‘A Hard Day’s Night’ by The Beatles is good but ‘I Feel Fine’ is even better - it must have sounded so different from anything that came before.
Hard Day’s Night doesn’t have much of an intro: a single chord.
There’s, of course, Foreplay by Boston.
Yeah, but what a chord!
Renegade - *Styx * How can you NOT sing along to that?
Train Train - Blackfoot
Lots of good ones. But three new ones
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Tubular Bells by Mike Oldfield. Very recognizable thanks to that devil movie.
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Like a Rolling Stone. Just a crash, but what a crash.
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NSU by Cream.
Not a favorite, but interesting, is the intro to Love Like a Man by Ten Years After. It’s one long organ chord. I once won a record from a radio station by identifying the song from this. The chord is so long that I was able to identify it, dial the station (on a rotary phone) and have the deejay pick up while the chord was still playing.
Bittersweet Symphony - The Verve
Hero of the Day - Metallica
Fanfare for the Common Man by Aaron Copeland
Hey Nineteen - Steely Dan
Shimmer - Fuel
Learning to Fly - Pink Floyd
In My Life - The Beatles
Badge - Cream
Pilgrim for Your Love (?) - Cream
Pets - Porno for Pyros
Rollercoaster - Red Hot Chili Peppers
Interstate Love Song - Black Crows
"Carnival of Sorts (Boxcars)" - R.E.M. (The calliope music fading in and out adds a nice mysterious undertone.)
Stand - REM
A lot of already mentioned songs, and…
Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress, by The Hollies
Wipeout
I assume you mean Sunshine of Your Love? That’s a good one also. I chose NSU because it is more obscure and it’s not repeated so explicitly within the song.
If you can get your mitts on a copy of the Easy Star All-Stars reggae cover of Dark Side of the Moon, called Dub Side of the Moon, you might appreciate their intro to Time. I’d recommend the album to any Floyd fan - it’s done with invention and a nice sense of humour, and Frankie Paul’s version of Us and Them is genuinely great.
“Voodoo Chile” - either Stevie Ray Vaughn or Jimi
“FM” - Steely Dan
“I Need a Lover” - John Cougar (Mellencamp)
(also agree with “Sweet Jan” (live) - Lou Reed)
Not a very well-known track, but I’ll throw in Tony Banks’ piano intro on Genesis’ “Firth of Fifth”.
Actually, it was just Clapton on his own and I’m not sure of the title, but it contained the lyrics, “I’m a pilgrim for your love…” or something like that. I can never remember the title.
I think the title is Pilgrim.
There’s a video here which plays for 5 min 52 sec, of which the intro occupies 45 sec.
I liked it, but it could be longer with some bass guitar & keyboards. 