I don't normally like to include songs that are basically talk-singing (otherwise, this blog would be nothing but Cake songs), but am making an exception for this one for four reasons:
It is about a cool car: a Model A with a Lincoln-Zephyr V12 engine.
It is a song written in response to another song (Arkie Shibley's 1951 hit "Hot Rod Race," in which a Ford and a Mercury were smoked by a "kid in a hopped-up Model A.")
The song mentions "going up the Grapevine Hill," which is the way we would drive from home to Los Angeles when I lived in Bakersfield (and is still the route when I visit).
The original 1955 version by Charlie Ryan is less famous than a later 1971 version by Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen.
Ahh...1950s doo wop. Always a solid source of songs with spoken words!
This installment comes courtesy of Joey & The Teenagers, an off-shoot of one of the earliest successes in rock music. Like a lot of teen music from the 50s, it's a whole lot of "I like her and I miss her but I don't know what she's thinking." Have you tried something novel: asking?
My darling What is on your mind? Why do you always keep me in the dark?
Maybe one day, I'll know and understand When I hold your hand in mine What's on you your mind.
This one enters the blog from Dave Barry's Book of Bad Songs. It also has a spoken interlude. Bonus!
I'm lazy tonight as I get caught up on these entries. Direct from Wikipedia:
The song is best known as lyrically formatted for a female vocalist and as such is addressed to a desperate wife and mother who would like to trade her prosaic existence for the jet setting lifestyle the song's narrator has led. The narrator alludes to various hedonistic episodes in her life, concluding that while she's "been to paradise," she's ultimately failed to find self-fulfillment expressing this with the line, "I've never been to me." There is also an alternative set of lyrics for the song formatted for a male singer, in which the narrator is an elderly man, destined to die the very next day, begging for a dime for a cup of coffee, addressing a younger man who is "raising hell" the way the old man used to do.
Yikes. Also, I don't know of too many other songs that have the line "subtle whoring."
The spoken portion:
Hey, you know what paradise is? It's a lie. A fantasy we create about people and places as we'd like them to be. But you know what truth is? It's that little baby you're holding, and it's that man you fought with this morning, the same one you're going to make love with tonight. That's truth, that's love.
Like many of the old country tunes, I became acquainted with this one listening to K106 (KKWS Wadena-Brainerd-Park Rapids) when I was growing up. Here's another song with spoken interludes, this one a two-for-one deal: 'Whisperin' Bill' Anderson's "Still." A 1963 country tune about unrequited love, so much so that his life is falling apart...sad. So very sad.
Interlude 1:I've lost count of the hours and I've lost track of the days. In fact, I've lost just about everything since you went away. Everything, that is, except the mem'ries you left me. And that's one thing that no one can mar. I don't know who you're with; I don't even know where you've gone. My only hope is that some day you might hear this song and you'll know that I wrote it especially for you. And I love you, wherever you are.
Interlude 2:This flame in my heart is like an eternal fire, for every day it burns hotter and every day it burns higher. And I haven't been able to put out one little flicker, not even with all of these tears. My friends think I'm crazy and maybe I am. But I'll carry this torch just as long as I can, for some day, you might just decide to come home and I want you to know I'm still here.
In 2012, we saw Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes in concert in Milwaukee. It was a great show, a jangly, neo-folk affair. We had a great time.
"Home" from the 2009 album Up From Below got a lot of airplay on 88.9 Radio Milwaukee. Not quite as much as The National, but that's a story for another day.
Here's the spoken section of "Home":
Jade?
Alexander?
Do you remember that day you fell outta my window?
I sure do‒you came jumping out after me.
Well, you fell on the concrete, nearly broke your ass, and you were bleeding all over the place, and I rushed you out to the hospital, you remember that?
Yes, I do.
Well, there's something I never told you about that night.
What didn't you tell me?
Well, while you were sitting in the back seat smoking a cigarette you thought was gonna be your last, I was falling deep, deeply in love with you, and I never told you 'til just now!
Fun fact: Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes is the indie-folk/psychedelic folk project of Ima Robot front man Alex Ebert.
