A Matter of the Utmost Importance: Lyrically Challenged

Well folks, one of our very own has thrown down the lyrical gauntlet. Yes, it’s true Caroline (unknowingly) issued a challenge via a social media status which I think maybe we can tackle. Sherman pointed out that it would be a great AMOTUI and I couldn’t agree more.  So what did Caroline challenge? To find a better opening line than “In the time of chimpanzees, I was a monkey” from “Loser” by Beck. Now while I definitely think that lyric rocks, I have a few which tickle my fancy a little bit more myself. My fancy is just ALWAYS being tickled. Right now you are thinking “ENOUGH about your fancy!” or “What is a fancy?” Both are legitimate, but neither is what you should be thinking, which is “What opening lyric trumps Beck’s?”

And finally, I think the only way to solve this is to each nominate ONE opening line with a short defense. Then I will post them to PR and we’ll let the heathens decide. It’s only fair. You know what they say “Heathens Know Best!”

Caroline: Don’t blame me for this…I didn’t know I could throw down the gauntlet with a gmail status.

While my “best ever” comes from my tendency to hyperbolize in the moment…I’m gonna stick up for my choice. This is because Beck rocks and his lyrics in general have that wonderful combination of smart yet sad humor. “In the time of chimpanzees, I was a monkey” sets up the song brilliantly by throwing the theme bluntly on the table. For all the emo, poetic mumbo-jumbo songs can do, I really dig songs with lyrics that are smart and vicious.

However, I am biased towards any chimpanzee reference. That has tainted my choice. A couple of you on this panel know that one of the easiest ways to rile me up is to call a chimpanzee a monkey. The fact that Beck understands the distinction between primates makes the nerdy fan girl in me swoon.

Sherman: Yeah, Caroline, we know you love when Mark Salling sings the Beck line.

Mine poses something of an existential challenge to the concept of “pop-culture”, so I’ve got a back-up in case it’s disqualified.  I go back to pop-culture of yester-century and nominate “Batti, batti o bel Masetto” from Mozart’s Don Giovanni.  Translated, it means “Beat me, beat me, oh dear Masetto!” (followed by, “beat your little lamb, Zerlina”) and sung by Zerlina, a commoner who has been seduced on her wedding night by the titular Don Juan (Juan=John=Giovanni).  Masetto is her dumb straight man of a husband who by dumb luck manages to appear just before Don Giovanni seals the deal and is angry and heart-broken.

So how does Zerlina respond?  With a kinky, S&M themed aria, of course!  “I’ll stand here as meek as a lamb and bear the blows you lay on me,” she goes on to sing, but in that very first, very catchy “Batti, batti o bel Masetto!” Zerlina has already won her victory and made the “good” girl of the opera as intriguing as the “bad” guy.

Brad:Well no matter what follows that will sound dumb. So I may as well try.

As in most music related questions I can really only summon that which I’m diggin’ at the moment. After checking my current Grooveshark playlist I have to say that Fever Ray’s “When I Grow Up” has a KILLER opening line (as well as many other subsequent lyrics).

“When I grow up, I want to be a forester and run through the moss in high heels”

WHAT?!?!? Just an extremely conflicting image but still one that summons a singular scence: giant lumbering trunks and a dainty little forest nymph just lilting over and through the dewey underbrush. In my mind she’s wearing a fire man’s outfit (huh?) as well. I figure, if she can sing a line like that then I can add whatever imagery I want to it. And why does she have to wait until she’s grown up to do it?

Certainly not the best, but just an example of what it takes to really make me listen to lyrics (which I sometimes overlook/neglect in favor of ROCKedness).

Chase: My goal was to identify songs that had both a badass first line and a first line that summed up the entirety of the entire song, my choice….
“Pretty women out walking with gorillas down my street…”   from Joe Jackson’s “Is she really going out with him?”

This song is a classic and has been covered by critically acclaimed groups like Sugar Ray… come on i know you guys all owned the Floored CD.  But really what draws me to this line is that it sums up the whole point of the song and the inner monologue of all of us Pop Culture dorks had/have about hot girls. Bonus points for the ape reference.

