'Jesus died for somebody's sins but not mine...'

as ever has provided me with loads of hooks:
"Spring was never waiting for us girl it ran one step ahead as we followed in the dance" (Mac Park)
"Took a walk around the yard, dug the flowers til it got too hard" (Crying In My Sleep)
"This time we almost made some sense of it" (Didn't We)
but this is rather an objective topic isn't it? (Actually, many of these blogs are, so so what?)

"I don't believe in an interventionist God"

Trudging slowly over wet sand back to the bench where your clothes were stolen

Hey Charlie I'm pregnant and living on 9th Street right above a dirty bookstore off Euclid Avenue.

I remember hearing Oasis' "Stand by me" for the first time, and being quite revolted by its first line
"Made a meal and threw it up on Sunday"

and as for best, I still smile everytime I hear
"I never thought it would happen with me and the girl from Clapham"...

Is this just fantasy?

Same as my daddy and his daddy before.

so right at the front of my mind is
"Are teenage dreams so hard to beat
Every time she walks down the street"

...sums it up nicely

Or, somewhat more recently... "Chewing out the rhythm on my bubble gum"

absolute gibberish, but the most exciting gibberish conceivable.

I guess I should have known, by the way you parked your car sideways, that it wouldn't last...

"Son, I'm thirty. I only went with your mother cos she's dirty." Kinky Afro - Happy Mondays

it would happen with me and the girl from Clapham'
'Sometimes you're better off dead, there's gun in your hand and it's pointing at your head
'Bless my cotton socks, i'm in the news'

"Oh, trouble becomes you, it cuts you right down to my size"
Obligatory RT

"It started off so well, they said we made a perfect pair..."
Queen - Save Me

"Hey, Joe, where y'goin' with that gun in your hand?"
Hendrix - can't remember who wrote it though....

"I plugged 16 shells from a thirty ought six
and a black crow snuck through a hole in the sky
so I spent all my buttons on an old pack mule
and I made me a ladder from a pawn shop marimba"

No idea what it means, I just love it...

From the great Jake Thackray's "On Again! On Again!":
"I love a good bum on a woman, it makes my day"
The second line is also good, featuring as it does a latin pun:
"To me it is palpable proof of God's existence, a posteriori."

Ah! The joy of Thackray. Many thanks to Mark from Loose Music for introducing me to the joy of Jake.

Pistol shots ring out in a bar room night ...[Hurricane]

They sat together in the park ...[Simple Twist of Fate]

Both simple, but intriguing.

I was cutting the rug in a place called The Jug with a girl named Linda Lou........

Standing on a golf course dressed in pvc, I chanced upon a golf girl selling cups of tea.......

"Screen door slams, Mary's dress waves,
Like a vision she dances across the floor as the radio plays"

...takes some beating

that conversation turns to girls we knew when their hair was soft and long and the beach was the place to go.”

Not “the best”, but I’m a 45 year old man having a “boy, do I love the Beach Boys” session who’s just been told to “turn that noise down” by his teenage daughter who’s “trying to do some homework, if you wouldn’t mind.” Feel like Jennifer Saunders in Ab Fab.
I’m getting bugged driving up and down the same old strip. Gotta find a new place where the kids are hip.

with opening lines,

his finest is...

The Mississippi Delta was shining
Like a National guitar

"It was a teenage wedding, and the old folks wished them well
You could see that Pierre did truly love the mademoiselle"

or

"I left my home in Norfolk Virginia,
California on my mind.
Straddled that Greyhound, rode him past Raleigh,
On across Caroline."

or

almost anything by Chuck Berry

what we once thought we had we didn't
& what we have now will never be that way again
so WE CALL UPON THE AUTHOR TO EXPLAIN!!! (Nick Cave)

or

She was just seventeen if you know what I mean

or

She's not a girl who misses much
She's well acquainted with the touch of the velvet hand
like a lizard on a window pane

We've done this before of course but what the hell.

Sold in the market down in New Orleans
Scarred old slaver knows he's doing alright
Hear him whip the women, just around midnight."

