First Impressions
Eugene O'Neill consistently came up with the loveliest titles of any playwright I can think of.
- All God's Chillun Got Wings
- Lazarus Laughed
- Strange Interlude
- Mourning Becomes Electra
- Ah, Wilderness!
- The Iceman Cometh
- Long Day's Journey Into Night
- A Moon for the Misbegotten
Paul Simon has written some of the loveliest first lines of songs of any songwriter I can think of. The rapid-fire complete-sentence sing-speak of his Graceland album is particularly notable. Here are all the opening lines from that album:
- It was a slow day and the sun was beating on the soldiers by the side of the road. There was a bright light, a shattering of shop windows. The bomb in the baby carriage was wired to the radio.
- The Mississippi Delta was shining like a National guitar.
- She looked me over and I guess she thought I was all right - all right in a sort of a limited way for an off-night.
- I was having this discussion in a taxi heading downtown, rearranging my position on this friend of mine who had a little bit of a breakdown. I said, "Breakdowns come and breakdowns go. So what are you going to do about it? That’s what I’d like to know."
- She’s a rich girl, she don’t try to hide it - diamonds on the soles of her shoes. He’s a poor boy, empty as a pocket. Empty as a pocket with nothing to lose.
- A man walks down the street, he says, "Why am I soft in the middle now? Why am I soft in the middle? The rest of my life is so hard."
- Joseph’s face was black as night; the pale yellow moon shown in his eyes. His path was marked by the stars in the Southern Hemisphere and he walked his days under African skies.
- Homeless, homeless, moonlight sleeping on a midnight lake.
- Fat Charlie the Archangel sloped into the room. He said, "I have no opinion about this and I have no opinion about that."
- A long time ago, yeah, before you was born, dude, when I was still single and life was great, I held this job as a traveling salesman that kept me moving from state to state.
- Over the mountain, down in the valley, lives a former talk-show host. Everybody knows his name. He says, "There's no doubt about it -
It was the myth of fingerprints. I've seen them all and, man, they're all the same."
Tags: eugene o'neill, paul simon