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This week on Sound Opinions, Jim and Greg played some of the great track 1, side 1, songs of all time. It’s a tough job deciding your favourite opening tracks. It’s not as simple as selecting the best songs that just happen to fall at the start of an album. A truly great opening track must introduce the album. It must set the mood for all that is to follow. It must knock the wind out of you. And yet it cannot overshadow that which is to come.

A great lead-off track works best in context. It’s like the first page of your favourite novel; you just can’t pick it up and put it somewhere else, rearranging the sequence. It’s the hook out in front that breaks through your defences and sucks you in every time.

In putting this list together, i’ve decided to ignore many of the classics. It would be all too easy to pick something from Dylan, The Beatles, or The Rolling Stones. Instead, i’ve favoured songs from the albums that i play the most.

There are perhaps some surprising choices on this list. I didn’t select the obvious Thunder Road from Bruce Springsteen’s classic Born to Run, instead opting for The Ghost of Tom Joad. There are few sounds so captivating, so completely reorientating, as the first draw of harmonica that opens this album.

Likewise, i didn’t select Where The Streets Have No Name by U2, in this case preferring to side with Zooropa, a song that provides impetus and direction to an otherwise sprawling, albeit highly underrated, album.

I was in two minds about Signs of Life by Pink Floyd. In many ways i think this is one of the poorer Pink Floyd records, and many of the tracks, Signs of Life included, have aged considerably and smack of the 80’s. And yet, the sound of a squeaking boat, and the gentle splash of oars dipping into water, beautifully contrast the brooding keys and sustained guitar that resonate through this track, deftly capturing the dark ambiguity that underpins this album. I just think it’s too good to pass up.

Anyway, without further ado, here is the list: my top 30 favourite lead-off tracks. The songs are listed in alphabetical order. Enjoy.

• Airbag - OK Computer - Radiohead.
• All The Trees Of The Field Will Clap Their Hands - Seven Swans - Sufjan Stevens.
• The Black Amnesias - The Lost Riots - Hope Of The States.
• Chances - Tourist - Athlete.
• Circuitry Of The Wolf - And The Glass Handed Kites - Mew.
• The Dam At Otter Creek - Throwing Copper - Live.
• Drive - Automatic For The People - R.E.M.
• Fake Empire - Boxer - The National.
• Feeling A Moment - Pushing The Senses - Feeder.
• Fight Test - Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots - The Flaming Lips.
• The Ghost of Tom Joad - The Ghost of Tom Joad - Bruce Springsteen.
• The Golden Age - Sea Change - Beck.
• Grace Kelly Blues - Daisies of the Galaxy - Eels.
• I Am Trying to Break Your Heart - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot - Wilco.
• I Wanna Be Adored - The Stone Roses - Stone Roses.
• The Light - Into The Blue Again - The Album Leaf.
• Marching Bands Of Manhattan - Plans - Death Cab For Cutie.
• Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness - Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness - The Smashing Pumpkins.
• No Aphrodisiac - Eternal Nightcap - The Whitlams.
• Ol’ 55 - Closing Time - Tom Waits.
• Open - Wish - The Cure.
• Politik - A Rush Of Blood To The Head - Coldplay.
• Pretty Good Year - Under the Pink - Tori Amos.
• Romeo Had Juliette - New York - Lou Reed.
• Round Here - August And Everything After - Counting Crows.
• Signs Of Life - A Momentary Lapse Of Reason - Pink Floyd.
• Smells Like Teen Spirit - Nevermind - Nirvana.
• Station Approach - Leaders of the Free World - Elbow.
• Talkin’ ‘Bout A Revolution - Tracy Chapman - Tracy Chapman.
• Zooropa - Zooropa - U2.