Best Opening Line Of A Song
 

What's your favorite all-time opening line for a song?

I have so many, but I'll narrow it down to two:

1) "When you're lost in the rain in Juarez And it's Eastertime too." (Bob Dylan, Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues)

2) "I went home with a waitress the way I always do." (Warren Zevon, Lawyers, Guns and Money)

Would love to hear about your faves. If possible, also please identify title of tune and performing artist/writer of the song. Thanks!

I've got a little change in my pocket going gang alang alang........

That sounds great. Please identify writer and song title so I can learn some new great tunes.

JWP: I found it: John Anderson

Thanks! Good one!

"I am not in love, but I'm open to persuasion". first line of Love and affection, Joan Armatrading.

"Help!". beginning of Help!, Lennon/McCartney.

Keith

I think most people know that by the band rather than songwriter ... Georgia Satellites, circa 1986-ish.

Screendoor slams, Mary's dress waves, like a vision she dances across the porch, as the radio plays.

You beat me to an excellent Dylan track! As one of our resident Dylan-Freaks, let me give you a couple more great opening lines from the great:

'Johnny's in the basement, mixing up the medicine; I'm on the pavement, thinking about the government...' - Subterranean Homesick Blues (Hell, the whole song is a run on sentence...)

'My love she speaks like silence, without ideals or violence, doesn't have to say she's faithful, yet she's true like ice, like fire.' - Love Minus Zero

'They sat together in the park, as the evening sky grew dark; she looked at him and he felt a spark, tingle to his bones.' - Simple Twist of Fate


I could pull two or three songs from every Dylan record, but I'm just going to jump to a more recent one... ;)

'There's an evening haze settling over town, starlight by the edge of the creek - the buying power of the proletariat's gone down, money's getting shallow and weak.' - Workingman's Blues #2


Man, he can write a good intro to a song.


But, here's my all time favorite lyrical intro:

"The screen door slams, Mary's dress waves - like a vision she dances across the floor as the radio plays. Roy Orbison is singing for the lonely, hey, that's me and I want you only - Don't turn me home again, I can't face myself alone again."

Longer than a sentence, but darn - what an incredibly good intro. Thunder Road, Springsteen.

EDIT: My god, Yanto published his as I wrote mine - Didn't see his. That is crazy!

On a morning from a Bogart movie, in a country where they turned back time, you go strolling through the crowd like Peter Lorre, contemplating a crime.

-Al Stewart, Year of the Cat

:)

Greg Rappleye

He was standin by the highway
With a sign that just said mother
When he heard a driver comin
bout a half a mile away
Then he held the sign up higher
Where no decent soul could miss it
It was ten degrees or colder
Down by Boulder Dam that day

First ones that came for me are also Dylan.

"You must leave now, take what you need, you think will last. But whatever you wish to keep, you better grab it fast." --from "It's All Over Now Baby Blue"

And a more obscure one for all you fans of the Blood on the Tracks era songs in open E tuning, "Up to Me":

"Everything went from bad to worse, money never changed a thing. Death kept following, tracking us down, at least I heard his bluebird sing."

And my non-Dylan favorite goes to Guy Clark, from "Dublin Blues":

"Well I wish I was in Austin---mmmmhhmmmm---in the Chili Parlor bar drinking Mad Dog margaritas and not caring where you are."

+1. Georgia Sattelites! :):D

Woke up this morning, put on my slippers, walked in the kitchen and died.-----John Prine

10 Degrees or Colder -- Gordon Lightfoot


"Neon shines through smoky eyes tonight--it's 2 am, I'm drunk again--it's heavy on my mind." Grace is Gone--Dave Matthews

"Don't call it a comeback/I've been here for years."

--LL Cool J








What? :confused:

"I was standing by my window on a cold and cloudy day"

-- Will the Circle Be Unbroken as done by the Carter Family

"Hello stranger, put your loving hand in mine"

-- Hello Stranger as done by the Carter Family