Songs with the Greatest Opening Lines

[jaytex1969]

They got a committee to get me off the block
Cause I play my jams loud and I play 'em nonstop

Beastie Boys

 

[jaytex1969]

Cottonbalers by God, damn fine soldiers!!

I was a Cock Inhaler Cottonbaler for 6 years! 2-7 INF (M) 24th ID

 

[cosmicfolklore]

I was a Cock Inhaler Cottonbaler for 6 years! 2-7 INF (M) 24th ID

I can’t place the melody, can you hum a few bars?

 

[jaytex1969]

Pull over, shithead. This is the cops!

Megadeth

 

[jaytex1969]

I can’t place the melody, can you hum a few bars?

Pappymac added the first line of The Battle of New Orleans.

Aresone replied with a reference to Cottonbalers.

In the 3rd stanza of that song, you'll find the following:

We looked down a river and we see'd the British come
And there must have been a hundred of 'em beatin' on the drum
They stepped so high and they made their bugles ring
We stood beside our cotton bales and didn't say a thing

The subsequent army unit became the 7th Infantry Regiment and became known as the Cottonbalers.

I was in the 7th, as I'm assuming @Aresone was.

The melody, therefore, is as follows:

 

[renfield]

Doctor, my eyes have seen the years


And the slow parade of fears without crying
Now I want to understand
I have done all that I could
To see the evil.

 

[weezell]

Start spreadin the news..
If some of ya'll never been down south too much
I'm gonna tell you a little bit about this
So that you'll understand what I'm talkin' about
Down there we have a plant that grows out in the woods
And in the fields looks somethin' like a turnip green
And everybody calls it polk salad, polk salad...

 

[weezell]

Get, aboard the A Train...

Dreamed I was an Eskimo
(Buh-buh-dah-dah-dah-dah-bah-duh-duh)
Frozen wind began to blow
(Buh-buh-dah-dah-dah-dah-bah-duh-duh)
Under my boots and around my toes
(Buh-buh-dah-dah-dah-dah-bah-duh-duh)
The frost that bit the ground below
(Buh-buh-ah-eh-ay-ay)
It was a hundred degrees below zero...
(Buh! Buh-buh-dah-dah-dah-dah-bah-duh-duh)

 

[LOREN]

Guess who just got back today?
Them wild-eyed boys that'd been away.

 

[LOREN]

In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida

 

[Kottan]

I've been drivin' all night, my hands wet on the wheel
And there's a voice in my head that drives my heel
It's my baby callin', sayin' I need you here
And it's a half past four and I'm shiftin' gear

 

[ssjones]

OK, when did we stray from opening lines??

The Patsy Cline song a few pages back me me think of this Jackson Browne song:

Well I've been out walking
I don't do that much talking these days, these days
These days I seem to think a lot
About the things that I forgot to do
And all the times I had the chance to

 

[ssjones]

22 pages, but I don't think I've seen this one yet, perhaps the greatest opening line?

 

[cosmicfolklore]

OK, when did we stray from opening lines??

The Patsy Cline song a few pages back me me think of this Jackson Browne song:

There is another thread that is just "Best Lines in a Song" but I haven't been discouraging any posts, because they've all been so great.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Start spreadin the news..
If some of ya'll never been down south too much
I'm gonna tell you a little bit about this
So that you'll understand what I'm talkin' about
Down there we have a plant that grows out in the woods
And in the fields looks somethin' like a turnip green
And everybody calls it polk salad, polk salad...

I sang Polk Salad Annie back a million years ago in my high school talent contest, but I was beaten by a football player in drag who lip synch'd a Madonna song.
There' no accounting for tastes.

 

[ssjones]

I sang Polk Salad Annie back a million years ago in my high school talent contest, but I was beaten by a football player in drag who lip synch'd a Madonna song.
There' no accounting for tastes.

One of the few Elvis songs that I like. My wife is the biggest Elvis fan in Maryland and drives me crazy constantly playing his songs. I have to continually remind her that he stole that song from Tony Jo White (RIP). But I guess Tony Jo made more money from that song than the rest of his catalog of own releases. I still prefer his version.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Tom Jones actually has a great version of this song also. He is about as great of a performer as Elvis, IMO. They both worked really hard at putting on a great show.

Didn't Clapton and Jerry Lee Lewis also do a version?

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Listen to the wind blow… watch the sun rise… run in the shadows… damn your love, damn your lies…

 

[mso489]

Leonard Cohen:

Like a bird on a wire,
like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried in my way to be free.

 

[renfield]

Down in the park

where the machmen
meet the machines
and play 'kill by numbers'
down in the park
with a friend called 'five'