'I don't remember what I came here to say': Favourite conversational monologue songs

Not an indie band at all, but...

THE SHANGRI-FUCKING-LAS!!!!

OK, so maybe it was the prefabricated chartpop of its day, but goddamn, as songwritered and as engineered and as produced as it was, they were brilliant because they still managed to capture something of the sass and wit and quick repartee that teenage girls from Queens in the 1960s talked... and still talk today!

Leader of the Pack, especially Give Him A Great Big Kiss... even though you *know* it was written by a songwriting team sitting somewhere in the Brill building, the delivery, the attitude, it *still* sounds like a gaggle of girls sitting around discussing a cute boy.

So what colour are his eyes? I dunno, he's always wearing shades. Is he tall? Well, I gotta look up... I hear he's *bad* He's good bad, but he's not evil! Is he a good dancer? What do you *mean* is he a good dancer? Well, he does he dance? CLOSE. Very, *VERY* *CLOSE*.

OK, that one wasn't a monologue, but it's still my favourite. Brilliant monologues of the Shangri-Las include "You Can Never Go Home Any More" and that "it will never happen again" song and so on.

So, see, no. Conversational songwriting is *not* the sole province of whinging, self obsessed indie boys. Thank you kindly.

"No Charge" - Tammy Wynette?

"my sister" - tindersticks "space boy dream" and all that other stuff by looper

oh, and I forgot the start of the milli vanilli song "girl you know it's true" which goes something like, "girl, i sat back and thought about the thing we used to do. It really meant a lot to me, YOU mean a lot to me. Girl, you know it's true."

That's the best ever.

The great thing about these songs is the way they play with time - there are moments in the songs which feel 'real- time' / 'conversational' and moments which feel dramatic/rehearsed, and its the tension between the two that propels the track.

So the key moment in "Past, Present And Future", which sounds otherwise like a prepared-speech is when she says "There were moments when - well - there were moments when." She's going to try to put something into words, she can't/doesn't want to, and so she falls into a sad shrug. And that is SO RECOGNISABLE that it immediately elevates the song into something transcendental.

Similarly the Wedding Present on form do this really well - there is a lot of craft there but it's disguised. On "Dare" for instance where the first verse is totally conversational ("It's on your right just by the telephone") and then the chorus is much more pleading/rehearsed. Their best lyric in this vein is "Come Play With Me" where the shift from conversational to declamatory works like the twist in a short story.

OK, OK Kate. I like the Shangri-Las too, you know. I only said 'perhaps it's an indie thing' as a kind of idle musing.

Is there anyone who *hates* this kind of song. I used to hear people slag off the Wedding Present because they objected on principle to this kind of song, strongly believing that music should be all about escaping the mundane, not revelling in it.

Anything by the Montgolfier Brothers, really, but *especially* 'Pro-Celebrity Hanging Around'. He's got one of those great voices (like Jarvis, but more so) which makes the most insignificant lines carry the weight of an Alan Bennett monologue.

A different type of conversational style on Billy Bragg's 'Walk Away Renee', (featuring 'Duane Tremelo' on guitar) - 'I said "I'm the most illegible batchelor in town" and she said "yeah, that's why I can never understand any of those silly letters you send me"'... Sometimes you have to take the crunchy with the smooth.

Exactly, Tom. It's the tension between the overblown production of the song broken my moments of complete honest which make it so affecting, and save it from the pitfalls of either extreme.

Funny that you mention that "Let's just say, there were moments when..." line. (I always forget the name of that song.) The strange hesitancy in her voice as she goes to say something, and then *doesn't* has always made me wonder if that song is not really just about a failed lover affair, but actually about date rape or something. The fact that she *doesn't* say what happened makes it all the more powerful.

Before you think I'm over-reacting and being a total riot grrl again, remember that the girl-groups of the same era *did* deal with so many heavy issues (The Supremes tackling teenage pregnancy and unwed mothers in "Love Child", The Crystals bringing up spouse abuse in "He Hit Me (And It Felt Like A Kiss", the Shangri-Las themselves tackling class issues in their "boy from the wrong side of the tracks" anthems.)

I have just *always* wondered about that song.

I love 'Never Ever' by the All Saints, which begins with a Shangri- Las type monologue, an obvious reference? But I basically hate that monologue, why waste the opportunity for a monologue with such inept lyrics. They must have had a songwriter, what was the guy/girl paid for?

