The most Hold Steady-esque line Craig Finn has written

[nowah]

Or maybe "I ain't gonna do anything sexual with you, I'm kinda saving myself for the scene."

Or "she asked what I'd like bein' better: trash bin or ice machine."

[delboydrums]

What was I thinking....?

There I was thinking about my favourite line, but of course the answer has to be:


"I'm not saying we could save you. But we could put you in a place where you could save yourself"



THAT is the Hold Steady.


THAT is what they do.

[stephano]

Tramps like us and we like Tramps

That was the line that sold me on the band.

[wealdstone]

I think I might have mentioned that before

[doctoracula]

Do you want me to tell it like boy meets girl and the rest is history? or do you want it like a murder mystery? I'm gonna tell it like a comeback story

that sums up every single song of theirs to me. it's all perspective and where the storyteller decides to end the story.

[dabook]

She said the theme of this party's the Industrial Age
And you came in dressed like a train wreck

[Alex]

Lotta good contenders but I thought about this a lot after they played Charlemagne at the Seattle show: "We had a gun in the glove box / We had some sweet stuff tucked into our socks / We had Jesus Christ in all his glory."

[theoyster]

Old albums--Impossible for me to pick one, there are 20 classic lines in this thread alone.

Teeth Dreams--from Almost Everything

"Sat in the back of the theater just drinking and talking
About movies and Krishna and hardcore and Jesus and joy."

There's a whole lot of THS history & characters in those two lines.

[saintjoe]

Jul 18, 2014 10:58:57 GMT -5 robs said:

"Half naked and three quarters wasted"

"They started kissing when the nurses took off their IVs
It was kinda sexy, but it was kinda creepy
Their mouths were fizzy with the cherry cola
They had the privacy of bedsheets
And all the other kids were mostly in comas"

Love these suggestions. That verse from Chill Out Tent always makes me laugh, and only could have been written by The Hold Steady.

How about:

Raise a toast to Saint Joe Strummer
I think he might have been our only decent teacher

[jtd7]

Jul 19, 2014 13:59:43 GMT -5 nowah said:

"I ain't gonna do anything sexual with you, I'm kinda saving myself for the scene."

That's another big favorite of mine.

Off the new album I like this one a lot:

That kid who went down isn't dead, he just can't find his phone

There's another line I like a whole lot, not as a stand-alone line, but for how it works in the song. It's towards the end of "The Only Thing" and it comes after a couple lines of vague description:

She's been senseless. She's been sad.
It got bad around March or April, then I thought it got better.
She's been wasted. She's been honest.

Then all of a sudden he gets specific:

She's got a necklace, it looks pretty expensive, I'd like to know where she got it.

The whole scene snaps into focus with that line.

[orzelc]

"The Swish" came up on shuffle-play while I was driving yesterday, and it occurred to me that if you interpret "most Hold Steady-esque line" as something you can't possibly imagine any other band committing to tape, something like "She said my name's Neal Schon, but people call me Nina Simone. Some people call me Andre Cymone, I survived the 80's one time already." would work. I have no idea what that means, but I'm pretty sure nobody else would've come up with that and put it on an album.

On the other hand, if you took nowah's suggestion and extended it back one line to pick up the St. Theresa reference, you'd have just about all of Craig's lyrical obsessions in one couplet. "They were breaking bread and giving thanks, with crosses made of pipes and planks leaned up against the nitrous tanks" is another good run at that.

[stephano]

You gotta go with with what got you there, I came with chipped teeth and bleached blond hair
You gotta make do with what they gave to you, You know they took ten bucks and my tennis shoes.

[lonelyacrobat]

These parties, they start lovely, but they get druggy, and they get ugly, and they get bloody.

Come ON!

[jwd]

"Girl I've seen your friend. She looks nothing like Jada Pinkett."

[jwd]

Or in all fairness, "I always dream about a Unified Scene"

[I'M THAT GUY!]

Jul 18, 2014 12:56:00 GMT -5 charlie said:

"the sing-along songs will be our scriptures."

This one has always been the line for me. 

[bloodystereos]

No. No. No.

"Searchin for the merchant with the five second delivery."

slick. eye wink. honesty.

[bloodystereos]

well. I paraphrased a bit.

[I'M THAT GUY!]

Jul 25, 2014 17:31:47 GMT -5 bloodystereos said:

No. No. No.

"Searchin for the merchant with the five second delivery."

slick. eye wink. honesty.

I'm that guy who doesn't get it. 

[djklambake]

She said the theme of this party's the Industrial Age

And you came in dressed like a train wreck.

[nelg]

I think one line that embodies quite a bit of what they are about is "Heaven is whenever we can get together".

[312tired]

I'll got out on a limb and take something new from "Oaks" - This song just destroys me.

"The kids on the corner making eyes at the cars;"
"And if you want to be saved all it takes is a wave."

[bloodystereos]

heresay and conjecture

[dabook]

and some nights the bus wouldnt even stop
there were just too many kids.

[nowah]

I'm not drunk, I'm cut
I'm gushing blood
And I need someone to come and pick me up