Wish I'd Written That...

[jackrussell]

One line...not a verse, not an entire song...just one line that you wish you'd written.

Give the line....and who ever can name the artist and song gets to write the next one. Now, not just any line...one that REALLY stands out in your mind as something special....

Leading off....

"She comes out of the sun in a silk dress running like a watercolour in the rain"

 

[needforspeed]

"I was either standing in your shadow or blocking your light..."

 

[silverbear]

One line...not a verse, not an entire song...just one line that you wish you'd written.

Give the line....and who ever can name the artist and song gets to write the next one. Now, not just any line...one that REALLY stands out in your mind as something special....

Leading off....

"She comes out of the sun in a silk dress running like a watercolour in the rain"

From the rocking of the cradle to the rolling of the hearse, the going up was worth the coming down...

 

[Hostile]

One line...not a verse, not an entire song...just one line that you wish you'd written.

Give the line....and who ever can name the artist and song gets to write the next one. Now, not just any line...one that REALLY stands out in your mind as something special....

Leading off....

"She comes out of the sun in a silk dress running like a watercolour in the rain"

Al Stewart from the song "Year of the Cat."

Mine will be a little harder, because it isn't a song lyric.

"Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I’d strike the sun if it insulted me."

 

[Hostile]

From the rocking of the cradle to the rolling of the hearse, the going up was worth the coming down...

Ah crap you beat me to it.

 

[trickblue]

"ymca"

 

[Crown Royal]

Who put the bop in the bop shoo bop shoo bop?

 

[Yeagermeister]

I'm too sexy for my shirt
So sexy it hurts

 

[Crown Royal]

JFK, Blown away, WHAT ELSE DO I HAVE TO SAY?

 

[tomson75]

Al Stewart from the song "Year of the Cat."

Mine will be a little harder, because it isn't a song lyric.

"Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I’d strike the sun if it insulted me."

Cap'n Ahab - Moby Dick

I remember that line from twenty years ago. It's a damn good one.

 

[silverbear]

Ah crap you beat me to it.

Seriously?? Excellent choice...

It's been on my mind because I've been listening to Jerry Lee Lewis' recent collection of duets, Last Man Standing... the Killer does a duet with Kris on this one, and at the end, the last thing you hear on the CD is him reciting that line, like a poem...

The first time I heard that, I was convinced that Kristofferson wrote that song about ol' Jerry Lee...

The thing is, though I've always been struck with that line, that song isn't even close to my favorite Kris Kristofferson song... that would be "Sunday Morning Coming Down", followed by "Lovin' Her Was Easier Than Anything I'll Ever Do Again"...

 

[jem88]

Where the eagle glides ascending
There's an ancient river bending
Down the timeless gorge of changes
Where sleeplessness awaits
I searched out my companions,
Who were lost in crystal canyons
When the aimless blade of science
Slashed the pearly gates.

 

[Hostile]

Cap'n Ahab - Moby Dick

I remember that line from twenty years ago. It's a damn good one.

Indeed it is. It is all the more powerful in full context. This is an argument between Starbuck, the First Mate, and Captain Ahab over his obsession with the white whale who took Ahab's leg. As he says this you can sense his amazement.

"Vengeance on a dumb brute!" cried Starbuck, "that simply smote thee from blindest instinct! Madness! To be enraged with a dumb thing , Captain Ahab, seems blasphemous."

And then you get Ahab's reply in all his obsessive madness.

"Hark ye yet again,— the little lower layer. All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike through the mask! How can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the White Whale is that wall, shoved near to me. Sometimes I think there’s naught beyond. But ‘tis enough. He tasks me; he heaps me; I see in him outrageous strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing it. That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate; and be the White Whale agent, or be the White Whale principle, I will wreak that hate upon him. Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I’d strike the sun if it insulted me."

Melville, was a genius.

 

[Hostile]

Seriously?? Excellent choice...

It's been on my mind because I've been listening to Jerry Lee Lewis' recent collection of duets, Last Man Standing... the Killer does a duet with Kris on this one, and at the end, the last thing you hear on the CD is him reciting that line, like a poem...

The first time I heard that, I was convinced that Kristofferson wrote that song about ol' Jerry Lee...

The thing is, though I've always been struck with that line, that song isn't even close to my favorite Kris Kristofferson song... that would be "Sunday Morning Coming Down", followed by "Lovin' Her Was Easier Than Anything I'll Ever Do Again"...