ALSO, this comes up when you Google Image it- Sherman

Caroline: It is settled. Primate references for the win.

For the record Mark Sallings could sing the phonebook to me and I wouldn’t really be listening with my ears. (Random Caroline tangent– I don’t think singers should be all that attractive, it takes away from their music. They are better odd looking. In fact, I cant really think of a conventionally hot singer I adore. Not a challenge.)

Patrick: Beastie Boys – “Sabotage”

“I can’t stand it. I know you planned it!”

The lyric should be written ”AAAAAAAAAHHHHIII can’t stand it …”  With the accompanying guitar, drums, and bass this opening lyric has more energy than the sun.  This lyric sets up the song well in that is about angry possibly justified paranoia .  I’m not sure who’s sabotaging the beasties. It could the Man, their parents keeping them from partying, or the Reds.  Whoever it is I wouldn’t want to be them. Immediately recognizable, incredibly energetic, encompasses the entire song.

Karla: The song that I first thought of comes from a place I never would have expected it to.  It’s “The Good Kind” by The Wreckers.

Do you want to run away together? I would say it was your best line ever. Too bad I fell for it.

I hope that you all will let me slide because it’s maybe the first two or three lines to the song. It’s not particularly cool, or deep, or esoteric. It does rhyme… sort of.  But it’s something that resonates.  It immediately drew me in.  I never got into Michelle Branch or even this duo, but this line alone made me sit up and take notice.  Maybe it’s just because I’m a girl, but I instantly felt and understood it.  Musically, I don’t think it’s a great song. I don’t really even like it all that much.  I think you could pretty much delete the rest of the song because the opening line backed by simple acoustic strumming is better than the over-engineered body.  But that opening line always gets me. 

Kevin: Man Seth, This post just killed a day and a half at work doing an archeological dig through my iTunes, which lead to me saying “Holy s***, I love that song!” alot to things I had forgot about/haven’t had in rotation much lately. This has been tough-I feel like most my favorite songs have great lyrics in the chorus/hooks/2nd verse etc…it’s harder to find one that really hits it out of the gate. I also found that its hard to seperate great opening lyrics (i.e. clever such as the Beck suggestion) vs. recognizable lyrics. I was searching for clever lyrics or those that set the tone of the song to come perfectly. I think I found both with the opening lyric to “Guarantees” by Atmosphere on the last album, When life gives you lemons, you paint that shit gold. This is a great bare-bones song with Slug rapping/singing over a blues guitar about his father’s difficult life working dead-end jobs, struggling with his income, toublesome son (the author/narrator), ex-wife, and overall the commercialism of the USA. The songs starts:

“Man, these wharehouse wages killed the ends’ introduction…”.

I think that it’s just an increadibly clever way to use a familiar phrase and turn it just slightly to fit the song, it’s also increadibly somber-which carries through the song perfectly. I absolutely love Atmosphere and especially this album, and this song is one of his best. I think he is by far one of the most poetic artists let alone rappers currently out there. I think this song and first line illustrates it perfectly. If you don’t have any experience with his music, or this album-get on it. You are guaranteed to find a track you love (no pun inteded). Check the video-my personal favorite line is actually later in the song (“Kill me in my 30′s in the name of progress…”).

Jim: This took me about a day and a half to come up with.  I argued with myself over a number of newish songs about this, but finally settled on a classic.

“We got married in a fever, hotter than a pepper sprout” from the song “Jackson” by Johnny Cash.  The song is a duet with June about a marriage fizzling out and the partners separately skipping town for Jackson, where they expect to raise hell.  There is no doubt this is the best Johnny/June song, especially since they recorded it later in their marriage during a kinda rocky time.  Also, if Wikipedia is to be believed, Cash originally had this line at the end of the song.  His songwriter, Jerry Leiber, upon hearing an early cut of the song said “these verses suck, put that last one at the beginning”.  Cash protested saying he couldn’t start a song with the climax, to which Leiber replies “Oh, yes you can,” rest is history, yadda yadda.

