A VH1 poll found that people (or at least those who watch VH1) think the best song lyric ever written comes from U2's One: "One life, with each other, sisters, brothers." Yawn.

Now it's up to us bloggers to supply alternative nominations. I'll throw out a couple, starting with "God save the queen, she ain't no human bean." Now that's what I call a rhyme.

More seriously, I've always liked this beginning from Van Morrison's Wild Night:

As you brush your shoes
Stand before the mirror
And you comb your hair
Grab your coat and hat
And you walk, wet streets
Tryin' to remember
All the wild night breezes
In your mem'ry ever

(John Mellencamp, in his cover version, changed the end to "All those wild nights breeze through your mind." What the hell was that about? (And don't get me going about Keb Mo changing Johnny Cash's "I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die." to "They say I shot a man in Reno, but that was just a lie.") There should be a law against this kind of thing.)

Another contender is the line, "Now we dolly back, now we fade to black," from Steely Dan's Haitian Divorce. And I haven't even started on Elvis Costello's wordsmithing. This topic will require a part two.