What do you consider great opening lines in a song? I’d like to limit this to opening lines, not somewhere in it or the chorus.
I thought of this because I heard ‘Sunday Morning Coming Down’ this morning.
“Well, I woke up Sunday morning
With no way to hold my head that didn’t hurt
And the beer I had for breakfast wasn’t bad
So I had one more for dessert”
Really sets the tone for this song.
In the mornin’ don’t say you love me 'cause I’ll only kick you out of the door
really sets up
You won’t need too much persuadin’ I don’t mean to sound degradin’
But with a face like that you got nothin’ to laugh about
I always liked the beginning of We Came Along This Road by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds:
I left by the back door
With my wife’s lover’s smoking gun
Sorta tells a whole story right there in two lines.
“Born to Be Wild” comes to mind immediately:
Get your motor running
Head out on the highway
Looking for adventure
In whatever comes our way
Draws me right in, although I think the best lines in the song, and a strong contender for best in all of rock and roll, are “Fire all of your guns at once and explode into space.”
Somewhere over the rainbow way up high
There’s a land that I heard of once in a lullaby
Peter Gabriel - Inrruder (on “Melt”)
I know something about
Opening windows and doors
I know how to move quietly
To creep across creaky wooden floors
Springsteen, Blinded by the Light.
The first lines on the first song of his first album:
Madman drummers bummers indians in the summer with a teenage diplomat
In the dumps with the mumps as the adolescent pumps his way into his hat
I’ve always thought that that song is like distilled sex. I think it’s because of the parts where the lead guitar is snarling and wailing while the singer sings, beginning at “Yeah darlin’ gonna make it happen” etc.
Bruce Springsteen’s Thunder Road begins:
The screen door slams, Mary’s dress waves
Like a vision, she dances across the porch as the radio plays
I can imagine exactly what Mary looks like, the kind of dress she’s wearing, the fact that she’s barefoot, and her twirly dance steps.
@Lucas_Jackson: yeah, Sunday Morning Coming Down opens perfectly as well.
Styx, “Renegade”
Oh,Mama, I’m in fear for my life from the long arm of the law.
Lawman has put an end to my running, and I’m so far from my home.
Oh, Mama, I can hear you a-crying, you’re so scared and all alone.
Hangman is coming down from the gallows, and I don’t have very long.
All in all, one of my favorite songs. “Be free!”
“Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through” by Jim Steinman:
You can’t run away forever
But there’s nothing wrong with getting a good head start
He left no time to regret
Kept his dick wet
With his same old safe bet
– Amy Winehouse, “Back to Black” (2007)
Tom Waits song Tom Traubert’s Blues (Four Sheets to the Wind in Copenhagen) (often mistakenly called Waltzing Mathilda) opens beautifully:
Wasted and wounded, it ain’t what the moon did, I’ve got what I paid for now
See you tomorrow, hey Frank, can I borrow a couple of bucks from you
To go waltzing Mathilda, waltzing Mathilda,
You’ll go waltzing Mathilda with me
You know right from the get go that old Tom is taking you somewhere interesting.
The first lines of Elvis Costello’s first song of his first album:
Now that your picture’s in the paper being rhythmically admired
And you can have anyone that you have ever desired
All you gotta tell me now is why, why, why, why?
Welcome to the working week
His wit and everything else he’s known for came out fully developed.
McCartney’s “Band on the Run”. It’s not really the opening line but the way the song is played it’s what I think of.
Slow music, “Stuck inside these four walls…”
Then a bit up tempo, “If I ever get out of here…”
Then dramatic power chords and the song shifts into high gear:
"Well, the rain exploded with a mighty crash
As we fell into the sun
And the first one said to the second one there
“I hope you’re having fun, band on the run…”
With a lot of great intros, it’s not the lines, but the delivery.
Consider Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb”.
Hello . . .
Is there anybody in there?
Just nod if you can hear me . . .
Is there anyone at home?
By themselves, the lyrics are pretty prosaic. But it’s the tune, and the tone, and the echoes, and the instruments that grab your attention.
I was just listening to Colin Hay doing a cover.
“Dirty old river, must you keep rolling, flowing into the night.”
Brooks and Dunn, “That ain’t no way to go”
Lipstick letter 'cross the mirror this morning
Said good-bye baby, she left without warning
Marseille by The Angels
"Bought me a box of French cigars
Bought me a black beret
Get my French from a girl next door
Teaching me night and day"