I think that kind of argument (pop is not about the mundane) was applied more to the presentation of the WP's concerns than those concerns - i.e. the music was 'drab' guitar soup and the singing was atrocious (fair point in many cases). The making-strange of the mundane was something people were quite keen on, eg. the way Party Fears Two starts with the fabulously conversational "I'll have a shower and then phone my brother up".

How much does Emo fit what we've been talking about. Come on, I know some of you lot listen to it....

Ooh, I just remembered: 'Hospital' by Jonathan Richman and The Modern Lovers. I love those lines "I go to bakeries all day long/ there's a lack of sweetness in my life" and that stuff about taking the train out to her suburb.

I thought the whole point of All Saints was that they were supposed to write their own songs, "keepin' it real" (yes, with the help of a tribe of stylists and PR agents) and all that nonsense.

(Sorry, I *loathe* All Saints, and that insipid pseudo-monologue is just one of a millions reasons...)

fabulously conversational "I'll have a shower and then phone my brother up".

Sounds like a pretty rubbish conversation. Are you sure BMcK was actually saying this to anyone?

I think what you say about Wedding Present detreactors is partly true, Tom. I'm sure some people did just hate the drab (matter of opinion, at least from 'Bizarro' onwards) guitars and crap (no argument) voice. But I still maintain that a lot of people just think pop music shouldn't be dwelling in such detail on the banal arguments and attendent household wares that are David Gedge's stock in trade. I guess they only want escapism from such things or else they think that it should all be pared down to some more elegant core. I don't believe in elegant cores a lot of the time.

Tammy Wynette is a good call. I don't know a lot about Country, but people often take the piss out of some of the really long, specific titles you find, I understand. Like 'You stole my tractor and now you're trying to steal my girl' or whatever.

Misunderstanding between conversational = addressed to somebody and conversational = including slips of tongue, mundane details etc. Maybe.

Also a moment of HORRIBLE CLARITY - my understanding of 'conversation' has been totally warped by Instant Messager. So I was probably thinking in terms of:

TomFT26: i'll have a shower & then phone my brother up
kortbein*: ok see you later

*or whoever

Best example of conversationalism in songs recently: Eminem - "Kim".

Which mag was it, recently suggested all reviews of dance/club music should be done by SMS?

Talking Heads - "Seen and Not Seen" - "For a long time, I was without style or grace..."

What, tarden?

ISAAC HAYES - "BY THE TIME I GET TO PHOENIX"

"i'm gonna talk about the power of love here, i'm gonna tell you what love can do..."

Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now, I Saw Her Standing There... that's all for now.

Err.. I don't think many people seem to be understanding what I meant.

None of the last four songs mentioned is a direct address to the object of the song. You know, where the whole lyric could be a transcript of what the singer says to that person.

nick, we're hijacking this here train.

to be honest, i didn't even read the question. i find my answers to be a lot more natural and interesting when i don't. i just kinda gazed and saw that people were talking about monologues.

to expand upon the hayes song, he spends nine minutes talking about love and giving a back story to the protagonist of "by the time i get to phoenix." the language is very natural; i still don't know to this day if he had this all written down or if he merely had an idea in mind and went off the top of his head.

for a better example of what you're talking about, "your song," anyone? "but anyway, the thing is, what i really mean..." even though it meant to ape the awkwardness of our unrehearsed speech, there's still no way to deliver that line without it sounding planned.

You mean like ANY SONG by Yo La Tengo?

Okay, Nick...that one that came out in the 1960's, "A Message to my Son". Forgot who did it. It had a military marching band playing "Battle Hymn of the Republic" in the background, and silent-majority Nixon-voting Dad telling his long-haired brat "If you choose to burn your draft card, then burn your birth certificate too, for from that moment on, I have no son."

Nick, I still don't quite know what you're on about - ie. the definition of the kind of song you're looking for. I thought I had an idea - that you were talking about SONGS THAT USE BANAL LANGUAGE - then I lost it. Then the same thing happened again, when thanks to Stevie I thought that maybe you were talking about SPOKEN, NOT SUNG, LYRICS.

Can you explain again what you mean? I'm afraid it's no use talking about the Wedding Present, cos I have never heard them.

I am mortally offended Tom hasn't mentioned Ansaphone by Pulp. "Hello, it's me...I just wanted to call and say...hmm...I don't care what you get up to....I...I just want you to stay in touch. That's all". Fan-fucking-tastic.

