23 Oct 2010
Thirty seconds into the first song…
HMHB have come up with some of the greatest opening lines in popular music history. Here’s a complete list of them. Which are your favourites …not perhaps because you know what’s coming next, but – in isolation – would make you think “I’ve got to hear the rest of this verse”?
69 Letters Sent:
Chris The Siteowner
Yeah, and I get to go first.
1. Vespers done, I glide out…
2. And at the post fest lig I saw ten thousand people maybe more…
3. Strawbs.. Huh, what do you know boy?…
4. Quick, run, hide, here comes Dave Stewart…
5. In pulpits, in pulpits, they can preach naked from the waist downwards…
6. Checkmate! Dennis Bell of Torquay…
7. Dream therapists: is your lucky number seven by any chance?…
8. You said you’d found me helpless on the A47…
9. I woke up about eleven with hair like Brian May…
10. It’s the year 2163, Chester Barnes is risen from the dead…
Oct 23rd, 2010
Vendor of Quack Nostrums
1. I fancy I’ll open a stationer’s.
What better ambition for a young man? Except perhaps becoming a retail tobacconist. It’s the hmhb line I sing the most. – Drives Mrs Vendor to distraction.
2. I’ve been strolling down my favourite lane.
If you can think of a simpler pleasure (that’s both moral and legal), I’d be happy to hear about it. I can almost smell the flora and fauna as I type.
3. My hands are stained with thistle milk.
Why though, why? How though, how?
4. Woke up this morning, found myself in bed.
One of the many lines that has never failed to put a smile on my face, even after all these years. My knowledge of the blues has increased considerably over the last 25 years however. (Whoops, that’s the second line).
5. I’m a vendor of quack nostrums born in a Kansas shack.
Just because it rings so true.
Oct 23rd, 2010
Neil G
I know it’s two or three lines (although it’s one sentence) but the opening of National Shite Day is astonishingly good. It is visual. It is visceral. It grabs you by the short and curlies. It is utterly brilliant.
Pulling the ice axe from my leg
I staggered on
Spindrift stinging my remaining eye
I wish I’d written that.
Oct 23rd, 2010
Germ
I shout all my obscenities from steeples.
Oct 23rd, 2010
Bobby String
Not sure I’ve ever heard a HMHB opening line that wouldn’t persuade me to continue listening. That said, I would certainly listen beyond “There is surely nothing worse than washing sieves”. Nigel’s obviously never washed a cheese grater then! Mind you, I agree with him about Garth Crooks.
Ô¿Ô
Oct 24th, 2010
Alan
Personal favourite has to be
“Outside Goldsmith’s, coughing up blood”
Pure genius!
Oct 24th, 2010
Charles Exford (T-W-A-T-O-N-E)
There is a small possibility that I wouldn’t have interjected just to say that Goldsmiths’ recently rebranded itself as Goldsmiths, but has never been Goldsmith’s, but I couldn’t resist when I noticed that the site’s song counter seems to have gone up from 167 to 168 with the addition of this thread.
Oct 24th, 2010
Daryl
So many favourites, but I’m currently loving “Girlfriend said that she no longer LIKES me’. So damn funny.
Seeing all those lines typed out actually made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Who wouldn’t give their right arm to write even a few of them?
In another way, it makes me kind of sad that HMHB and Nigel aren’t better known. This is one special band.
Oct 24th, 2010
Mr Larrington
Has to be “Quick, run, hide, here comes Dave Stewart…”. Mr. Stewart is not quite as ubiquitous as he once was so I get fewer chances to shout it at the telly, but even so.
Oct 25th, 2010
Third Rate Les
Why haven’t you got “There she lies in a fleecy gown”?
Oct 25th, 2010
Chris The Siteowner
‘Cos it’s “Here she lies in her fleecy gown“.
Oct 25th, 2010
Third Rate Les
Sorry – there it is. I reckon you can’t really beat “Mention the Lord of the Rings”, even if I’m someone who probably mentions LOTR a bit more than I should.
Oct 25th, 2010
Petrovic
This is a strong contender for me…
We’ve just been performing a guerrilla gig
In the middle of another group’s guerrilla gig
Well surely that’s the ultimate guerrilla gig
But still they cried like girls
Oct 25th, 2010
John Anderson
When I had my loft converted back into a loft….”
