TheSound
An Englishman in New York
An intriguing and original idea, Vehicle, but my album of 10 tracks here can never be definitive…like I’m sure many members here I’ve been a record collector for over 30 years and I don't know how many albums I own....but I’ll still give it a go with 10 great opening tracks that I have instantly thought of, but most of them might just as easily be replaced by 100 x 10 that I haven’t thought of!
Getting the running order on an album is crucial, apparently Springsteen spends literally weeks trying dozens of different combinations of the 12-14 tracks or however many it is he’s recorded for a new record until he feels he’s happy, and he feels he’s got it right, drives his record company nuts apparently waiting for him to deliver a final product for release. But it is very important, especially the crucial opening track where it’s like a writer getting the first few pages of a new novel to have the maximum possible impact, so that the reader then wants to carry on reading the book.
Anyway, here....
1. Thunder Road – Bruce Springsteen (Born to Run)
2. Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding – Elton John (Goodbye Yellow Brick Road)
3. Break on Through to the Other Side - The Doors (The Doors)
4. Subterranean Homesick Blues – Bob Dylan (Bringing it all Back Home)
5. Custard Pie – Led Zeppelin (Physical Graffiti)
6. Everything in its Right Place – Radiohead (Kid A)
7. Astral Weeks – Van Morrison (Astral Weeks)
8. Once – Pearl Jam (Ten)
9. Rikki Don’t Lose That Number – Steely Dan (Pretzel Logic)
10. Bridge Over Troubled Water - Simon and Garfukel (Bridge Over Troubled Water)
Of all those, the Springsteen is the one that made the biggest instant impression, talk about great opening tracks, I recall when I first bought/heard the Born to Run album out of curiosity really, in I suppose around 1982, never heard him before, but I kept re-playing Thunder Road several times before I even moved on to listen to track #2 and the rest of the album, and that song at that moment in time fundamentally changed the way I thought about music, it was probably the point at which I decided that what the song says is more important to me than the way it sounds, I’d never heard such poetic, evocative, almost cinematic song writing before, in Thunder Road he was coming up with stuff like…
The screen door slams
Mary’s dress sways
Like a vision she dances across the porch
As the radio plays
Roy Orbison singing for the lonely,
Hey that's me and I want you only
Don't turn me home again
I just can't face myself alone again.
There were ghosts in the eyes
Of all the boys you sent away,
They haunt this dusty beach road
In the skeleton frames of burned out Chevrolets…
…and I was like, say WHAT???...you have got to be effing kidding me!...I'd never heard anything like it before, life changing, literally, right there and then, track 1, side 1, first time I'd ever heard him.
Getting the running order on an album is crucial, apparently Springsteen spends literally weeks trying dozens of different combinations of the 12-14 tracks or however many it is he’s recorded for a new record until he feels he’s happy, and he feels he’s got it right, drives his record company nuts apparently waiting for him to deliver a final product for release. But it is very important, especially the crucial opening track where it’s like a writer getting the first few pages of a new novel to have the maximum possible impact, so that the reader then wants to carry on reading the book.
Anyway, here....
1. Thunder Road – Bruce Springsteen (Born to Run)
2. Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding – Elton John (Goodbye Yellow Brick Road)
3. Break on Through to the Other Side - The Doors (The Doors)
4. Subterranean Homesick Blues – Bob Dylan (Bringing it all Back Home)
5. Custard Pie – Led Zeppelin (Physical Graffiti)
6. Everything in its Right Place – Radiohead (Kid A)
7. Astral Weeks – Van Morrison (Astral Weeks)
8. Once – Pearl Jam (Ten)
9. Rikki Don’t Lose That Number – Steely Dan (Pretzel Logic)
10. Bridge Over Troubled Water - Simon and Garfukel (Bridge Over Troubled Water)
Of all those, the Springsteen is the one that made the biggest instant impression, talk about great opening tracks, I recall when I first bought/heard the Born to Run album out of curiosity really, in I suppose around 1982, never heard him before, but I kept re-playing Thunder Road several times before I even moved on to listen to track #2 and the rest of the album, and that song at that moment in time fundamentally changed the way I thought about music, it was probably the point at which I decided that what the song says is more important to me than the way it sounds, I’d never heard such poetic, evocative, almost cinematic song writing before, in Thunder Road he was coming up with stuff like…
The screen door slams
Mary’s dress sways
Like a vision she dances across the porch
As the radio plays
Roy Orbison singing for the lonely,
Hey that's me and I want you only
Don't turn me home again
I just can't face myself alone again.
There were ghosts in the eyes
Of all the boys you sent away,
They haunt this dusty beach road
In the skeleton frames of burned out Chevrolets…
…and I was like, say WHAT???...you have got to be effing kidding me!...I'd never heard anything like it before, life changing, literally, right there and then, track 1, side 1, first time I'd ever heard him.
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Nice lists, everyone.
