Elvis Costello nicked part of Sonny Boy Williamson's great opening line, "Don't start me talking or I'll tell everything I know" for the start of his song Oliver's Army. It's the bottom brick – remove it and the whole building comes down. You end up writing your whole song around it and by then you can't take it away. Once in a while, writing a song, someone else's opening line pops into your head and you go with it. You can't help but lean forward on your seat to catch up with what you've missed and what will happen next. Dave Faulkner sings, "And another thing, I've been wondering lately", busting in on the listener as if the conversation's already been going a while. I love the start of What's My Scene? by the Hoodoo Gurus. You've been scratching around with a couple of chords and half a tune and bang! – there it is. It's worth sweating on, a good opening line. When Aretha Franklin sings: "The moment I wake up, before I put on my make-up, I say a little prayer for you", the words sound so tender, so womanly, it's hard to believe a man wrote them.
Behind the white door song how to#
Hal David, who wrote the lyrics to Walk On By, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, 24 Hours to Tulsa – little movies all – but who curiously seems to get less credit than his musical collaborator, Burt Bacharach, knew how to begin, too. Morrissey has a real knack – nearly every first line of the Smiths' songs is a killer. Sweetness, sweetness I was only joking when I said I'd like to smash every tooth in your head. All happy families are alike, all unhappy families are unhappy in their own way. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. In the middle of the journey of my life I found myself in a dark wood. The Dots were mainly distinguished by a succession of guitar players called Chris who kept leaving the band.ĭANTE, Dickens, Tolstoy and Morrissey knew how to begin. I formed a band called the Dots and we did the beer-barn, campus and inner-city rounds for a few years, venturing to Sydney, Adelaide and even as far as Brisbane. The High Rise Bombers lasted nine months only – too many chiefs – but, strangely, seemed to get more famous once we'd broken up. We got ourselves a residency in a beer garden at the back of Cafe Paradiso in Carlton on Sunday afternoons. Martin wrote songs and so did a couple of others in the band. We called ourselves the High Rise Bombers, after a newspaper headline about people throwing stuff from housing commission flats. I managed to get a band together which included a waxing and waning horn section and the gaunt Prince of Carlton, Martin Armiger. If he can do it, so can I, I thought to myself. The Sports' singer, Steve Cummings, had dark good looks but was pretty awkward onstage. On weekends it was crowded, and especially packed when the Sports or Jo Jo Zep and the Falcons played. Just over the road from us was the Kingston Hotel. There were a lot of small venues in the inner city – pubs mainly – which put on live music most nights of the week. Chris and I also started an exuberant song about nothing in particular called Leaps and Bounds but didn't finish it. She was a curly-haired, voluptuous, almond-eyed beauty with dangerous ways.
I played him my new songs as they kept coming and we made up tunes together, mainly about girls we knew or wanted to know. He played me old records by the Velvet Underground, the Flying Burrito Brothers, the Stooges, the Beatles and the Beach Boys – all of them revelations.Ĭhris and I sat around for hours, days, playing guitars. It was there I first heard Tom Petty, Television, Talking Heads, Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers, the Ramones, Elvis Costello, the Sex Pistols and the Clash. John, the singer, worked in a record store and had a huge collection of records. I felt like a country bumpkin around them so I didn't say much and kept my ears open. My house companions were hip to the latest in music, film and fashion. I moved into a closet room behind the stairwell – just enough space for a mattress, rucksack of clothes, books, a little tape player and a cache of cassettes. A friend of mine introduced me to some ex-Adelaide guys in a band – John, Chris, Tony – who had a share house in East Melbourne. I'd been putting words to music for a little while and had a dozen or so songs in my pocket. I MOVED to Melbourne in 1977, the year Elvis died.
I'm high on the hill, Looking over the bridge To the MCG And way up on high The clock on the silo Says eleven degrees I remember, I remember.
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