I think mine is this. It totally broke me when I heard it last week. Apparently the recording is from his last ever poetry reading.
Listen to the hummingbird
Whose wings you cannot see
Listen to the hummingbird
Don’t listen to me
Danielle has picked an equally dark and powerful line for today’s best of the year show:
Not so much the lyric itself as the delivery. From ‘Free At Last’ by PUP:
Sloppy Steffie back at it again/Calling you up at 5 AM
[Eva Hendricks from Charly Bliss]: Have you been drinking?
Well of COURSE I have
Not sure if it’s my favourite but i love this lyric from purple mountains snow is falling in manhattan:
Levels rising on the island
Shows no sign of soon subsiding
Drifting deeply down in Brooklyn
So much joy in merely looking
Inside he’s got a fire crackling
And on the couch, beneath an afghan
Lies an old friend he just took in
Seeking shelter from the cold wind
It’s just so easy and vivid.
Good one on Angela by Bill Callahan
“Like motel curtains, we never really met.”
Viagra Boys, possibly one for the 2018 thread (if such a thing exists). Basing this on the UK release of Street Worms.
It was all a dream
But it was so nice
I had a nice house
And such a loving wife
We had a little dog
Such a little dog
That it reminded me of a large dog
Just in miniature size
The National - Not in Kansas. This verse section in particular.
First Testament was really great
The sequel was incredible
Like the Godfathers or the first two Strokes
Every document’s indelible
Infidels and Heartbreak Beats
Smidges of bad ecstasy
I must have left it in my pocket
With my Christianity in my rocket
I’m binging hard on Annette Bening
I’m listening to R.E.M. again
Lana del Ray’s album remains incredible. She’s firmly planted herself as one of America’s best songwriters in my opinion.
“If he’s a serial killer, then what’s the worst
That can happen to a girl who’s already hurt?
I’m already hurt”
“I’ve been tearing around in my fucking nightgown
24-7 Sylvia Plath/ Writing in blood on your walls
‘Cause the ink in my pen don’t look good in my pad”
“There’s a new revolution, a loud evolution that I saw
Born of confusion and quiet collusion of which mostly I’ve known
A modern-day woman with a weak constitution”
Black Country, New Road’s ‘Sunglasses’ by a mile. The whole thing is brilliant but particularly enjoy the final part:
I’m more than adequate
Leave Kanye out of this
Leave your Sertraline in the cabinet
And fuck me like you mean it this time, Isaac
I’m more than adequate
Leave my daddy’s job out of this
Leave your Sertraline in the cabinet
And fuck me like you mean it this time, Isaac
That album is full to the brim with amazing lyrics. I love these:
Goddamn, man-child
You act like a kid even though you stand six foot two
Self-loathing poet, resident Laurel Canyon know-it-all
You talk to the walls when the party gets bored of you
But I don’t get bored, I just see it through
Why wait for the best when I could have you?
that whole album breaks my heart tbh
Discovered this band and song a few days ago, incredible lyrics and delivery. Have had the ‘I’m more than adequate/leave kanye out of this…’ section going round my head all day yesterday, was driving me crackers.
Here’s the show if you missed it.
Big Thief have a few but this Open Desert verse always sticks with me…
After all my teeth are gone
After all the blood is drawn
The white light of the waiting room
Leaking through the crack in the door
Ahh, David Berman thread in disguise.
And when I see her in the park
It barely merits a remark
How we stand the standard distance
Distant strangers stand apart