JPF Home Page Forums General Messages Songwriter Message Forum Song Hooks, The First Line Kind

And I believe Hoyt Axton wrote the "Jeremiah was a bullfrog" song. (Wasn't it called "Joy to the World"?)

Joe

since all of mine were correctly answered(very quickly),i thought I'd post a few more...this is fun!!Did I already say that?lol

Unsealed on a porch a letter sat,then you said I wanna leave it again.....

You dont remember me,but I remember you....

I remember it all very well lookin back,it was the summer I turned eighteen

Just a smalltown girl,living in a lonely world

I saw a werewolf with a chinese menu in his hand

Hey Mac,

The only one I think I recognize is "wherever you are,it's three a.m. and I'm awake". I believe that is from THE CLIMBER by Neil Finn??

Bobbie

Hi Michelle,

"I remember it all very well lookin back, it was the summer I turned eighteen" is from FANCY by Reba McIntyre.

"Unsealed on a porch a letter sat, then you said I wanna leave it again." That is from YELLOW LEDBETTER by Pearl Jam. I never really understood that song at all.

I need to think about a few of the others.

Bobbie

Even if you don't know the actual line you can be hooked! Till about a year ago I thought this line from Like A Rolling Stone was

"Once upon a time you did the bump and grind, didn't you?"

You Got It SO Right, Mz M! That is THE Hookiest Song I think I've EVER Heard..(& the Jr Walker SAX Break is to Die For!)

OK..I had me some Fun diggin' up These Pearls:

"There's a black man with a black cat"

"Humidity is rising, Barometer's getting low"

"My bills are due & the baby needs shoes"

"One fine day you'll look at me"

"He was working through college on my grampa's farm"

All came from BIG hits in their day!

Best Wishes & Have Fun!
Hugs, Stan

PS: Eb, look up "Mondegreen"....

PPS: "Werewolves of London" by "exciteble boy" Warren Zevon did that chinese meny line...right? AY-OOOOOOO....

Angie and Help are the ones that really lept out at me.

Tom

Number 1 was Busted written by Harlan Howard

Number 2 is Strawberry Wine I believe written by Matraca Berg and somebody else

Here's some:

Whisper to me softly three words upon my skin

Big orange ball sinking in the water

Well, I knew that she belonged to someone else at the time

Step right up, come on in

Tommy's selling used cars, Nancy's fixing hair

Tears On My Pillow

Bobbie,Stan ,and EB...all correct...you guys are good.i thought i had some tough ones!

Howdy EB,

I know three of your most recent ones. No clue on the others.

"Whisper to me softly three words upon my skin" is by Randy Owen of the group Alabama...from the song..FEELS SO RIGHT.

"Big orange ball sinking in the water"is from Kenny Chesney's HOW FOREVER FEELS.

"Tommy's selling used cars, Nancy's fixing hair" is by the Statler Brothers from the song..CLASS OF 57.

Great lines...all of them.

Hugs,
Bobbie

Eb, I am never going to be able to listen to that Dylan song the same way again. (And your line makes more sense, by the way.) Just like that Kenny Rogers song about the 400 children and a cop in the field...

Joe

HiDee EB!

Hey..I learn Somethin' New Here every day...I allus thought Ray Charles penned that Hit. But..you're right..ol' HH DID do that one! (What I found to be amazing is there are 123 OTHER "BUSTED" Songs registered at BMI's Hyper-Catalogue there...each with a diffo Identity Number.) Got any Idea what the MOST-USED-EVER Hook IS? I'd think this baby comes close to Qualifying...heh...but I'd heard "YESTERDAY" was pretty popular too...

You're right about the other 1st line as-well.

2 Fresh Ones offa the Radio today:
"Your light is on..but you're not home"...
"I was dreaming when I wrote this, forgive me if it goes astray"

Both were Monsters in their day...

Best Wishes & Congrats,
Big Guy-Hug,
Stan

PS...Isn't your 1st song "Feels So Right?" I forget Artist/Writer...but I'm always pathetic on Names! PPS: Guess Bobbie DOES know the Name...(Duh..on My Part..I'm also a Slow Reader!)

