"she was 15 years old and she'd never seen the ocean"

The "sometimes I take a great notion to jump in the river and drown" line from Goodnight Irene always hits me too.

"Shake your head girl with your ponytail. Takes me right back (when you were young)" - Roxy Music: 'If there is Something'

"'n uh youngster cocked 'er eye God before me if I'm not crazy Is my daughter Come little one with yer little dimpled fingers Gimme one 'n I'll buy you uh cherry phosphate"

-Beefheart, "Orange Claw Hammer"

"Way across the country where the hillside mountain glide The dynamo of your smile caressed the barefoot virgin child to wander Past your window with a lantern lit You held it in the doorway and you cast against the pointed island breeze"

Van Morrison, "Beside You"

"The other night dear as I lay sleeping I dreamed I held you in my arms When I awoke dear I was mistaken And I hung my head and cried"

--"You Are My Sunshine," specifically as sung by Mose Allison

It's the "mistaken" that does it. Every time.

"float on a river, forever and ever...Emily" from "See Emily Play" by Pink Floyd, though the version I'm always hearing in my head is Bowie's from Pin Ups.

"We can dance and party/all night/and drink some cherry wine/Uh huh" from Jermaine Stewart's "We Don't Have to Take Our Clothes Off" just filled me with melancholy. Right now! It did!

maybe this is a little obvious, but "no-one here to love or understand me/oh what hard luck stories they all hand me" from "Bye Bye Blackbird"

"And year after year the kid has to hear the do's the don'ts and the dears
And when she's ten years old she digs that rock 'n' roll
But Papa bans it from home"

from "There But For The Grace of God Go I" by Machine (August Darnell's pre-Kid Creole disco project) the phrase "she digs that rock n roll" is hopeful, but sung mournfully as if the kid knows papa will snuff out that glimmer of light too as soon as he recognizes it and the "papa bans it from the home" line is that defeat: all quick and clipped and resigned over that huge stomping beat. it always gives me chills.

"Goodbye my friend it's hard to die, When all the birds are singing in the sky" - Seasons In The Sun by Jacques Brel (by way of Terry Jacks)

this song made a big impression on me when i was a kid and it never quite left me....

"It's a tragedy for me to see the dream is over" - Milli Vanilli, "Girl I'm Gonna Miss You".

It's the *finality* of the word "tragedy" that gets me: not the sort of word you expect to hear in such a context at all.

"And he said it won't hurt ... and he said it won't hurt ... and he said it won't hurt" (Piano Magic, "Wrong French")

"Will you smile like any father with his children on a Sunday hike when you get to a see of rubble and they ask you what was London like?" (XTC, "This World Over")

"The only way to gain approval is by exploiting the very thing that cheapens me" (Manic Street Preachers, "This Is Yesterday")

"But oh you couldn't do that ... oh no" (Milli Vanilli again, "Blame It On The Rain", such *finality* about it)

"I'm going out of my head, I feel so crazy for you, it's true" (Colonel Abrams, "Trapped")

"please don't confront me with my failures, i have not forgotten them" - Nico "these days"

It was Jackson Browne before Nico, but the words do he same thing...

He's got loads, like:

Maybe people only aske you how you're doin' cause it's easier than letting on how little they could care.

or

It's like your standing in the window of a house nobody lives in And I'm sitting in a car across the way...

or

Sometimes I lie awake at night and wonder,where the years have gone They have all passed under sleep's dark and silent gate

and

...While the ships bearing their dreams sail out of sight

You're the hidden cost and the thing that's lost In everything I do Yeah and I'll never stop looking for you

"We were looking in the mirror at the time. I got confused and thought your eyes were mine."

You Might as Well Smile, by Jimmy Webb.

"It's just the beauty of the ride" closing line of Sebadoh's Beauty of the Ride

To hold back on the title of the song until the bitter end simply enhances the emphasis placed on the old cliche that it isbetter to have love and lost than to have never loved at all

"And I reminded myself of the words you said when we were getting on"

"Carved out in stone, these are the rules for being alone"

"A voice coach taught me to sing / he couldn't teach me to love / all the above"

"We could start over again"

"Mercy mercy me / things aint what they used to be / Where did all the blue skies go?"

