The 10 best opening lines to cultural memoirs
There is a competition, unfortunately, named after the belittled writer Edward Bulwer-Lytton that asks for submissions of intentionally bad opening sentences. To give you a taste, one of the better/worse examples is: “Ace, watch your head’, hissed Wanda urgently, yet somehow provocatively, through full, red sensuous lips, but he couldn’t, y’know, since nobody can actually watch more than part of his nose or a little cheek or lips if he really tries, but he appreciated her warning.” So, that’s what not to do, and yet somehow, it still has a great personality, which is what you’re looking for when one of your favourite culture stars gets going on a memoir.
In truth, I feel like the opening line has been somewhat overstated. After all, as Mario Vargas Llosa proclaims, if you get the first sentence right, you will have 95% of your job as the author finished. That is, quite obviously, not the case. Nevertheless, there are some beauties like Alan Partridge’s that you can commit to memory word for word. When they are good, they are the reassuring come hither that welcomes you into a story. Memoirs reveal from the get-go whether your hero can write.
Below we have curated a list of ten of the greatest I have ever come across. Naturally, I haven’t read the millions of culture memoirs on offer, so this list is perhaps more arbitrary than most. However, hopefully, they can add some quick-fire titillation to your day.
From the comedy of a mock memoir to unflinching lines that almost make you shudder, we like reading about culture because it is almost otherworldly. These lines set up tales that are certainly a little bit out of the ordinary.
The 10 best opening lines to culture memoirs:
I, Partridge: We Need to Talk about Alan – Alan Partridge (Steve Coogan, Armando Iannucci, Rob & Neil Gibbons)
“When I was 8 years old, I suffered a nosebleed so profuse and generous I bolted from the schoolyard and sought solace in the first class countryside of Norfolk.”
Peened as a mock memoir written by the comedy character Alan Partridge, I, Partridge: We Need to Talk about Alan, rightfully sits amid the revered tomes of the day as one of the finest books of the post-modern era. “Snowflakes fell from the sky like tiny pieces of a snowman who had stepped on a landmine,” he writes. Has David Foster Wallace ever written anything as poetic as that? Probably not.
It begins with one of the finest opening lines ever written in the entire history of literature. I mean, what’s so good about “Call me Ishmael”? It’s simply not as evocative as the image of a lad in short trousers fleeing civility with a snotty hanky and relishing the marshy waterways of Norfolk where the Bearded Tits do dwell.
My Cross to Bear – Gregg Allman (with Alan Light)
“I was sitting up talking, and I just kind of nodded off. But I didn’t nod off: I was Code Blue. I was bleeding inside, and I was drowning in blood.”
I’m not sure whether you’d expect rock ‘n’ roll antics from the Allman Brothers Band, in fact, I’m not sure what you’d expect at all. This is why the enigmatic introduction to the book is pitched so well. It says, this tale will be a mystery with drama, and these pages shall reveal all.
Battles with booze are commonplace in the arts, but Allman brilliantly dissects his struggle in a way that is neither cynical nor compromised. Along with the help of Alan White, he sets you up with, ‘What does he mean’ moments like one and then explains the brutal meaning behind what seemed like mystic prose.
I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp – Richard Hell
“Like many in my time, when I was little I was a cowboy.”
With one of the great memoir titles already going for it, the opening line was always going to have to have some pizzazz. Not only does hell deliver the humour in stating that he was a cowboy as opposed to the fact that he pretended to be one, but it also subverts the perceived notion of punks always being snarling and uber-cool even in diapers.
There is nothing more tiring than wading through a memoir that has an idea of itself—some preordained salacious tale with the details that don’t fit stripped away for extra bragging room. Hell, however, is a poet and from the get-go, he searches for the art in the arc of his life rather than pridefully picnicking in one small part of it. To begin with a cute and relatable image amid the birth of punk is a brilliant thing.
I Wanna Be Yours – John Cooper Clarke
“Poetry is my first language, so forget the static data: I’m not on trial for murder.”
Is there a better way to say that my tale is a half-remember one that might be prone to some inherent embellishment? He’s an entertainer, not a lawyer telling you how he took down a big business. Despite being blighted by farce, he’s a reliable entertainer too and he pushes off with a poetic meter from the first line of his memoir.
