12. Whether it's rock, rap, country, or anything in between, we want you to vote up your favorites on this list of songs that tell stories. Keisha's Song - Kendrick Lamar. Or maybe it's the simple yearning of the repeated chorus, "I want to see my family.". But one of his finest yarns turns up on 1975's Blood On The Tracks—this Western about a charming rogue who blows into town and gets the better of villainous mine owner Big Jim, with the help of Jim's showgirl mistress Lily and put-upon wife Rosemary. - Memories Back Then ft. This song is fantastic, and (personally) a great example of a song that tells a story. I'm trying to put together a playlist. The Kinks, "Come Dancing" This late-period Kinks comeback hit doesn't rock as hard as the band's '60s and '70s classics, and at the time, it seemed like kind of a novelty number, with its retro music-hall melody and brassy arrangement. But the song—a lone, bright gem amid all the sludge and glumness of the band's 1992 album Bivouac—is the prime example of Black Schwarzenbach's emerging literary bent, which the singer-guitarist would perfect on Jawbreaker's next two discs. The song is about Mark “E” Everett’s sister, who ended her life, and he discovered her body. The song's cinematic sweep makes it feel like it might have been a great film in the hands of a director like Howard Hawks or Dylan's friend Sam Peckinpah. Slayer’s Hell Awaits was released back in 1985, and it is the cover song of the album with the same name. they dont have to be by that particular band but im only intrested in rock music that tells somewhat of a fictional story. and Cold Mountain, T-Bone Burnett was a performer in his own right, churning out terrific quirky songs like "The Strange Case Of Frank Cash And The Morning Paper," in which a down-on-his-luck hustler living on "lonely street" discovers that his daily newspaper lists the scores for next week's football games. Brett Sparks' understated performance and Rennie's deadpan sense of humor make the song something of an anti-epic, with an increasing sense of twilit mystery as the survivors disappear one by one into the darkness and the silent waves, never to be seen again. reference a fairy tale? 9. The Best of Ziggy Marley & the Melody Makers (1988-1993) 1997. Ol red. In an unspecified Chicago ghetto, "a poor little baby child is born" to a mother who can't deal with another mouth to feed. It was a radical departure from the songs that had made the group famous, and it created its share of tensions. tell a story or b.) After an extended, somber piano intro, the narrator spends two verses remembering a collegial argument she had in a bar back in 1968—only three years before this song was recorded. (He's even sent off to jail—"you guessed it, no bail," Wainwright adds.) "Only a phase, these dark café days," she concludes. Drive-By Truckers, "The Deeper In" "By the time you were born there were four other siblings," Patterson Hood explains at the start of the funereal-paced "The Deeper In." Emboldened by the moment—and the bracing caress of autumn air, this being emo and all—he races back to his girl's house to seal the deal, poetically and inconclusively, of course. TI – Memories Back Then. It's become his most popular song, and it shows up in nearly every concert he plays, with good reason: It's a masterpiece, a great showcase for Thompson's amazingly fluid fretwork and a powerfully resonant, simple tale of doomed romance that doesn't have a single wasted word. 10. The band hosted a variety show, "The Starland Vocal Band Show," that ran on CBS for six weeks in the summer of 1977. 23. Harry Chapin, "Cat's In The Cradle"Another weepy classic that's overwrought and true at the same time, Harry Chapin's "Cat's In The Cradle" is a morality tale for absentee parents who have priorities other than their kids. 4. Here is a playlist I just created that contains 275 songs that tell a story. The ones I can remember: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Iron Maiden Space Oddity by David Bowie The Man Who Sold the World by David Bowie Cat's in the Cradle by Harry Chapin Me and Bobbie McGee by Kris Kristofferson A Boy Named Sue by Johnny Cash American Pie … And in fact, Dylan tried at least once to get a screenplay based on "Lily" off the ground. Story telling lyrics: You got a fast car I … - Ken Kesey . 