best "rock" (or whatever) couplet ever

Once built a steamboat in a meadow
Because I'd forgotten how to sail.

the stockings are hung, but who cares
preserved for those no longer there

Still there's a light I hold before me
You're the measure of my dreams

he is the king of children
singing like a boiler, 'tomorrow is on its way'

Maybe I should just change my style
But I feel alright when you smile

Counting the cost in money only
Strikes me as funny don’t you know

Holidays and salad days
And days of moldy mayonnaise

(A bit of a cheat)

And in the end
The love you take
Is equal to the love you make

wait awhile eternity
old mother nature's got nothin on me

so many amazing lines in that song. I think my favorite couplet is the last one:

It's Christmas in prison, there'll be music tonight.
I'll prob'ly get homesick. I love you. Goodnight.

yeah beautiful. he can deploy a word rhyming with itself like no other (not being sarcastic).

i also deeply love the image of

The search light in the big yard swings round with the gun
And spotlights the snowflakes like the dust in the sun

and the chess game... they're all great

The searchlight might be my favorite image in any song. just so instantly evocative and so beautiful.

And if you survive 'til 2005, i hope you're exceedingly thin
For if you are stout you will have to breathe out while the people around you breathe in

Many things on my mind
Words in the way

and that ain't no joke
you can disappear in smoke

it's like we're at a Ponzi scam-inar:
-there's no escaping without a door prize
-they're operating at significant loss

Oh, I never should have said the books that you read
Were all I loved you for

I can dance like Sherlock Holmes
I can sing like Sherlock Holmes
But I can't be Sherlock Holmes

he took a ride on the new highway
a culvert down to the ducks and drakes

In the fragrance sweet of the evening air
I could leave this world quite without a care