My favourite line right now is probably from "Reckless Serenade" by Arctic Monkeys - "Topless models, doing semaphore, wave their flags as she walks by and get ignored"
My favourite verse of all time would be from "Let's Not **** Ourselves (To Love and to Be Loved)" by Bright Eyes -
"Well I awoke in relief, my sheets and tubes were all tangled
Weak from whiskey and pills in a Chicago hospital
And my father was there, in a chair by the window
Staring so far away
I tried talking, just whispered, "So sorry, so selfish"
He stopped me and said, "Child, I love you regardless
There's nothing you could do that would ever change this
I'm not angry, it happens
But you just can't do it again""
My overall favourite lyrics of all time are in the Dismemberment Plan song "Back and Forth":
"There’s a kind of music that reminds me of you
It’s all clear expensive drinks and shiny shirts
And the click of heels as they descend from the taxi like the first foot on the moon
Oh and it glows with ache
And if it hits me right on it’s almost too much to take
And it’s got right angle razor thin lines
That curve and swerve like perfect sines
As we dress to the nines
In an attempt to leave it all behind
In a search of the moment between the seconds
Where everything is just fine
That silver thread embedded deep within our spines
And I used to be kind of weird about this
A fear of dependence on a guilty gilt-edged
hedged transcendence that makes us liars
And tense with fear of looking down and seeing that nothing really suspends us
But it was never just another Saturday night
Not with you in attendance
So throw your hands in the air
And wave them like you just don’t care
It’s on a whim; it’s on a dare
To shrug away what we can’t bear
And we’re going back and forth
And back and forth and back and forth and back
We’re going back and forth
And back and forth and back and forth and back
So it’s a deep blue see-through membrane
That protects us, it connects us
A pulsing cellophane
Party-train skein that helps us and envelopes And keeps us locked inside
Forever and ever along for the ride
And we’re moving through a phosphorescent gel a semi-solid self-lit ocean
And it’s a funny notion, isn’t it?
Yeah, but I’m kinda digging it
And it’s rigged and isn’t nearly so big
And it speaks only of its own perpetual near miss
Like the uncertain memory of a stranger’s mistaken kiss
As faces slide by in glowing shadows
Like snowbound ghosts that go up and down
In epileptic shivers and negative radioactive slivers
In a landscape of endless dull glitter
And a taste in my mouth so sweet, yet so bitter
And we exhaust ourselves trying to get there
Somebody scream "all right"
We’ll try to fill the echoless night
So fasten up and hold tight
We can’t give up without a fight
And we’re going back and forth
And back and forth and back and forth and back
We’re going back and forth
And back and forth and back and forth and back
So in the end, whatever, we die, we dissolve
Equations unbalanced, riddles unsolved
And we were never connected or involved
Except for the intersections and crazy mathematics
With no time and no space and no schedule and no place
And they pass right through us without a trace
And sometimes that music drifts through my car
On a spring night when anything is possible
And I close my eyes and I nod my head
And I wonder how you been
And I count to a hundred and ten
Because you’ll always be my hero even if I never see you again"
It really needs to be heard IMO to realise how skilful a singer he is as well to work these fantastic lyrics in:
Back and Forth - Dismemberment Plan - YouTube