Oct 26th, 2010
Third Rate Les
One striking thing about the list is that pretty much all the ones starting “I” are absolute blinders.
Oct 26th, 2010
Third Rate Les
more generally I can’t get my list of favourites below 52 of them, so not much help there.
Oct 26th, 2010
BrumBiscuit
I heard a lovely rumour that Bet Midler had a tumour…
Has to be the best about an ageing, frizzy-haired, middle-of-the-road, septic singer.
Oct 26th, 2010
BrumBiscuit
Oh, and I forgot: “Now here comes a story that’s never been told…”
Pure, twisted genius that song!
Oct 26th, 2010
Charles Exford
Lord I’ve tried the best I can, I’ve read all the posts in the thread on Chris Rand, but (like Third Rate Les) I still can’t get my head around a list of my favourites.
So inspired by Les’ comment I started to think what a good live set you could get just from the 30 songs beginning with “I”, and then inspired by Chris himself I just started obsessively counting things, though not particularly carefully I must admit. The results are possibly one of the most pointless lists ever written on this or any other website, and I have to confess I’m quite proud of that fact.
So, defining a “first line” arbitrarily as whatever Chris wrote on his list, the approximate pronoun stats are, in the 167 songs:
Of the 65 songs with the word “I” in the first line, 30 begin with that word.
Of the 15 songs with “me” in the first line, 1 begins with that word.
Of the 26 songs with “my” in the first line, 4 begin with that word.
Of the 9 songs with “we” in the first line, 6 begin with that word. At least 4 of these refer to bands.
Of the 6 songs with “us” in the first line, none begin with that word. 3 of these refer to bands.
Of the 3 songs with “our” in the first line, 1 begins with that word.
(Of the 167 opening lines, at least 96, that is about 57.5%, contain one or more first person pronouns)
Of the 21 songs with “you” in the first line, 3 begin with that word.
Of the 6 songs with “your” in the first line, none begin with that word.
No songs begin with the masculine third person pronoun.
“He” and “his” surprising occur only once each in these lines, and “him” not at all.
Of the 5 songs with “she” in the first line, 1 begins with that word.
Of the 4 songs with “her” in the first line, 1 begins with that word.
Of the 8 songs with “they” in the first line, 5 begin with that word.
Of the 2 songs with “their” in the first line, none begin with that word.
Oct 27th, 2010
Bobby String
Hats off to you Mr. Exford, quite possibly one of the most Adrian Monk-like lists of all time, quite appealing to obsessive-compulsive Virgos like me!
OK, I need to go and wash my hands again…
Ô¿Ô
Oct 27th, 2010
Third Rate Les
Good work Charles. People get DPhils in linguistics for less.
Would be interesting to arrange them chronologically and see if there’s a pattern. When I put the Calendar together, it was striking how newer albums have more references to time than older ones.
When I say “interesting” I mean it in the sense that my wife would probably disagree with, obviously.
Oct 27th, 2010
gNick
“A mistake has been made, It’s a fact they can’t hide” is a good start to a beautifully typical crisp, flat, sweet, small, baked unleavened cake type song about ordinary life as seen by the local newspaper, complete with an endearing Nigeologue bringing in that fear of all good things being brought back to earth with a bump by the Rayner (RIP).
Otherwise all of them are my life, my love and my bag of jelly babies.
Cue ‘Anything under 5% I don’t want to drink it’ as I head up the road to my local purveyors of all things fine in the real ale world as well as very good value nibbles in ramekins instead of those plastic bags you have so much trouble opening that you miss the fact that there are only three and a half cashews in them.
Oct 29th, 2010
ROSS
Nothing sums up the impending doom that comes from living in 21st century Britain better than:
“Back to back Cadfael / Ross Kemp on Watership Down
Are we living in the last days?”
(“Tommy Walsh’s Eco House”)
Nov 3rd, 2010
Greasby Shark
“Tower block, you couldn’t score in a tower block.”
Always reminds me of being ripped off by a couple of smackheads in Moreton who I foolishly trusted with my hard earned dole when trying to score an eighth of weed.
They disappeared into a tower block known locally as ‘Heroin Heights’, never to be seen again.
Just say ‘No’!, kids.
