![\"Courtney](\"https:\/\/cdn1.faroutmagazine.co.uk\/uploads\/1\/2023\/12\/Courtney-Barnett-Musician-Far-Out-Magazine-F-1024x768.jpg\")
<\/div>Barnett is equally adept at firing off a machine-gun spray of lyrics like \u201cI love you, I hate you, I\u2019m on the fence, it all depends. Whether I\u2019m up, I\u2019m down, I\u2019m on the mend, transcending all reality\u201d as if it was all one word, one piece of breath, as she is gently, softly, sweetly intoning \u201cHere\u2019s the thing, I can\u2019t stop thinking about you\u201d.\u00a0In her voice, and in her use of the language, both are as powerful as each other.<\/p>\n
And those two are just the opening lines from their respective songs (\u2019Pedestrian at Best\u2019 and \u2018Here\u2019s the Thing\u2019 respectively). Both songs go on to further heights and build on those opening ideas with even more impressive ideas, just like so many of her songs do. She\u2019s great at writing opening lines, and she\u2019s great at writing an ending. She\u2019s great at everything in between, too.<\/p>\n
But what is the best opening lyric from a Courtney Barnett song?<\/h2>\n
In the wilderness that was the lockdown years, the most relatable opening lyric from Courtney Barnett was the eerily prescient \u201cThe city looks pretty when you\u2019ve been indoors, for 23 days I\u2019ve ignored all your phone calls\u201d. Perhaps another opening lyric from the same album could have been particularly soothing for all the division that was sewn into our re-moulded society in those strange years, \u201cdon\u2019t come with your arms swinging,\u201d she sings on \u2018Sunday Roast\u2019, \u201cthrow them around me\u201d.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s an almost impossible choice to narrow down all her opening lyrics to just one greatest selection, though the opening from 2019\u2019s \u2018Everybody Here Hates You\u2019 could take the crown for the most on-brand Courtney Barnett song opening, \u201cI feel stupid, I feel useless, I feel insane. I feel toothless, man, you\u2019re ruthless, oh yeah.\u201d It all just depends on what you\u2019re looking for from a song.<\/p>\n
Perhaps you\u2019re more into the poetic opening salvo of \u2018Help Your Self\u2019, where Barnett sings that \u201cdarkness depends on where you\u2019re standing. Jump the creep and watch the sunshine swim\u201d or else on \u2018Out of the Woodwork\u2019 when she sings the literary \u201cI was busy underwater, seeing how long I could hold my breath. A drowning flower caught my eye so I had to come up for air\u201d.<\/p>\n
But the inventive way that Barnett connects up the opening and closing lines of\u00a0\u2018Kim\u2019s Caravan\u2019\u00a0might tip it over the edge and ensure that it narrowly edges out all the competition in the conversation of her greatest song beginning. Opening with the image of \u201cWatermarks on the ceiling, I can see Jesus and he\u2019s frowning at me\u201d, Barnett then recounts a list of the ways in which the human population has decimated and devastated the natural world around us, what it means for the planet in general and each of us in turn, before tying the tune up with a warped mirror image of the opening idea, \u201cSatellites on the ceiling, I can see Jesus and she\u2019s smiling at me\u201d.<\/p>\n
But, just like she sings elsewhere in \u2018Kim\u2019s Caravan\u2019, \u201cguess everybody\u2019s got their different point of view\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In any serious conversations about who is the greatest songwriter of the modern age,\u00a0Courtney Barnett\u00a0needs to be somewhere towards the top of the table. You … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3698,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"yoast_head":"\n