quote:Originally posted by Aussie Girl: I thought of another one:
Running bear - I'm not sure who it's by, though. I've heard a few different versions.
Johnny Preston did the first one. Ugh. My Ex used to call me Little White Dove. I need brain bleach now.
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quote:Originally posted by Major D. Saster: Most anything by Stan Ridgway (with or without his band Wall of Voodoo). His songs are more like short stories with music.
Wow! I'm usually the only one to mention Stan Ridgway in these sorts of threads. I agree that many, if not most of his songs fit this description, but a few really stand out in my mind: "The Big Heat," "Drive, She Said," "Camouflage", and "The Roadblock." I also think "Roadblock" has one of the greatest descriptions of a villain ever committed to lyrics:
Three miles down the highway in a Chevy '69 Were a pair of crazy eyeballs jumping left and right in time to an 8-track tape playing Foghat and Jethro Tull And a gasoline-soaked hand shiftin' a little plastic skull And on the arm, a blue tatoo that read "I'm a sonofabitch!" A map open on the front seat -- leather, black as pitch One foot slammed on the gas, no shoe; just an argyle sock And that car was screamin' wildly down the highway, like lightning toward the roadblock....
posted
Richard Thompson does this sort of thing better than most:-
Woods of Darney - A love story, a war story and a ghost story. All in around six minutes. 1952 Vincent Black Lightning - love, death and motorbikes. Beeswing a love-gone-bad story. What he does best. Died for Love does what it says on the tin.
Plenty more all through his long career.
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quote:Originally posted by Major D. Saster: Most anything by Stan Ridgway (with or without his band Wall of Voodoo). His songs are more like short stories with music.
Wow! I'm usually the only one to mention Stan Ridgway in these sorts of threads.
Right around sundown... He got dropped off on a street in town Where a grey old man looked him up and down and said ";Son, this ain't no western movie matinee You're a long way off from yippie-yi-yay 'Cause I can tell at a glance you're not from 'round these parts You've got a green look about'cha¨C¨Cthat's a gringo for starts Sometimes the only thing a western savage understands Are whiskey and rifles and an unarmed man Like you";
quote:Originally posted by Brad from Georgia: When I first heard the title "Running Bear," I was just a kid and thought it was a song about a foot race in a nudist camp.
Dare I ask just how your child self came to this conclusion?
Uh, never mind, I just figured it out. Running bare.
-------------------- You have just been involved in a drive-by posting. Posts: 204 | From: CQ, Australia | Registered: Feb 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Aussie Girl: I thought of another one:
Running bear - I'm not sure who it's by, though. I've heard a few different versions.
Johnny Preston did the first one. Ugh. My Ex used to call me Little White Dove. I need brain bleach now.
Sorry about that. I'm not sure I'd want to be nicknamed after someone who suicides, even if it is with their great love. Maybe especially if. But I do love the song.
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quote:Originally posted by Porifera Taft: [QUOTE]Originally posted by Major D. Saster: QUOTE]Wow! I'm usually the only one to mention Stan Ridgway in these sorts of threads. I agree that many, if not most of his songs fit this description, but a few really stand out in my mind: "The Big Heat," "Drive, She Said," "Camouflage", and "The Roadblock." I also think "Roadblock" has one of the greatest descriptions of a villain ever committed to lyrics:
Three miles down the highway in a Chevy '69 Were a pair of crazy eyeballs jumping left and right in time to an 8-track tape playing Foghat and Jethro Tull And a gasoline-soaked hand shiftin' a little plastic skull And on the arm, a blue tatoo that read "I'm a sonofabitch!" A map open on the front seat -- leather, black as pitch One foot slammed on the gas, no shoe; just an argyle sock And that car was screamin' wildly down the highway, like lightning toward the roadblock....
Tom Russell is pretty good at summing up a person in one verse, too:-
The Deacon was a preacher who had fallen hard from grace He owned the bar and a string of quarter horses that he'd race Deacon he could drink and curse, though he still quoted sacred verse He was sheriff, judge and owned the hearse – a man you did not anger
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I'm quite surprised that no one has mentioned the numerous story songs in Warren Zevon's ouvre: Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner Gorilla, you're a Desperado Excitable Boy Piano Fighter and many more.
Then there's Pere Ubu's 30 Seconds over Tokyo, and John Cale's Cordoba (which I'm convinced is about terrorism for some reason), and Elvis Costello's Let Him Have It, and about 90% of Tom Waits's stuff.
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"Tennessee Plates" by John Hiatt (covered by Charlie Sexton for the [i]Thelma and Louise[/]soundtrack is a terrific on-the-lam song.
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and John Cale's Cordoba (which I'm convinced is about terrorism for some reason),
What makes you think that? I always saw it as a standard tune about lovers parting.
Sister "at least someone else has heard the song..." Ray
Maybe it was these particular lines:
I'll meet you alone in the shoeshop near the bakery. By the two-storey house/very pretty/like a villa. The lift stops between two floors. You start to walk towards the station. I walk towards the bus. We'll have to wait at the station. Leave the parcel on the top deck. You start to walk towards the station. I'll walk towards the bus.
Then consider that it starts out with the singer receiving a letter from Cordoba, going to the letter-writers house, leaving with a suitcase under his arm. . . Sounds mighty suspicious to me.
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posted
Yeah, Signora nailed it there. Those lines, and just the vibe of the song, made it seem much more sinister to me than it might be. But when you put it in the context of songs like "Guts", "Gun", "Fear", "The Endless Plain of Fortune" and "Dying on the Vine", the dark side just kind of makes sense.
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posted
Most Pearl Jam songs that I think of tell a story..."Daughter," "Release," "Yellow Ledbetter," "Jeremy," and "Alive" come to mind
"Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle" by Nirvana.
"When The Man Comes Around" by Johnny Cash
One thing I love about this thread is that I have a ton of new songs to familiarize myself with.
~Manza
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quote:Originally posted by Monster of Samos: Yeah, Signora nailed it there. Those lines, and just the vibe of the song, made it seem much more sinister to me than it might be. But when you put it in the context of songs like "Guts", "Gun", "Fear", "The Endless Plain of Fortune" and "Dying on the Vine", the dark side just kind of makes sense.
Okay, you've made me see your point.
This is pointless, but I just remembered something odd. In 1973, Reed and Cale both released albums. On Reed's "The Kids" he references a Welshman. And on "Half Past France", Cale says "Back in Berlin they're all well-fed" and of course Reed's album from that year is Berlin. Am I the only person who thought instantly of a connection once I heard both?
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Brad "I recall a song that once my mother sang to me...." from Georgia
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I agree that many, if not most of his songs fit this description, but a few really stand out in my mind: "The Big Heat," "Drive, She Said," "Camouflage", and "The Roadblock." I also think "Roadblock" has one of the greatest descriptions of a villain ever committed to lyrics:
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Here's a tacky one...'Run Joey Run' by David Geddes.
