"Electricity," by Schoolhouse Rock

From the archive of educational songs comes this entry to Spoken Interludes. I offer you the Schoolhouse Rock classic "Electricity!"

I love Schoolhouse Rock (it was my favorite part of ABC Saturday morning cartoons). The Schoolhouse Rock segments always seemed to be paired with a commercial for Tootsie Pops and the Arbor Day Foundation (you know the one...with a red bird, perhaps a cardinal, chirping around some nonsense that "Trees are Teriffic!").

"Electricity!" is a bonus because it features TWO spoken interludes:

A generator is a machine that contains a powerful magnet that creates a magnetic field. When wires are rotated rapidly through this field, then a current of electricity is produced.

Now, if we only had a superhero who could stand here and turn the generator real fast, then we wouldn't need to burn so much fuel to make . . . electricity

and

Electricity at rest is called static electricity
Like in the winter, wearing a heavy coat
You get a shock off the doorknob
Or you scrape across a carpet
And sneak up on your very best friend
And zap him on the ear with a shock of -
Electricity, electricity

"Dressed in Black," by The Shangri-Las

Like many of the songs added to the blog this summer, I heard this one while holding a paint brush, listening to WMSE (recurring theme, right?)

In this entry, we showcase the Shangri-Las again. Two years after the Shangri-Las had a hit with "Leader of the Pack," the band released "Dressed in Black"

They said he was much too wild for me
They said I didn't know what I was getting myself into
They said a whole lotta things
But there are some things they could never understand
That a girl can tell by the way a boy holds her hand
Or maybe they thought we were too young to be in love this way
Well, I don't care what people say
This girl's love is getting stronger with each passing day

This song features a bonus, second interlude:

I climb the stairs
I shut the door
I turn the lock
Alone once more
And no one can hear me cry
No one

Possibly the darkest entry on this blog so far...

"Mrs. Bailey's Barbeque and Grill," by Sleepy

While making my way to Minnesota last week, I was listening to an archived show from WMSE's "The Rock Ride" (3:00-6:00PM, Monday afternoon, streaming archives available). Again, another find from the 1960s, this time from the British isles.

This entry is from an obscure British band, Sleepy, called "Mrs. Bailey's Barbeque and Grill":

Reduce a half pint of red wine by boiling it for five minutes.
A sprig of rosemary
Six crushed peppercorns
And some celery salt
Add an ounce of flour into an ounce of butter
And stir while the sauce thickens
Gently take four raisins and place them on pieces of bread
Rubbed with garlic and fried with oil

Its inclusion is a bit random, somewhat incomplete, however, it sounds like a good recipe (or at least a start...)!

"I Haven't Learned at Thing," by Porter Wagoner

Today was day three of the exterior painting extravaganza at our house. I took the portable radio powered by a drill battery with me outside (best "free" inclusion with a power tool ever, I may add). The radio is perfect while painting -- no worrying about wrecking a phone or iPod. Something about hearing the time pass, the weather announcements, and music coming from the air is most pleasant while working on a big project.

This morning, I tuned in to WMSE's most excellent program Americana/country/rockabilly program, "The Chicken Shack" (9:00AM-noon, Friday mornings, streaming archives available). For whatever reason, 1960s music has more songs with talking than seemingly any other decade.

Porter Wagoner (featuring Merle Haggard as his "guest speaker") is today's feature. It's a two-for! (That is, a talking song featuring TWO spoken sections, though neither is really an interlude, as Mr. Haggard talks over Mr. Wagoner as he sings).

We are led to believe Mr. Wagoner's drinking has caused many problems in his life, and that he has never learned a thing. Especially when he mentions that stuff about "...if [he] took the remedy..." Yikes.

I was pickin' my old guitar
Learning that I loved to drink that beer
My mom tried to tell me all the sorrow that drinking that stuff would do
It must have been a thousand times
I never learned a thing

And if I took the remedy
Oh, the songs that I'd sing would be just a bunch of jumbled-up words
Now I'm singin' in a little mission
Oh those old-time songs my papa used to sing

Classic country music: a big contributor to our slowly-growing compendium of talking songs.

"Just Another Piece of Paper," by Glen Campbell

I'm sitting in the living room and listening to The Glen Campbell Goodtime Album (1970) on a Saturday evening. My otherwise-loving spouse selected this particular album as he knew it would annoy me to hear Campbell's cover of MacArthur Park*, which is the second song. Once we had speculated yet again over the striped pants and the very sad image of a cake left out in the rain, the mister let the rest of the side play out as he was too comfortable on the couch to get up and change the record. (Let me add that I do not care for Mr. Campbell, while the other 50% of the household likes him very much.) After MacArthur Park, I managed to tune out the next song: "As Far As I'm Concerned." However, when the fourth song started, I looked up at my husband. Music, then spoken words. We were both surprised! Glen Campbell speaks!

Once I had a piece of paper
It was supposed to mean that you were mine
It looked like any other piece of paper...

It's kind of a depressing topic for a song. The guy's getting a divorce. The pieces of paper are marriage and divorce documents, all that's left of his union. Just between you and me, it doesn't sound like he's too cut up about the whole situation. The words indicate that perhaps he is not the most introspective individual, while the music features what sounds like a sitar, of all things.

Like "MacArthur Park," which was the song that compelled us to listen to this record tonight, "Just Another Piece of Paper" was written by the prolific and fabulous Jimmy Webb. If you have not heard his interview on World Cafe, you really should queue it up sometime soon. He wrote "Up Up and Away!" (And "MacArthur Park?" AND "Just Another Piece of Paper?" Prolific, fabulous, and...varied in quality.)

*Obviously, only the Richard Harris version will ever do.