What is the worst ever line from a Bob Dylan song?

I reserve special ire for "When the Night Comes Falling From The Sky" and how Dylan mewls the mixed metaphor "I can hear your trembling heart beat like a river."

Ah, my friends from the prison, they ask unto me,
"How good, how good does it feel to be free?"
And I answer them most mysteriously,
"Are birds free from the chains of the skyway?"

"the sun aint yellow..." is great

"Lenny Bruce is dead but his ghost lives on and on
Never did get any Golden Globe award, never made it to Synanon."

Okay, so I know what Lenny didn't do. And?

Well, in the rest of the song, Bob tells you what he does, but in a very moralizing way.

It's the Golden Globes reference that gets to me, I think.

from "Heart of Mine"

I have dined with kings, I've been offered wings
And I've never been too impressed.

-- always reminds me of Charlene ("I've been undressed by kings..."), which at least is funny.

(By the way, when has he been "offered wings"? Hot wings? Or like when he flies the friendly skies? "Here, sir, let me pin this to your lapel...")

--- one line, indicts itself without so much as a weak rhyme to trigger the eye-rolling.

plus its hard not to consider the larger context of the song --- I dig "is your love in vain" for instance --- I like the horns, I like that part where he goes "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalright I'll take-a-chance" ----

"neighborhood bully" is just pure shit through and through ----

"We want to put his ass in stir
We want to pin this triple MUR-
der on him - he ain't no Gentleman Jim."

from Hurricane.

Every time I reread this thread, I'm taken pleasantly by surprise by the whole "But the sun ISN'T yellow!" thing. Still one of the most goofily WTF things I've read on ILX.

"How does it feel to be on your own, with no direction home; like a complete unknown. like a rolling stone?" = " Fire and ice, you come on like a flame and then you turn a cold shoulder; fire and ice, I wanna give you my love, but you'll just take a little piece of my heart - you'll just tear it apart."

I love the song it's from, but every time I hear the line "Many times I've often prayed" in "Girl From The North Country" I cringe a little bit.

Instead of stopping when we could we went right on
Till suddenly we found that the brakes were gone.

I always hated this:

Then she opened up a book of poems
And handed it to me
Written by an Italian poet
From the thirteenth century.
And every one of them words rang true
And glowed like burnin' coal
Pourin' off of every page
Like it was written in my soul from me to you,
Tangled up in blue.

esp "Like it was written in my soul from me to you"

haha, oh, I said as much upthread

i know, i opened the thread to bitch about "hurricane," but apparently i already did that.

Half my posts lately are repeats. I'm gettin old mang.

I'm not sure if this belongs in best or worst:

Listen to me Mr. Pussyman
This might be your last night in a bed so soft
We're not pimps on the make, politicians on the take,
You can't pay us off.

"The waitress, he was handsome."

man hurting is RONG

uh yeah, that is a great verse -- (the tangled up in blue one). any songwriter would kill to have written that, you kidding me? I agree with the Lenny Bruce mention above -- that song always baffled me. "I rode with him in a taxi once, only for a mile and a half, Seemed like it took a couple of months." Sounds like a boring taxi ride ...

"Lenny Bruce" really is just full of awful lines. The one that makes me scratch my head the most is "Never robbed any churches/Never cut off any babies' heads" That Lenny Bruce, such a hero in his unwillingness to cut off babies' heads.

haha, yeah that is a good one ... it is curious, because Dylan still plays that song live from time to time! And there are a ton of good songs he never plays ...

the lyric is, "the sun's NOT yellow, it's chicken."

Most of "Desire" has pretty bad lyrics, most of which come from Jacques Levy.

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Friday, February 11, 2005 8:43 PM (3 years ago)

Desire is full of howlers, most of which we can blame on Jacques Levy.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Friday, May 26, 2006 2:27 PM (2 years ago)

i think one of the things i like about dylan is that a lot of his lyrics are borderline-terrible -- full of ridiculously extravagant imagery and hackneyed rhymes and really corny stuff. but his voice and persona are so powerful that he makes it work, at least most of the time.

"I always hated this:

Then she opened up a book of poems
And handed it to me
Written by an Italian poet
From the thirteenth century.
And every one of them words rang true
And glowed like burnin' coal
Pourin' off of every page
Like it was written in my soul from me to you,
Tangled up in blue."

I like this because it feels like he is at least half-mocking the sentiment and the experience.

for me pretty much the whole lyric of sara is his worst.
that chorus - yowza.

J.D. otm

in a song called marijuanaville by tenacious D:

"And they say I sound like Dylan when I'm stoned!"

fucking hate that song, fucking Jack Black is not funny

his line, from the same song:

I have dined with kings, I've been offered wings
And I've never been too impressed.

-- always reminds me of Charlene ("I've been undressed by kings..."), which at least is funny.

(By the way, when has he been "offered wings"? Hot wings? Or like when he flies the friendly skies? "Here, sir, let me pin this to your lapel...")

― morris pavilion (samjeff), Friday, May 26, 2006 3:29 PM Bookmark

C'mon, how awesome is it if he was offered hot wings? He sits down to table with the King, expecting some sumptuous repast, and His Highness passes him a wing platter and starts going on about his secret sauce recipe!

This Wing's On Fire

this was the right answer:

Anyone up in this bitch ever listen to Another Side of Bob Dylan? If y'all did, you'd know the worst line AND verse ever in a Bob song is from Ballad In Plan D.
Ah, my friends from the prison, they ask unto me,
"How good, how good does it feel to be free?"
And I answer them most mysteriously,
"Are birds free from the chains of the skyway?"

― kornrulez6969 (TCBeing), Friday, May 26, 2006 2:46 PM (4 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

MOST MYS-TEER-EE-US-LEE

ah ballad in plain d is pretty i think

It's weird because if there are any chains-- any chains whatsoever-- that birds are free from, it's the skyway's. Everybody knows that. They do have some trouble with the chains that go on your tires in winter time though.

Guess that's why it's so mysterious.

His friends from the prison should've shanked him.

i refuse to believe anyone has actually listened to ballad in plain d more than once

The king was in his counting house counting out his money,
The queen was in the parlour eating bread and honey
The maid was in the garden hanging out the clothes,
When along came a blackbird and pecked off her nose.

Super-lame, imho.

The hot wings thing is just cracking me up today, thank you samjeff.

Rhymes in Sara make me cringe:

Now the beach is deserted except for some kelp

And a piece of an old ship that lies on the shore.

You always responded when I needed your help,

You gimme a map and a key to your door.

It doesn't get much worse than:
"Crimson flames tied through my ears rolling high and mighty traps
Pounced with fire on flaming roads using ideas as my maps"

hell no this is AMAZING.

i kinda think that if you can't appreciate that sort of wonderful, ridiculous shit you can't possibly be getting as much out of dylaan as you could be.

"There's a whole lotta...sufferin' tonight...from da disease of conceit..."

(STUPID OBVIOUS PIANO CHORDS}

how has "Rainy Day Woman #12 and 35" escaped this thread???

damn near the worst Dylan song, easily the worst Dylan lyrics

hahaha, I heard "Disease of Conceit" for the first time this morning and it's what prompted me to revive the thread, but I forgot once I hit the hot wings.