While listening to the Tom Wanderer Radio Experience(Thursdays on WMSE, 3-6PM) on my ride home from work this week, I heard the unmistakable sounds of spoken word after singing.
First, the song that inspired this post, Patti Smith's "Easter":
I am the spring, the holy ground,
the endless seed of mystery,
the thorn, the veil, the face of grace,
the brazen image, the thief of sleep,
the ambassador of dreams, the prince of peace.
I am the sword, the wound, the stain.
Scorned transfigured child of Cain.
I rend, I end, I return.
Again I am the salt, the bitter laugh.
I am the gas in a womb of light, the evening star,
the ball of sight that leads that sheds the tears of Christ
dying and drying as I rise tonight.
As I listened to the 1978 album by the same name, I counted even more songs with spoken interludes (in addition to an obsession with Christian imagery surrounding death and resurrection (see the title), and organ music.)
Here are a few examples:
"Space Monkey" (track 2):
A stranger comes up to him; hands him an old, rusty Polaroid.
It starts crumbling in his hands.
He says, "Oh man, I don't get the picture. This is no picture.
This is just...this just-a...this just-a...
This is my jack-knife. This is my jack-knife.
This is my jack-knife. This is my jack." (shriek)
"Privilege" (track 7):
The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures.
He leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul.
He leadeth me through the path of righteousness for His name's sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me.
A bonus second spoken interlude from Track 7:
In the presence of my enemies,
Thou anointest my head with oil.
My cup runneth over.
Surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life.
And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
"25th Floor" (track 8):
Stoned in space. Zeus. Christ. It has always been rock and so it is and so it shall be. Within the context of neo rock we must open up our eyes and seize and rend the veil of smoke which man calls order. Pollution is a necessary result of the inability of man to reform and transform waste. The transformation of waste The transformation of waste The transformation of waste The transformation of waste is perhaps the oldest pre-occupation of man. man being the chosen alloy, He must be reconnected via shit, at all cost. Inherent with(in) us is the dream of the task of the alchemist to create from the clay of man. And to re-create from excretion of man pure and then soft and then solid gold.
Bonus trivia: Patti Smith's "Easter" album also features the song made popular in the 1990s by 10,000 Maniacs: "Because The Night."
Here's another classic song with talking, courtesy again of early 1960s country music!
Tonight's entry is Bobby Bare's Detroit City. This one hit #9 on the country charts back in 1963. Clearly the protagonist in this song would really like to return home somewhere south of Detroit. Further south than Windsor, Ontario, Canada. No, far south, in the continental US of A, based on the description of cotton fields early in the number.
As you know, I rode a freight train north to Detroit city And after all these years I find I've just been wasting my time So I just think I'll take my foolish pride An' put it on a southbound freight and ride Go on back to the loved ones The ones that I left waitin' so far behind
Mr. Bare was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2013, with Kenny Rogers, and is also credited with introducing Waylon Jennings to RCA records.
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
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
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...)!
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.
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.
This one's a song from way back, growing up in Minnesota and spending time at Hemming Farms in scenic Bertha, MN, listening to one of the best "classic" country stations in western Minnesota, K-106 from Wadena, MN. I remember listening to hours of music like this, blaring through a single speaker over the din of a tractor's diesel engine, driving through the cloud of hay dust while towing a hay baler.
K-106 also switched formats on Saturday nights, to play a syndicated oldies program featuring hits from the late 1950s through late 1960s. Good times.
David Allen Coe was a peer of the members of The Highwaymen as an "outlaw country" performer. He has a storied life, spending 20 years as a guest of correctional institutions, lived in a hearse outside the Ryman Auditorium (home of the Grand Ole Opry), and after his house in Florida was seized by the IRS, he lived in a cave in Tennessee until he got back on his feet.
Fun fact: Mr. Coe wrote "Take This Job and Shove It," which went #1 on the country chart when performed by Johnny Paycheck.
Well, a friend of mine named Steve Goodman wrote that song.
And he told me it was the perfect country and western song.
I wrote him back a letter and I told him it was not the perfect country and western song, because he hadn't said anything at all about mama,
or trains,
or trucks,
or prison,
or gettin' drunk.
