"I Was Dreaming When I Wrote This…"
Taking a trip: Flying back home to Manila, from Hong Kong, through the window. No-flash experiment.
Hurrah for random links! The assorted links at the bottom of the IMDb homepage a few weeks ago led me to spinner.com's "25 Best Opening Lyrics."
Whether you write for fun in a personal blog, or have to produce copy that the declares this whitening cream to be the known savior of the skincare world (every month!), or perhaps best of all, writing the world's next best piece of fiction, all of that boils down to…
…the beginning. The very first words have to get laid down and squared away, so the following 7000 words can follow, and deliver whatever you're trying to say. Part of the thrill of shopping for those "book-debt" books is checking out the very first lines of the books that catch my eye, or books I've been seeking to get. Now that the work is done and printed and up for sale, you just know that the writer at the very start of it all struggled to put down the very first words you read to set everything in motion.
I'm sure songwriting is not quite the same-it's probably a more fluid writing process-but the starting words of songs are required to be the right ones. The greatest songs we've come to love won't be the greatest songs we love without them.
Reading the list was awesome fun, guaranteed to get you singing and following it up with the next part of the lyric. There were a few songs I didn't know, but most of them tickle the musical memories…
Lyric No. 25: "You were working as a waitress in a cocktail bar"
Human League! Doesn't that line seem so… film noir? The opening words set that particular stage very well. The rest of the song talks all about urgent emotions, movie sets and declarations of "Don't… don't you want me?"
Lyric No. 23: "You never close your eyes anymore when I kiss your lips…"
Baaaaaay-beh!
Lyric No. 21: "Hello, Darkness, my old friend"
Just genius, no? I immediately love the imagery of it.
Lyric No. 19: "Well, I guess it would be nice if I could touch your body"
How fun and sexy and a wee bit vulgar-all from the get go!
Lyric No. 17: "I was dreaming when I wrote this"
Forgive me if I go astraaaay… Prince, Justin Timberfake owes you his career. Shut up, Justin. You do.
Lyric No. 15: "She was more like a beauty queen from a movie scene"
Dun, dun. Duuuun, dun. The kid is not my son!
Lyric No. 14: "There must be some kind of way out of here, said the joker to the thief"
"All Along the Watchtower." Jimi Hendrix, by way of Bob Dylan. Right away, a particular era is nutshell-ed in a sentence.
Lyric No. 13: "What's with these homies dissin' my girl?"
Weezer's "Buddy Holly" starts right off with these words, no musical intro. Right now, I am declaring this the best ever opening line of a song in the past 20 years. Because it is.
Lyric No. 11: "Oh, I just don't know where to begin"
Something about Elvis Costello's "Accidents Will Happen" sets off my joy buttons. Apart from the wink-wink cleverness of the opening words, right down to the melodic hooks, the bouncy rhythms, the sensational rest of the song… as perfect a pop song in the way pop songs need to be.
Lyric No. 10: "Tommy used to work on the docks"
A storytelling song to rival "Don't You Want Me." Bon Jovi should write a follow up song to the fate of Tommy and Gina.
Lyric No. 08: "Well, it's one for the money, two for the show, three to get ready, now go, cat, go!"
You can never go wrong with countdown beginnings. I will buy a Venti-size beverage to whoever can name the song AND who actually released a recording of it first. (That's a hint.)
Lyric No. 06: "Why do birds suddenly appear every time you are near?"
Awww, isn't that just great? Every Great Opening Lyrics list should include this song. This ditty was also the lullaby of choice to put me to sleep as a kid. Heh.
Lyric No. 04 "Well, she was just seventeen-you know what I mean"
Wow, ngayon lang ang Beatles! I'm certain though, you can make a GOL (see above) list just with Beatles songs.
Lyric No. 03: "Hey, ho, let's go!"
"Blitzkrieg Bop" by The Ramones. Does anything else need to be said?
Lyric No. 02: "I was born in a cross-fire hurricane"
Right away, I can see it: it's the middle of the night, raining buckets, howling winds and a remote cottage in the Southern landscape… Jumpin' Jack Flash was trouble right from the beginning.
And the Best Opening Lyric: "She's a very kinky girl…"
"…the kind you don't take home to mooooohttther!" I love this came as No. 1! It's good enough to start a pretty juicy novel! Rick James may have ended up with a messed-up life (and death), but this simple lyrical phrase is so right.
The others list include Beck, Patti Smith, LL Cool J (heh?!?!?) and Pavement. Shrug. I don't know them too well. The only one I wish the list included is "Mama… just killed a maaaaaan…" Pretty iconic for it to be left out.
Any other opening lyrics you know and love and want to serve to guests? Any of the above got you singing out the succeeding lines out loud?
These Kenneth Branagh portraits don't really relate to the Opening Lyrics idea, but I wrote the entry above while listening to his director's commentary for Love's Labour's Lost. The day before I enjoyed his commentary for the DVD release (at last!) of his adaptation of Hamlet. The Kenster is still my dream interview, but I kind of don't want for the dream to come true. Because I would die if it ever came to happen. He's too witty, lovable, amazing. And just so I'm displaying my Exile-From-Cool-Island bona fides: Kenneth Branagh > Johnny Depp. Like, times a googleplex. Pic on the left from 1983 (!), pic in the middle from the 2000s, pic in the right, also from the 2000s. (I think.)