Nov 8th, 2010
Boyley
I remember being in a record shop in Glasgow’s leafy West End (TM) and hearing ‘Henry Rollins, Henry Rollins..’ and that’s been it for me ever since. But what is the best closing line? Can, worms etc
Nov 13th, 2010
Chief Exec
Well my name it is Dai Young
I’m the King of Welsh Goth
Brilliant!
Nov 24th, 2010
Geoff Cole
Lord I’ve tried the best I can
I’ve asked everybody in Kazakhstan
But I still don’t understand
Bob Wilson – anchorman.
Nov 28th, 2010
Daryl
@Boyley:
My nomination for best closing line(s)
“Father?”
“Yes son?
“I want to borrow your golf clubs”
Worm can opened?
Nov 28th, 2010
Baby Dave
There’s no way anyone can resist listening to the rest of a HMHB ditty that begins with
‘I stick my big nose in
when I go out’
Nov 28th, 2010
Neil G
Daryl,
Best penultimate line:
Sign on with no hope in your heart
Nov 28th, 2010
Bobby String
“Suspected murderer of Tupac murder suspect murdered”
Nigel should be a tabloid headline writer!
Ô¿Ô
Nov 28th, 2010
Third Rate Les
Closing lines – I like the ones which are nothing obviously to do with the rest of the song, like the Vreni Schneider bit, the Telly Savalas bit, the Frampton Comes Alive bit, the head found at the driving range, etc.
I also like the “alleluia” at the end of JDOG, and “Len, you’re the dogs” is an intriguing one.
Bobby String has a point though – the Tupac murder suspect is hard to beat.
Nov 28th, 2010
Charles Exford
Errm, how does the garage fella’s head being found _not_ relate to the rest of a song which effectively lists the reasons why he deserved the decapitation ?
And isn’t a fan saying that a line taking the piss out of headline-writers shows how good the author would be at writing headlines a bit like someone who enjoyed Animal Farm and 1984 saying George Orwell would have made a good Stalinist ?
Nov 28th, 2010
Bobby String
Ah, Mr. Exford, the problem of written communication, not portraying facial expressions, body language etc.
I was being kind of ironic / facetious about Nigel being a headline writer, hence the exclamation mark (it’s actually the one that was supposed to be on Frampton Comes Alive, I stole it back in the seventies and have kept it in my safe since then to be used on special occasions such as this). Let’s face it, anyone with even a rudimentary grasp of the English language could write tabloid headlines.
EXFORD’S HEAD FOUND ON DRIVING RANGE – STRING IN CUSTODY!
(Note the smiley face to demonstrate that this is meant to be humourous)
Nov 29th, 2010
Third Rate Les
OK – I can see the point about the driving range bit. Not sure why I’d never really connected the two there.
On the tabloid headlines thing, you can’t beat the Framley Examiner, which had a story about people nicking Disney videos from the local library entitled “One Of Our One Of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing Is Missing”.
I’ve always thought you could do a similar one about Green Day called “Wake Me Up When Wake Me Up When September Ends Ends” but sadly I’ve never had the opportunity.
The Framley Examiner – that’s a site that comes nearer than most to the HMHB sense of humour. “For sale – cello case. Would suit cello. Or large, cello-shaped flute”.
Nov 29th, 2010
Bobby String
Hmmmm, I want to go and live in Framley! I remember an ad in my local paper when I lived in Aberdeen that was just the opposite. It read “Chair – £5″ Nothing about whether it was an armchair, office chair, dentist’s chair etc. just “chair”.
If ever an online newspaper was in dire need of an exclamation mark, it surely had to be Framley Comes Alive!
Ô¿Ô
Nov 29th, 2010
Charles Exford
If only this was a message board with times of posting and that, you could all just ignore everything I grumpily thump into the babbage engine between 11pm and 2am, especially after my team’s had a beating and the manager’s a big divvy and the ref’s been a bent tw*t…
Anyway, you’re all very gracious people and I agree, the Framley Examiner rules.
Nov 29th, 2010
Chris The Siteowner
If anyone’s looking for a Christmas present, The Framley Examiner book is – as Third Rate says – one of the most HMHB-like things out there. Seriously good stuff.
