Favorite Song Lyrics of All Time. What Say You?

- Hank Williams: "No matter how I struggle and strive, I’ll never get out of this world alive." Hillbilly wisdom.

- Loretta Lynn: "You ain’t woman enough to take my man." "Don’t come home a-drinkin’ (with lovin’ on your mind)."

- Cornell Hurd: "If you play with my mind (you’re gonna get your hands dirty)."

- "God Only Knows", music by Brian Wilson, lyrics by Tony Asher. Combined they create the most glorious song in the history of recorded music. Brian's use of inversion, modulation, and counterpoint in the song display his intuitive understanding of music theory. As close to J.S. Bach as anyone in Pop music has gotten.

- Iris DeMent: "Now I sit down on the sofa and I watch the evening news

                        There’s a half a dozen tragedies from which to pick and choose

                        The baby that was missing was found in a ditch today

                        And there’s bombs a-flying, and people dying, not so far away

                         I’ll take a beer from the ’frigerator and go sit out in the yard

                         And with a cold one in my hand I’m gonna bite down and swallow hard

                         Because I’m older now, and I’ve got no time to cry."

Merle Haggard liked "No Time To Cry" enough to record it himself, the highest compliment one songwriter can pay another.

10 years have got behind you…

no one told you when to run…

you’ve missed the starting gun…

Jackson Browne, from “For A Dancer”

Just do the steps that you've been shown
By everyone you've ever known
Until the dance becomes your very own
No matter how close to yours
Another's steps have grown
In the end, there is one dance you'll do alone

Keep a fire for the human race
Let your prayers go drifting into space
You never know what will be coming down

Perhaps a better world is drawing near
Just as easily it could all disappear
Along with whatever meaning you might have found

Don't let the uncertainty turn you around (the world keeps turning around and around)
Go on and make a joyful sound

Into a dancer you have grown
From a seed somebody else has thrown
Go on ahead and throw some seeds of your own
And somewhere between the time you arrive and the time you go
May lie a reason you were alive
But you'll never know

From Joni Mitchell “Circle Game”

Yesterday a child came out to wonder
Caught a dragonfly inside a jar
Fearful when the sky was full of thunder
And tearful at the falling of a star
And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return we can only look behind
From where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game

From Robert Hunter “New Speedway Boogie”

I spent a little time on the mountain
I spent a little time on the hill
Heard some say: Better run away
Others say you better stand still

Now I don't know, but I been told
It's hard to run with the weight of gold
Other hand I have heard it said
It's just as hard with the weight of lead

@bdp24

On a lighter note, this is one of my favorites:

"Ain’t no reason to hang my head; I could wake up in the morning dead"