Great opening lines to songs

meanredspider

The money would be pretty good
If a quart of milk was still a dollar
Or if a quart of milk was still a quart.
And the hours, well, I don't mind
If they creep on by like an old love of mine,
It's the years that simply disappear that are doin' me in.

Cowboy Junkies - A Horse in the Country.

meanredspider

What I've learned from this thread (NSS) is that great opening lines are most often from great songs written by great songwriters.

bianchimoon

What a dream I had
Pressed in organdy
Clothed in crinoline of smoky Burgundy
Softer than the rain

I wandered empty streets down
Past the shop displays
I heard cathedral bells
Tripping down the alleyways
As I walked on

Beautiful lyrics, paints a wonderful picture

Frank the tank

I'm walking down this lonely avenue
A picture of your face keeps coming through
I know I won't forget what I did today
Ooooh, I walked away.

I walked away / Bobby Paris

FocusZing

Came in from a rainy Thursday on the avenue
Thought I heard you talking softly
I turned on the lights, the TV, and the radio
Still I can't escape the ghost of you

Pross

FocusZing wrote:

Came in from a rainy Thursday on the avenue
Thought I heard you talking softly
I turned on the lights, the TV, and the radio
Still I can't escape the ghost of you

Their best song by a mile.

peteco

Light switch, yellow fever, crawling up your bathroom wall
Singing psychedelic praises to the depths of a china bowl
You've got venom in your stomach, you've got poison in your head
You should have listened to the priest at the confession
When he offered you the sacred bread.

FocusZing

The handshake, seals the contract
From the contract, there's no turning back
The turning point, of a career
A career, of being insincere.

Words like violence, break the silence
Come crashing in, into my little world
Painful to me, pierce right through me

bianchimoon

Pross wrote:

FocusZing wrote:

Came in from a rainy Thursday on the avenue
Thought I heard you talking softly
I turned on the lights, the TV, and the radio
Still I can't escape the ghost of you

Their best song by a mile.

Only song of theirs I ever play regularly

secretsam

Pross wrote:

FocusZing wrote:

Came in from a rainy Thursday on the avenue
Thought I heard you talking softly
I turned on the lights, the TV, and the radio
Still I can't escape the ghost of you

Their best song by a mile.

I beg to differ:

"Out on the tar plains, the glides are moving
All looking for a new place to drive
You sit beside me so newly charming
Sweating dewdrops glisten fresh on your side"

mr_goo

Wanna tell you story
About woman I know
When it comes to lovin'
She steals the show
She ain't exactly pretty
Ain't exactly small
Fourt'two thirt'ninefiftysix
You could say she's got it all

bianchimoon

Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river
You can hear the boats go by
You can spend the night beside her
And you know that she's half crazy
But that's why you want to be there
And she feeds you tea and oranges
That come all the way from China
And just when you mean to tell her
That you have no love to give her
Then she gets you on her wavelength
And she lets the river answer
That you've always been her lover

bianchimoon

A heritage of vision
Was given to us all
To smell the rose's fragrance
To hear the songbird's call
To watch the distant moonlight fill
The coming of the tides
To understand that life is more
Than always choosing sides

a great song - maybe we could all learn from the last two lines

laurentian

"I am an antichrist, I am an anarchist . . ."

Spat out by a sulphate surfing Johnny Rotten takes some beating for a great opening line . . .

FocusZing

I like some of his work from public image ltd.

crispybug2

laurentian wrote:

"I am an antichrist, I am an anarchist . . ."

Spat out by a sulphate surfing Johnny Rotten takes some beating for a great opening line . . .

I've always thought that the opening was somewhat ruined by the Sid James style laugh that precedes the opening lines, he could have been ushering in a new music phenomenon but he sounds as if he could just as easily be goosing a passing nurse!!

joe2008

Babylon's burning
You're burning the street
You're burning your houses
With anxiety

FocusZing

Eugène Pottier (Billy Brag) - The Internationale

Stand up all victims of oppression
For the tyrants fear your might
Don't cling so hard to your possessions
For you have nothing if you have no rights
Let racist ignorance be ended
For respect makes the empires fall
Freedom is merely privilege extended
Unless enjoyed by one and all

Lyrics of history.

mrfpb

"Sitting on a park bench,
eyeing little girls with bad intent"

Aqualung by Jethro Tull

So much of my music collection from the 70s is way off-beam by modern standards.

mrfpb

A couple of Richard Thompson's more creepy offerings:

"I feel for you, you little horror
Safe at your mother's breast
No lucky break for you around the corner
'Cause your father is a bully
And he thinks that you're a pest"

from The End of the Rainbow

"Here I am in your room going through your stuff
Said you'd be gone five minutes, that's time enough
Here in your drawer there's lacy things
Old credit cards and beads and bangles and rings
But I think I've found what I'm looking for
Hidden away at the back of the drawer
Here's the life that you led before"

from Cold Kisses

joe2008

Inflammable material, planted in my head
It's a suspect device that's left two thousand dead

BelgianBeerGeek

mrfpb wrote:

"Sitting on a park bench,
eyeing little girls with bad intent"

Aqualung by Jethro Tull

So much of my music collection from the 70s is way off-beam by modern standards.

The cover alone of "An Old Raincoat Won't Ever Let You Down" is way off...

shockedsoshocked

"All of your friends are c*nts, your mother is a ball point pen theif"

FocusZing

...

joe2008

When you cast your eyes upon the skylines
Of this once proud nation
Can you sense the fear and the hatred
Growing in the hearts of its population

Alain Quay

"And another thing"

Opening line of 'What's my scene" by Hoodoo Gurus

Alain Quay

“Old man look at my life, I’m a lot like you were”