Famous First Words

I've had a bit of a fad on examining song lyrics of late, and whilst I don't think it's essential to the writing of a great song to have great lyrics (for example The Stones' Satisfaction), it certainly helps. Those that I'm most drawn to are the ones that paint a vivid picture, and it is often the first couple of lines which help to set the scene for the whole song, to draw the listener into this little snapshot of a life.

Here are 10 examples of opening lines which I am particularly fond of, for differing reasons. In a couple of cases it's simply that they make me laugh:

1. Simon & Garfunkel - The Sound of Silence

Hello darkness my old friend,
I've come to talk with you again

2. The Jam - Down in the Tube Station at Midnight

The distant echo - of faraway voices boarding faraway trains,
To take them home to the ones that they love, and who love them forever 

3. Marvin Gaye - What's Going On

Mother, mother, there's too many of you crying,
Brother, brother, brother, there's far too may of you dying

4. Stevie Wonder - Living for the City

A boy is born in hard time Mississippi
Surrounded by four walls that ain't so pretty

5. Fountains of Wayne - Michael and Heather at the Baggage Claim

Michael and Heather at the baggage claim, tired of playing the waiting game
Every bag has got a different name, Michael and Heather may never get home again.

6. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - Ohio

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming, we're finally on our own
This summer I hear the drumming, four dead in Ohio

7. Arctic Monkeys - When the Sun Goes Down

So who's that girl there? I wonder what went wrong so that she had to roam the streets
She don't do major credit cards, I doubt she does receipts. It's all not quite legitimate

8. The Beatles - Penny Lane

In Penny Lane there is a barber showing photographs, of every head he's had the pleasure to have known
And all the people that come and go, stop and say hello

9. Happy Mondays - Kinky Afro

Son, I'm thirty. I only went with your mother 'cos she's dirty
And I don't have a decent bone in me. What you get is just what you see, yeah

10. Ben Folds - Bitch Went Nuts

The bitch went nuts. She stabbed my basketball
And the speakers to my stereo

So those are my 10, though I could have come up with a lot more. How about yours?


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KILLER COVERS #005: Glen Campbell - (Jackson Browne's) These Days

I feel pretty ashamed that I had no knowledge of this song until a couple of years ago, and indeed was pretty ignorant of any of the work of Jackson Browne. I was missing out.

Turns out there are tons of covers of These Days, most notably one by Nico, which was released long before Browne's own recording saw the light of day. 

Glen Campbell's version is on his covers album: Meet Glen Campbell, which came out a couple of years ago, and which also includes his take on songs written by Green Day & Foo Fighters. Listening in the week it was revealed that he is suffering from Alzheimer’s feels particularly poignant. While the world-weary lyrics:-

These days I seem to think a lot
About the things that I forgot to do...for you
And all the times I had the chance to

and 

Don't confront me with my failures
I had not forgotten them

seem very apt for a man in his mid-seventies who has seen and done a hell of a lot, however they were in fact written by Jackson Browne when he was just 16 years old. 

Other covers of this great tune worth checking out are those by Greg Allman and Fountains of Wayne. 

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