Well, he sat down and wrote another verse to the song
And he sent it to me,
And after reading it,
I realized that my friend had written the perfect country and western song.
And I felt obliged to include it on this album.
The last verse goes like this here:
I don’t remember how I found out about Billy Bragg (perhaps listening to WORT, the community-based radio station in Madison, WI), but I was hooked forever once I did. How deep did my devotion run? As a very poor grad student, I used some Borders dollars to buy four (4!) Billy Bragg CDs at half price in what was surely my CD allotment for the year. (Yes, we bought CDs back then.) Billy Bragg doesn’t have the greatest voice, he doesn’t wield an axe in the manner of guitar legends, but his songs are earnest and powerful and simple. (Don't get me wrong, he's a great guitar player, but he's no Clapton or Whit Smith.) He carries on and furthers the tradition of protest/folk music (in fact, he's known equally for his politics as his music), while also singing about romantic themes in less-than-traditional ways.
Billy Bragg was in Milwaukee on September 9, 2010 for a concert at Turner Hall, about 10 years after I first heard his music, and I was there! Super concert, but even better rally! I left feeling as though I'd just attended a revival for secular humanism!
"Won't Talk About It" is from the album Brewing Up with Billy Bragg (1984). Unfortunately, even though I think this song is worthy of posting on Spoken Interludes, perhaps others don't agree with me as I can't find a version of it online to share. I came up with a lame amazon sample--that's it. Buy it to hear the whole thing!
It’s another dead evening here
It’s already midnight and I’m still so awake
I see your lights are still on
I know you’re alone
His car isn’t there
Why don’t you come over
Is it because you’re afraid of what people will say
Stepping out with someone like me
I shouldn’t care about it if I was you
I’m not the only man in town
Honey, your secret’s safe with me
I won’t talk about it…
You know, I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately
Now is just the time for us
Just the time for us to get together
You and me
Just think of it
Alone
Doesn’t matter what people say, where you come from
Where I’ve lived
Just us together
It’s hard for you to see, but…
Your secret is safe with me
I won't talk about it...
Meat Loaf (aka Michael Lee Aday) has a long and very storied musical career spanning six decades. From his early career in the late 1960s with bands of various names including Meat Loaf Soul, Popcorn Blizzard, Floating Circus, and Stoney & Meatloaf (and touring with the likes of Janis Joplin, The Who, The Greatful Dead, Bob Seger, and Alice Cooper!). Meat Loaf joined the Los Angeles production of the musical Hair. In 1973, Mr. Loaf was also part of the stage production The Rocky Horror Show, which led to him being part of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Since going solo in 1977, he has toured essentially continuously.
Meat Loaf is an avid baseball fan and according to Wikipedia, is said to have cheated death on "numerous occasions".
Fun fact: Meat Loaf also recorded lead vocals on Ted Nugent's Free-for-All album in 1976.
"You Took The Words Right Out Of My Mouth" includes a great spoken prelude with a rather Twilight-esque conversation with a werewolf.
On a hot summer night.
Would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses?
Will he offer me his mouth?
Yes
Will he offer me his teeth?
Yes
Wlll he offer me his jaws?
Yes
Will he offer me his hunger?
Yes
Again.
Will he offer me his hunger?
Yes
And will he starve without me?
Yes
And does he love me?
Yes
Yes
On a hot summer night.
Would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses?
Yes
I bet you say that to all the boys.
Released in 1967 by The Moody Blues, Nights in White Satin is purported to be a tale of unrequited love.
Breath deep
The gathering gloom
Watch lights fade
From every room
Bedsitter people
Look back and lament
Another day's useless
Energy spent
Impassioned lovers
Wrestle as one
Lonely man cries for love
And has none
New mother picks up
And suckles her son
Senior citizens
Wish they were young
Cold hearted orb
That rules the night
Removes the colours
From our sight
Red is gray and
Yellow white
But we decide
Which is right
And
Which is an Illusion
The Shangri-Las had their biggest hit with "Leader of the Pack," which reached number one on the Billboard charts in 1964. It's the first song I remember hearing about a girl who may or may not have been a "bad" girl; she went out with the leader of a motorcycle gang! Yes, she broke up with him at her parents' behest, but how did that turn out? Broken glass and roaring out-of-control engines, that's how! I'm afraid the lesson I learned from this song was simple: be a good girl, or...someone will die. Perhaps I was a rather malleable audience for the teen tragedy genre of the pop world.