Nov 29th, 2010
Third Rate Les
That’s a top idea Chris – I didn’t know there was a book. I’d be intrigued to see if my dad enjoyed that. I bought him a The Onion compendium of spoof news headlines which he surprisingly didn’t really seem to get (my favourite being one purported to be from 1912 about the Titanic entitled “World’s Largest Metaphor Hits Iceberg: ill-fated emblem of man’s pride takes 1,500 to a watery grave on doomed, allegorical maiden voyage”).
Sorry to drift further off topic. Err.. closing lines, yeah. It occurs to me that “not long now before lollipop men are called Darren” is an unbeatable way to end a song, especially one that’s not otherwise anything to do with lollipop men or people called Darren.
Nov 30th, 2010
Mr Larrington
My chum Dai infidel has a downer on the Framley Examiner after one of those behind it spread a rumour around half of Essex that she’d recently starred in a pr0n film. If you’ve ever met Dai you’d know how unlikely that would be but a lot of people apparently believed it…
Dec 1st, 2010
Bavarian Corsair
“Today I saw her brother, who said she`s with another”
It`s the only one I understand. I should have learnt propper english at school.
Dec 1st, 2010
Mr Galbraith
I think for me it is ‘Mention the Lord of the Rings just once more and I’ll more than likely kill you’. When I first heard this I was still shaking off an annoying tosser ex-schoolmate who use to bore me insensible with swathes of plot lines of Tolkien drivel. Closely followed by ‘Jesus Christ, come on down’ which offends lots of people who deserve it.
Honourable mentions:
I heard a lovely rumour that Bette Midler had a tumour. (Very cruel but hilarious).
So much for your journey of self-discovery… (Deffo leaves me wanting more as Chris was searching for in his original request).
I was walking round my local store, searching for the 10 pence off Lenor. (Everday mundanities become artistic genius).
Some people don’t know how to walk down the pavement these days. (From the ‘other’ session song from a few months ago – their only French song title. An irritatingly accurate observation. Must appear on the new album, it’s a fantastic track).
I could have put my head in a bucketful of porridge. (Surely we’ve all been tempted at least once. No? Just me then!)
Dec 12th, 2010
Mr Galbraith
I’ve just perused Chris’s alphabetical list and I must add ‘Darts in soap operas, oh so wrong, oh so wrong…’ The next line couldn’t come quick enough when I first heard it. As a Corrie-watching darts player I’m acutely aware of how these two concepts take to each other like ducks to oil slicks. Thanks to Nigel for bringing this to everyone’s attention…
Dec 12th, 2010
Bobby String
For me it has to be “Indicate then, you stupid bastard!”, an expression I find myself using with alarming regularity since coming to live in South Africa. Indicators seem to be an optional extra on cars over here. Nigel obviously also finds this very irritating as in Uffington Wassail we hear “Because you didn’t indicate to go down Woodchurch Lane”. Good on you, Nigel, these people need to learn some highway etiquette!
Ô¿Ô
Dec 12th, 2010
ROB NOXIOUS
my nomination for best closing line….
“…and if I knew they were coming I’d have slashed me wrists”
Dec 22nd, 2010
The King of Rome's Loft
Rob,
That’s the family’s favourite. Well apart from ‘Visitor for Mr.’
Dec 23rd, 2010
Stew
“God gave us life – Gordon Jackson”
Not a first, nor penultimate line, but gets me through many a tough day!
Feb 3rd, 2011
ANDY NELSON
Not long now before lollypop men are called Darren
Feb 7th, 2011
TWO FAT FEET
“oh no my head feels like sponge” is my all-time favourite line, so definitely gets my vote for the best closing line.
Never really thought about a best opening line but “when I had my loft / converted back into a loft” always raises a bigger smile than usual.
Months late on this one, inevitably, but one thing I miss now I am exiled from my home town of Romford is the sports section of the Romford Recorder, who used to come up with some great headlines. The most memorable for me was from a junior football match where a kid called Ryan Smithers scored a hat-trick against Springfield, prompting the headline SMITHERS BURNS SPRINGFIELD. Even better was, having spoken to the reporter who devised the headline, the joke was like the Goodyear airship to the sports editor himself.
Mar 6th, 2011
Ronnie B
Brilliant thread everyone.