"Sunday Morning Coming Down" is not only a fantastic song, there is an amazing story behind it. Kris wrote it for Johnny Cash and Johnny was going to sing it for the very first time on "The Johnny Cash Show." The song has a line, "I'm wishing Lord that I was stoned." The Producers at CBS were opposed to that line being in the song and insisted that Johnny remove it with something tamer.

When Johnny sings that song as he gets to that line he looked into the upper deck at Kris, and sang it as written.

The show was canceled.

 

[The30YardSlant]

"But I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die"

 

[Crown Royal]

Melville, was a genius.

Read Billy Budd & let me know if you still feel that way.:

 

[Hostile]

Read Billy Budd & let me know if you still feel that way.:

I've read it and though it isn't the impact on literature that Moby Dick is, it is still well written though exceedingly dull.

There is no doubt however that Ahab is the greatest "villain" in literary history. The part I quoted is from Chapter 36 "The Quarter Deck, Ahab and All." That chapter and 37, "Sunset" are absolutely fantastic writing.

This is from "Sunset," a glimpse at the fact that Ahab realizes the chaos of his persona.

"I leave a white and turbid wake: pale waters, paler cheeks, where'er I sail. The envious billows sidelong swell to whelm my track, let them; but first I pass.

Yonder, by the ever-brimming goblet's rim, the warm waves blush like wine. The gold brow plumbs the blue. The diver sun-- slow dived from noon,--goes down; my soul mounts up! she wearies with her endless hill. Is, then, the crown to heavy that I wear? this Iron crown of Lombardy. Yet it is bright with many a gem; I, the wearer, see not its far flashings, but darkly feel that I wear that, that dazzingly confounds. 'Tis iron--that I know--not gold. 'Tis split ,too--that I feel; the jagged edge galls me so, my brain seems to beat against solid metal; aye, steel skull, mine; the sort that needs no helmet in the most brain-battering fight!"

Gregory Peck as Ahab in the 1956 movie, is one of the great roles in cinematic history.

 

[Crown Royal]

There is no doubt however that Ahab is the greatest "villain" in literary history. The part I quoted is from Chapter 36 "The Quarter Deck, Ahab and All." That chapter and 37, "Sunset" are absolutely fantastic writing.

Two of my favorite villains thus far are:

'Iago' from Othello

and

'Herbert Herbert' from Lolita, though the word villain may not be the right word - more like anti villain (I've never read anything where I liked someone so dispicable).

I haven't read Moby Dick, but I am very impressed by the passages you cited. I love mastery of language - I wish I could command English, or any language, to the precision matching those like Melville or Nabokov.

I'll place Moby Dick on my list, though it will have to come after the ones I am focused on now (American Psycho, The Canterbury Tales and The Namesake).

 

[The30YardSlant]

There is no doubt however that Ahab is the greatest "villain" in literary history.

IMO, this honor goes to Milton's portrayel of Satan in "Paradise Lost" as his is probably the best literary showing of the greatest antagonist of all, the Devil

 

[Hostile]

Two of my favorite villains thus far are:

'Iago' from Othello

and

'Herbert Herbert' from Lolita, though the word villain may not be the right word - more like anti villain (I've never read anything where I liked someone so dispicable).

I haven't read Moby Dick, but I am very impressed by the passages you cited. I love mastery of language - I wish I could command English, or any language, to the precision matching those like Melville or Nabokov.

I'll place Moby Dick on my list, though it will have to come after the ones I am focused on now (American Psycho, The Canterbury Tales and The Namesake).

Oh, I love Othello man and yes, Iago is great.

"Your daughter and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs."

One of the great lines about sex ever. I love Shakespeare BTW.

You've got to read Moby Dick. The imagery is amazing. I have discovered an unpublished Biblical allusion in the book and am attempting to get it published in the Melville Society extracts. I hope to have it completed by June.

Here's another passage I love. This is Ishmael talking about death as he thinks of his Christian upbringing as opposed to Queequeg's pagan one.

"Methinks that in looking at things spiritual, we are too much like oysters observing the sun through the water, and thinking that thick water the thinnest of air. Methinks my body is but the lees of my better being. In fact take my body who will, take it I say, it is not me. And therefore three cheers for Nantucket; and come a stove boat and stove body when they will, for stave my soul, Jove himself cannot."

Nabokov's Lolita is out of this world. I actually learned of it from a song lyric by The Police. In "Don't Stand So Close to Me" there's a line that goes something like this.

It's no use, he sees her
He starts to shake and cough
Just like the old man in
That book by Nabakov

Until that line I had never heard of the book nor realized what the entire song is about. I have never seen the movie, though I have long wanted to.