"Leader of the Pack" is a double treat. Not only is the climax of the song rendered in the form of a short speech, but the introduction is a dialogue between members of The Shangri-Las to set up the dramatic action.
Intro:
Is she really going out with him?
Well, there she is. Let's ask her.
Betty, is that Jimmy's ring you're wearing?
Mm-hmm
Gee, it must be great riding with him.
Is he picking you up after school today?
Uh-uh
By the way, where'd you meet him?
Verse:
He sort of smiled and kissed me goodbye
The tears were beginning to show
As he drove away on that rainy night
I begged him to go slow
But whether he heard, I'll never know
Look out! Look out! Look out! Look out!
(Ugh. Who, besides me, wants to deck Robert Goulet?)
Bill Fries became an accidental overnight country sensation. Starting as a jingle writer at an ad agency in Omaha, Fries stumbled into a career in country music after writing songs for Metz Baking's Old Home Bread television commercials. Fries's ads became very popular in Iowa (and in fact, won a Clio award in 1974). These ads featured a hungry truck driver named C.W. McCall. Fries wrote more songs, adopted the C.W. McCall persona and began releasing records in the mid 1970s, eventually recording his most popular song and #1 hit, "Convoy" in 1976. Interesting fact: Chip Davis, later of Mannheim Steamroller, wrote music for Fries.Fries wrote his lyrics and sang on his records. Most songs meld well with the mid 1970s pop culture icons who drove truck, talked on CB radios, and had a penchant for avoiding Smokeys. From 1975's "Wolf creek Pass," here's an excerpt from a song sounding decidedly like chase music, thanks to the prominent banjo.
Look out now, here he comes. Oh, we gonna get it on now. Don't hit that fella with the banjo. We gonna swim this here creek now, Smokey. Yard wide an' a foot deep. Nishnabotna river they call it. Might have to winch ya out. Don't do a wheelie on that there gopher mound now, Smokey. Can you dig it Smokey? Got four on the floor an' four in the air on that one, didn't we? Goodness gracious...likely bust my shocks...
One song serves as the inspiration for this collection. I remember when I first heard it. I was housesitting and flipping through the CDs set out by the owners of the house for me to check out in the week they'd be gone. (They did that with movies, too. Thanks to them, I know about The More the Merrier with Jean Arthur and Joel McCrea. "Damn the torpedoes; full speed ahead!") I listened to the Nat King Cole Trio that week, early stuff from before 1943. Stephane Grappelli and Django Reinhardt played for me from the hot jazz clubs of Paris. But when the CD player moved to the third disc in the tray, the Ink Spots crooned and I swooned. This number gets me every time.
I don't want to set the world on fire, honey
I love you too much
I just want to start a great big flame down in your heart
You see, way down inside of me, darling
I have only one desire
And that one desire is you
And I know nobody else ain't gonna do
Less of a spoken interlude and more of a spoken prelude, The White Stripes featured this paragraph of spoken text on their Grammy-winning album, Elephant. Seemingly, the text is narrated by a 1960s elementary school science filmstrip narrator.
When problems overwhelm us and sadness smothers us where do we find the will and the courage to continue? Well the answer may come in the caring voice of a friend, a chance encounter with a book, or from a personal faith.For Janet help came from her faith, but it also from a squirrel. Shortly after her divorce, Janet lost her father, then she lost her job.She had mounting money problems. But Janet not only survived, she worked her way out of despondency and now she says, life is good again. How could this happen? She told me that late one autumn day, when she was at her lowest she watched a squirrel storing up nuts for the winter. One at a time he would take them to the nest. And she thought, if that squirrel can take care of himself with the harsh winter coming on, so can I. Once I ripped my problems into small pieces I was able to carry them, just like those acorns, one at a time.
