Best opening tracks?

Thick As a Brick - Tull

 

Also, any of the various instrumental intros by Parsons is gold.

 

Third Neighborhood #1. Also:

Is There A Ghost -- Band of Horses
Two Daughters and a Beautiful Wife, Drive-By Truckers
Regulate -- Warren G
O Tannenbaum -- Vince Guaraldi Trio

Though I think I'm just listing songs that open albums that I like, as distinct from good opening songs.

 

"Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" -- The Police/Zenyatta Mondatta
"Bittersweet Symphony" -- The Verve/Urban Hymns

 

"Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" is Track 2 on Ghost in the Machine.
"Don't Stand So Close To Me" is the opening track on Zenyatta Mondatta

 

Begin the Begin, Me and Mia and Radio Free Europe were already mentioned. Here are some others faves:

Blackened — Metallica, And Justice for All
Don't Make Me a Target — Spoon, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
Go — Pearl Jam, Vs.
I.O.U — The Replacements, Pleased to Meet Me
One Time, One Night — Los Lobos, By the Light of the Moon
Serve the Servants — Nirvana, In Utero
Stuck Between Stations — The Hold Steady, Boys and Girls in America
Tired of Sex — Weezer, Pinkerton
You're Gonna Need Someone on Your Side — Morrissey, Your Arsenal

 

Arrrrrgh...You're absolutely right...I had the CD in front of me and wrote down the song below it on my list...Total brain fart

 

This.

 

Pigs on the Wing

 

I'll try five that haven't been mentioned yet:

"Caribou" - Pixies, Come On Pilgrim (the awesomeness that is Joey Santiago)
"Godless" - Dandy Warhols, 13 Tales of Urban Bohemia (blends seamlessly into "Neitzche" for 12 minutes of divine trippiness)
"East of Eden," Lone Justice (Maria McKee had me at "Should I go north?", before the band played a single note)
"Texture," Catherine Wheel, Ferment (children of Pink Floyd)
"Pioneer to the Falls," Interpol, Our Love to Adore (makes me wish I was a smoker so I could hold up a cigarette lighter for those spare guitar notes in the intro)

And a sixth: "I Wanna Be Adored," Stone Roses

 

A 10-minute song that I wish was longer every time I listen to it. I had never heard it until my brother turned me on to it in January. Literally a week later I happened to be spending the night in Nashville and Gov't Mule, one of my favorite bands, was playing. I grabbed a ticket, and a few songs in, they start playing Maggot Brain. Unbelievable concert moment.

 

"Mr. Roboto," Styx.