Songs that have great opening lines

Ramona, come closer
Shut softly your watery eyes
The pangs of your sadness
Will pass as your senses will rise
For the flowers of the city
Though breathlike, get deathlike sometimes
And there's no use in tryin'
To deal with the dyin'
Though I cannot explain that in lines
bob - to ramona

 

"It was one of those nights when you turn out the lights and everything comes into view."
AC/DC, Touch Too Much

 

Carly Simon's You're So Vain

But it's not "You walked into the party like you were walking onto a yacht". (Though that's darn good.)

It's "You son of a gun."

 

I remember finding out about you. Day After Day -- Badfinger

 

When I get to the bottom
I go back to the top of the slide
And I stop and I turn and I go for a ride
Till I get to the bottom and I see you again
Yea Yea Yea

 

Last night I saw a host of angels
and they were all singing different songs
and it sounded like a lot of lawnmowers
mowing down my lawn.

Ramon - Laurie Anderson

 

Hello, how are you?
Have you been alright through all those lonely
Lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely nights?
That's what I'd say, I'd tell you everything
If you pick up that telephone

 

Her green plastic watering can
For her fake Chinese rubber plant
In the fake plastic earth

-Fake Plastic Trees

Karma police, arrest this man
He talks in maths
He buzzes like a fridge
He's like a detuned radio

- Karma Police


I jumped in the river and what did I see?
Black-eyed angels swam with me
A moon full of stars and astral cars
All the things I used to see

-Pyramid Song

 

"There was ladies around the casket
There was whores lying on the bed
There was some of them in silks and satins
There were some of them dressed in red, yeah
There were some moving in colours bright
And there were two little children there too
The wind had changed all concerned
And left this violent blue."

John Martyn - "Amsterdam"

 

Scorpions Blackout

I realize I missed a day
But I`m too wrecked to care anyway

 

The Velvet Underground - "Sweet Jane"

Standin' on a corner
Suitcase in my hand
Jack's in his corset, Jane is in her vest
And me I'm in a rock 'n' roll band. Huh

 

Well I heard they castrated Castro
I heard they cut off everything he had
What a dirty lowdown thing to do
To mess him up like that

 

Aerosmith: No More No More

Blood stains the ivorys of my daddy's baby grand
I ain't seen no daylight since we started this band

 

Nina Simone - Feeling Good

One of her most iconic recordings.
From her album "I Put a Spell on You", released in 1965 on Philips Records. Arranged and produced by Hal Mooney.

"Birds flying high, you know how I feel
Sun in the sky, you know how I feel
Breeze driftin' on by, you know how I feel"

 

I met my love by the gas works wall
Dreamed a dream by the old canal
I kissed my girl by the factory wall
Dirty old town…

 

(And don't forget)

Take me back to a south Tallahassee
Down cross the bridge to my sweet sassafrassy

(Because seriously, what else can you rhyme with "Tallahassee"?)

 

Lassie, chassis, classy, sassy

 

That was a rhetorical question relating to Steven Tyler's way with a lyric... but thanks for the rhyming dictionary.

 

Rhyming dictionary courtesy of Freddy Cannon...

 

The return of the Thin White Duke,throwing darts in lovers eyes

David Bowie - Station To Station

 

God sure baked a lot of fruitcake baby,
when Adam met the Eden lady
- Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros, "Cool 'n' Out"

 

In France a skinny man died of a big disease with a little name
Sign O' the Times- Prince

 

"Someday mother will die and I'll get the money"

- They Might Be Giants, I Palindrome I

 

Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse wrote this, Bricusse is usually credited with the lyrics.

 

He was killed by a cellular phone explosion
They scattered his ashes across the ocean

One of my favorite lines ever, one of my favorite songs ever.


Mexican Wine - Fountains of Wayne