Killer 1st lines

While the music played, you worked by candlelight. Those San Francisco nights, you were the best in town.
Steely Dan

 

I went home with the waitress the way I always do.
How was I to know she was with the Russians, too?

Warren Zevon -- Lawyers, Guns & Money

 

I was born my papa's son, a wandering eye and smoking gun.-Steve Earle "I Feel Alright"

 

It was the third of June, another sleepy, dusty delta day..

 

So many great opening lines.

Please allow me to introduce myself
I'm a man of wealth and taste

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

 

Jesus died for somebody's sins but not mine - Patti Smith

That line just exudes pure rock n roll rebellion

 

Well you tried it just for once, found it alright for kicks but now you've found out it's a habit that sticks

 

"Cease to resist saying my goodbyes."

Absolutely chilling.

Honorable mention:
"You're dead, but the world keeps spinning."

 

She tore through this heart of mine like a weedeater with brand new line. Bottle Rockets

 

"I may not always love you..."
Beach Boys, "God Only Knows"

That might be the ballsiest...and the most honest line ever written in a love song.

 

Telly Man, standin' on a band stand, grand standin' bendin' and bangin' them strings!

 

I am the god of hell fire and I bring you ... Fire.
Arthur Brown - 1968

 

That one always seemed too literal. Like, I am the mailman and I bring you ... mail. Or, maybe in this specific example, I am the Postmaster General, here's your mail.

 

Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream

 

I never thought about that, but yeah... pretty wise for what was basically a teenage love song.

 

The Mississippi Delta was shining like a National guitar...

Paul Simon, Graceland

 

In the day we sweat it out on the streets of a runaway American dream. At night we ride through the mansions of glory in suicide machines.

 

That was the point.

 

"Ain't it just like the night to play tricks when you're tryin' to be so quiet?
We sit here stranded, though we're all doin' our best to deny it"

Dylan, Visions of Johanna, Blonde on Blonde