Greatest opening lines of a song

Pretty women walking with gorillas down my street

 

Elvis Costello
Human hands

The cadence of this song never lets up in the sharp word play double entendres

I've been talking to the wall and it's been answering me
Oh, darling how I miss you
I'm just the mere shadow of my former selfishness
I crave the silhouette of your kiss

With only the blue light of the TV on
Lip reading threats and false alarms
There's a boy somewhere holding hands with himself
And a girl in a window on the Reeperbarn

Whenever I put my foot in my mouth and you begin to doubt
That it's you that I'm dreaming about
Do I have to draw you a diagram?
All I ever want is just to fall into your human hands

With the kings and queens of the dance hall craze
Checkmate in three moves in your heyday
But the girls don't listen to your line anymore
Now you're part of someone else

On the factory floor and you still say, "Wheres the action?"
Now you manufacture happiness
And get sold on the cheap for someone's satisfaction

Whenever I put my foot in my mouth and you begin to doubt
That it's you that I'm dreaming about
Do I have to draw you a diagram?
All I ever want is just to fall into your human hands

All you toy soldiers and scaremongers
Are you living in this world sometimes I wonder
In between saying you've seen too much
And saying you've seen it all before

Tighter and tighter I hold you tightly
You know I love you more than slightly
Although I've never said it like this before

Whenever I put my foot in my mouth and you begin to doubt
That it's you that I'm dreaming about
Do I have to draw you a diagram?
All I ever want is just to fall into your human hands

All I ever want is just to fall into your human hands



Read more: Elvis Costello - Human Hands Lyrics | MetroLyrics

 

Many great openers have been mentioned but this one always puts a smile on my face.

Idiot Wind, Bob Dylan

Someone’s got it in for me, they’re planting stories in the press
Whoever it is I wish they’d cut it out but when they will I can only guess
They say I shot a man named Gray and took his wife to Italy
She inherited a million bucks and when she died it came to me
I can’t help it if I’m lucky

 

Warren Zevon, "Desperadoes Under the Eaves":

I was sitting in the Hollywood Hawaiian Hotel
I was staring in my empty coffee cup
I was thinking that the gypsy wasn't lyin'
All the salty margaritas in Los Angeles
I'm gonna drink 'em up

And if California slides into the ocean
Like the mystics and statistics say it will
I predict this motel will be standing until I pay my bill

 

Poor Otis dead and gone,
Left me here to sing his song,
Pretty little girl with the red dress on
Poor Otis dead and gone...................

 

What's the ugliest
Part of your body?
What's the ugliest
Part of your body?
Some say your nose
Some say your toes
But I think it's YOUR MIND

 

C'mon, everyone past the age of five knows the greatest opening line is:

Who's the black private dick who's a sex machine to all the chicks?

 

If you're in an antisocial mood, nothing beats:

Well, we live in a trailer at the edge of town.
You never see us, 'cause we don't come around.
We got twenty-five rifles,
Just to keep the population down.

 

Oh the mud splattered victims
Have to pay out all along the ancient highway
Torn between half truth and victimisation
Fighting back with counter attacks

Van Morrison, "Rough God Goes Riding"

 

Cars and trucks
fly by me on the corner
But I'm alright
standing proud before the signal...

 

I never thought it would happen
With me and the girl from Clapham
Out on the windy common
That night I ain't forgotten
When she dealt out the rations
With some or other passions
I said you are a lady
Perhaps she said I may be.....

 

Morrison - The Doors - "The End"

This is the end


Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end



Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
No safety or surprise, the end
I'll never look into your eyes...again

 

In 1984 I was hospitalized for approaching perfection. - Random Rules by Silver Jews

 

It's safe in the city, to love in a doorway
To wrangle some screens from the door
And isn't it me, putting pain in a stranger?

Like a portrait in flesh, who trails on a leash
Will you see that I'm scared and I'm lonely?
So I'll break up my room, and yawn and I
Run to the center of things
Where the knowing one says

Boys, boys, it's a sweet thing.

 

"In the days of my youth, I was taught what it means to be a man..."

Opening lines of a career?

 

"It's knowin' that your door is always open and your path is free to walk..."

 

Drivin' that train, high on cocaine...

 

What a drag it is getting old - Stones..........I haven't read the whole thread.

 

"So Sgt. Pepper took you by surprise..." -How Do You Sleep. By John Lennon.

 

Really don't mind if you sit this one out...

 

She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah
She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah
She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

 

"If you like to gamble, I tell you I'm your man..."

And thereafter follows about 2:53 of the best high-octane rock ever committed to a single. Much imitated, never bettered.

 

That line never made sense to me.
The whole song is rather bad lyrically, IMO, but the first couple of lines are the worst because they are completely ineffective.

 

I gave a "like" to the first line from Mother's Little Helper (not far above) but I'd probably say the first verse of Bigmouth Strikes Again by the Smiths is hard to beat ...

 

Hey hey mama said the way you move gonna make you sweat gonna make you groove