The curious 1986 classic Noel Gallagher calls “one of the best openings to an album ever”
It is true that a great album doesn’t need a great opening song, but most great opening songs result in great albums.
The first track is the pistol shot at the start of the race, and if it gets the record off to a flyer, then the rest of the strides often seem to follow suit, almost as though the whole LP was fully realised before ‘quiet in the studio’ was even uttered. Oasis were well aware of this reality. As soon as the sliding chords of ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Star’ start up, you know what you’re in for. It’s like heading out for pints after a last-minute winner: a grand night surely lies in wait.
But Definitely Maybe wasn’t the only album that was born running. ‘Gloria’ kickstarts Patti Smith’s Horses gloriously, ‘The View From the Afternoon’ opened Arctic Monkeys’ official discography on a thunderous note, ‘Into My Arms’ by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds is as beautiful as it gets.
Then, you’ve got a plethora of masterpieces like ‘Baba O’Riley’, ‘Big’, ‘Like a Rolling Stone’, ‘Come Together’, ‘Gimme Shelter’ and ‘Is This It’ that all opened albums, too.
However, in Noel Gallagher’s esteemed view, none of these compare to one formative classic. You see, an opening track is, in many ways, an open goal for a band. You don’t always have to go gargantuan if your muse suggests otherwise. For The Smiths in the summer of 1986, when they suddenly found themselves subsumed by hype, it was all about subverting expectations. Noel Gallagher figures they achieved this with thrilling aplomb.
“I remember before The Queen Is Dead came out it was an event,” he told Quietus, summoning the image of kids lined up outside of HMV on the sunny morning of June 16th. The Smiths had been plastered all over the press in the run-up. “They were about to release their first album as a big band,” Noel recalls.
“I remember hearing the first single, ‘Bigmouth Strikes Again’, and they had moved on,” he recalls, even now seemingly still rapt with a sense of wonder about what they’d do next as though the event still awaits. “And then I got it and… the cover was awful… just a piece of shit.” However, maybe this was all part of the ploy to create a mildly perturbed atmosphere before the legion of fans they had acquired pressed play.
As the Oasis man continues, “But then I played it and it starts with that sample: ‘Oh take me back to dear old Blighty…’ And it was, ‘Fucking hell…’ Just astonishing.” This was a strange, side-wipe, summoning the sort of archival collage that Pink Floyd used to draw upon to drum-up atmosphere.
It shocked the masses expecting the newly minted ‘big band’ to burst out of the traps. That was never going to be their style, though. They had risen to prominence in the first place by pointing out how shallow pop had become. They weren’t going to give that up now that they had ‘made it’. And in Noel’s eyes, that’s just as well. The instant statement of codified integrity, goes down as “one of the best openings to an album ever,” in his book. “And that’s before you get to ‘There Is A Light That Never Goes Out’.”
It is, indeed, an epic intro that creates a little world which you soon find yourself tumbling into. If the purpose of art is to exult and rattle reality into sharper focus, then this curious beginning is like a friend saying, ‘Come and have a look at this’.
The album remains one of the greatest of the entire 1980s, and its titular opening track plays a firm hand in ascending it towards that lofty position. It is comical, quirky and full of truly innovative riffs. Somehow, it makes that unique personality known within the first opening seconds… and those pregnant moments before the music kicks in don’t even feature the band.
So, it’s a good job it lived to see that light of day, because a dispute with Rough Trade almost saw it cast to the ash heap of history before Johnny Marr became hungry for “indie justice” and strived to ensure it survived the rigours of litigation. Maybe that’s the secret ingredient that gives the sardonic wit its beautifully playful and defiant bite.
