Gotta concur. Another favorite is Elvis Costello’s “Tokyo Storm Warning”:
“The sky fell over cheap Korean monster-movie scenery
And spilled into the mezzanine of the crushed-capsule hotel”
First line, first song, first album:
“Madman drummers bummers and Indians in the summer with a teenage diplomat/In the dumps with the mumps as the adolescent pumps his way into his hat” - Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, Greetings From Asbury Park, “Blinded By The Light”
I’ve always thought that it took some serious guts to kick things off with that song.
thwartme
"Please allow me to introduce myself . . . . "
Hey hey mama said the way you move
Gonna make you sweat, gonna make you groove
Johnny’s in the basement
Mixing up the medicine
I’m on the pavement
Thinking about the government…
Dylan - Subterranean Homesick Blues
+1
Guys, please remember the OP asked for 1st lines of 1st songs on 1st albums.
(Yeah, I know JJ was in the Runaways…)
Nope. The OP discussed the first line of the first song of a first album and then asked for the best first lines which is, at best, ambiguous.
And seriously, who even knows what position a song was on an album any more. I’m willing to participate in a Cafe Society thread, but I’ll be darned if I’ll do * research * for one.
Well, if we count the US version of the album, here’s a first line of a first album:
“I tripped the light fandango.”
Play It All Night Long-Zevon
“Grandpa pissed his pants again
He don’t give a damn
Brother Billy has both guns drawn
He ain’t been right since Viet Nam”
Why don’t we do it in the road?
That’s the 4th line, silly.
“Welcome back my friends
To the show that never ends.”
Karn Evil #9, Emerson, Lake & Palmer
“Never was a Navy brat
But my father was yeah
He warned me not to make
Friends with weather”
Meg & Dia, “One Sail”
“One soft infested summer me and Terri became friends
Trying in vain to breathe the fire we was born in”
Bruce - Backstreets
Led Zeppelin - Good Times, Bad Times:
The Doors - Break on Through
I love the bravado of Jet- Last chance:
I am fond of Fake Palindromes by Andrew Bird, which opens with:
“my dewy-eyed Disney bride what has tried
swapping your blood with formaldehyde?
Monsters?”
Andrew Bird’s lyrics tend to be deliciously wordy in general.
For sheer impact, Regina Spektor belting out: “I kissed your lips and I tasted blood” at the start of Your Honor works for me.
Um. I guess those are the ones that stick out to me from my recent playlists. I don’t know about best.
It was Christas eve, babe
In the drunk tank
- the Pogues, Fairy tale of New York
I’ve been waiting for a guide to come and take me by the hand*
- Joy Division, Disorder (first line, first album to boot)
Got a wife and kids in Baltimore, Jack
I went out for a ride and I never went back