The best opening lines in music
No order. Excludes samples and spoken word segments |
| 1 | Manic Street Preachers
Faster
I am an architect
They call me a butcher |
| 2 | Neutral Milk Hotel
Holland, 1945
The only girl I've ever loved
Was born with roses in her eyes
But then they buried her alive
One evening 1945
With just her sister at her side |
| 3 | Phoenix
1901
Counting all different ideas drifting away
Past and present, they don't matter
Now the future's sorted out |
| 4 | Rome
Who’s the boy you like the most
Is he teasing you with underage?
Could he be waving from a tropical sunset?
Static silhouette somehow
Single in his bed someday
Quiet 'til it falls falls falls |
| 5 | Kids See Ghosts
Reborn
I'm so, I'm so reborn, I'm movin' forward
Keep movin' forward, keep movin' forward
Ain't no stress on me Lord, I'm movin' forward
Keep movin' forward, keep movin' forward |
| 6 | The Verve
The Drugs Don't Work
All this talk of getting old
It's getting me down, my love
Like a cat in a bag
Waiting to drown
This time I'm coming down |
| 7 | LCD Soundsystem
I Can Change
Tell me a line
Make it easy for me
Open your arms
Dance with me until I feel all right |
| 8 | blackhandpath
Whatever Happened to Violence?
The voices in my head they got voices in my their head
Who got voices in their head who got voices in their head
Whatever happened to violence? Iron sharpens iron
Sharpens iron sharpens Iron |
| 9 | Kno
If You Cry
Tear ducts seem such a useless tool
To a man's feelings forged in the arts of cool |
| 10 | Bedwetter
Man Wearing a Helmet
Crouched down by the tree at his
neighbors
He liked the way the bark ripped off like paper
He pretended he was Superman, eyes had lasers
Every step he took turned earth into craters
Little brown jacket, Lee jeans with a cuff
Bowl cut, blue and yellow mismatched Chucks
He's a sitting duck, didn't hear the car pull up
Thought his arm broke when they shoved him in the trunk |
| 11 | Twenty Centuries of Stony Sleep
Circuit Crooks
The skin unfolds and the wires rush in, I lose myself as they plug me in
Could it be they blocked out the sun? |
| 12 | Manic Street Preachers
William's Last Words
Isn't it lovely, when the dawn brings the dew?
I'll be watching over you |
| 13 | International Blue
You wrote your autograph on the far side of the sky
You recorded the falling rain but you never told us why |
| 14 | Sorority Noise
Second Later From St. Julien
You say there's a god
And you say you've got proof
Well I've lost friends to heroin
So what's your god trying to prove? |
| 15 | Kno
Death Is Silent
Death is silent
It hides high in the night's confinement
Vile and violent
Minding a time to try us
And remind us
That we cry when time is denied us
To incite this
Fear of death inside us |
| 16 | Sigur Ros
Svefn-g-englar
I have arrived again
Into you
It is so good to be here
But to stop only for a little while
I float around in a submarine cocoon
[nb: translated from Icelandic] |
| 17 | Have a Nice Life
Bloodhail
I feel the top of the roof come off
Kill everybody there
As I'm watching all the stars burn out
Trying to pretend that I care |
| 18 | Spiritualized
Broken Heart
Though I have a broken heart
I'm too busy to be heartbroken
There's a lot of things that need to be done
Lord, I have a broken heart |
| 19 | Manic Street Preachers
Revol
Mr Lenin - awaken the boy
Mr Stalin - bisexual epoch
Khrushchev - self love in his mirrors
Brezhnev - married into group sex
Gorbachev - celibate self importance
Yeltsin - failure is his own impotence |
| 20 | Wilco
Heavy Metal Drummer
Oh I sincerely miss those heavy metal bands
I used to go see on the landing in the summer |
| 21 | Reservations
How can I convince you it's me I don't like
And not be so indifferent to the look in your eyes
When I've always been distant
And I've always told lies for love? |
| 22 | Radiohead
Motion Picture Soundtrack
Red wine and sleeping pills
Help me get back to your arms |
| 23 | Okkervil River
Red
Red is my favorite color
Red like your mother's eyes after a while
Of crying about how you don't love her |
| 24 | Radiohead
No Surprises
A heart that's full up like a landfill
A job that slowly kills you
Bruises that won't heal |
| 25 | Daft Punk
Digital Love
Last night I had a dream about you |
| 26 | Low
Words
Three inches above the floor
Man in a box wants to burn my soul
And I'm tired |
| 27 | Mount Eerie
Tintin in Tibet
I sing to you
I sing to you, Geneviève
I sing to you
You don't exist
I sing to you though |
| 28 | Rage Against The Machine
People of the Sun
Since fifteen hundred and sixteen
Minds attacked and overseen |
| 29 | Car Seat Headrest
Beach Life-in-Death
Last night I drove to Harper's ferry and I thought about you |
| 30 | Animal Collective
Alvin Row
Baby love me now that you are born |
| 31 | N.W.A.
Straight Outta Compton
Straight outta Compton
Crazy motherfucker 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 |
| 32 | Dr. Dre
The Next Episode
Top Dogg, bite 'em all, nigga, burn the shit up
D-P-G-C, my nigga, turn that shit up |
| 33 | The Beatles
Blackbird
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise |
| 34 | Guided by Voices
I Am A Scientist
I am a scientist, I seek to understand me
All of my impurities and evils yet unknown
I am a journalist, I write to you to show you
I am an incurable, and nothing else behaves like me |
| 35 | Foxygen
In the Darkness
So maybe later man
There's an elegant land
In the darkness |
| 36 | The Beatles
A Day in the Life
I read the news today, oh boy
About a lucky man who made the grade
And though the news was rather sad
Well, I just had to laugh |
| 37 | N.W.A.
Express Yourself
I'm expressing with my full capabilities
And now I'm living in correctional facilities
'Cause some don't agree with how I do this
I get straight, meditate like a Buddhist |
| 38 | Arcade Fire
Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)
And if the snow buries my
My neighborhood
And if my parents are crying
Then I'll dig a tunnel
From my window to yours
Yeah, a tunnel from my window to yours |
| 39 | Neutral Milk Hotel
Two Headed Boy pt. 2
Daddy, please hear this song that I sing
In your heart there's a spark that just screams
For a lover to bring a child to your chest that could lay as you sleep
And love all you have left like your boy used to be
Long ago wrapped in sheets warm and wet |
| 40 | Daft Punk
Instant Crush
didn't want to be the one to forget
I thought of everything I'd never regret
A little time with you is all that I get
That's all we need because it's all we can take |
| 41 | Kanye West
Yikes
Shit could get menacing, frightening, find help
Sometimes I scare myself, myself |
| 42 | Phoenix
Lisztomania
So sentimental
Not sentimental, no
Romantic, not discussing it |
| 43 | Shining (NOR)
The Madness and the Damage Done
The madness and the damage done
The madness and the damage done
You write one more thing in my book of lies
I brainwash myself a blood-stained mind
Put on a glass, It'll never forget the pain
The same old, same old hurting game |
| 44 | Exit Sun
Exit sun
Malefic one
Sunborne son
Sinful one |
| 45 | Make a Change...Kill Yourself
Life Revisited
A journey through damnation
It grows within me, breathes within me
A dark plague which has risen in my mind
Nothingness, emptiness and total desolation |
|