"Your light is on..but you're not home"...Robert palmer(addicted to love)

"I was dreaming when I wrote this, forgive me if it goes astray"....Prince(1999)

I love looking at the web site about misheard lyrics!Yellow Leadbetter is misheard all the time,and even once you know what the lyrics are actually saying,you are still left confused,but it is still a great pearl jam song,and one of my favorites..there are also many cases of misinterpreted lyrics.i dont want to be known as a potty mouth around here,but there was a song back in the early 80's by a group called Dexys Midnite Runners with the name Eileen in the title..my mother refused to let me listen to that song....lol

Joe,

I hate to admit it...but at first I thought that line was: "with 400 children, I was copping a feel." At the time...I wondered how they could get away with something like that. LOL I was pretty naive.

Bobbie

Talking about misunderstanding lyrics....Merle Haggard recorded a song called "the Roots of my Raising" back in the 70s. He didn't write it but it was a number one hit. Well, for years I heard "the roots of my raisin run deep" and I couldn't for the life of understand what he meant--why would he talk about the roots of a fruit that starts out as a dried out grape? It was only when Ricky Skaggs did a video for "Uncle Pen" where Bill Monroe said to Skaggs "you done got way above your rasin' boy!" that I realized Merle meant the roots of his UPBRINGING (raising). I felt like a total idiot for about a decade.

Speaking only for myself....I'm not sure I'm that good....I'm just old enough to remember.

Well EB, you got me beat...I am old enough that I forget!!

Bobbie

Misunderstood lyrics.

One of my sons friends thought the line was, "Hung just like a wolf..."

"Dirty deeds and the jungle chief..."

OR how about that great hit, "Weepin' willow don't you cry..." (Or is that how goes??) Also. It might or not be known that I am a great John Denver fan but for years, even though I was singing it correctly I did not understand the line from "Thank God I'm A Country Boy, that goes, "I'd play Sally Good all day if I could..." (Apprently "Sally Good" refers to an old blue grass melody??)

I have tried on some, my wife and daughter joined me on some others. This is fun!

- I'VE BEEN LATELY THINKING...
- ASHES OF LOVE...
- BORN A POOR YOUNG COUNTRY BOY...
- THIS HERE'S A STORY 'BOUT BILLY JOE AND BOBBY SUE...
- EARLY IN THE EVENIN'...

And the game can go on forever..........

Douglas

Hi Doug,

That line in the John Denver song is actually..."I'd play Sally Gooden all day if I could." SALLY GOODEN is an old traditional folk song...I believe it was actually bluegrass. At least I have heard a bluegrass version of it. Ask Mike Dunbar to verify. He knows the song.

Bobbie

Okay, this ain't exactly the way we been going but I can't resist....or I could but I ain't gonna.....

What songs are these lyrics from:

Number One
I want it long, straight, curly, fuzzy, Snaggy, shaggy, ratty, matty, Oily, greasy, fleecy, Shining, gleaming, streaming, Flaxen, waxen, Knotted, polka-dotted, Twisted, beaded, braided,
Powdered, flowered, and confettied, Bangled, tangled, spangled, and spaghettied!

Number Two
Ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty or more

Number Three
Who put the ram in the Rama-lama-ding-dong?

First one, eb, is from "Hair," I'm sure. The third--wasn't it called "Who Put the Bop in the Bop-She-Bop"?

No idea about the second--but it did recall an oldie from my bluegrass-band days that starts out:

"Twenny, twenny, twenny-four hours a day..."

Anybody remember?

Joe

HiDee Bro Dougie, & Thanks for launchin' this Fine Fun Thread.

"Early in the Evening" is from CCRs "Willie & The Poor Boys."

The rest I Dunno!

Nobody's yet got that "Temperture/Barometer"-Opener I posted...but I was recently-informed by a Gay Co-Worker it's a BIG Hit at the Gay Nightclubs...;-)

Here come Some Easy Ones..(If You're on the Old Side!)

"In 1814 we took a little trip"

"Her hair is Harlow Gold"

Toughie: "A prisoner of your love..Entangled in your web"

"My Daddy left home when I was 3"

"Every morning at the mine you could see him arrive"

Easy Bonus: "Nobody on the road"

Best Wishes & Have Fun,
Stan

Ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty or more.
The Bloody Red Baron was rollin' up the score.
Eighty men died tryin' to end that spree

This is from Snoopy vs The Red Baron. I don't know who wrote it but I think it was recorded by the Royal Guardsmen. They had to get permission from Charles Schultz to record it from what I understood.

Ok Tampa...I had to dredge that one outta mothballs but I think your Humidity/Barometer lines are part of a lyric by the Weather Girls called IT'S RAINING MEN:
Humidity is rising, Barometer's getting low
According to all sources, the street's the place to go
Cause tonight for the first time
Just about half-past ten
For the first time in history
It's gonna start raining men
Guess I can understand why it might be popular in gay bars.