Who among today's Johnny-come-latelies could possibly come up with anything so cinematic, so worldly, so dark, so mysterious and exciting? And all wrapped up in one of rock's best ever tunes? I'm always amazed that they got away with it.

with Plaistow Patricia.

If you don't know what I'm talking about - well there are plenty of lyric sites out there.

"My girlfriend looks like Peggy Mount!
What am I supposed to do?"

Shot through the heart
And you're to blame
You give love a bad name

Be honest - if you heard this on the radio you're bound to join in. Or is it just me? Anyone?

"Arseholes, bastards, fucking cunts and pricks"

Thank you Mr Dury. Came on my amped up iPod once when I had nipped out of my office.

I returned to some consternation.

There's a lady who knows..

...I'll get me coat.

had a good opener in Race With The Devil'
'Well I've led an evil life, so they say
but I'll outrun the Devil on Judgement Day'

and then of course in Ian Dury's tribute we get
'Skinny white sailor the chances were slender
the beauties were brief
shall I mourn your decline with some Thunderbird wine
and a black handkerchief'

She was born in November 1963, the day Aldous Huxley died

Brilliantly arresting, even if you don't know that the day Aldous Huxley died was the same day JFK bought it.

(It's Sheryl Crow's Run Baby Run)

"The bugger in the short sleeves fucked my wife"
Guts by John Cale

That's got our attention.

Well she was just seventeen
You know what I mean

Yes we did, Paul.

you got a lotta nerve
to say you are my friend

dylan bile at its errr bilest

only topped later in the song

i received your letter yesterday
about the time the door knob broke

ouch !

Crazy Man Michael was walking......"
You can sort of tell that it won't have a happy ending.

I look ill but I don't care about it"

The Only Ones, Another Girl Another Planet.

There are far too many good opening Bob lines to choose from. I will content myself with:
Pancho and Lefty (Townes Van Zandt):

"Living on the road my friend
Was gonna keep you free and clean
Now you wear your skin like iron
Your breath's as hard as kerosene"

and I have also always been partial to the very simple but affecting Military Madness (Graham Nash):

"In an upstairs room in Blackpool
By the side of a northern sea
The army had my father
And my mother was having me"

They called him Great Scott
Because he was great
They called her Great Susan
Cause she was his date
She climbed in a box
He cut her in two
And when he was through
She was just half a woman

From " Half a Woman" by Fountains of Wayne

Tom Waits again - "Shoreleave".

Well with buck shot eyes and a purple heart
I rolled down the national stroll
and with a big fat paycheck
strapped to my hip sack
and a shore leave wristwatch underneath
my sleeve
in a Hong Kong drizzle on Cuban heels
I rowed down the gutter to the Blood Bank
and I'd left all my papers on the Ticonderoga
and was in a bad need of a shave
and so I slopped at the corner on cold chow mein
and shot billards with a midget
until the rain stopped
and I bought a long sleeved shirt
with horses on the front
and some gum and a lighter and a knife
and a new deck of cards (with girls on the back)
and I sat down and wrote a letter to my wife

My face is finished
My body's gone

Damn!

Said Red Molly to James that's a fine motorbike
A girl could feel special on any such like
Said James to Red Molly, well my hat's off to you
It's a Vincent Black Lightning, 1952

Or, by contrast, Slade:

Baby, baby, baby

(Cum on feel the noize)

“Oh, the snot has caked against my pants”

He has already featured many times already but my favourite opening line of his or anyone elses has to be from "We Came Along This Road" from No More Shall We Part.

"I left by the back door with my wifes lovers smoking gun"

Now who doesn't want to know what happens next?

Will nature make a man of me yet?

2 lines, but unbeatable.

...of how you took a child and made him old'.
or indeed;
'I decree that life today is simply taking and not giving
England is mine and it owes me a living',
or again;
'The rain falls hard on a humdrum town
this town has dragged you down'.

