10 memorable lines from songs

Some of these songs are very old, some I've known since childhood. Some are newer. It is the power of the snippet, the rhyme, the turn of a phrase to move people that drives the songwriter.

"I'm a stranger here, No one you would know ...
I'm just passing through ... I am, therefore I go"

-- Mary Chapin Carpenter
(Good Night America,
from Between Here and Gone)

"I'll kindle my fires with the words I can't send you
And the roads I can't follow and the songs I can't sing ...
I'll wander forever on the sleigh bells of winter,
With the stars for a diamond and the world for a ring"

-- Townes Van Zandt
(Catfish Song, from At My Window)

"Love is a light in the sky,
And an unspoken lie,
And a half-whispered prayer"

-- Dave Carter
(Tanglewood Tree,
from Tanglewood Tree)

“It takes light years of nothing to let these stars shine through
It’s an empty road that finds its way back home to you”

-- Richard Shindell
(The Next Best Western,
from Reunion Hill)

"Only the ones who believe ever see what they dream,
Ever dream what comes true"

-- Beth Nielsen Chapman (& Mat Rollings)
(The Color of Roses,
from Sand And Water)

"She never thinks of me when I'm here ...
She only dreams of me when I'm gone"

-- Willie P. Bennett
(Faces, from Hobo's Taunt)

"Me I have no name for the love that keeps me going ...
I just keep getting saved"

-- Rick Keating
(Let Me Fall, unrecorded)

"And the grass is gone, the boy disappears,
And rain keeps falling like helpless tears ...
And what have they done to the rain?"

-- Malvina Reynolds
(What Have They Done To The Rain,
from Ear To The Ground)

"Tell my baby I said so long,
Tell my mother I did no wrong ...
Tell my brother to watch his own
And tell my friends to mourn me none"

-- Townes Van Zandt
(Rex's Blues, from Flying Shoes)

"I remember that time that you told me, you said
Love is touching souls
Surely you touched mine
Cause part of you pours out of me
In these lines from time to time"

-- Joni Mitchell
(A Case Of You, from Blue)

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