| Author | Message | ||
     Little Keith Member Username: Manosludge Post Number: 2151 Registered: 03-2006 |
I saw an article someplace that listed great opening lines and thought that the GBs had more than their share of great song openers - lines that set the scene, that suck you into the action and keep you listening... Two occur immediately, but I'm sure there are plenty of others. The two that seem most memorable to me right off the bat are: "I recall a schoolboy coming home through fields of cane to a house of tin and timber" (Obvious, I know, but it's just epic) and "Remembered your name, evidently you've forgotten mine" (Forster at his prissy, snarky best). | ||
| Allen Belz Member Username: Abpositive Post Number: 595 Registered: 09-2006 |
Off the bat as well: "I used to say dumb things. I guess I still do." "Tallulah took a shower for an hour/and walked down the street feeling beautiful and clean" | ||
| Catherine Vaughan Member Username: Catherine Post Number: 111 Registered: 05-2005 |
Allen beat me to Apology Accepted. I love that line. But right off, these others have come to mind: "Feel so sure of our love, I write a song about us breaking up." And every time without fail, that I put one on, this line dances across my brain. Don't tell me I'm the only one. "Dressed in a white shirt with my hair combed straight" | ||
| Matthias Member Username: Matthias Post Number: 239 Registered: 05-2005 |
There are so many but to here are my favorites... Unique - Love is a sign: "I'm ten feet under water standing in a sunken canoe. Looking up at the waterlillies They're green and violet blue" Funny - Head full of steam: "I'd never met her type she ignored me and that's alright. Never to be friends or my body lie on her floor. Her father works, her mother works in exports but that's of no importance at all" Saucy - Hope than Strife: "I think I'm getting it right this time; I can tell by the way she grins." Romantic - Bachelor Kisses: "Hey wait, please wait, Don't rush off, You won't be late." Frankly - Five Words: "It starts with a birthstone and ends with a tombstone" Heartbreaking - Part Company: "Come and have a look, beside me A fine line of tears, part company. That's her handwriting, that's the way she writes From the first letter I got to this her Bill of Rights, part company." | ||
| Kurt Stephan Member Username: Slothbert Post Number: 1492 Registered: 04-2005 |
So many great ones--these boys knew how to write great opening lines. How about: "Were you born or just conceived?" "A widow's life is no life at all" "A white moon appears like a hole in the sky" "I was slowly dying in a clinic just outside LA" "There's a cat in my alleyway, dreaming of birds that are blue" etc... | ||
| Allen Belz Member Username: Abpositive Post Number: 596 Registered: 09-2006 |
No, Catherine, you're not the only one...  | ||
| joe Member Username: Dogmansuede Post Number: 279 Registered: 07-2006 |
BK. gets to me every time. most of the time i can't even listen to it (too closely anyway) the first two lines of love goes on! are just sublime as well. come to think of it, they've got the opening line thing down pat don't they!?!? | ||
| Rick Hawkins Member Username: Hamlet Post Number: 10 Registered: 01-2008 |
They're brilliant opening lines in practically every song! I especially love To Reach Me: "Never thought I'd ever hear from you / My slapped face has healed so has the misunderstanding" | ||
| Charles Coy Member Username: Coy Post Number: 61 Registered: 10-2006 |
..there is a cat in the alley way dreaming of birds that are blue, sometimes when I'm lonely that's when I think about you..& Diamonds on the water at 5 o'clock..... She knows that I'm not ready... | ||
| Charles Coy Member Username: Coy Post Number: 62 Registered: 10-2006 |
..sorry Joe and Kurt, Love goes on was your select...just got a bit excited,been away with work...and I forgot the 'girl' after sometimes.. On the London 'live' album though , GW sang 'theres this cat in the alley way.. | ||
| Pat Boland Member Username: Pat_boland Post Number: 48 Registered: 05-2005 |
No shortage of contenders, Liberty Belle alone has more than it's fair share of great opening lines. "A trader in furs, living in exile ..." "You opened my mail, apart at the seams Now you know I live beyond my means" "Everybody said that she's good in bed Other people said that she's well read" "A white moon appears like a hole in the sky ...." "You can have hearing loss when you're boyfriend says he's boss ...." "I blow the dust from your lips and beg forgiveness ..." "I was slowly dying in a clinic just outside of L.A." | ||
| fsh Member Username: Fsh Post Number: 184 Registered: 05-2005 |
Ba ba ba ba ba, ba ba ba ba ba, ba ba ba ba ba | ||
| fsh Member Username: Fsh Post Number: 185 Registered: 05-2005 |
Ba ba ba ba ba, ba ba ba ba ba, ba ba ba ba ba | ||
| Charles Coy Member Username: Coy Post Number: 63 Registered: 10-2006 |
...and dont the sun look good today.. | ||
| mojolicious Unregistered guest |
I feel so sure of our love I'll write a song about us breaking up... Which, I suspect, is partially inspired by Orange Juice's earlier I started to write this song about you, Then I decided that I would write it all about love. Possibly. | ||
| Catherine Vaughan Member Username: Catherine Post Number: 510 Registered: 05-2005 |
Remembered your name Evidently, you've forgotten mine. Probably because I've got a head like a sieve for names... | ||
| Victor Edwin Prose Member Username: Victor_prose Post Number: 27 Registered: 04-2009 |
"I've got tickets (four seconds) to the best show in town, if you want to come on down and listen." In a similar vein is the classic understated opening line to "Beyond Their Law": "Well I agree." The lyrics to "Justice", which foreshadow the quiet content that abets the richness of Forster's GBs-Mark-II tunes, render its opening line equivalently effective: "I'm a lucky man/I'm a lucky man/And the best is yet to come/the best is yet to come" - those repetitions almost serving to (very) lightly bluesify the song's formalist Appalachian folk. Others I'll mention because I enjoy taking my time on the podium, & thinking about the Go-Betweens: "Diamonds on the water at 5:00/Lovers lie around in tangled knots." "He was brought up in a house of women/in a city of heat which gave its children/faith in the fable of coral and fish/told them the world was something to miss". ("Unkind & Unwise" is, like "Justice", another uniformly brilliant lyric, though the third stanza is really where it's at. By the way, is it "feeds" or "flees"?) "She cut her teeth on love." [sic?] Can't say why, maybe it's the delivery, which would I guess invalidate the inclusion. "A white moon appears/like a hole in the sky/the mangroves go quiet." The opening couplet in the most richly enigmatic, overtly poetic tune in McLennan's catalogue. "It's neither fair nor reasonable to expect sadness to confine itself to its causes." "Well I saw you at the opening/Somebody's hand was up your dress/You were showing off everything/except your finesse." That's positively Jaggeresque. "One sleeve rolled up/one sleeve rolled down." "There's a cat in my alleyway/dreaming of birds that are blue/sometimes girl when I'm lonely/this is how I think about you." The ideal line to kick off this winningly offbeat 'love album'. Runner-up: "I don't want to let you out of my sight/don't want to let you onto your flight/the fortune teller might've been right." "You're home late and you smell/of the music that you make/all my patience, all my love/that's now all at stake." If only "I know you're 32 but you look 55" had opened "Right Here", but obviously that would've thoroughly forsaken its poetic structure. All I'm saying is, that way I could post it here. "The neighing of the horses in the moonlight woke him up/there was a line of ice across his cup/except for the wind in the corn the world was perfectly still/the moon hung over the windowsill." "I just want some affection." "Sold his wallet for kerosene/fuel to burn his friends/angels stained with nicotine/sing for his defence." "When she sang about angels/she looked up at the sky/anybody else, anybody else/but I let it go by." "We need some absynthe." |