Does the Last Poets' "Wake up Nigger" count? A one-sided, hectoring conversation, true, but we know people who talk like that in real life, usually co-workers.

Or Randy Newman's "Rednecks", talking about Dick Cavett making Lester Maddox look like an idiot on TV.

I'm more shocked that Pinefox has never heard the Wedding Present than I have been by anything else he's said on this board.

Ally: Answering machine tracks are a WHOLE OTHER THREAD I reckon. hey're great - Angelica's "Teenage Girl Crush" and Laptop's "End Credits" use them brilliantly. And of course Green Velvet's "Answering Machine".

"Ansaphone" is interesting cause something Jarvis is very good at is combining everyday language with quite rigidly structured songs, using half-rhymes etc. That's not quite what Nick was getting at I think, though "I'm not trying to be clever / But at least we're not still living together" is a good example of what Jarvis does well from that song.

How about Blur's "Rednecks". Damon and co. talk like American rednecks for five minutes straight...

Blur's "Rednecks" would sound a lot like Faith No More's "RV". "Nobody 'round here speaks English anymore..."

Tom -- Don't ferget Answering Machine by The 'Mats.

Tarden, it's a *real* song. B-side to, erm... End Of A Century, I think. Damn, the singles box set is at home.

I think Ansaphone, Tom, IS quite clearly what Nick was looking for, though. The entire song is sung in conversational, pretty plain talk, obviously directed at someone very specific, it's like a one sided chat. Perhaps he's bitching to his friend about this chick, maybe. But it's definitely conversation. It's really not very song like, the lyrics. And of course the answering machine thing seals the deal.

Isn't the Spice Girls song that rips off Ansaphone a bit like that too? It's been years since I have heard it.

Oh christ, there is, and I've completely forgotten which one it was. I totally got into a war with Traino over that one, it was almost as bad as my shocking revelation that Who Do You Think You Are has the same bassline as Vogue.

The Clash, "Stay Free" : "if you're in the crowd tonight, have a drink on me" - does that fit ?

Good grief kids, it's not that hard, is it?

I can't really put it much more clearly than I did originally:

What are your favourite 'direct address' songs. Like the singer might have just have transcribed the words s/he spoke to someone and set them to music?

By way of example, here's the first verse of 'What Have I Said Now?':

About what I said just before
You know, your clothes on the floor
I never meant to hurt you
I got carried away
I guess I've had a long day
Look, I'd sooner die than lose you
Over something like that
Oh, please, next time just shout back
And I didn't say that I hate you
I think sometimes you forget
And now look how we're upset
Let's talk about it later

Breaking it down into two criteria:

a) The lyric must consist of lines that the singer addresses directly to a person. So probably lots of "I"'s and "you"'s in there.

b) The fuzzier condition is that these lines must be in the style that people actually speak to one another. Prosaic speech patterns. This is where the mundane thing comes in. Obviously, we might all have different ideas about what normal speech reads like, but most of us don't talk terrifically lyrically in everyday conversations. The only poetic licence allowed is to be fragmentary about it, like in the Wedding Present song above - it has to leave out all the things she says back to him, obviously, or else it would be a duet. So if you're not going for the believable extended monologue, then it can be the edited highlights of one end of a dialogue.

So 'Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now' fails because no particular listener is implied by the song (to whom is Morrissey addressing his complaint? God? The World? No one in particular anyway.)

Whereas something like the Paris Sisters' "I Love How You Love Me", and a thousand soul records fails the second test, cause, well people just don't talk like that:

I love how your eyes close,
Whenever you kiss me;
And when I'm away from you,
I love how you miss me.
I love the way you always treat me tenderly.
But darling most of all,
I love how you love me.
I love how you love me.

Pulp's 'Ansaphone' *almost* passes - it's certainly in the right style. But if you think about it, it can only be a pretend address to his girlfriend, him speaking to her in his head. Except for the last bit when he actually leaves his message. So now do you see, the pinefox?

