Best first line of an album?

I LEFT THE NORTH

(BTW the answer to my earlier teaser: the album is XTC's "Skylarking", the song is "Summer's Cauldron", and the first line is "Drowning here in summer's cauldron").

Oh and Jake, strictly speaking the first line is "London, England, consider yourself WARNED!". Which is how I feel most times I'm there :).

Also 'Don't fall in love with me' is quite a nice start to an album about love.

2. Cookie (1): great call on Elvis. Who could leave that one out?

3. Cookie (3): 'yet'. Don't forget 'yet'.

great line great album

"I dreamed I was an Eskimo ..." -- take a guess :-)

"All those whose mind entitles themselves,
and whose main entitle is themselves,
shall feel the wrath of my bombast!"

"It's approaching
600 pounds gas and flesh
Robes in tatters
It's approaching"

"Is there anybody there?
Yeah!"

"Well you tried it just for once, found it all right for kicks/but now you found out that it's a habit that sticks/and you're an orgasm addict!"

Off the top of my head, I'd highly rate "I'm not afraid to say I'm scared" from Sonic Youth's "The Burning Spear" from their debut EP.

T-Rex "Futuristic Dragon"

Very daft, yes. But with that psychedelic funk backing music there is no better...

- "Deny Everything" kicking off Group Sex by the Circle Jerks

Mission of Burma's 'Secrets'.

Yes, Tales From Topographic Oceans

(the greatness of this line wasn't apparent the first thousand or so times i heard it.)

(pretzel logic is thirty years old!)

"Serious as a heart attack!"

"TALK — It's only talk!"

-1999, duh

or,

scientific, my hand kissed it

or,

i've been waiting for a guide to take me by the hand

Once upon a time there was a man called Saul who persecuted Christians
He shows up at the party in a pair of dark glasses his grandfather wore in the war
God is a tender pervert and the angels are voyeurs
Trust me, I'm a doctor
Nobody is evil, nobody is good
I come from the jungle, from Popacatapetl
Take a voyage through the heart of darkness, to the sound of violins
The villains of vaudeville, young lovers' quarrels
If I told the truth I'd like to live my life again
I was born on a dashboard, toothbrush for a head
When you caress your little cat and stroke me with your hand
Ping pong the album, comedy cabaret
I went with a friend of mine I hadn't seen in years to a party
Mad music, sad music, totally bad and crazy music
Appalachian mountain girl, coming home to me
We are the pirates, we sail in silence
The man from the north enters the tube
Moop bears in the thunder, moop bears on the idiot sea

or one of my favorites

i am a patient boy
i wait i wait i wait
my time is water down a drain
- fugazi, 13 songs

'Got me a movie/I want you to know/Slicing up eyeballs...'

"Just bill me for the total cost."

I have no clue what that means, but I know it rules.

erm

"We're the Beta Band and we're nice and clean"

erm

"We blew the doors, didn't we, pissed in their champagne and did a real thing, didn't we, gave ourselves a name and peeled away the shame, I wanted to explode, to pull my ribs apart, and let the sun inside"

erm

"Rat's foot, iron claw, neurosurgeons SCREEEEEAM for more"

erm

"Good evening. This is your captain. We are about to attempt a crash-landing."

erm

"Oh yeah, the world's turned upside-down"

erm

"AMERICAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!"

"I am on a lonely road and I am traveling, traveling, travlin', travlin'..." (Joni Mitchell, 'All I Want', Blue)

"Soft as snow but warm inside" (My Bloody Valentine, Isn't Anything)

"Forget our fate..." (Mark Hollis)

"When you were young, you were the king of carrot flowers" (Neutral Milk Hotel, 'King of Carrot Flowers', In The Aeroplane over the Sea)

but my absolute favourite:

"Why can't we all just walk away..." (Current 93, 'The Long Shadow Falls', All the Pretty Little Horses)

I'll second this one. Best opening line of a debut album.

also the first line of either/or by elliott smith. the track is 'speed trials'. for risk of misquoting it, i won't try and write anything down

"Welcome to Mu-World, bitch! I’m talking to the person who took [?indecipherable] from me off eBay...plus bitches who...?...without my permission...another shout-out to those bitches who keep my tampons backstage...and especially to the all [sic] haters...I’m about to KUNG-FU YOU!"

alternately, Deerhoof - Reveille:

"The trumpet scatters its awful sound over the graves of all lands..."

OR, Smog - Dongs of Sevotion:

It happens on a side street, maybe
It happens on a main street, maybe
Lion bites a zebra neck

"I was out late the other night, fear and whiskey kept me going." (Mekons - Chivalry)

"And it was just about time for the party to close, when the hinges went to flyin' off the motherfuckin' doors." (The Coup - Everythang)

"I went away to see an old friend of mine/His sister came over, she was out of her mind." (Sonic Youth - Schizophrenia)

Ryan Adams - Strawberry Wine

Pavement - "Summer Babe" (Winter version)

I'm never going back to Jackson