Best Wilco lyric ever!

[Tweed Jacket]

If you had to single out one Wilco lyric or verse, what would it be?

These lines from One True Vine always hit me:

 

Life had ceased

I was lost and tired

You set me free from

This mighty, mighty fire

Just in time to be

My one true vine

[nalafej]

The best life never leaves your lungs.

 

Would make a great tattoo.

[uncool2pillow]

The best life never leaves your lungs.

 

Would make a great tattoo.

Boom! I've always loved this line. If I were to analyze every line, I might find a better, but this will do. 

[Tweed Jacket]

The best life never leaves your lungs.

 

Would make a great tattoo.

Love it!

[jbray]

For a long-form lyric there is one true winner to me and that is:

 

I am looking forward toward the shadows tracing bones.

Our faces stitched and sewing, our houses hemmed into homes.

Trying to be thankful, our stories fit into phones.

Our voices lift so easily, a gift given accidentally

when we're not sure we're not alone.

 

From "You Are My Face"

 

For a short lyric I'd go with:

 

It's a random painted highway and a muzzle of bees.

My sleeves have come unstitched from climbing your trees.

 

From "Muzzle of Bees"

[Tweed Jacket]

 

For a long-form lyric there is one true winner to me and that is:

 

I am looking forward toward the shadows tracing bones.

Our faces stitched and sewing, our houses hemmed into homes.

Trying to be thankful, our stories fit into phones.

Our voices lift so easily, a gift given accidentally

when we're not sure we're not alone.

 

From "You Are My Face"

 

For a short lyric I'd go with:

 

It's a random painted highway and a muzzle of bees.

My sleeves have come unstitched from climbing your trees.

 

From "Muzzle of Bees"

 

Love both. Thanks for sharing. 

[calvino]

I have always been a sucker for "positively unemployed".

[Chez]

What you once were isn't what you want to be. Anymore.

 

//close thread

[bleedorange]

My favorites tend to be the times Jeff seems to perfectly describe something so vividly:

 

The air was crisp

Like sunny late winter days

A springtime yawning high in the haze

And I felt like I belonged 

 

Tires type black

Where the blacktop cracks

Weeds spark through

Dark green enough to be blue

 

 

And then the undisputed champ of all single lines:

 

I assassin down the avenue

[sonicshoulder]

 

As I look down with my two eyes and my two green thumbs

I despise the people who walk on the green green grass

I grew with my watered love

[Yaz Rock]

"Buried you alive in a fireworks display raining down on me."

 

Actually the opening line of that song might be even better.

[Kicking Television]

Is not a Wilco song but a Golden Smog one written by Jeff

 

"Listen dear mother, I miss you the most

And as I travel from coast to coast
I feel your love an'
I feel your ghost
Listen dear mother, I miss you the most
Listen dear mother, I miss you the most"

 

These lines make me cry.

[CTWilcoFan]

First post ever, just to ask a whether anyone else thought the line was "the best laugh never leaves your lungs"?

[nalafej]

First post ever, just to ask a whether anyone else thought the line was "the best laugh never leaves your lungs"?

 

Yes...until they released AGIB I thought it was laugh and I thought THAT was a great lyric too (they played the song a few times before the album was released and I played those shows on heavy repeat).

[tinnitus photography]

The best life never leaves your lungs.

 

Would make a great tattoo.

word tattoos are the worst, imo.

[Alone in the Zone]

I have always contended to a friend that if I ever created something as lyrically and sonically brilliant as Via Chicago, I would know that I had created something truly great. I love every lyric in the song, but what sends it to another plane of consciousness for me is the use of a non sequitur in the midst of an otherwise logical poetic narrative:

 

"And crawling is screw faster lash

I blow it with kisses"

[Sir Stewart]

There's so much less
To this than you think

[Tweedling]

As I look down with my two eyes and my two green thumbs

I despise the people who walk on the green green grass

I grew with my watered love

Requested this song so many times. So bad ass. I love the line

"my father always said that I would never amount to anything....but I'm the family gardener" my voice is known to quiver a little when I sing it. Even though my father has never said that to me. Lol

 

But for my favorite line rt now today at this moment I'd have to go with:

 

"So I tap my glass and nod my chin

And wonder who you've been in rhythm with"

LOVE

[tinnitus photography]

not a discrete line per se, but i love the evolution of the "you're not listening/you'll be listening" changes in Impossible Germany

 

[theashtraysays]

"Half of it's you, and half is me."

It's so simple & straightforward a comment on (any) relationship, but still a line that seems to have other meanings when I hear it in some other frame of mind.  And the musical meandering right after that line gives it such a nice moment to sink in and roll around in my head.  Love that...

[Tweedling]

"Half of it's you, and half is me."

It's so simple & straightforward a comment on (any) relationship, but still a line that seems to have other meanings when I hear it in some other frame of mind. And the musical meandering right after that line gives it such a nice moment to sink in and roll around in my head. Love that...

I like be that line too. Nice description about the song after the lyric.

The imagery of the leaves and the authors head on the others knee. Damn it! It's so good.

I always look at that line as a reference to parenting and how the child is half of each parent.

Damn I love Jeff Tweedy

[Magnetized]

I like be that line too. Nice description about the song after the lyric.

The imagery of the leaves and the authors head on the others knee. Damn it! It's so good.

I always look at that line as a reference to parenting and how the child is half of each parent.

Damn I love Jeff Tweedy

I love that line too, but I always relate it to the experience of listening to music, particularly in a live concert setting. Half of it is what the artist is putting out and the other half is how the audience is receiving it. When we talk about memorable vs. less than ideal shows, I think a bad crowd can kill even the best effort from the artist, while a show with flubs and imperfect sound can be transcendent when you get that special audience connection, when it seems like we're all one big family.

[Tweedling]

I love that line too, but I always relate it to the experience of listening to music, particularly in a live concert setting. Half of it is what the artist is putting out and the other half is how the audience is receiving it. When we talk about memorable vs. less than ideal shows, I think a bad crowd can kill even the best effort from the artist, while a show with flubs and imperfect sound can be transcendent when you get that special audience connection, when it seems like we're all one big family.

Well put. I can see that! Thank you

[stooka]

Damn I love Jeff Tweedy

He's your Bob Dylan ;-)

[Deanmarr]

It's become so obvious you are so oblivious to yourself.