Frank O'Hara, the New York poet, wrote a sort-of manifesto about his work, which is kind of germane to the discussion at hand. Here's a snippet:

"Personism has nothing to do with philosophy, it’s all art. It does not have to do with personality or intimacy, far from it! But to give you a vague idea, one of its minimal aspects is to address itself to one person (other than the poet himself), thus evoking overtones of love without destroying love’s life-giving vulgarity, and sustaining the poet’s feelings towards the poem while preventing love from distracting him into feeling about the person. That’s part of personism. It was founded by me after lunch with LeRoi Jones on August 27, 1959, a day in which I was in love with someone (not Roi, by the way, a blond). I went back to work and wrote a poem for this person. While I was writing it I was realizing that if I wanted to I could use the telephone instead of writing the poem, and so Personism was born. It’s a very exciting movement which will undoubtedly have lots of adherents. It puts the poem squarely between the poet and the person, Lucky Pierre style, and the poem is correspondingly gratified. The poem is at last between two persons instead of two pages."

(you can find the full text here: http://www.poetspath.com/transmissions/messages/ohara.html - you should read it, it's a hoot - you should also buy the Collected Poems while you're at it)

Have you ever tried this approach with the laydeez, trousers?

If you're looking for that approach, Nick, dig up all the Romantic poets and figure who would do songs sounding like that. Alas, I fear that means mostly goth bands, so you'll have to leave all those songs to me -- not that I mind (he says, currently listening to the new Mors Syphilitica album).

Yeah, but if you're looking for things that sound like how people actually talk, then the Avengers' "Fuck You" and Nirvana's "Tourette's" would do, if you lived in the sort of place where they drank beer by the jug.
Actually, the Avengers' track could work as all sorts of things. "Hey, I like your dress. Fuck you, fuck you." ????

I'm sure I don't know what you mean, Nick. 'Lucky Pierre' style?

"Always" by Half Japanese, when Jad rambles about Pete Rose and Bob Dylan. Or the part in "This Could Be The Night" where he goes something like "what's better than an angel? A princess? Nah. A cheerleader...c'mon, now...there's nothing better than an angel".

Again, Alex, although I don't know those songs, I think you've ignored criterion a). It sounds like that song is *about* Dylan, not addressed to him.

Is it me? I really don't understand why people are having trouble with this..

Anyway, talk of Dylan reminds me of a great example: Postively 4th Street:

"You've got a lot of nerve, to treat me like you do" etc.

I thought of Positively 4th Street but it, and "Would You Please Crawl Out Your Window", don't pass the natural language test for me, at least don't in places.

Nick, will this do? The situation itself isn't typical, and it's not conversational in the way that the Wedding Present song is, but...

Oh, and it's a Johnny Cash song.

After seven years behind these bars together I'll miss you more than a brother when you go If only I had not tried to escape They'd pardon me with you I know Won't you tell the folks back home I'll soon be coming And don't let em know I never will be free Sometimes write and tell me how they're doing And send a picture of mother back to me

Say hello to dad and shake his poor hard-working hand And send a picture of mother if you can

I'm happy for you that you got your freedom But stay with me just another minute or so After all the sweat and blood together Go be my fighting partner when you go?

The hardest time will be on Sunday morning Church bells will ring on heaven hill Please ask Reverend Garrett to pray for me And send a picture of mother if you will

I think people should just forget the natural language thing. It's the other bit that's more important.

cursed formatting errors!

sorry about that.

Okay, so what exactly is the point of this thread then? Nick, you just seem to be contradicting everyone else's beliefs of what seems conversational and imposing this fascist musical dictatorship upon us. DOWN WITH THAT. I'm teasing, of course, but it strikes me as funny as how you've lectured basically every poster about how they didn't understand the question.

I was about to say "Of course it will Scott!", but then I started thinking, well actually it reads more like a *letter* than something someone would say aloud, but fuck it, yes.

Nick, I think it will only work if the poem is correspondingly gratified. And there is never enough to go around. But the quote is brilliant, esp. It does not have to do with personality or intimacy, far from it!

The Modern Lovers were already mentioned, but 'I'm Straight' should definitely fit the bill. That one seems like a genuine monologue, whereas 'What Have I Said Now?' seems like a dialogue with the other person's parts left out. But all we're after is NL. Right.

There's a song called 'Punk Rock Love' by the Barnabys that has conversational parts: "On your way back will you / Stop by the mini- mart / Pick me up a bottle of peroxide / Cos you know the truth is blonde" and "You know you didn't have to leave me in Jersey / That's the way you treat some kind of / Some kind of ignorant punk / There's nothing to do here / And everybody hates me". Is that okay? (I know what I quoted makes them sound like what most people here love to hate, but WAIT! NO! - the Barnabys are GREAT!)