"In 1814 we took a little trip" is from THE BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS

"My Daddy left home when I was 3" may have been a huge hit for Johnny Cash A BOY NAMED SUE..but it was written by the incredible Shel Silverstein.

"Every morning at the mine you could see him arrive" is from BIG BAD JOHN. I don't know who wrote it...but the version I remember best was sung by Jimmy Dean. I think that Johnny Cash may have also recorded it.

All this thinking is making my brain hurt! It doesn't get a lotta exercise these days. LOL

Bobbie

Speaking of misheard lyrics...for years I swore this chorus went:
Wastin' away again in margaritaville
Searching for my LAST CHIGGER ASSAULT
Some people claim that there's a woman to blame
But I know its nobody's fault

Obviously...I was not familiar with how margaritas are concocted!! LOL How dumb can one blonde be???

Bobbie

It's funny buy just yesterday we were talking to a 20 year old from Pennsylvania who was asking what chiggers were. Bobbie, I still don't know how to make a margarita. I think it's got salt around the rim or something but that's all I know and I ain't sure that's right.

Dolly is on Letterman tonight talking about the first time she went to New York and some guy kept putting the make on her. Her friend Jean was with her and Jean just kept laughing. She said when she left home both their daddies had given her a gun and she finally told the guy if he touched her one more time she was gonna shoot him. Then she said she doesn't have a gun now just bodyguards so don't write any protest letters.

On the song thing.....

Yep, yall guessed mine and yall guessed all that I knew.

Here's an opening line from one most of you will probably remember when I tell you what it is if not before. NOTE: It is not the Creedance Song. The line is:

Down on the corner....

Guess!

What a Hoot...but that "Shaker" line IS sung pretty slurred-together + w/ a Mississippi Accent, too!javascript:%20x(); {Crap! I've YET to master Smileys...dumb fadin'-Brunette that I be!}

Congrats on the Weather-Girls Song...! The "Toughie"..is another where most of the Words got sung Rapid-Fire..but the HOOK's a really Memorable One/You've heard it, I'm sure!

You're WAY outta the Dumb Blonde Category pullin' alla those Songs outta the Ether there...CONGRATS! Helpful Hint on one ya didn't get yet...has "Wayfarers" in the Lyric. (Talk about "Product Placement"..heh! DID work pretty well, tho, Imagery-Wise!)

BPH to da SBL!
Stan

Stan, "In 1814 we took a little trip" is from "The Battle of New Orleans," which Johnny Horton made famous. Horton didn't write it, though; it was wrote by an Arkansas high school teacher named Jimmy Driftwood, who wrote a number of country-music songs later made famous by others. That song made Jimmy Driftwood the first person in his hometown in Arkansas to ever earn more than $10,000.

Oh, and one more trivial tidbit. Jimmy Driftwood didn't write the music, as far as I know. He took most of it from a little French classical piece called the "9th of January." January 9, coincidentally, was the date of the Battle of New Orleans.

Joe

Doug
THIS HERE'S A STORY 'BOUT BILLY JOE AND BOBBY SUE...-Take the money and run - The Eagles I think
- EARLY IN THE EVENIN'... Down on the corner- Three Dog Night?

OK, I want to play!
1. Betty Davis Eyes, performed by Kim Carnes
2. You Better Be Good to Me, performed by Tina Turner
3. Boys of Summer, Don Henley


Baby's Got Her Blue Jeans On, Mel McDaniel

Hey Kevin (and EB),

Although Mel McDaniel and Conway both had hits with BABY'S GOT HER BLUE JEANS ON...I believe the actual songwriter was Bob McDill. I could be wrong on that.

I still love the CCR version of DOWN ON THE CORNER. I miss Fogarty!!

Bobbie

Hey Bobbie,

As far as the Conway song goes, you may be thinking of "Tight Fitting Jeans". Both were great songs. I remember driving my ex-wife crazy by playing the Mel McDaniel song five times in a row on a jukebox at a local pizzaria.

I'm impressed!

Ok.I've got some new ones...

You've should have seen by the look in my eyes.....

Lying beside you,here in the dark....

Traveling in a fried out combie....

Please dont tell no-no-no,dont say that I told you so

I love little baby ducks....

Michelle- I know the first one..You've should have seen by the look in my eye...baby...that there was something missin...and I meant every word I said...when I said that I loved you I meant that I'd love you forever...I hear it, was it CHicago? I am usually not very good at these...but I think I got this one.