"We could be married / and then we'd be happy"

"It's time that the tale were told of how you took a child and you made him old"

"Somebody raped our women, murdered our babies / Hit us with the crack and guns in the early 80s"

"It always leads me here / Lead me to your door"

"You know, I used to sing 'a tisket-a tasket, a green and yellow basket'"

"I'm through with walking in the wind and the rain"

"It's just this razor, he's left it on your shelf / I'll throw it out myself"

"I would have given you all of my heart / but there's someone who's torn it apart"

"Not having you, but keeping you in mind"

"I tried living in the real world instead of a shell but before I began / I was bored before I even began"

"I used to have such sweet dreams / now it's more like an air raid"

"And if I don't say a word you'll know that it's the truth"

"I've lost you I've lost you I've lost you"

"Then why are you on your own tonight?"

"What will I miss / her cruelty / her unfaithfulness / her fun her love her kiss?"

"We met when we were almost young"

"I just don't understand what's going on across this land"

you won't be happy with me / but give me one more chance / you won't be happy anyway.

told him what he wants to hear / so you caught another chance / but I was yours for seven years / is that what you call a dalliance?

You and I / it had to be the standing joke of the year

For there are brighter sides to life / And I should know, because I've seen them / But not often

"The only thing that I got's been bothering my whole life" - Bruce Springsteen

when i'm particularly missing some1 who lives far away, = sinead's "i can't bear to be in this city; one where you are not"
don't know if it's meloncholy exactly but the terminals " and the look in your eyes when you look at me"

lots of jandek and galbraith lines.

"my rainbow how good it is to know you're like me
strike me with your lightening
bring me down and bury me with ashes..."

i won't hurt you the pop art toasters (martin phillipps, david kilgour, allen starrett, mike dooley)
orig = west coast pop art experimental band

I forgot "And when you're no longer searching for beauty or love / Just some kind of life with the edges taken off."

and the rest.

maybe it would be easier to list the lines that don't fill you with melancholy, emo-N. ;)

Possibly. Thing is, this kind of melancholia is kind of my benchmark for a great song. OK, so I like spazzy romantic songs too but there's some crossover there.

Maybe I am emo. But it tastes so go-ood.

I listened to Madness for the first time in probably a decade last night and beneath all the Nuttiness, they're totally melancholy! Not just "Grey Day" but "Bed and Breakfast Man" and "Our House" even.

Oh, totally. Esp. 'Our House', yeah. In fact the whole of 'Rise & Fall'

the lyrics kind of put the nutty antics in context - like they're desperately trying to stave off adulthood; and their nostalgia is too knowing, too aware that childhood was the pits too ("oh what fun we had/but at the time it seemed so bad") to be cheap.

Do you curse where you come from, Do you swear in the night Will it mean much to you If I treat you right. Do you like what you're doing, Would you do it some more Or will you stop once and wonder What you're doing it for. Hey slow Jane, make sense Slow, slow, Jane, cross the fence.

Do you feel like a remnant Of something that's past Do you find things are moving Just a little too fast. Do you hope to find new ways Of quenching your thirst, Do you hope to find new ways Of doing better than your worst. Hey slow Jane, let me prove Slow, slow Jane, we're on the move.

Do it for you, Sure that you would do the same for me one day. So try to be true, Even if it's only in your hazey way.

Can you tell if you're moving With no mirror to see, If you're just riding a new man Looks a little like me. Is it all so confusing, Is it hard to believe When the winter is coming Can you sign up and leave. Hey slow Jane, live your lie Slow, slow jane, fly on by.

So which line jumps out?

stop that italics

That was where Drake's conservative heart came through: give me Sandy Denny's "The Sea" any day.

"Don't wind up like your old dad, still dreaming of the glory days he never had" (Wu-Tang Clan, "A Better Tomorrow"). So many people genuinely imagine and mythologise their sad past in such an ultimately tragic way that it always, always makes me cry.

