David Stagg

Heart: Most likely one of the greatest bands of all-time.

You’re about to get out of your car to go into the grocery, to go to work, to . But as soon as the radio starts with these intros… You look at the radio. You look at your destination. You look back at the radio and then conceded defeat. Drop your hands to your sides, you know you’re going to be in the car for just one more song. After all, it can’t hurt.

5. Guns ‘n’ Roses — “Sweet Child of Mine”

Just hearing the intro to this song makes me happy. I know what’s coming, and the first few lines of the song are just awesome: “She’s got a smile that seems to me / Reminds me of childhood memories / Where everything was as fresh as the bright blue sky”.

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4. Led Zeppelin — “When the Levee Breaks”

Sure, you’re thinking “Stairway to Heaven” or “Rock ‘n’ Roll” or “Black Dog”—all of which are outstanding song intros—should represent Led Zeppelin if you’re putting them in this Top 5. However, “When the Levee Breaks” has spawned an innumerable number of rip-offs, samples, and songs. The list notwithstanding:

• Beastie Boys’ “Rhymin’ and Stealin’” and to a lesser extent “So Whatcha Want?”
• Enigma’s “Return to Innocence”
• Dr. Dre’s “Lyrical Gangbang”

Little known fact: The song is actually a cover of a blues song written by Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie from 1929.

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3. Pantera — “The Great Southern Trendkill”

This song is nothing but pure emotion. The intro to this song, which is also the intro to the entire Great Southern Trendkill record, is the exclamation point to their statement in response to what critics were saying about them at the time and the nu-metal movement that had recently been spawned (think rap rock/rap metal and grunge). Also at the time, vocalist Phil Anselmo was in the midst of a heroin addiction that began as painkiller relief for surgery for a bad back. When you listen to the song, you can hear all of it rolled up into one scream.

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2. The Who — “Baba O’Reily”

I remember the first time I thought that THIS was one of the best song intros of all time and it was watching an extremely short lived sitcom that featured the dude from Seventh Heaven who also did the movie “Sorority Chicks”. I wanted to type that sentence because that’s how I remember it; however, I’m going to go figure all this out now (via the Internet) and let you know what I come up with.

His name is Barry Watson and he played Matt Camden on Seventh Heaven. The sitcom I’m talking about is called “What About Brian” and apparently it wasn’t all that short lived because it had 24 episodes. One of the characters (I’m pretty sure they worked at like a computer game programming company) played the song at work and was air drumming along to it and began to skip out on work just for a second to enjoy the song. I feel like that was a pretty good representation of life; a perfect acting out of ’stop and smell the roses.’

Pretty sure the TV show isn’t coming back. Teenage Wasteland will probably be here forever.

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1. Heart — “Crazy on You”

Oh MAN do I wish I had written this thing! Its flamenco-y intro, the crushing hit of the first distorted ‘A’ note—like every time it gives me goosebumps. It’s a good thing the rest of the song kicks, too; it just adds to the glory of that intro. Incredible.

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Honorable Mention

Honorable Mention goes to Fat Pat for “Tops Drop” simply for the first lyrics out the gate: “Welcome to the land where it just don’t stop / Trunks pop, tops drop, see the front end hop.”

P.S. Can anyone confirm (Mary, I’m looking in your direction) whether or not “all-time” has a hyphen in it or not? I’m obviously going with, Yes, it does.