You can hear Clarke drawl this out in his Manchester timbre just by welcoming the words into the playground of your imagination. And this man is not afraid to throw around the m-word in his first line. It’s no cushioning intro to the tale of the foremost punk poet since the aforementioned Richard Hell, it’s a gambit that says I will lie and shock, but you will like it.
Just Kids – Patti Smith
“Much has been said about Robert, and more will be added.”
This opening stanza concludes with Smith unflinchingly asserting: “Men cannot judge it, for art sings of God and ultimately belongs to him.” That’s a no punches pulled statement. Smith would hardly have been unaware that some might have called it pretentious or corny, but Smith doesn’t care, Smith is an artist.
The book has the measured feel of intent from the start. This might be a simple statement, but it gently leads into the wallop that awaits. There is a sense amid the drama that this will not be the definitive tale of Robert Mapplethorpe, but it will be a personal corroboration that leaves you weeping.
Born Standing Up – Steve Martin
“I did stand-up comedy for eighteen years. Ten of those years were spent learning, four years were spent refining, and four were spent in wild success.”
In one fell swoop, Martin gets the details out of the way in the most concise yet affecting way. It is this that makes Born Standing Up one of the greatest culture memoirs ever written. As a master of his craft, Martin understands the way to let a story unfurl and set aside the space for laughter.
This introductory line is as insightful as it gets. It might be simple, but there is poetry in its concision. With just a few words he is able to tell you that this tale is the story of a labour of love. And there is one part of that 18-year journey that you wouldn’t want to read. In fact, it’s the arc that sounds most interesting of all.
Faith, Hope and Carnage – Nick Cave & Seán O’Hagan
“Seán O’Hagan: I’m surprised you agreed to do this given that you haven’t done any interviews for a long time.”
There is something about the reluctance of this memoir – one that claims on the back cover, ‘This is not a memoir, this is a conversation’ – that instantly introduces its vitality. It is a conversation not only with O’Hagan but with everyone—seeking to make transcendent human connections despite the pains that preclude it.
Fans will have known about the journey of the book, but by extolling that it is not a tale of expression from the start and more of a dutybound tome of humanity. People often don’t want to talk, whether that’s in draining interviews or about difficult subjects, but it can be truly cathartic as the rest of the pages tell.
The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí – Salvador Dalí
“At the age of six I wanted to be a cook. At seven I wanted to be Napoleon, And my ambition has been growing steadily ever since.”
‘Is he being serious?’ are words that were eternally uttered in Dalí’s direction. This madman seemed to have the world on strings. Sometimes his desire to do as he pleased was troubling, but sometimes it was magical. Naturally, he is aware that he’s making a joke with this opening line, but there is a truth that makes it far funnier.
This line from his first memoir in 1942 actually sums him up quite brilliantly. He actually did a love for cooking, he actually did have a Napoleonic desire, and really did strive for some wild design beyond the imagination of mere mortals.
Yes I Can – Sammy Davis Jr. (with Jane and Burt Boyar)
“They liked me. The audience was leaning in to me, nodding, approving, catching every move I was making, and as I finished with ‘Birth of the Blues’ their applause was like a kiss on the lips.”
Our cultural heroes live such distant lives that part of the beauty of reading about them is to get a feel of what it is actually like. In the opening shout of this fabled tale, you get a sense of soaring pride that only a perfect pub run of jokes gets close to.
The rat pack legend defied expectation at all corners and the fuel for that subversion of society’s faults was his magnificent showmanship. You get a feel for just how much he loved being on stage in this opening. It makes you wish you were merely in the crowd let alone putting yourself in his shiny shoes.
…And Away – Bob Mortimer
“I am fifty-six years old. My life is trundling along like a podgy golden retriever being dragged along the pavement by an indifferent owner.”
It’s always such a relief when a beloved hero’s book comes out and you realise that they can maintain the same comic voice that has titillated you for years in the bulky bluntness of print. Mortimer has consistently been perhaps the funniest and most original mind in Britain, and he asserts that wondrous cascade of imagery in the opening line of his memoir.
It’s a metaphor that a lot of stuffy old tweed-clad writers might avoid (although it’s possible Bob dons tweed sweatpants or some such dark web absurdity to write), but I’ve seen that dog and I’ve seen that owner yanking the old steed away from a wonderfully scented todd. If a memoir is all about trying to place you in someone else’s story, then imagery like this tells you that you’re in safe hands.