"I remember when we were young" - Joy Division, "Insight"

"Joey I'm not angry anymore" - Concrete Blonde, "Joey"

"If there's a reason/It's lost on me/Maybe we'll be friends/I guess we'll see/I never let you go" - Third Eye Blind, "Never Let You Go"

"Half of what I say is meaningless/But I say it just to reach you Julia" - The Beatles, "Julia"

"I'll make it up to you, I'll make it up to you. . . I miss you" - Slint, "Good Morning, Captain"

"Come back from San Fransisco and kiss me - I've quit smoking" - The Magnetic Fields, "Come Back From San Fransisco"

Almost every line in "You Are My Sunshine" actually does this.

"I'd like to leave the country / for a month of sundays / burn the town where I was born..." The Stone Roses

"Are you just riding a new man / who looks a little like me..." Nick Drake

"Kiss me / please kiss me / kiss me out of desire babe / not consolation..." Jeff Buckley

"I have pulled myself clear..." PJ Harvey

"I praise the day you surrendered..." Embrace

"I could park a juggernaught in your mouth / and I can feel the hurricane when you shout / I should be safe forever / in your arms..." The Stone Roses

Every second line in the latest Dylan album is desperate to get on these sort of lists - it's a Morrissey record for sixty-year-olds.

See my friends, See my friends,
Way across the river,
See my friends, See my friends,
Way across the river

She is gone, She is gone
And now there's no one left
Except my friends,
Way across the river

She just went, She just went,
Way across the river.

Now she's gone, Now she's gone,
Wish that I'd gone with her.

She is gone, She is gone
And now there's no one else
Except my friends,
Way across the river

She is gone and now there's no one left to take her place
She is gone and now there's no one else to love
Except my friends,
Way across the river

See my friends, See my friends,
Way across the river,
See my friends, See my friends,
Way across the river

"His father died and left him a little farm in New England. All the long black funeral cars left the scene and the boy was just standing there alone looking at the shiny red tractor." Patti Smith, "Birdland".

"Only you can make my lies come true" - Room Games and Diamond Rain, Silver Jews

"...and I'm stoned" - Negative Creep, Nirvana

I had a flip answer to this question, then I got bored. So I thought of a serious answer. I can't think of any! Like I say, lyrics, who needs 'em. The way the guitar sounds at the end of Slowdive's "Avalyn II," though, there's yer melancholy.

Before the days become nights/before the years become lives.. and there's trouble every day.
Tindersticks - I don't usually find them affecting but this one, yeah.

"see my friends" is so right for this, along with half of everything else Ray Davies was writing at that point.

The "you got all your friends, I got tv set" line from "sittin' on my sofa" is a good one too.

Funny but I don't really think of Dylan as melancholy that often - maybe too confident and misanthropic for that, especially now? More just sad or disgusted than melancholy (which to me implies more of the sentimental, nostalgic and maudlin end of things).

maybe I'm way off though, because as I write this I can think of a couple of Dylan lines that fit perfectly in this list - "looks like nothing but rain, sure gonna be wet tonight on Main Street" from "Sign on the Window" from "New Morning" (which Tom's essay on Dylan led me to rediscover recently {thanks}), or that killer "life is sad life is a bust all you can do is do what you must" line from "Buckets of Rain" .

Confident sad misanthropic disgusted yes but often there's melancholy underneath (just like with Moz!), in its 'world-weariness' disguise. Especially on the new album eg "Sugar Baby".

I know it's true. just a different flavour than what I associate with "melancholy".

Still can't get into "love & Theft"- nothing I actively dislike about it but nothing really grabbing me either yet. I'll have to give it another listening.

granted there are a lot of quotes here that i don't recognise,but would i be right in saying that the songs mentioned in this thread are a lot more indebted to the "mojo" canon/ indie rock,than your average ilm thread? and if so,does that mean that despite all the talk of pop,when it comes to music that really moves you,pop (by and large) doesnt quite do the trick? or is it just that the type of people who respond to threads like this are the less,um,"poppy"?people who value lyrics over sound,perhaps?

cheers, robin

well fritz didn't say "move", he said "melancholy"

however i can't deny that the kinks are in the mojo canon heh but they are dadrock not indie, surely??

milli vanilli, machine, jermaine stewart, "you are my sunhine" & "bye bye blackbird", terry jacks, sinead, & many others != indie/dadrock/mojo canon

there's more pop to come on this list anyway, I'm sure

hmm,i don't think i expressed myself particularly well (as per usual) i think what i'm getting at is that whereas in general ilm tends to talk a lot about "pop" music,and be at the very least cynical about the canon of "critically acclaimed" artists,whether the acclaim comes from mojo/rolling stone or pitchfork/the wire,this thread seems to see the critical canon,for want of a better expression,much more prominently featured than is usual...as for being moved,i meant that being filled with melencholy was is a moving experience,and didnt mean to say that they were one and the same thing...

please don't turn my nice melancholy thread into canon-fodder.

