You can achieve what you want with the mysql console with the -s (--silent) option passed in.
It's probably a good idea to also pass in the -r (--raw) option so that special characters don't get escaped. You can use this to pipe queries like you're wanting.
mysql -u username -h hostname -p -s -r -e "select concat('this',' ','works')"
EDIT: Also, if you want to remove the column name from your output, just add another -s (mysql -ss -r etc.)