re: Greatest first lines of classic rock songs

quote:

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Thank you for letting me know what the hell he says. Now translate it? Bonnie boat?

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You want me to interpret Van Morrison lyrics for you? What do you think I am a winner of a Nobel Prize in Physics?

And Into the Mystic is a nursery rhyme compared to some of his other stuff. Try For Mr. Thomas for example.

From faded newsprint used to wrap a fish
Inscrutably the muse selects your face
As I sit drinking famously in an Irish bar
Five thousand miles and thirty years away

With the usual ceremonial you were crowned one night
King of the field where doctors nail the cows
To make of the cock's quill the rights of language
And the pricking heart a sword against the hours

Let smirking scholars writhe in their favourite bondage
And hold you plaintiff to the charge of art
Exhibit A: he falls on legendary lines
Singing mother I don't want a pain here in my heart

The judge in me sucks eggs and jerks the sacred meat
But the boy in me still dreams in Milk Wood town
Like two provincial bastards playing the galleries
I hold your photo to a mirror upside down

And as bacon wafts through hungry streets, your ghost pervades
Just like an old ex-boxer aged twenty two
Staged-up like Falstaff or the wild welsh Rimbaud
You'd laugh to see the monograms they make of you
Ah, Mr. Thomas let us ramble through the midnight fair
Let us throw old bottles at the ferris wheel
Let us paint library on the library let us raid the moonlight
Let us steal whatever we are supposed to steal

Let us watch while the days grow daily more mundane
That rough God go riding with his shears
Hack wide the belly of the swollen mountains
And rip molten heroes forth from their furious tears

Oh, Mr. Thomas, oh, Mr. Thomas,
Let us steal whatever we're supposed to steal
Mr. Thomas, oh, Mr. Thomas,
Why don't we feel whatever we're supposed to feel

Oh, Mr. Thomas, Mr. Thomas,
Why don't we feel whatever we're supposed to feel
Oh, Mr. Thomas let us ramble through the midnight
Let us throw bottles at the ferris wheel
Let us paint library on the library let us raid the moonlight
Let us steal whatever we're supposed to steal

Rumour spreadin' 'round
In that Texas town
About that shack outside La Grange
And you know what I'm talkin' about
Just let me know if you wanna go
To that home out on the range
They got a lot of nice girls

"We come from the land of the ice and snow,
From the midnight sun where the hot springs blow"



"Oh, a storm is threat'ning
My very life today
If I don't get some shelter
Oh yeah, I'm gonna fade away"


"“We skipped the light fandango / Turned cartwheels cross the floor.”


"It was the third of September
That day I'll always remember, yes I will
'Cause that was the day that my daddy died"

Ok...technically, Papa was a Rolling Stone isn't a Classic Rock song...but that is one of the most awesome first lines.

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Ok...technically, Papa was a Rolling Stone isn't a Classic Rock song...but that is one of the most awesome first lines.

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Word.

Drivin' down the road, my hand's wet on the wheel...

Down in Louisiana, where the alligators grow so mean, lived a girl, I swear to the world, made the alligators look tame...

If I leave here tomorrow, would you still remember me?

The whole album is a masterpiece IMO but yeah, that song has a special place in my heart. I think I need to listen to it end to end at the end of the day tomorrow.

For you.

quote:

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I'm just an aging drummer boy and in the wars I used to play
And I've called the tune to many a torching session
Now they say I am a war criminal and I'm fading away
Father please hear my confession

I have legalized robbery, called it belief
I have run with the money, I have hid like a thief
Rewritten history with my armies of my crooks
Invented memories, I did burn all the books

And I can still hear his laughter and I can still hear his song
The man's too big, the man's too strong

Well I have tried to be meek and I have tried to be mild
But I spat like a woman and I sulked like a child
I have lived behind walls, that have made me alone
Striven for peace, which I never have known

And I can still hear his laughter and I can still hear his song
The man's too big, the man's too strong

Well the sun rose on the courtyard and they all did hear him say
You always was a judas but I got you anyway
You may have got your silver but I swear upon my life
Your sister gave me diamonds and I gave them to your wife

Oh father please help me for I have done wrong
The man's too big, the man's too strong

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"Seems like yesterday But it was long ago
Janey was lovely she was the queen of my nights
There in darkness with the radio playin low"

"Nobody on the roads. Nobody on the beach. Feel it in the air. Summer's out of reach."