Ten Memorable First Lines of First Songs
By Andy Marino
This list doesn’t need much in the way of introduction; the only rule is that the lyrics must be taken from the first line of the first song on an album.
Here’s my attempt at narrowing about twenty-five contenders down to ten real attention-grabbers. Feel free to chime in with some of your favorites. To the nerdery!
NOTE: If the album begins with some kind of skit or ambient intro crap we’ll consider track 2 the first song. If track 1 is an intro and track 2 an instrumental (I’m looking at you, Queensryche) then track 3 is the first song. Etc.
1.
Yes I’ll be a responsible member
Of this great, blessed society
- Clutch “You Can’t Stop the Progress” From Beale St. to Oblivion
2.
Generals gathered in their masses
Just like witches at black masses
- Black Sabbath “War Pigs” Paranoid
3.
Teenage angst has paid off well
Now I’m bored and old
- Nirvana “Serve the Servants” In Utero
4.
Really don’t mind if you sit this one out
- Jethro Tull “Thick as a Brick” Thick as a Brick
5.
If I ventured in the slipstream
Between the viaducts of your dream
Where immobile steel rims crack
And the ditch in the back roads stop
Could you find me?
- Van Morrison “Astral Weeks” Astral Weeks
6.
Auschwitz!
The meaning of pain!
- Slayer “Angel of Death” Reign in Blood
7.
For a price I’ll do about anything, except pull the trigger
For that I need a pretty good cause
- Queensryche “Revolution Calling” Operation: Mindcrime
8.
I think that someone is trying to kill me!
- Mastodon “Blood and Thunder” Leviathan
9.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we were older
Then we wouldn’t have to wait so long
- The Beach Boys “Wouldn’t it be Nice” Pet Sounds
10.
We’re amplified adrenaline, another flag’s shadow cover us again.
And on these steps, take back our days
So when we go, go out in a blaze
- Strike Anywhere “Amplify” Exit English
“They say there’s people starving
Living down there in the streets.
They’re lazy slobs, they ain’t got a job
I said they ain’t got enough to eat
Well Let Them Eat Rock!”
- The Upper Crust, “Let Them Eat Rock”
(from Let Them Eat Rock)
“She was born in November 1963,
The day Aldous Huxley died.”
- Sheryl Crow, “Run” (from Tuesday Night Music Club, WHAT IT’S A GOOD ALBUM)
“God damn what a brother gotta do
To get a message through
to the red white and blue”
- Ice T, “Body Count” (from Original Gangster)
I’d posit:
Dear, I’ll stay gold just to keep these pasts at bay
- Converge “Concubine”
(off of Jane Doe)
or
“Wish I could remember why it mattered to me. It doesn’t matter to me. It doesn’t matter to me anymore.”
- Okkervil River “It Ends With A Fall”
(off of Down the River of Golden Dreams)
or, probably my favorite,
“enough is enough! now beg for forgiveness, you fuck.”
- Underminded, “!Ya Basta!”
off of eleven:eleven
excellent call on the Mastodon, though
Landlord…Church
Car Crash…Work
My head aches.
And silver lake.
You nerve me.
- Possum Dixon “Nerves” Possum Dixon
Richard Wagner’s letters to his lover Mathilde were a mess,
He should have quit before he had written the address,
They made love on the mezzanine,
Her husband was his friend.
- Rhett Miller “Our Love” The Instigator
Woke up. Didn’t choke up. Saw my AK it was broke up. Put it together like a jigsaw. Got my nine and my rambo knife off the floor.
-Black Sheep, “U mean I’m not lyrics” Black Sheep
“We spotted the ocean”
- Toad the Wet Sprocket “Walk on the Ocean” fear
more to come…