2. "And maybe he lost control fucking with the radio," Oberst wails, "But I bet the stars seemed so close at the end." Arlo Guthrie, "Alice's Restaurant" Not so much a story-song as a story sandwich breaded with slices of song, Arlo Guthrie's ironic anti-war saga is almost hypnotic in its meandering, shaggy-dog exigencies. Still, it's easy to laugh as he repeatedly goes over the top in his assumptions and demands. At the same time, he gives reverential treatment to the Aztec figure Montezuma, "with his cocoa leaves and pearls," presiding over a world where "the women all were beautiful and the men stood straight and tall." first, im not talking about country music because they ALL tell a story for the most part. 1. ... listen to the lyrics better lmao. reference a fairy tale? Then, out of nowhere, Oberst starts piling up the imagery from one particular night. On the 41st day, he dies from dehydration. Joni Mitchell, "The Last Time I Saw Richard" In her heyday, Mitchell preferred to offer impressionistic explorations of moments rather than full narratives, but because the moment she describes in "The Last Time I Saw Richard" has a history, she has to tell a little story in order to bring it to its conclusion. Growing up impoverished and hungry, he also grows up mad and desperate, leading to a tragedy that Mac Davis' lyrics present as inevitable. We've included YouTube videos to accompany the songs when available, so think of this page as a story songs playlist. Indie rock, folk, and pop are the preferred genre Eventually, the boy learns that poppa was wrong, and he proves to everyone in his judgmental little county that he ain't yellow after all. Songs for people who listen to the lyrics. This 2002 country song will make your eyes go misty. Her friend Richard warned her not to be such a naïve romantic, falling over and over for "pretty lies," and she replied that studied cynicism can be a kind of romanticism too. The song was released as the third single from Springsteen's blockbuster album of the same name. Listen up we got a story to tell. "Just a Dream," "All American Girl," "The Night Before (Life Goes On)" are all really good songs that tell stories. T.I. One of the things that can inspire someone is a personal experience in their life. Rock music is littered with hundreds of myths about musicians. But "Come Dancing" is of a piece with Ray Davies' formidable body of songs about a vanishing England. ", 8. His sister had left a diary entry after repeatedly trying to end her life, and she succeeded the ninth time around. 5. Then "Lyrics" . Through simple repetition, the song … First, the song has story in the title or lyrics, or some close variation of that word. It reached No. The narrative of the song is perhaps its best feature, for it is told as if it were a written letter, but listening closely to the lyrics, we realize that it is … By Judy Berman. There's a lump on his head and boot print on his chest from "the Tillamook County lie detector test," a "tough test not to fail." The Temptations, "Papa Was A Rollin' Stone"After the high-profile 1968 departure of Temptations singer David Ruffin, Motown songwriter-producer Norman Whitfield helped reinvent the group in his own image. Loudon Wainwright III, "The Man Who Couldn't Cry" Loudon Wainwright III pulls off a tough trick with his country-music parody "The Man Who Couldn't Cry"—he pokes fun at tear-in-your-beer story ballads while also making his stoic protagonist genuinely sympathetic, resulting in a song that's both funny and surprisingly moving. Julie Brown, "The Homecoming Queen's Got A Gun"Part parody of the endless '60s-era ballads about teen romances ending in tragic death ("Teen Angel," "Ebony Eyes," "Patches," etc. When the narrator's son is a child, he idolizes his dad, "But there were planes to catch and bills to pay… He learned to walk while I was away." ", 24. 9 on the Hot 100 and received a 1985 Grammy nom for record of the year. Then the song finally circles back to Cortés: "What a killer. As Rolling Stone describes, both songs were actually inspired by the same, insane concert Queen played at a U.K. venue called Bingley Hall on May 29, 1977.The band was already accustomed to gigs where fans were singing along, but Bingley Hall was a game-changer. 17. By 1972, the group had experienced even more turnover and was beginning to resent Whitfield's auteurist approach. Strangely enough, after the song became a hit, such country luminaries as Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn, and Billie Jo Spears all recorded cover versions, indicating that the exact same thing "really" happened to their mamas, too. This rock opera follows Jim and Caroline, a drug-addled and ultimately doomed couple who lose everything, including, in … Pop culture obsessives writing for the pop culture obsessed. Finally, he tries to explain what got him here—it started with a fight with a guy on the highway, who said the protagonist "did some things that I didn't do." Bummer. The Coup, "Nowalaters" Over the course of The Coup's career, frontman Boots Riley has deftly explored literary genres ranging from feminist character studies ("Tiffany Hall") to atmospheric pulp fiction ("Me And Jesus The Pimp In A '79 Granada Last Night") to sophisticated social satire (the three-song story suite that opens Genocide And Juice). The general. If he ever gets out of jail, he's never coming back to Tillamook County. The lyric is as awkwardly phrased as a junior-high poetry assignment—"You just can't believe / The joy I did receive" is one particularly egregious line—but the ending remains a sucker-punch. It's a tremendously funny song in spite of its straight-faced delivery, though the best moment comes when Frank Cash, aware that he's just a character in a song, proclaims—ineffectually, of course—that he doesn't believe in Burnett, and that "This song is over!". The unnamed man loses the ability to cry after his tear ducts run dry during childhood. 