Least inviting opening lines
Posted by StevenC on 11 March 2008 - 9:36pm.
I think we've done best first lines before, but has there ever been a less promising opening line than " I don't believe in an interventionist God" from Nick Cave's 'Into Your Arms' . Yet rather than leading into a debate on the merits and demerits of the Calvinist creed as you would be entitled to expect it builds into a superb, moving love song. There must surely be other examples.
Bookmark/Search this post with:
- More from StevenC.
- Login or register to post comments
"Oh I just don't know where to begin..."
Elvis Costello: Accidents Will Happen
"Hello, Cowgirl in the sand"
You'd think someone would have said, surely?
And apparently in South Carolina there are "many tall pines".
Dreadful openers, rock solid, stone cold classic afters.
Love
An era defining line from Arthur Lee, probably describing the blissful late 60s Californian vibe....
"Oh the snot has caked against my pants..." (from Live and Let Live)
sorry to be contrary
but isn't the point of the opening of "Into my arms" that it's striking and gives you a jolt it's not a moon in june lyric, it is knowing but also funny. fraid I can't think of better examples.
I agree
Yes Chris: exactly! I typed a long and beautifully crafted reply along those very lines, but it was one of those posts that didn't appear due to the bug. I really don't have time to write it all again. I'll just quote the first verse of Into My Arms in full and ask anyone who doesn't think that they represent song writing at its finest to explain why.
"I don't believe in an interventionist God
But I know, darling, that you do
But if I did I would kneel down and ask Him
Not to intervene when it came to you
Not to touch a hair on your head
To leave you as you are
And if He felt He had to direct you
Then direct you into my arms"
I agree too ...
"Superb, and moving love song" I think I said. My point is only that that first line - whether heard or read on the page - is incredibly prosaic, and gives no clue as to the riches to follow. And I agree that that is probably the point.
A first line, heard for the first time, is always heard out of context.
Two words...
Plaistow Patricia.
(with apologies to the management for the rather explicit nature of my original post - I know where the boundaries are now!)
Stay with me/Rod'n'the Faces
...starts off pretty well, I have always felt: In the morning, please don't say you love me, if you do I'll only kick you out the door......
Uh well uh bless my soul
Uh what's uh wrong with me?
(Answer: a lyricist who's four syllables short of a line is what's wrong with you, mate.)
I think..
"Do you know how to get triangles from a cow?/You need butter, milk and cheese and an equilateral chainsaw" might qualify.
"99% of Gargoyles look like bob todd" by Half Man Half Biscuit.
Elvis again...
My Aim Is True has a classic attention grabbing, if slightly unsavoury, start....
"Now that your picture's in the paper being rhythmically admired"
Obviously nothing to do with Sperm for Tickets
So thats' what he says.....
I've struggled over that for years, what with his diction. Good line.
????
I couldn't disagree more. I've always thought that it lacks poetry, it's clumsy on the page, and even worse in song. It looks like something written by an accountant (apologies to any accountants, but you get my drift)
But it scans like a dream,
with near alliterative cadence. Sometimes it's not what is said but how it sounds. I've enjoyed it for years without actually knowing what he is singing. Now knowing has lifted it even a wee bit more.
Billy Bragg
"With the money from the accident she bought herself a mobile home" from Levi Stubbs Tears by Billy Bragg. It starts sad and gets sadder.........
The Nun's Litany/Magnetic Fields
"I want to be a playboys bunny, I'd do whatever they asked me too"
Sung, on my version, in dulcet baritone, accompanied by what sounds like ukelele. The lyrics get progressively, um, offensive to prostitutes and pornstars, but I like to think he is being provocatively ironic. (Now if the same song were to be sung by, say, Frank Zappa, it would be nasty sexist shite. Funny that.)