Say what you will but the melancholy Mancunian always knows how to grab the attention of the listener.

Seem to have a knack with an 'interesting' first line.

"I'm in love with the boy next door / he treats me like a filthy whore"

and indeed "But for the cum in your hair / the cocaine on your teeth / you'd be just like the girls I kissed on the heath."

For me its gotta be:

"Standing in the door of the Pink Flamingo, crying in the rain..."
Soft Cell - Say Hello, Wave Goodbye.

Could it get any more 'kitchen sink drama' in that opeing line, apart from a Smiths/Morrissey tune perhaps - but its still one of my favourite opening lines to a song.

I've always thought
" There must be some kind of way out of here
Said the joker to the thief...."
takes some beating.

I've always really liked Shot In The Arm from Wilco's Summerteeth.

"The ashtray says you were up all night"

Surely by now, everyone knows it's 'Take Me With You' by Whitesnake?

I've been quoting this one since puberty.

[koff]

"Every time I see my baby home,
I wanna kiss a little better so I get stoned.
Gonna spread her pretty legs so I can see,
Sweet lip honey be the death of me
And I will discover youll be my midnight lover,
Oh babe, bring it on home to me."

Quality.

Course, the later verse is even better;

"I know love and what it means,
Its a skinny little girl in tight ass jeans.
I love to hear 'em moan and cry,
cos God made men to satisfy.
And with the fire returning,
I feel the fever burning
Oh babe, bring it on home to me."

They just don't write them like that anymore.

Yours sincerely.

The Nineteen Seventies.

Sayin' something about a queen

Neil Young
After the Goldrush

would be uncomfortable and awkward
but a fate I would endure to be with you.

The Jack rubies from sometime in the '80s.

I feel for you, you little horror
Safe at your mother’s breast.....

Actually one of my favourite songs, but hated by all my family.
One of 2 songs expertly covered by Elvis Costello, presumably as a result of a shared Mitchell Froom association. Have they actually ever performed together?

"Pretty women out walking with gorillas down my street"

Always grabbed me. I feel obliged to contribute some more RT; this is a brilliant scene-setter for a song about religious intolerance.

"God never listened to Charlie Parker
Charlie Parker lived in vain
Blasphemer, womaniser,
Let a needle numb his brain
Wash away his monkey music
Damn his demons, damn his pain"

Anyone see the Thompson family Christmas show last night? I haven't seen any reviews yet.

Frankie's Gun by The Felice Brothers. Arresting, isn't it?

"My car goes, Chicago
Every weekend to pick up some cargo
I think I know the bloody way by now Frankie;
Turn the goddam radio down, thank you.
Pull over, count the money
But don't count the thirty in the glove box, buddy--
That's for to buy Lucille some clothes
Bang, bang, bang went Frankie's gun......"

Tell all of my friends, I don't have too many, just some raincoated lovers' puny brothers

Not strictly first line as there is a spoken bit prior but that doesn't count.

Strands of light upon a bedroom floor,
Change the night through an open door.

Sounds kinda disturbing now I come to write it down...

"I had skin like leather and the diamond hard look of a cobra," is fantastic. Fantastically over the top maybe, but that's a sort of fantastic y'unt it.

"One of them's off her food
And the other one's off his head
And both of them are off down the boozer." Little Time Bomb by Billy Bragg.

"We dig TV we dig remote control, We dig the Furry Freak Brothers and the Twilight Zone," Poppies, Can U Dig It.

"I can't explain exactly what I'm doing standing in the rain," JAMC, Far Gone and Out.

"Dear Slim, I wrote but you still ain't callin
I left my cell, my pager, and my home phone at the bottom
I sent two letters back in autumn, you must not-a got 'em
There probably was a problem at the post office or somethin," by Dido. ;o)

"With the money from her accident
She bought herself a mobile home "

Sir William of Bragg - Levi Stubb's Tears.

Tell all of my friends, I don't have too many, just some raincoated lovers' puny brothers

Not strictly first line as there is a spoken bit prior but that doesn't count.