1. We asked our readers to dig up some surprising facts on some of your favorite songs. Well, if you like Carrie Underwood, a lot of her songs tell stories. It reached No. 9 on the Hot 100 and received a 1985 Grammy nom for record of the year. Davis' much-covered (even on American Idol) song could stand to be subtler—the bridge where Presley demands "People, don't you understand / The child needs a helping hand / Or he'll grow to be an angry young man some day"—is particularly overwrought. By the end of "Come Dancing," the dancehall has been replaced by a bowling alley and a car-park, and the narrator's sister has become an anxious mother herself. At the time, this song seemed to bring the curtain down on the '60s, but it still rings true to anyone who ever lived, loved, and fought with more passion than they do right now. Top 10 Songs That Tell a Story. 18. Loudon Wainwright III, "The Man Who Couldn't Cry" 6. Music; ... to weave those rhymes into stunning narratives that grip and maintain the listener's attention through the end of the song. Joe Henry's Ohio Air Show Plane Crash has verses that tell the story of a plane crash from different points of view, but has a chorus bringing them together. 20. 25. Black My Story (Not History) Ziggy Marley & the Melody Makers. With plainspoken yet vivid lucidity, Schwarzenbach opens the story in medias res, with himself and a female friend on the brink of romantic revelation. 3. Positioned as the first song on Drive-By Truckers' most satisfying and arguably most Southern album, Decoration Day, "The Deeper In" either shamelessly exploits the plight of two impoverished hicks, or movingly explains how one damn thing can lead to another. It was their first big hit but had a tragic inspiration. But that tension isn't audible in "Papa Was A Rollin' Stone," an expansive track—the full version runs for 12 minutes—in which the singers take turns asking about the father they never knew, only to receive the same answer, "Papa was a rollin' stone." ("He came dancing across the water with his galleons and guns / looking for the New World in that palace in the sun.") Also if you can specifically name some that are at least under 4-5 minutes long as I may need to present the song and it sadly can't exceed that limit. Here is a list of songs that tell a story: 1. 21. Maybe the song's impact has something to with its ironically jaunty melodica solo and bouncy beat. T-Bone Burnett, "The Strange Case Of Frank Cash And The Morning Paper"Before he was the Grammy-winning music producer, arranger, and composer for films like Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? B.o.B., Kendrick Lamar - YouTube. It’s a heartbreaking yet optimistic song about dreaming of a better life and actually trying to do something to achieve it. Songs That Tell a Story captures this early version of the Louvins in two wonderful radio performances from 1952. (Davies finds the past similarly bittersweet in the classic story-song "Do You Remember Walter? Johnny Cash, "A Boy Named Sue" Johnny Cash's wise-country-storyteller persona lent itself naturally to story-songs, from traditionally inspired ballads like "Legend Of John Henry's Hammer" to funny goofs like "One Piece At A Time." There was a baseball game, and billboards shading the road, and a mall-front highway spitting neon. "People often change," goes the wise, crushing conclusion, "but memories of people can remain."). In broad strokes, Young tells the story of conquistador Hernán Cortés, who conquered Mexico for Spain in the early 1500s. Harper Valley PTA. Neil Young’s mournful song “The Needle and the Damage Done” clearly relates the tragic tale of Neil Young’s friend and colleague from his backing band Crazy Horse, Daniel Ray Whitten, who was riddled with heroin The Top Ten. The mass conclusion: Kids today just aren't cut out to survive. 19. Some songs tell a story, a full-fledged narrative that can make you laugh, cry, or sympathize with characters just like you would with a book or a movie. The busy electronic track drops to a hush, and Oberst repeats "at the end" softly over a wisp of electric piano, remembering a man killed by the unchecked corporate sprawl he railed against in life. Whether it's rock, rap, country, or anything in between, we want you to vote up your favorites on this list of songs that tell stories. 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