Have to agree with a couple of the others and head back into ancient history for this one. Hard to believe people still read that rubbish but only this morning I had to rebuke a fellow office pen-pusher, probably high on a lethal cocktail of Tippex and marker pen, with the classic “Mention the Lord of the Rings just once more and I’ll more than likely kill you”.
Lovin’ that Framley Examiner site too.
Mar 11th, 2011
'Orses
Lordy be….where does one start? So many to choose from although I do rather like ‘I woke up about eleven with hair like Brian May’ and very often find myself frequently screaming ‘Indicate then you stupid bastard’
Apr 14th, 2011
2 Chevrons
Jesus Christ come on down!
If you are going to namedrop, make it a good one and do it early.
Apr 27th, 2011
Will B
We sat and decided as the seasons collided
That our love was fairly utopian
If it wasn’t for my pills, my psychiatric bills
And your unreliable fallopian
It really doesn’t get any better than this….
May 15th, 2011
Will B
Oh darling sugar honey
When it was nice and sunny
And when I had some money
We would go and see Echo And The Bunny
…men
though this is close…. Rock n Roll meets Alan Bennet
May 15th, 2011
Mr Galbraith
There are probably a handful of better opening lines, but any song that starts with the words ‘Bubble perm’ is definately derserving of further listening.
May 15th, 2011
Paddy
Come see the townsfolk keenly gathered round the gibbet
From my fav HMHB song. Criminally under rated
Aug 23rd, 2011
Chris Quinn
I could have put my head in a bucket full of porridge
I shout all my obscenities from steeples
Aug 30th, 2011
Big Inzy
me girlfriend looks like Peggy Mount what am i gonna do
Sep 1st, 2011
Big Inzy
the marvellous dexterity of hannu mikkolau makes me want to shake hands with the whole of finland
Sep 1st, 2011
Big Inzy
a personal favourite
Precious McKenzie oh i remember you well
Sep 1st, 2011
SHIRLEY DIMENSION
Unsurprisingly my current favourite is “well I put the wrong things in the wrong bin again”. I did that last week…paper in the ‘card sack’…I’m the cul de sac(k) anarchist.
Sep 24th, 2011
Michael ward
When i had my loft, converted back into a loft, the neighbours came around and scoffed, and called me retro
brilliant
i think godcore is tragically underestimated
Sep 28th, 2011
MURRAY MEIKLE
“I got three from each section on the fixed odds coupon but I still don’t want to go to Cuba”.
It’s the type of thing I imagine many of us have said under our breaths when someone regales us with a story about how wonderful their holiday was. And I’m speaking as someone who has been to Cuba – albeit on the back of a greyhound forecast double (2 to beat 1 at Romford, followed by 3 to beat 5 at Crayford).
Sep 29th, 2011
Charles Exford
Never felt the urge to pick a favourite before, but this time last week I was stuck having a vertigo attack about 35 vertical metres off the summit of Glydyr Fawr, above the cliff directly above that little Cwm lake you can see here.
I hate zig-zagging up scree slopes. I hate cliffs. I hate low-flying RAF Tornado jets using me for practice in their glorious campaign against the goatherds of the Hindu Kush.
I had to go back down, and go up round the other way the next morning. Beautiful. A fitting spot to inspire what I now think is my favourite opening line. Not in the HMHB canon, but in anything, ever.
Oct 7th, 2011
Mate of the bloke
Psst, Sssh!
or
I feel like a beggar accepting alms
Oct 11th, 2011
Lee's Twenty First
“There’s a girl, I’m told, who rolls her eyes
At the Gok Wan acolytes”
Nov 2nd, 2011
Mark
“Wonderful World, terrible song”
“In the land where I was born lived a man who went to work”
“I should be tugging at the beard of science like a cheeky schoolboy”
“Indicators, you stupid bastard”
“You may have to rescue me from limestone quarries frequently”
“Henry Rollins, Henry Rollins, you’re hard”
There are so many, aren’t there?
Incidentally, some good stretching of “first line” into “first four lines” guys.
Nov 15th, 2011
the dog on the pitch
Trying to iron out your problems without jesus, is only gonna put more wrinkles on your face
another godcore gem!!
Nov 18th, 2011
Darren
Current favourite –
“On the bleakest day Autumn could muster,
In a church to which they’ll not return.”
Dec 12th, 2011
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