Jump to content

What are your favorite story-telling songs?


Meowy

Recommended Posts

  • Members

Battle of New Orleans


Seriously, the first things to come to my mind were already mentioned

Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald (cliche, but it gives me chills every time I hear it)

John Prine (anything off his first album, but particularly Sam Stone)

Skynyrd Ballad of Curtis Lowe (I'd add Tuesday's Gone as well).


I can't believe it took so long for someone to mention John Prine.


I'll also throw in John Hartford's First Girl I Loved

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 89
  • Created
  • Last Reply
  • Members

Johnny Cash's "Boy Named Sue" and "25 Minutes to Go" are awesome. The Decemberists, one of my favorite bands, write nearly all their songs this way. They are known for their intriguing characters. The Hazards of Love was an album-length story and very good, though there are awesome stories on each record. "The Mariner's Revenge Song" is popular and one of the most fun in concert.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Amon Amarth reminded me of this for some weird reason...


 

 



been lonesome two years since she disappeared. i'm at the park where she was last


seen. a vast green clearing wrapped up in maple trees, spilling the morning rain


from their leaves. i used to walk here with a girl seventeen. at the time


mistress of seventeen smiles sublime with flaming locks of red in the autumn and


burning locks of orange in the summertime. we were solemn and awkward that last


night together. she laid by my side, staring into starless skies, black as angel


feathers. i stared into the forest pretending not to see the hangmen she was


hiding in her eyes of serpent green. she said that there was another, i refused


to believe her. i'd thought we'd kiss until our tongues tied together.

all my loving memories became scenes of frenzied slaughter.

my hands became cruel talons as they moved to destroy her.

her neck breaks like a toy in a careless child's grip. my tears rained down into


dead eyes and splashed upon her lifeless lips. i put her in the ground like a


flower.

i am standing in that same spot today where my angel's empty shell last laid. and


as my tears began to well up once more, i see a path into the tree line that i'd


never seen before. i follow it down into a ravine, find a hole in the earth


framed in the roots of a birch tree. subtle echoes of her voice speaking words


i've never heard. but the way she hissed her "s"'s, i knew it had to be her. i


smell honeysuckle, then opium. two of her signature scents. i pull aside all the


thistle and mesmerized, i make my descent. as i crawl further inside, the light


slowly dies and the dirt begins to feel like her skin. i tremble as i drag my


fingers down the walls, caressing her sweet flesh again.

i'm slipping downwards, trying so hard not to fall. slipping on the blood that's


seeping from the walls. suddenly i'm surrounded by a thousand of her eyes,


bathing the tunnel in a strange green light. the eyes show me pictures, like


ghostly television screens. all her thrashing final struggles and her ravaged


corpse, serene.

the tunnel is closing behind me. pressing me further and further down. i'm being


swallowed by her earth and consumed by her ground. the end is moving into sight.


i gasp and i scream as i see her lovely mouth, five times the size of me. her


lips curl into a grin around her crooked gnashing teeth. i'm pulverized and


devoured in the jaws of a girl seventeen.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Lawyers Guns and Money - Warren Zevon

Her First Mistake - Lyle Lovett

The Illinois Enema Bandit - Frank Zappa

The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald - Gordon Lightfoot

Father and Son - Cat Stevens

Stagger Lee - Chris Whitley & Jeff Lang

Soul Suckin Jerk - Beck

Big Trouble - David Lee Roth

Niggas Bleed - Notorious BIG

Charlie Freak - Steely Dan


probly lots, lots more.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

 

Quote Originally Posted by beter pan

View Post

Joan Baez - Prison Triology

 

That reminds me of Diamonds and Rust


One of my all-time favorite story-telling songs. For that one song I became a Joan Baez fan for life.


Not only is it interesting to hear her tell this story of her relationship with Bob Dylan, but the poetic metaphors are superb, the guitar work is excellent and the melody is beautiful. And it reminds me of a relationship where I was like the Dylan character to this one woman who loved me. Of course, my relationship was not as noteworthy, and her response to me was much more blunt than ". . . and if you're offering me diamonds and rust, I've already paid". icon_lol.gif But many people I believe can relate to having been into those type of relationships where you're not "all in" and Joan describes beautifully what it feels like from the other side.


 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqJpEM3f-x4

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Top Ten Favorite Springsteen Story-Telling Songs:


10. The Line

9. Meeting Across the River

8. Lost in the Flood

7. Bobby Jean

6. Johnny 99

5. Highway Patrolman

4. Wreck on the Highway

3. Galveston Bay

2. Wild Billy's Circus Story

1. Outlaw Pete

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Top Ten Favorite Dylan Story-Telling Songs:


10. Tangled Up in Blue

9. Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts

8. Motorpsycho Nightmare

7. The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll

6. Oxford Town

5. All Along the Watchtower

4. Joey

3. Only a Pawn in Their Game

2. Hurricane

1. Ballad of Hollis Brown

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.


×
×
  • Create New...