I increasingly feel that the opening lyric to a song can set the entire mood for it. There are some truely great opening lines in all of the music I listen to.
When the artist is able to match exactly the lyric with the feel of the music, then you have something genuinely special. Listen to this by the Counting crows. Good Night Elizabeth. I have said before I am a big fan of the Counting crows, much of that admiration has to do with this song.
i was wasted in the afternoon waiting on a train
I woke up in pieces
Elizabeth was gone once again.
i love the way the guitar has that long lazy pulled out note to it. It reminds me of being wasted in the afternoon, on a sunny day and feeling a bit melancholic about it. That song also has the great line
We couldn't all be cowboys
so some of us are clowns
that is awesome, i love the imagery and the self depreciation that goes with that statement. Goes along with being wasted in the afternoon I think.
It can also go massively the other way. Placebo are a band I have not talked much about yet. There is something about Placebo which makes them just that little bit dangerous. I have always had the feeling with them that no matter how bad i have been over the years. No matter what i did, tried, even thought about, these guys were always a number of steps fiurther down, along or in front of the path i was going to. Not that i ever went anything like as far as i perceive they must have however.
This song is Black eyed
I was never faithful and i was never one to trust
boderline in schitzo and guaranteed to cause a fuss.
Very simple statements made into a great lyric, by the sheer fact of the whole unanswered nature of it. What did you do?? It sounds very much like it was a pretty honest and bare fact statement. One wonders whom it was said to if indeed anyone specific. Very cool in its lack of defference to any type of moralistic standard.
It can also make a song very aggressive. There are a couple of examples of this. iggy and the Stooges have a song called Search and Destroy.
(video courtesy of Apocalpse Now and Full Metal Jacket - very cool films)
The lyric is ' I am street walking Cheeta with a heart full of Napalm'
That's cool. It provides a sense of menace, it also opens the album Raw Power. the Stooges last album of their first stint together. So their last real album. It is a pretty good indication of the kind of energy they really had. Iggy pop is an interesting character. very much idolised now, his body of work isn't nearly as out there as people imagine. Really, listen to little china girl - his version, which he also wrote. Candy, even Real Wild child is actually pretty tame despite the somewhat indulgent lyrics.
Anyway, lets have a bit more fun with this.
here is some heavy Metal teen angnst from Five Finger Death Punch - song ashes
You don't understand me
and you probably never will.
Aww , sweety, come here and have a hug. it's going to be ok really. I love the parts of metal that are so panto that it is hard not too laugh. I am sure when he actually wrote the lines had tears pouring out of his head at the sheer injustice of whom ever it is he is talking about. i will give pretty good odds on it being his father though. it normally is with these guys. That is why they act so tough.
Anyway, here is the oposite end of the spectrum completely from acting tough, Mika. I like the energy in this song.
I want to talk to you
The last time we talked mr Smith you reduced me to tears
I promise you it wont happen again
That is fun. it is very 1950s movies. Which is a good reminder that music can also be fun, it doesn't have to always be serious.
On that note, I am going to leave it there. I think almost every great song has a briliant opening line. I brought some of the more obscure ones here. I have not discussed Led Zeppelin, who have multiple songs with great lines, as do many other great artists. Actually now that i think about it I want you to listen to this please.
Neil Young - Like a hurricane
Once I thought I saw you
in crowded hazy bar
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