YOU ARE HERE: zharth.net / Zharth's Music Log / Week 77 (Story Songs)
(Originally finalized on June 2, 2024)
Preface: Generally, when I listen to music, I don't pay a whole lot of attention to the lyrics. I'm drawn more by the instrumentation - which doesn't mean that I don't care about the vocals, because that can be another instrument all its own. But I've been known to listen to songs for years before I realize what they're about. Sometimes. One exception to that pattern - that I learned early on in my development as a music fan - is that I like songs that tell a story. It's not just verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus, chorus - there's a narrative progression, maybe even character development, all contained within a concise 3-9 minutes. This week, we're going to listen to a few of those songs.
Monday: Elephant's Memory - Mongoose [Take It To The Streets, 1970]
Comments: Although apparently having played as a backing band for John Lennon and Yoko Ono (news to me!), Elephant's Memory were, from what I can tell, relatively little-known. I probably wouldn't have heard of them if not for this one track - but it's a really good one. Borrowing, one imagines, elements from folk tales (like Rikki-Tikki-Tavi in The Jungle Book) about one of nature's fated rivalries, this heavy groove details strike and counterstrike in the mortal combat of a mongoose defending a village threatened by a venomous cobra.
Tuesday: Gordon Lightfoot - The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald [Summertime Dream, 1976]
Comments: I'm sure nobody likes to be called a one-hit wonder (on the other hand, one hit is better than none), but I'd be hard-pressed to name another song by Gordon Lightfoot. Yet, this song is practically a household name (it was even referenced on Seinfeld!). With a plodding rhythm and an appropriately somber tone, it tells the true tale of a ship that sank in Lake Superior, at the mercy of the forces of nature and God's cruel, twisted fate. "Superior, they said, never gives up her dead, when the gales of November come early."
Wednesday: Bob Dylan - Hurricane [Desire, 1976]
Comments: From an artist who is most assuredly not a one-hit wonder, singing about a boxer and not a storm, here's another song written about a true story - the wrongful conviction of boxer Rubin Carter for murder by an all-white jury on circumstantial evidence and falsified eyewitness testimony. Chronicling racial discrimination and the hypocrisy of the so-called "justice" system, this song is sadly no less relevant today than when it was written almost fifty years ago... "How can the life of such a man be in the palm of some fool's hand?"
Thursday: Deep Purple - Smoke on the Water [Machine Head, 1972]
Comments: As much exposure as this song gets - it's one of the most recognizable rock riffs of all time - it's easy to forget that its lyrics tell a story. And a true one at that, about a casino that burned down in Switzerland during a Frank Zappa concert, forcing Deep Purple to scramble to find a location to record what would turn out to be their biggest album ever. It always fascinates me, the inscrutable calculus that goes into what songs become smash hits. The story behind Smoke on the Water makes it sound like the song was practically an afterthought, and yet look how it was received! You just never know. "No matter what we get out of this, I know - I know we'll never forget."
Friday: The Charlie Daniels Band - Uneasy Rider [Honey in the Rock, 1973]
Comments: The Charlie Daniels Band is no stranger to story songs, from the smash hit The Devil Went Down To Georgia, which takes a spin on something akin to the Robert Johnson legend, to the Halloween-ready ghost story The Legend of Wooley Swamp. By comparison, the story this song relates is relatively mundane - although who hasn't had that uneasy feeling of stopping off in an unfamiliar town and worrying about not fitting in with the locals - but Charlie Daniels tells it with expert rhythm and elocution, and not a small dose of humor.
Saturday: Steve Miller Band - Take The Money And Run [Fly Like An Eagle, 1976]
Comments: Although this is the shortest song we'll be listening to this week, it's long enough for Steve Miller to spin a tale about "two young lovers with nothing better to do", that quickly escalates to robbery, murder, and ends with two fugitives on the run. That's a lot of action in under three minutes! Aside from that dramatic turn of events, the framing narrative of young lovers who fall on hard times is actually fairly common among the story songs I've surveyed for this theme - so much so, that it's spawned an idea for a splinter theme. So if there are some obvious selections missing this week, now you know why.
Sunday: Bad Company - Shooting Star [Straight Shooter, 1975]
Comments: I had to make a lot of tough decisions for this theme, balancing songs across other themes. I've been reminded of just how many "story songs" are out there. We'll finish the week with a song by Bad Company, that tells the unfortunately too-common tale of a talented musician's rapid rise to stardom, and ultimate burnout at all too young an age. It's a phenomenon that's aptly described by the term "shooting star" (which gives this song its title), and is embodied in the adage, "it's better to burn out than fade away." And that's how we'll send off this theme for now, with the promise of more story songs to come, sprinkled here and there - and to be showcased in this theme's eventual spin-off (stay tuned!).
Honorable Mention: One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer [George Thorogood and The Destroyers, 1977]
Comments: From their 1977 debut album, this adaptation of a John Lee Hooker boogie by George Thorogood and the Destroyers is one of my favorite story songs. I'm relegating it to an honorable mention because I've already featured it in my Reinterpreting The Blues theme, and I had more than enough songs to choose from for this theme.