But really, they don’t write these things like they used to.  To me, this line is nothing short of literary.  By itself, it is the quintessential mid-20th Century American story (1968 — lots of WWII marriages had imploded, and now their kid’s marriages were doing the same).  The sort of sarcastic neo-romanticism of Johnny’s baritone is balanced perfectly in this line by June’s brassy overtone.  It really is the climax of the song, but it also sets the table for a song that is both an insightful comment on a marriage and a raucous good time.

Seth: Well, I’m going to try to defib this discussion since I think it’s worthy of more responses. And here’s my choice. I go with the antithesis of Caroline’s original offering, except it still fits the “clever and vicious” claim. From Brand New’s “Okay I Believe You, But My Tommy Gun Don’t”:

“I am heaven sent, don’t you dare forget”

I think Jesse Lacey’s delivery really makes this lyric stand out for me. It’s quiet and foreboding and it offers the kind of confidence and assurance that smacks Beck’s lyrics in the face. The song meanders between his feelings of ROCK Superiority, but really it’s a mock to all those who think they’re the bee’s knees because they sell out arenas. Taken on its own, it’s a great line about a relationship between a musician and his audience, but taken with the rest of the song it’s the clearest line of mockery in what is an honest piece of music.  Also I just like it. And the title of the song is a line from Home Alone 2. Which is awesome. If you haven’t listened to all of this album, you missed out. Emo or not, it’s one of the best from the early aughts.

Creepy Astronaut!!! Still should listen to this

Chase: Throwback to Sophomore year….
“When it’s time to party we will party hard”- Andrew W.K.

Josh: I could never understand what Andrew W.K.’s message was in that song. But then again, how many people can really understand the nuances of his music?

Not only does this euro-pop group remind us of the soul’s innate need to party, but also that “hey now, hey now, hear what I say now, happiness is just around the corner”. It really drives home the importance of hope in the future and……… and…….. that the Vengabus is coming?

Brad: I would also like to point people towards another of WK’s finest moments, “It’s Time to Party”:

“It’s time to party, Let’s party
Hang out with yourself and have a crazy party
Hey you, let’s party
Have a killer party and Party!

It gets better from there, but I think those speak for themselves.”

Poet Laureate

Let me present one other addition to my favorite opening line that I just remembered today, from Failure’s “The Nurse Who Loved Me”:

:Say hello, to the rug’s topography”

The song’s about a drug addict falling in love with she who gives him his fix, but that line just really captures those times when (due to a variety of reasons) you may be face down on the floor and just really exploring the various tracts of rug/floor beneath you. We’ve all been there.

Seth: Brad loves heroin.

Summer: For some reason, the first thing that comes to mind is:

“She was a fast machine, she kept her motor clean, she was the best damn woman I had ever seen” -You Shook Me All Night Long, AC/DC

Not sure its my favorite or the best, but it stuck with me!

Stevo: Although I think Seth’s choice may be the best so far, mostly because I think it’s probably my favorite Brand New song. These may not be the best, but I like them. I have 2 other choices essentially saying the same thing. They both stress being true to yourself, in varied ways. One comes from 311 and the other from Brand New.It’s more like two lines but talking about staying true to yourself, although in a very strong statement:

“You know I’ll not renounce my views and do what others do. I’d rather tweak the hemlock than be like you.” -Still Dreaming, 311

“Who do you carry the torch for young man? Do you believe in anything?” -Archers, Brand New

Greg: I’m a little ashamed of my friends that this did not come up:

“Tonight, I’m gonna have myself a real good time, I feel ali-i-i-ive.” Queen, Don’t Stop Me Now

Freddy Mercury and Friend having a good time

Personal Fave:

“Everybody’s talkin bout the stormy weather and what’s a man to do but work out whether its true?” Sonic Youth, Teenage Riot (this is on the longer side but I feel it still applies because there’s no pause in between clauses)

Well if there’s one thing that I’m certain of, it’s that that cat is very please to be with Freddy (R.I.P). But how are the lyric selections? I want everyone who reads this to vote for their favorite opening line and the winner gets a prize to be named a later date (it will almost certainly be a high 5!) Ok I need to run along and find someone who loves me as much as that cat loves Freddy. Also, thanks Caroline for unwittingly spurring  a topic that lasted almost two weeks!