Remember story songs, and on scene reporter spoof songs

scottyboy76

Story songs were petering out in the 70s,many dramatic ones for years before in pop and country.

Some off the top of my head
Indiana wants me/ lobo

Timothy/ The buoys, about a mine disaster and cannibalism, the pr people tried to say it was their mule they ate, but we know better.

If/ Bread, about a boy, a forgetful girl, her diary and a tree, ahhhh when music meant something.

Seasons in the sun/ Terry Jacks, I can just see teen girls lying in bed weeping to this one.

Another category you might have to be really old to remember, DJs would put together phony reporter newsflashes, where the "reporter would ask questions, then use snippets of songs as replys, wooohoooo, barrels of monkeys, but it blended well with Three Dog Night, Grand funk, Bobby Sherman and others coming from a little AM radio while practicing with our little league team at Ricky culpepper field in East Point Ga. in the early 70s.

scottyboy76

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaZkQelQCBI

scottyboy76

a lot of bloody wreck songs too

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KG_VIcoiCFA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ytEoR2pOc4

A great song here that fits the category

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgI8bta-7aw

Oldfatdogs

I picked up "The Best of Bread "not to long ago,for some reason the wife keeps hard timing about it.She says no music collection is complete with out BREAD.Well hell that's what I thought too.

scottyboy76

I ordered it last night, the 180 gram remastered copy, its perfect pop music, the commercial running lately with Baby Im a want you got us thinking about it.

mrbigbluelight

"The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald", most excellent ! Kind of like an Irish ballad when done by Gordon Lightfoot.

Brownsville Station had a pretty good story song, IMO : "The Martian Boogie".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFQsAOt9ztU

A lot of people seem to look at Bread like they were a smaltzy group like "The Archies". Never understood that 'cause Bread was good. Real good.

Now as far as "Seasons in the Sun" by Terry Jacks goes ....... I'll put it this way: I put Terry Jacks in the same category as Mungo Jerry.
And that's not a good category, unless you consider "Shoot on Sight" a good category to be in. :eek:

There was a song in the late 60's that got a good amount of airplay on KSHE and KADI that had something to do with a grizzly bear. It was about 8 minutes long, so it only played late at night. Great story song, but I can't remember what the heck the name of the song was or who it was by. Way cool. I've searched online lyrics sites and have never had any luck.

mrbigbluelight

And how could I possible forget one of the greatest story songs in history.
You can get anything you want there, 'cepting Alice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m57gzA2JCcM

mhardy6647

Classic songs like Marty Robbins' El Paso, often (and deftly) covered by Mr. Bob Weir and that band he used to be in...

... and who could forget the late Harry Chapin, who was a master of the genre? Taxi, WOLD, Cat's in the Cradle, and, of course... his masterpiece, Thirty Thousand Pounds of Bananas ;-)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/30,000_Pounds_of_Bananas
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODMye94wMfk

Now that I think of it, I am reminded by this song of the two big hits by "C.W. McCall" - Wolf Creek Pass and, of course, Convoy ;-)

"C.W. McCall", you may or may not know, was in fact - besides ad-man Bill Fries - Chip Davis, who only slightly later became famous for his Mannheim Steamroller and American Gramophone projects!

http://www.cw-mccall.com/legend/

[Deleted User]

Who can forget Tex Ritter's "The Card Song"?

scottyboy76

theres a million of these things

Msabot1

Here's a couple...Mothers Live Fillmore East Just another Band From LA...Billy The Mountain...

zingo

Does American Pie count as a story song?