I think most of the good discussions of "the canon" here are about being critical of the lazy assumptions and hierarchies that go along with its existence. I don't think people are as reactionary against the canonical artists themselves as you suggest. It's perfectly natural for The Kinks and Dylan to come up in a discussion like this here, and just as natural for Jermaine Stewart and Milli Vanilli and Bruce Springsteen to be mentioned. There will be some more recent chart pop included here too if the thread keeps going.

"When the rivers run quicker than trouble / I'll be there at your side in the flood / It was all I could do to keep myself / From taking revenge on your blood" (Fairport Convention, "Genesis Hall")

"Frozen hero / Your words are zero / And your dreams have vanished into dark / Long ago / But you don't want to know" (Harpo, "Movie Star", though it took Stereo Total's version to break my heart.)

"Now there's only emptiness / NOTHING TO SAY" (Abba, "Knowing Me, Knowing You")

"Then she looked me right square in the eye and said / Every day I wake up hoping to die" (City High, "What Would You Do?"

"As for now I know how to avoid the paranoid" (Public Enemy, "Welcome To The Terrordome", so tragically brave in its emotional self-denial)

"For now I've got no sense of direction / And nothing makes much sense at all" (as I remember it, The Magnetic Fields' "All The Umbrellas In London". Though strangely I never listen to them now, though I suspect I will again, pretty soon.)

"Poor among the rich / Between four walls and out of reach / We live behind a screen" (Sandy Denny / Fotheringay, "The Pond And The Stream")

"But suddenly I feel the shining sun ..." (Daft Punk, "Digital Love")

"If I had to take them with me I would never get from my bed ..." (Tindersticks / Carla Torgerson (sp?), "Travelling Light")

So many ...

'if i had a photograph of you, or something to remind me, i wouldn't spend my life just wishing...'

yes, of course, Wyndham, i was going to put that one in too!

"a false memory / would be everything" - mogwai, take me somewhere nice

. . . although even the bits about "spaceships over Glasgow" from that track sound quite plaintive . . .

Alang, Cuz:

a) That song is in the past tense

b)I haf no golden summer to LOOK bak on.

(Put your foot on the fuzzbox baby = pure joy unabridged)

oh you got blue eyes oh you got green eyes oh you got grey eyes

A million reasons for wanting to carry on living; to achieve
A million things I am unlikely ever to carry out, but I like the make- believe

It must have fallen out of a hole in your old brown overcoat/ They never said your name but I knew just who they meant. Donna Summer, "On the Radio"

To the left is a marble shower/It was fun even for an hour/You're over the hill right now/ And you're looking for love. Velvet Underground, "New Age"

All the years of useless search have finally reached an end/Loneliness and empty days will be my only friend/ From this day love is forgotten, I'll go on as best I can. Carpenters, "Goodbye to Love"

You can't picture love that you took from me when we were young and the world was free/How I love things as they used to be, don't show me no more please. Kinks, "People Take Pictures of Each Other"

He came dancing across the water. Cortez, cortez...what a killer. Neil Young, "Cortez the Killer"

"time's time will smother you" - the Smiths, That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore

One of Morrissey's most resigned vocals ever . . .

If you're feeling upbeat, why not try this instead?

He came dancing across the water.

Hey, I'll go for that one, then. Heck, I even mentioned it the other day.

I know, I know, you reminded me, Ned. The way he just forlornly sings the lines "what a killer" after all the carnage of the solos, it's so great.