What's my scene

'' ... and another thing I've been wondering lately ...''

"I hurt myself today, just to see if I still feel" - Hurt by Nine Inch Nails. Typical happy-go-lucky Trent Reznor: a laugh, a joke, a suicidal thought.
"I may not always love you" - God Only Knows. Unusual first line for a love song. Works best when sung with a beautiful romantic voice, a la Carl Wilson.
"You were working as a waitress in a cocktail bar when I met you" - nicely sets up the rest of the story.
"We walked in the cold air, freezing breath on a window pane, lying and waiting" - very moody indeed, Mr Ure.

o-oh I just don't know where to begin

he jumped out the window cos he couldn't keep still

"Don't get so distressed if the good life won't arrive
You've been seeing S.O.S when it's just your clock reading 5:05"

Well at The Word we LIKE clever. Don't we?

"If I leave here tomorrow, will you still remember me?" (Freebird)

"She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah"

"Straight Outta Compton, crazy muthaf**ker called Ice Cube, from the gang called Niggaz with Attitude" - WOW! in 1988 that crashed open a few heads...more an opening mission statement

"I would go out tonight, but I haven't got a stitch to wear"

"JESUS CHRIST...COME ON DOWN!"
And if you don't actually class that as the first line of the song proper, how about "If you've ever wondered how you get triangles from a cow, you need buttermilk and cheese and an equilateral chainsaw".

Or
"A million housewives everyday pick up a can of beans and say, "What an amazing example of synchronisation".

Wake up Maggie I think I've got something to say to you...

It's four in the morning, the end of December...

"yes, you loved me and you sold my clothes"

"I was 21 years when I wrote this song, I'm 22 now but I won't be for long."

Does your head in just thinking it through...

...saw a girl that I used to know - I was deep in thought at the time. Didn't recognise her face at first 'cos I was probably looking at mine.
he was probably only about 17 when he wrote it too. (I know it's two lines, but still...)

I pulled in to Nazareth, I was feeling about half-past dead.

or

Virgil Caine is the name, and I served on the Danville train.

I wanna make a deal with you, girl/get it signed by the heads of state"
- Pere Ubu, Non-Alignment Pact. At once ridiculous and strangely touching.

Also (two lines; sorry): -

I cried to my daddy on the telephone, "How long now?"/"Till the clouds unroll and you come home," the line went.
- Skids, The Saints Are Coming. No denying Richard Jobson carved some cathedrals of gibberish in his time but I still find those two lines evocative of, ooh, something.

Do you love me?
Or are you just extending good will?

1
I was born under a wandering star
In the second council house of Virgo
Forcibly removed from the belly of my ma
And raised on milk and Pernod

2
I'm in love with my wife
Double beds, the Lemonheads,
Scrambled eggs and life

3
Hello, Good Evening, Welcome
To Nothing Much

'I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together'.

'Up rolls a riot van and sparks excitement in the boys'.

A personal favourite of mine is

'Between Marx and marzipan in the dictionary, there was Mary'

and I also like

'With the money from her accident she bought herself a mobile home'.

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the sacred wunderkind
She took me behind a dis-used railway line

I am angry, I am ill and I'm as ugly as sin
My irritability keeps me alive and kickin'

That's me on a good day, that is.

The big man arrives, disco dancers greet him, plain clothes cops greet him, he's a small town big man; fresh lipstick glistening.

In America, you get food to eat.

Now that I've met you, would you object to never seeing each other again?

Not nearly enough Elvis the C in this list. Here's just one example of his un-dimmable brilliance
So this is where he came to hide, when he ran from you
The great "Man out of Time", Elvis's primo piece of self loathing scorn.

