What's the single greatest lyric in the history of recorded music?! I totally know that!

Whew! I just got back from Ashland, Oregon. I hung out with family and saw Hamlet at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Fun times! However, when I drive twelve hours in three days, I listen to a lot of music. I probably had a three to one music-to-podcast ratio on this odyssey. NINE HOURS OF MUSIC, PEOPLE. A lot can happen to a man's ears in nine hours. 

I've been listening to more podcasts than music lately, so going back to an old playlist of some of my favorite songs was really fun. I started thinking about lyrics that have resonated with me over a long period of time. Harsh human truths, wacky phonetic gymnastics, profound metaphors, slick slant rhymes, sharp imagery. These are the things that really melt my butter. That sounded odd, but I'm leaving it! Anyway, these lines obviously benefit from the intersection of words, vocals, and music. But while they're all from kick-ass songs, they also stand out on the page.

Here are the lyrics I heard today that are all-timers for me:

Well, the girls would turn the color of an avocado, when he would drive down the street in his El Dorado (Modern Lovers)

I had a man in every town, but I thought of you each time I tore off my gown (Marissa Nadler)

First of all, who's your A & R? A mountain climber who plays an electric guitar. But he don't know the meaning of dope when he's looking for a suit and tie rap that's cleaner than a bar of soap (Wu Tang [GZA])

You've been makin' your brags around town that you've been lovin' my man, but the man I love, when he picks up trash, he puts it in a garbage can. (Loretta Lynn)

Cause I always say "I love you" when I mean "turn out the light". And I say "let's run away" when I just mean "stay the night". (Magnetic Fields [Jason Merritt])

I kissed goodbye the howling beast on the borderline that separated you from me. (Bob Dylan)

I drink Moët with Medusa, give her shotguns in hell, from the spliff that I lift and inhale, it ain't hard to tell (Nas using the double meaning of getting stoned off marijuana and Medusa turning people that look at her into stone. Whaaaaaaaaaat? So great)

Again and again the same situation, after so many years, tethered to a ringing telephone in a room full of mirrors (Joni Mitchell)

Lucy you're my girl, Lucy you're a star, Lucy please be still and hide your madness in a jar, but do beware, it will follow you, it will follow you (Brian Eno)

The captain is a one-eyed dwarf, he's throwing dice along the wharf, in the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king (Tom Waits)

I'm seeing body after body and our Mayor Giuliani ain't trying to see no black man turn into John Gotti (Notorious BIG) 

They say he sprung from the skull of Athena, think of your own head and the headache he gave (Liz Phair) 

Mama, here comes midnight with the dead moon in its jaws (Songs: Ohia [Jason Molina]) 

It doesn't mean that much to me to mean that much to you (Neil Young)

Any other suggestions?! Leave them in the comments for a chance to win a Sony Walkman signed by Bea Arthur's ex-housekeeper!