A symbiotic relationship! Woohoo!

goin' down three times and I'm only comin' up twice.-HW Hangin' out the window with a bottle full of rain.- Clap Hands-Tom Waits. way down there children, in a big black hole.- Oblivians

she was sweet sixteen with a 40 ounce/been trying to break bottles but they all bounce

That fact that you're married/Only proves you're my best friend -- Lou Reed, Pale Blue Eyes

Such a perfect day/You just keep me hanging on -- LR, Perfect Day

Waiting for the phone to ring/Diamond necklace on my shoulder -- VU, New Age (alternate lyrics)

I'm gonna stop wasting my time/Somebody else would've broken both her arms -- LR, Sad Song

"Your mom would drink until she was no longer speaking / and dad would dream of all the different ways to die / each one a little more than he could bear to try."

neutral milk hotel - king of carrot flowers pt 1

I spend so much time
Believing all the lies
To keep the dream alive
Now it makes me sad
It makes me mad at truth
For loving what was you

hah, billy idol always brings a tear to my eye

'Is it one dimensional or is it real/Is there anyone outside to tell you how you're supposed to feel'

Bob Dylan's jokes are his best tear-jerkers and vice-versa. F'rinstance:

Then she says, "I know you're an artist, draw a picture of me!"
I say, "I would if I could, but,
I don't do sketches from memory."

We're learning to live with somebody's depression -- David Bowie, Fantastic Voyage

There's gonna be some trouble/A whole house will need rebuilding/And everyone I love will recline on the analyst's couch quite soon. -- Morrissey, Now My Heart is Full

she quotes from 'lodger' = i am in luv

"If you wanna scream, scream with me. Moments like this never last." - Misfits, Hybrid Moments

"We forget someone giving us confidence when we were naive/Since it's mostly the confidence it took to leave" - Loud Family, "Motion of Ariel"

"Can I write a requiem about you when you're dead?"

"Stars of Track & Field" still does it for me every time.

They found her the next day cuffed to the bed
A rag in her mouth and a bullet in her head
O poor Mary Bellows -- Nick Cave

There's been times that I thought
I wouldn't last for long
But now I think I'm able to carry on
It's been a long, long time coming
But I know a change is gonna come
Oh, yes it will

speaking of the Loud Family, Scott Miller is great at these kinds of lines. The following are from _Real Nighttime_ alone:

"A year ago we would have called this...a good time"

"Give me all the gin I need/Because I may not be this strong/When I phone my parents and tell them that they're wrong"

"What will you do/If and when it falls apart on you?"

magnificent.

"the night life, it's not the right life, but it's my-y-y-y life"
sing it willie

My favourite lyrics ever and probably the only verse of any song I know by heart:

You can say the sun is shining if you really want to
I can see the moon and it seems so clear
You can take the road that takes to the stars now
I can take a road that I'll see me through

Nick Drake, Road

The circus is falling down on its knees
The big top is crumbling down
It's raining in Baltimore fifty miles east
Where you should be, no one's around

- Counting Crows, Raining In Baltimore

Thought I heard a rumblin'
Callin' to my name,
Two hundred million guns are loaded
Satan cries, "Take aim!"

- J.C Fogerty "Run Through The Jungle"

Alex, your mention of Nick Drake reminded me of some of
Syd Barrett's sadder lines:

Inside me I feel, alone and unreal.
Losing when my mind's astray.
I'm wondering who could be writing this song.
Remember those times I could call, through the clear day.
Why I am here, what's meant to be?
Tears, the life that was ours.
Seems a while since I could smile the way you do.
Away far too empty, oh so alone.

"And if I were a word would my letters number a hundred?/ More likely coarse and gutteral, one syllable, Anglo-Saxon" -Minutemen

"I know you're thinking of your nervous love / I know exactly what you're thinking of" - Daniel Johnston, "Hey Joe"

Speaking of the minutemen:

"How can I believe in books when my heart lies to me? I'm full of shit!"

The next part, "And the last thing she said was, 'I love you mom.'" is the one that always makes me choke up slightly.

