By The Landlord
“He not busy being born is busy dying.” – Bob Dylan
“I'm gonna clear out my head,
I'm gonna get myself straight,
I know it's never too late
To make a brand new start.” - Paul Weller
“In my beginning is my end.” - TS Eliot
“In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded.” – Terry Pratchett
Happy New Year, everyone. Again. And again. And welcome back once more, but definitely not for the last time, to the Bar. Come in, make yourself comfy, grab a drink, some food, and ready yourself for new music. For what, after all, is life? It might, retrospectively have a beginning, a middle and end, but while you’re living it, it’s more a series of starts, with each day heralding attempts to make new ground, make fresh impressions, new ways to reinvent, reinterpret, revise, improve, and refresh.
And so this week, with it being the first topic of the year, buoyed by a wonderful first set of playlists the last topic of 2017 on backing vocals, it seems appropriate to open our account with a wide brief that still requires specific thought, wisdom, musical knowledge and experience – songs that you’d choose to be the first heard, that grab and retain attention, that set a pace or a mood, that may give a sense of what will come, or that are a statement of intent. These songs can be of any type or style, song or instrumental, but the key thing is that they are great openers. And they work whether you were making a mixtape for someone, DJing at a radio show or event, film, or releasing an album.
Some artists like to set off their live playlist as much with songs, as with spectacular stage craft. In the 1970s this was at its height with the likes of Pink Floyd or Rick Wakeman, spaceships on wires or smoke and capes on ice, but AC/DC have continued it in the noughties by beginning their tour with a video climaxing with a train crashing onto the stage and explosive fireworks. Beyoncé meanwhile, not only begins her show with an outrageously over the top entrance but by beginning with her best song, Crazy In Love.
Subtle entrance by Beyoncé
On the album front, just to clarify something. You could trawl through many a favourite album and religiously dig out songs that, on track 1, or perhaps even track 1 on side B, do this very successfully, and tell us why. But while vinyl is making a big revival, we continue to live very much in an age of many a single song plucked from the ether, either by search or shuffle, so there’s no need to restrict yourself to songs that have been formally set in stone as the first on albums. And after all, varying editions released in different countries mean this is often different, or because record companies have chosen their first track, not the artist’s preference, for commercial, rather than creative reasons. So instead, as well as specifying why track 1 was a great choice, you might also like to choose what your preferred opening track would have been and explain why. It's a key difference from any previous topic.
What makes a great opener? Here then, I’m going to give a few examples, not so much from music albums as other creative spheres. But to open the bowling, and put one out to bat, as it were, and welcome you to the show, to a musical circus big top, a big track from a very big man, Big John, a hairy 70s glam rock icon with a big announcement:
That wouldn’t be a bad opening track for any occasion. So should great opening tracks always have grandiose announcements and herald themselves as “the greatest show on earth”? It doesn’t do any harm, as long as the song holds up, but it’s not necessarily how you want to begin. By contrast, some might want to be begin with a very different tone. The Grand Opening band is the moniker for Swedish folk indie musician John Roger Olsson, who is more a purveyor of sensitive melancholy, which might be a very different way to set a pace or mood. Here, by great contrast to Big John’s brash brilliance, is the opener from the 2013 album Don't Look Back Into The Darkness:
Upbeat, or downbeat, but what other ways are there to open a playlist or show? On radio, some like to mix spoken word and music. There are many who have attempted this, with varying success over the years, but for my money, the most interesting, and bizarre, is that obsessive genius of the jingle, Radio Caroline and scourge of the BBC Radio 1 establishment, Kenny Everett, who set a song with his own creations, creating a wacky, mischievous world by spending days overdubbing his own voice and tunes to welcome listeners into his eccentric world.
In Barry Levinson’s feature film, Good Morning Vietnam!, Robin Williams lit up audiences with his own rendition of rebellious and fast-talking military service DJ Adrian Cronauer, but let’s have a dash of the original, who began his show with a loud, extended shout, and usually a Motown belter:
Arguably we are in a golden age of the TV drama series on HBO and more, where the writing talent tends to congregate, but it’s not merely the writing, directing and acting that is often brilliant, but the opening credits, fuelled by fantastic opening songs. Here’s a selection to get you inspired:
And of course, one of the most powerful forms of opening music has always come in feature films. This is huge area of interest for me, so here’s a selection of some contrasting, but all variously great examples. First, up what captures and sets the mood, pace and era better than the Bee Gees’ Saturday Night Fever, accompanying the swaggering steps of John Travolta along the pavements of Brooklyn in 1977?
James Bond themes are often fantastic at setting a style of grandiose glamour and danger. From Shirley Bassey to Adele, you may be tempted to pick something that would set off any playlist, album or radio show with style, but to be different, how about some New Orleans funeral music at the beginning of Live and Let Die, which comes with a sinister twist for a hapless MI6 agent?
Sometimes you may want an opening track to be sexy and speedy. You can’t do much better than Quentin Tarantino’s choice for the beginning of Pulp Fiction, with Misirlou played by Dick Dale and the Del-Tones:
Why not open with some classical music? In the film context, there are few great examples that that of Martin Scorses’s Taxi Driver using Bernard Herrmann's Prelude. Instead of 70s funk, which might have been a more obvious choice, Herrmann’s music expresses, along with the scenes shown, an extraordinary swell of smoky, tragic foreboding and despair set against a romantic sexy, saxophone love theme.
How about some hip hop? Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing, brimming with racial tension and anger could not begin better than with Fight The Power by Public Enemy, with Rosie Perez doing her take-no-shit boxer dance. Go Rosie!
Sophisticated intrigue and crime goings-on? Let’s have a dash of Roy Budd’s brilliant them from Get Carter, as Michael Caine gets on the train:
And finally, some choose to completely contrast the music with action using twisted, dark humour. A death-obsessed, wealthy young man does something to shock his mother at the beginning of the amazing Harold and Maude, but the music is the jaunty, happy, upbeat work of Cat Stevens:
And so then, over to you, wonderful readers, to suggest your own opening tracks all kinds of contexts. Picking them out for playlists, I’m delighted to announce our prince of the prelude is the prodigious ParaMhor! Deadline? Last orders this Monday at 11pm UK time, for playlists published on Wednesday. Now let’s raise the curtain …
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