my feet

Floods every newborn seed

 

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some first A.M. thoughts regarding the '80s

[Degenerex]

When you ain't got nuttin you got nuttin to lose

[Gobias Industries]

You ask me nothin' about nothin'

and I just might tell you the truth