"You know I never even knew their real names" Les Savy Fav, "Adopduction"

"We were close--very, very close" Sonic Youth, "Little Trouble Girl" tipping their hat to the Shangri-Las and making it 10x as poignant

"It's hard to let you GO-O-O-O-O-O!" Moby, "Bring Back My Happiness," sampling Ecstasy Passion & Pain's Barbara Roy

"I want to know my body/I know what's out not in me" Clinic, "Distortions"

"Ahh, you should be with me, babe/Ahh, you shouldn't go nowhere/And all I'm trying to tell you babe/Is happiness is waiting for you" DeBarge, "Stay with Me"

"Good things are coming, ahhhh-ahhhh" Luna, "Rhythm King"

The first full iteration of "There's nothing in the world that you can do for me" and then the chorus of "In life there's nothing in this world that you can do for me/I've done everything for you" Luomo, "Market"

"Because you move/The way you move/I've got to keep on moving with you" Luomo, "Synrko"

"Everybody's angry/It's hard not to be lazy" Ivy, "Get Out of the City"

"If I could show you/You would never leave it" Atmosphere, "The Abusing of the Rib"

"I know that living with you baby was sometimes hard/But I'm willing to give it another try" Sinead O'Connor, "Nothing Compares 2 U," for the way she sings it

"All you happy people" Frank Sinatra, "Angel Eyes"

"Ba-ba-ba-da-doo-ba-ba-boh/Ba-ba-ba-da-boh/Oh!/Ba-ba-ba-da-doo-ba-ba-boh/Ba-ba-ba-da-boh" The Jam, "Town Called Malice"

"No matter what you do or say/I'm gonna love you anyway" Supremes, "Come See About Me"

What's new?/Probably I'm boring you...

A soldier hides his uniform
in an eiderdown
says, "Never mind the war,
take me home again...
for the last time."

some more:

"And oh your lovely hair/ Has more beauty I declare/ Then all the tresses there/ From Smoketown to Oldham County" - Palace, Inc. (makes me shudder with melancholic nostalga for things/people Kentuckian).

and the chorus for Neil Young's "Out on the Weekend" does this too.

"we go down to the river, and into the river we dive"

grass grows in the icebox/ the year ends in the next room/ it is autumn and my camouflage is dying

Silver Jews, "Wild Kindness"

Some lines from songs that always did have an impact on me and then the singer/lyricist died and suddenly they're like a gazillion times more intense:

"she only wanted to be sixteen and free" - Blind Melon's "Changes"

"on my dying day I might be able to say I'm finally seeing things all your way" - Morphine's "All Your Way"

"ain't got no quarrels with God...ain't got no time to get old...Lord knows I'm weak" Sublime's "Badfish"

"Can't you see I try?/Swimming the same deep water as you is hard" - The Cure

I'm looking at the river but I'm thinking of the sea.

Speaking of Neil, the last verse of "Powderfinger" which I can't remember well enough here at work to quote.

king solomon's mines
exit 75
i'm still alive
i'm still alive
i'm still alive

- from tori amos - hotel

the aforementioned song also contains the great couplet:

where are the velvets / when you're coming down

I thought you were the girl I always dreamed about
But I let the dream go
And the promises broke
And the make-believe ran out...

-The Cure "A letter to Elise"

"are they still getting down where we used to go and dance"

- Marvin Gaye What's goin on

"When I die I don't want no part of Heaven,
I would not do heaven's work well."
Bruce Springsteen - Youngstown

"On a thousand islands in the sea
I see a thousand people just like me
A hundred unions in the snow
I watch them walking, falling in a row
We live always underground
It's going to be so quiet in here tonight
A thousand islands in the sea
It's a shame."

New Order - 'Leave Me Alone'

The "you, you won't be comin' around no more" chorus at the end of Cheap Trick's "Oh, Candy"

"We were a family, my darlin'/Right from the start" - Wilco, "My Darling"

"There ain't much to rake anyway in the fall" - The Replacements, "Here Comes A Regular"

The "words and dreams and a million screams" part of Weezer's "Across The Sea"...

...and, a few songs later on "Pinkerton," the "every time I pin down what I think want it slips away/the ghost slips away" line in "Butterfly"

In "Ballad Of Mott The Hoople," Ian Hunter gets off an impressive collection of melancholy-inducing lines -- I'll pick "still, I feel, somehow, we let you down"