Best song opening lines

[Hassled]

I've been mulling over this on my way to and from work and I have 3 contenders:
"She came from Greece - she had a thirst for knowledge" (Pulp). It's so intriguing - you immediately want to know more about her.
Then "Wake up, Maggie - I think I've got something to say to you". I love the hesitancy - he knows he should end things but he doesn't really want to. You can picture him mulling things over while she's asleep next to him.
And then there's "Now that you're out of my life I'm so much better." (Survivor). It's so emphatic, such a clear, confident statement. There's no hand-wringing nonsense - Beyonce is just stating a fact. As a way to open a song it's pretty damn good.

What have I forgotten? What's better?

Find your faith in your security / All broken up at seventeen / Jam your brain with broken heroes / Love your masks and adore your failures

Mis-shapes, mistakes, misfits, raised on a diet of broken biscuits

Yo man there's a lot of brothers out there
Flaking and perpetrating but scared to kick reality

NWA Express Yourself.

On the other end of the spectrum,

Never made it as a wise man
I couldn't cut it as
A poor man stealing

Nickelback

I hurt myself today
To see if I still feel

Johnny Cash

His father died and left him a little farm in New England.
All the long black funeral cars left the scene
And the boy was just standing there alone
Looking at the shiny red tractor
Him and his daddy used to sit inside
And circle the blue fields and grease the night.

Patti Smith: Birdland

Sorry, that's more than a first line. But what a scene it sets!

@LanguageAsAFlower love the manics lyrics

“The world is a vampire...”

Bullet with butterfly wings, Smashing Pumpkins. It’s hardly poetic, but I love how the song opens with that line.

Yes CustardOmlet! Love that one.

Incubus have really great lyrics.

"7am
The garbage truck beeps
as it backs up
And I start my day
thinking about what I've thrown away"

Tweeter and the Monkey Man were hard up for cash, they stayed up all night selling cocaine and hash.

"All this talk of getting old, is getting me down my love"
The Verve Drugs don't work

"You used to get it in your fishnets, now you only get it in your night dress" Arctic monkeys Florescent Adolescent

Loads of my favourites have already been posted. Great thread!

"She unscrews the top of her new whiskey bottle,
Shuffles around in her candle lit hovel,
With blue fingers and mittens,
She smells like a cat and the neighbours she sickens. "

Labelled With Love Squeeze - brilliant lyrics by Chris Difford, like setting the scene for a novel or play.
(CD is such an underrated lyricist)

Not earth shattering but just because these make me smile:

"I've had relations, with girls from many nations,
I've made passes with women of all classes" Sexuality Billy Bragg

Opps missed a bit

Like some kind of witch in blue fingers and mittens

With the money from her accident she bought herself a mobile home
Billy Bragg again!

"Oh it's so funny seeing you after so long girl,
And by the way you look, I can see you're not impressed.
But I heard you let that little friend of mine, take off your party dress."

Alison Elvis Costello

At first I was afraid. I was petrified....

They put a supermarket on a piece of land
Where the supermarket used to stand

come dancing by the Kinks (about his sister who gave him his first guitar)

I keep having dreams of pioneers and pirate ships and bob dylan - Frank Turner

Well they blew up the chicken man in philly last night - Bruce Springsteen

Busted flat in Baton Rouge , headin' for a train, and I's feelin' near as faded as my jeans.... Me and Bobby McGee.

The screen door slams, Mary's dress waves
Like a vision she dances across the porch as the radio plays

Summer has come and passed / The innocent can never last /

When September Ends - Green Day

There's a lady who is sure all that glitters is gold...
Stairway to Heaven

Born with the moon in Cancer
Choose her a name she'll answer to
Call her Green so the winters cannot fade her
Call her Green for the children who've made her
Little Green, be a gypsy dancer

(Little Green, Joni Mitchell)

You were lying there with nothing on,
But a goofy little grin and a platinum blonde

Stripes by Brandy Clark, that woman should definitely be on Mumsnet!! Especially on the Relationships board

"I got this feeling, inside my balls"

Justin Timberlake.