He's tearing out his hair again
He's crying over her again
He's standing in the super-market shouting at the customers

God said to Abraham, "kill me a son", Abe said "Man you must be putting me on" - someone must have flagged that up by now

A seasoned witch could call you from the depths of your disgrace

from 'Close to the Edge' by Yes

It's been a long time, I shouldn't have left you
Without a strong rhyme to step to
Think of how many weak shows you slept through
Time's up, I'm sorry I kept you
Thinking of this, you keep repeating you miss
The rhymes from the microphone soloist
And you sit by the radio, hand on the dial, soon
As you hear it, pump up the volume

L.L. Cool J. is hard as hell
Battle anybody I don't care who you tell

I got a letter from the government
The other day
I opened and read it
It said they were suckers

Bass! How low can you go?
Death row what a brother knows
Once again, back is the incredible
The rhyme animal
The incredible D. Public Enemy number one
Five-O said "Freeze!" and I got numb
Can't I tell 'em that I really never had a gun?

Straight outta Compton, crazy motherf*cker named Ice Cube
From the gang called Niggaz With Attitudes
When I'm called off, I got a sawed off
Squeeze the trigger, and bodies are hauled off

... and many, many more...

"I may not always love you, but long as there are stars above you....."

The perfect combination of melody, lyrics and vocals.

"Now that your picture's in the paper being rhythmically admired, and you can have anyone that you have ever desired, all you gotta tell me now is - WHY, WHY, WHY?

- Welcome To The Working Week"

Can't believe Mr Costello hasn't figured more - maybe his general unlikeability gets in the way.

I always liked these openers from Scott Walker ...and I play his 60s albums alot at Christmas for some reason

Over the rooftop sails Billy
A string tied to his underwear
Through cobbled stone streets a child races
And shouts "Billy, come down from there"

or maybe this one..

It's raining today
and I'm just about to forget the train window girl
That wonderful day we met
She smiles through the smoke from my cigarette

...but an eye-opening line, from Marc Almond, reprising his hit, with Jools Holland, at the w/e. From "Say hello, Wave Goodbye":

"As for me well, Ill find some one
Whos not going cheap in the sales.
A nice little house wife, wholl give me a steady life.
And not keep going off the rails"

As Mrs Path said to me at the time, I don't think so!

I've really enjoyed this thread and certainly wouldn't argue with many of the brilliant suggestions. I was a bit sad to observe no Hawkwind tracks thus far ... so:

I would've liked you to have been deep frozen too
and waiting still as fresh in your flesh for my return to Earth
But your father refused to sign the forms to freeze you
- Spirit Of The Age - Hawkwind - written by Bob Calvert and embellished by Dave Brock. Originally this started as a great little poem by Bob called The Starfarers Despatch.

... and while I'm thinking of Bob this ol'fave sums things up nicely :

Hey Ma, take a look at your boy
Up on the stage with his latest toy
His hair to his shoulders, growing it down to his knees
He looks like he's suffering from a social disease

Rock 'n' roll music has taken his soul
Possesses his mind, your baby it stole
Rock 'n' roll music, is it out of control
It's evil music; it's rock 'n' roll
- Evil Rock - Bob Calvert

I'll have a shower
And then phone my brother up
Within the hour
I'll smash another cup

Party Fears Two by the Associates. No better intro, sung by no better voice.

This is poetry I think and I had to come back and add this for the opening line and what follows I include the first part whole from the late great Grant McClennan..The Wrong Road

A trader in furs living in exile
Boy what a kook
Look at that passport
Stale bread and paper without privilege
If you live here learn the language
When the rain hit the roof
With the sound of a finished kiss
Like when a lip lifts from a lip
I took the Wrong Road round

... your hand felt on mine, on my wedding day"

Bruce, Walk Like A Man, off Tunnel Of Love - one of the best father/son songs ever. In fact, the best song off the best Bruce album ever - discuss.

She unscrews the top of a new whiskey bottle
And shuffles about in her candle lit hovel,
Like some kind of witch with blue fingers in mittens
She smells like the cat and the neighbours she sickens

Labelled With Love, Squeeze

Across the river a good woman cried All because a foolish man had lied. She gave up all she had to show how much she cared, But the man told so many lies, now another man is over there. That woman across the river, Sweet woman across the river, she was mine.

