Maybe it's just me, but a few days of listening to songs about death proved peculiarly life-affirming. The optimism, the gallows humour, the storytelling and the drama kept my spirits up. The final list was arrived at after much humming and hahing, and six out of the 10 songs were new to me. The B-list looks something like this: Norman Greenbaum, Led Zeppelin, George Harrison, Laura Nyro, Warren Zevon, the Smiths (There is a Light...), the Carter Family, the Flaming Lips (Mr Ambulance Driver), Bob Dylan (the wonderful Not Dark Yet) and REM (either Sweetness Follows or Try Not to Breathe).
We've just had two massive lyrical themes so for a change of pace this week I want spoken-word songs. That might seem like an oxymoron, but you know the sort of thing I mean: music which features talking rather than singing. Audio books, famous speeches, etc, not allowed. I'd like to come up with a list that features nothing but spoken-word but I'm not sure how much of it there is, so I'll allow small amounts of singing (eg, the chorus) as long as most of the song features talking. As for what spearates talking from singing-that-sounds-rather-like-talking, we'll have to work that out as we go along.
If you're stuck, here are some suitable tracks we've already playlisted: My Sister (Tindersticks), Words of Advice (William S Burroughs), The First Big Weekend (Arab Strap), Sonny's Lettah (Linton Kwesi Johnson), The Boiler (Special AKA), Black Diamond Express to Hell (Rev AW Nix), Frank's Wild Years and What's He Building? (both Tom Waits). That would have made a good playlist right there.
And thanks for embracing the "everyone has a Bob Dylan" idea. It was a good discussion. Interesting how many people's Bob Dylan is... Bob Dylan!
If anyone stayed up on Thursday night to post, I'm very sorry that this has only just gone online. There was a technical error that I've only just discovered myself.
As always, the Readers recommend resources: the invaluable A-Z and the Readers recommend archive. All suggestions by midday on Monday please. Easter weekend messes things up a but but I'm sure I can count on the loyalists.
