quote: ...the thing that makes a minor key a minor key is that the distance from the first to the third step of the scale is a minor third rather than a major third.

That's very helpful (after I looked up the definition of "major third" and "minor third"), but it raises another question for me: How do I know which note is the first step in the scale? Usually I figure the final note of the song is the first step in the scale. But with Misirlou (the non-definitive Greek way that I learned it) that doesn't seem likely. And there may be other songs like that, only I've never thought about them in this way. So is there some hard and fast rule that'll tell me what the first step of the scale is for any song? If so, I can use that in combination with the quoted rule above to figure out whether any song is in a major or minor key. And will that also tell me which major or minor key it is? In other words, is the first note in the scale always the name of the key, as I've been assuming?