"I come from down in the valley where mister when you're young
They bring you up to do like your daddy done
Me and Mary we met in high school when she was just seventeen
We'd ride out of that valley down to where the fields were green"

"Great opening lines are only such because of the accompanying music" Discuss.

Fuelie heads and a hurst on the floor
She's waiting tonight down in the parking lot
Outside the seven-eleven store

There's America right there and I have no idea what all that car stuff means but it sounds great

and

I hate every ape I see
From chimpan-a to chimpan-zee
No, you'll never make a monkey out of me

"It's not important for you to know my name..
or i to know yours"

Heck, this is a short song, let's have the whole darn bad taste of all of it!
"Grandpa pissed his pants again
He don't give a damn
Brother Billy has both guns drawn
He ain't been right since Viet Nam
"Sweet Home Alabama"
Play that dead band's song
Turn those speakers up full blast
Play it all night long
Daddy's doing Sister Sally
Grandma's dying of cancer now
The cattle all have brucellosis
We'll get through somehow
"Sweet Home Alabama"
Play that dead band's song
Turn those speakers up full blast
Play it all night long
I'm going down to the Dew Drop Inn
See if I can drink enough
There ain't much to country living
Sweat, piss, jizz and blood
"Sweet Home Alabama"
Play that dead band's song
Turn those speakers up full blast
Play it all night long"

And all good tidings for 2009 y'all.......

When routine bites hard and ambitions are low
and resentment rides high but emotions won't grow.....

never fails to bring a tear to my eye...

and

Finished with my woman cause she couldn't help me with my mind...

never fails to make me smile

SENSATIONALIST TABLOID HEADLINES

“I stuck a six-inch gold blade in the head of a girl!” (The Birthday Party - 6” Gold Blade)

“Hands up who wants to die!” (The Birthday Party – Sonny’s Burning)

“Masturbation saved my life!” (Therapy? – Femtex)

STORYTELLING

“The leaves on the table are all turning grey, the first time she saw you she hoped you were gay.” (Robyn Hitchcock & the Egyptians – Railway Shoes)

“It is complete now, two ends of time are neatly tied” (Andy Prieboy – Tomorrow Wendy)

“It was the biggest ever cock you'd ever seen” (Arab Strap – Packs of Three)

“You messed with the wrong girl, she’s small but she’s fierce.” (Jane’s Addiction – Wrong Girl)

“When you raise your pencil skirt, like a veil before my eyes” (Pulp – Pencil Skirt)

“Maybe they had a ridiculous statement to make about something they hadn’t experienced possible Sam had a different opinion that nobody ever considered important.” (Meat Puppets – Sam)

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL

“Your dad took out a second mortgage to buy you a horse” (A*** C*** - I Ate Your Horse)

“Finals blew, I barely knew my graduation speech” (Aimee Mann – Ghost World)

“A ball of light comes down to bite me on the ass” (The Geraldine Fibbers – California Tuffy)

"Aleister Crowley was rotting down in Hastings" (Luke Haines – Satan Wants Me)

“Skipped ahead to the end of the book, took a chance and took a look.” (The Dream Syndicate – When The Curtain Falls)

PHILOSOPHY

“The bigger the cushion, the sweeter the pushin', that's what I said” – (Spinal Tap – Big Bottom)

“Look at Earth from outer space, everyone must find a place” (Coldplay – Politik)

“We'll go jumble sailing when the weather is fine” (Clearlake – Jumble Sailing)

“Some folks are like umbrellas, they pass through your life with little meaning.” (The Handsome Family – Everything That Rises Must Converge)

2008 AWARD GIVEN IN RECOGNITION OF TEENAGE YEARS SPENT STUDYING EARLY GENESIS ALBUM COVERS FOR HIDDEN MEANING

“Twilight fades through blistered Avalon.” (The Smashing Pumpkins – To Sheila)

VAN MORRISON

“I can see by the look on your face that you've got ringworm.” (Van Morrison – Ringworm)

ROLAND WAS A WARRIOR FROM THE LAND OF THE MIDNIGHT SUN
WITH A THOMPSON GUN FOR HIRE
FIGHTING TO BE DONE

"She came all the way from America, she had a blind date with destiny, and the sound of Te Awamutu had a truly sacred ring"

They said there'll be peace on Earth
But instead it just kept on raining
A veil of tears for the Virgin birth.

