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  • From Dylan, I've always been partial to this, from Mr Tambourine Man:

    And take me disappearing through the smoke rings of my mind
    Down the foggy ruins of time
    Far past the frozen leaves
    The haunted frightened trees
    Out to the windy beach
    Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow
    Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky
    With one hand waving free
    Silhouetted by the sea
    Circled by the circus sands
    With all memory and fate
    Driven deep beneath the waves
    Let me forget about today until tomorrow

    I love the way it deviates from previous verses by including a couple more lines than them, which he just sort of works in there.

    Beyond Dylan, I really like Leonard Cohen's lines in So Long, Marianne:

    Now I need your hidden love
    I'm cold as a new razor blade.
    You left when I told you I was curious…
    I never said that I was brave

    And from R.E.M. loads of examples, but the first that springs to mind is some of the imagery in Driver 8:

    I saw a treehouse on the outskirts of the farm
    The power lines have floaters so the airplanes won't get snagged
    The bells are ringing through the town again
    The children look up, all they hear is sky-blue bells ringing

    And later:

    He piloted this song in a plane like that one
    She is selling faith on the Go Tell Crusade
    Locomotive 8, Southern Crescent, hear the bells ring again
    The fields of wheat is looking thin

    Just so evocative of travelling through a vast, open countryside.

    • Take a look at the original post, mr tambourine man is my favourite too! Don't thin i've heard driver 8, will give it a go

      • Oh, ha ha, I didn't even realise that this was a cross post! How funny that we picked the exact same lyric :-)

        Ok, in that case I'll add this one, from Ballad of a Thin Man:

        You raise up your head and you ask, "Is this where it is?"
        And somebody points to you and says, "It's his"
        And you say, "What's mine?" and somebody else says, "Well, what is?"
        And you say, "Oh my God, am I here all alone?"

37 comments