Ooh, Lying beside you here in the dark...Bonnie Raitt I Can't Make You Love Me...I'm on fire tonight?!

Hey Kev..You're GOOD, Man!

&..speakin' of Mondegreens, I always thought that line was "Her hair is HOLLOW Gold"...'till I looked it UP last night!

I'm for some reason NOT real good at Remembering Opening Lines...BUT can usually Nail a Song by hearing the first couplea Notes in the Intro. (Assuming it's one I've heard..in the past.)
(Some MP3 Wizard could start a Musical-Recall Thread & have even More Fun..hint-hint!)

Gotta Scoot...Congrats on a Well-Organized Brain, Amigo! (Mine's always in a State of Clutter!)

Big Guy-Hug,
Stan

Hi vicki...you got the first one right,but it was REO Speedwagon...the second one is not the one I was thinking of ,but that bonnie raitt song might start out like that too...hmmm...that's got me thinking now...i wonder how many songs might open with the same line?good guessing though vicki...this is fun!

AHh Michelle- I'm not on fire then...REO SPeedwagon of course...my husband used to serenade me with those songs when we were dating...

Now you have me thinking too...that line sounds very Bonnie Raitt...maybe not be the first line though. Maybe others will chime in.

HAve a good night, vicki

I only knew 1/2 of those. You folks know your stuff. I'm sure these will be very easy but they do start the songs off very well.


#1 we got married in a fever...

#2 he looked down into her brown eyes...

#3 just a small town girl...

#4 the sign in the window said for sale or trade...

#5 mamma pajama rolled out of bed...

John

John,is #3 Dont Stop Believing by Journey?...thats the only one that seems familiar to right now.

#1 we got married in a fever...is from the song JACKSON that was a huge hit for Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash. However I believe it was written by Billy Wheeler and someone else. I can't recall the other person though.

#2 he looked down into her brown eyes...is from SEVEN SPANISH ANGELS by Willie Nelson. At least he is the voice I hear singing it in my head! LOL

#4 the sign in the window said for sale or trade...is by Lonestar from their song WHAT ABOUT NOW.

#5 mama pajama rolled out of bed..is, I believe from Simon and Garfunkel's ME AND JULIO DOWN BY THE SCHOOLYARD. I never really understood what they were talking about in that song but I loved the music. Go figure!! Being a former English teacher, the phrase, 'me and Julio' always grated on me because the correct way to state that grammatically is...Julio and I, if followed by a verb...or if someone saw them...it would be they saw Julio and me...down by the schoolyard. I can't help myself!! LOL Even otherwise intelligent folks seem to put themselves first these days when they speak. It always seems to come out "me and so and so" did whatever. I never bother to correct anyone but it makes me wonder ...don't they know? Or don't they care? Just one of those pet peeves.

Bobbie

PS...I think you can tell the age difference here. LOL Michelle got the only one I didn't know...I knew the oldies. She knows groups like Journey!

"I love" by Tom T. Hall...I knew the REO, but none of the rest.

Midnite

These are not all first lines but do you know them?

It rained all night the day I left, the weather it was dry

I'm in the heart of Dixie, Dixie's in the heart of me

This is one great line:
The beer I had for breakfast wasn't bad so I had one more desert

It rained all night the day I left, the weather it was dry


eb--That was oh Susanna
That last on won't come to me, all I can get is the part finding his cleanest dirty shirt and that's all I can recall. How much we forget. Hearing it's easy, reading it? I wanna say Johnny Cash?

Howdy EB,

I posted that song early on...it is Kris Kristofferson's SUNDAY MORNING COMING DOWN. The actual first lines of the song are:
Well I woke up Sunday morning with no way to hold my head, that didn't hurt
and the beer I had for breakfast wasn't bad so I had one more for dessert

I am a huge Kris fan. Think he is an absolutely brilliant songwriter. His imagery is flawless IMO.

Bobbie

Bobbie,
Kris is great. Somebody also did "Help me Make it Through the Night" earlier. I think Doug's point is very well made. These 1st lines are indeed memorable AND throw the listener right into the song.

have fun,
John

This is fun isn't it? The importance of the opening hook cannot be over stressed, keeping the hooks flowing is a hard part of the craft and one that is just as important. That is why I direct you over to me other thread where I ask for your opening hooks.

When you look at yours ask yourself is it really catchy, different, and hooks you in? Not sure then post it. If you like it then post that one as well.

Douglas