If you like to gamble, I tell you I'm your man
You win some, lose some, it's still the same to me
The pleasure is to play, it makes no difference what you say
I don't share your greed, the only card I need is
The Ace Of Spades

"Bank holiday Monday, Sunday hours
So let's fuck off to Alton Towers"

A perfect evocation of small town ennui from the days when the pubs decided when we could drink.

I'm not a ladies man I'm a landmine, filming my own fake death.
- The Vowels Pt2

I sleep on my back cause it's good for the spine, and...coffin rehearsal.
- Fatalist Palmistry

"Alopecia" by Why? - my album of the year. Surrealist, confessional hip-hop will never be the same.

How about, for instance - "And I followed her to the station with my suitcase in my hand." Could this be the same woman who inspired another of his great openers - "I got a kind-hearted woman do anything in the world for me."

Wire is coming back again
Elastica got sued by them
When Michael Jackson dies
We're covering 'Blackbird'

"I married my wife on the day of the eclipse
Our friends rewarded her courage with gifts"
The Sorrowful Wife

"I left by the back door with my wife's lover's smoking gun"
We Came Along This Road"

..., any card. Wrong.

"Jacket hangs", the Blue Aeroplanes

Jesus f**king Christ, oh god, no: British Sea Power - fear of Drowning

All your friends are c**ts and your mother is a ballpoint pen thief; Mclusky - Gareth Brown Says

If I could f**k a mountain, Oh Lord I would f**k a mountain - Palace- The Mountain Low

and it would be wrong for me not to have a bit of Cathal Coughlan, so how about:

There's nothing wrong with the young would-be rich, that a head full of lead could not cure: Microdisney - United Colours

"Mother couldn't love me, but that didn't stop me from liking her...she was my mom...and I was no son of a b*tch"

"His head buried between the breasts of a lunatic, although aged mounds they were." - Merida

'In heaven a gateway of hope, just like a feeling inside it's no joke' New Order - Temptation

'Let me take you down, 'cause i'm going to Strawberry Fields' Sweeping and atmospheric narration which made me also think of;

'When the wind blows, and the rain feels cold, with a head full of snow'. Stones - Moonlight Mile

thoroughly enjoying it, and have three to offer that came to mind

It's a god-awful small affair, to the girl with the mousey hair.
Life on Mars? Bowie

Please allow me to introduce myself I'm a man of wealth and taste.
Sympathy for the Devil Rolling Stones

and

So, you think you can tell heaven from hell?

Wish You Were Here Pink Floyd

All prompted a palpable response in me when I first heard them.

As I walk through
This wicked world
Searchin for light in the darkness of insanity.

You just can't beat the Bickies

"I shout all my obscenities from steeples
But please don't label me a madman
I'm off to see the Bootleg Beatles
As the bootleg Mark Chapman"

...and many more

couple of my faves...

dexy's 'i'll show you'

'I'll show you them now, those boys without cares.
Who'd swapped dirty pictures and talked during prayers.'

dr john - gris gris gumbo ya ya

They call me, Dr. John, The Night Tripper
Got my sizzling Gris-Gris in my hand

stiff little fingers - white noise (prince harry doesn't get the irony)

Rastus is a nigger. Thug mugger junkie.
Black golly gob. Big horny monkey.

burt bacharach/hal david - do you know the way to san jose

Do you know the way to san jose?
Ive been away so long. I may go wrong and lose my way.

public enemy - timebomb (just mkes me laugh)

You go ooh and ahh when I jump in my car
People treat me like Kareem Abdul Jabbar

"Can't hear, cos your mouths full of shit"
Dedicated to all politicians.