I think you need A LOT of charisma to be able to pull that off as a vocalist. I do love it in a couple of country songs where the vocalist talks the third verse instead of singing it, but then it's always written as a verse, properly metered and rhymed.
I was just listening to Cream's delightful "Pressed Rat and Warthog." It combines something of the tone of Wind in the Willows with a distinctly twisted sensibilty.
I've fooled around with a few spoken word type things over guitar. Particularly with regard to preamble type stuff in front of a more conventional song. It's not my forte, delivery-wise.
That long (but empty) list of your favorites totally confounded my Nexus 7 tablet's Chrome browser... I never could get to the bottom of the page... it just kept scrolling endlessly. It was, in a certain sense, vaguely amusing.
I like some of Primus' stuff. You can beat them for bass lines of course. But I don't like this song at all. The drums and bass is cool but the "singing" is awful.
I enjoyed that quite a lot... at least until around the three minute mark, after which it seemed like it was just recycling itself. One thing about in your face music -- you've got to have a good feel for how much is too much. And what works in a sweaty club in the heat of the moment is not necessarily optimal for a record.
I loved the Felix-the-Cat inspired illustration/animation.
I enjoyed that quite a lot... at least until around the three minute mark, after which it seemed like it was just recycling itself. One thing about in your face music -- you've got to have a good feel for how much is too much. And what works in a sweaty club in the heat of the moment is not necessarily optimal for a record.
I loved the Felix-the-Cat inspired illustration/animation.
To me, the best example of that is Guy Clark's The Randall Knife.
[youtube]KY5MOUO464Q[/youtube]
You'd better have some solid lyrics and tons of charisma, not to mention a hell of readin' voice to pull it off...
i would think the hardest thing about that would be the coordination, how to play a melody or rhythm on the guitar while speaking, i've worked on it a couple of times, posted a tune here called The River via my soundclick a while back, that took a lot of vocal experimentation to get right, i worded a lot of gibberish before settling on a clean story.
http://soundclick.com/share?songid=7960578
EDIT: that Guy Clark tune is Really Nice, thanks for posting it!
The Genre Whores - Authentic New England Motor Folk!
How about Johnny Cash's "A Boy named Sue" or you might place "One Piece at a Time" in the category though the chorus is sung, the verses are more spoken with a sing-song inflection.
what about evolving spoken word into sung lyrics? taking a few words per sentence and putting some melody behind them, then building off that to go from speaking to catchy singing in the space of the story.
like this: [YOUTUBE][/YOUTUBE]
(blame it on stratman tigers, his avatar reminded me how much i love sifl and olly) (iiiiiiiiiii'm up here in the cab-i-nets, banging on pots and pans...) (dammit, now the entire rest of my workday is going to be shot on youtube)
The Genre Whores - Authentic New England Motor Folk!
I am glad you guys enjoyed that song as much I do. It's a very special song for me, also having lost my dad. I think it's the best song ever written - that I've heard, anyway - about the loss of a father.
He also has this song that is sort of talked more than sung:
[youtube]iHxOego2Sso[/youtube]
I've attempted to write some songs in this style but they never came out the way I envisioned, or seemed worth keeping, so each was discarded ... to be forgotten about until this thread came along.
As for examples of other artists writing such songs, I can think of quite a few, but my favorite is probably Arab Strap's "The First Big Weekend."
Originally Posted by gennation
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