Tom already answered the other part of the question. All I can think to add is that it's not like actual conversations are being replayed in the songs. As Tom said, there's a lot of craft involved. It probably works for the same reasons dialogues are important in stories - showing instead of telling, dramatizing conflict, etc. And disguising craft is hard to do.

you just seem to be contradicting everyone else's beliefs of what seems conversational and imposing this fascist musical dictatorship upon us.

Look, as I said, what counts as naturalistic language is very much a matter of opinion, and I didn't criticise anyone's choices for that. It was the first, to me *very easy to understand* criterion (given as (a) above)that seemed to be causing so much trouble. And that was really freaking me out. So I thought I'd doggedly pursue it for a while, in a kind of dictator-like way. Unlike most of the other suggestions, 'Ansaphone' was basically spot-on. It only failed for the unusual reason I stated above (the specific context of the song forces you to treat it as an imaginary conversation, until the beep kicks in).

Okay, so what exactly is the point of this thread then?

No fucking idea.

Poor old Nick. I still think the natural language thing is a more important, or at least more interesting tack, cause the ways it's used in pop are so interesting. But actually the whole qn is interestng cause it taps into the big, huge question of who sings songs and to whom? (There's a great thread in the unanswered qns section talking about just this thing - when you listen to songs, do you identify with the singer or the sung to....)

I could tell it was freaking you out, which is why I had to tease you. You should know better than to introduce complex conceptual themes on here ;)

nick, cool, the paris sisters did that song? I've got a cover of beth orton doing it and love it.

for the record: mother: welsh, brought up in wales, father: canadian: always brought up in canada. At 14 I started to imitate bob dylan.

What accent do I have?

Does it matter?

No........

Just wanted to type.

When I read this question the first thing that jumped into my head was Talkin New York Blues on the first Bob Dylan album, where he's just pickin along a little pattern and telling you his story - how he came to New York, how people treated him once he got there, etc. Though it's not a direct address - it sounds a bit more like "The Ballad of a Teenage Dylan" - that sense of a love informing the whole thing is there for me; you can tell that there is a particular addressee, or muse. Knowing what I know about Dylan now, I imagine it was probably the press.

You should know better than to introduce complex conceptual themes on here ;)

BUT IT WASN'T A COMPLEX CONCEPTUAL THEME!!!! I'm as lost as the next man when it comes to formalistic porno or whatever the brainiacs are on about today. It only required a rudimentary understanding of linguistics. No, not even that. Just an appreciation of the difference between "I am asking Ally to put the kettle on" and "Ally put the kettle on".

I'm not really freaked out. I'm just playing up to it now. I like the idea of being a complete neurotic wreck. It undercuts my 'Lenny Lenny Len' laidback reputation.

alright, nick, alright, before your head EXPLODES:

"darling be home soon" by the lovin' spoonful. there, i think we have one.

"One Love" from Nas' first album:

http://www.OHHLA.com/anonymous/nas/illmatic/one_love.nas.txt

"Ally put the kettle on".

Shit, that's ambiguous. I meant like in the song. An exhortation. A request. Not a description of what Ally did. I should have put a comma after 'Ally'.

Fred, why are you doing this to me? That's like 'Ansaphone'. He can't have actually said the words in that song 'cause she hadn't come home yet. OK, I suppose it could be on the telephone. But there's the implication in that song that she's somewhere on her way home and he wishes she'd hurry up.

Re: Half Japanese

Actually, Nick, I think I understood the question. The song is not about Dylan or Rose, it's Jad talking to a girl ("I think about you always, not sometimes, not most of the time, always, y'know, it's a shame about Pete Rose, blah, blah") and he goes on blabbing on for 10 minutes, and the tone is definitely direct conversationalistic.

It's an extremely complex thematic equation you are asking people to understand here, Nick. Why don't you just admit it that this is beyond mere mortal comprehension and that it requires an evil mastermind to cook up such a ridiculously hard question?

How about Wannabe? They're obviously talking to their men. A conversation! Voila! Except that no one actually says stuff like "Zigazigah" in real life, so I guess I just screwed myself over.

Yes. And SpottieOttieDopalicious - kind of an "Advice Handbook for Grown-Up Playas" - or "Letters to a Young Baller" - gives itself away at the end when it breaks into 2nd-person. And what a dub.

nick:

Come and talk of all the things we did today
Here and laugh about our funny little ways
While we have a few minutes to breathe
And I know that it's time you must leave

i think he is saying these things to her, in person. i believe that a close analysis of the song will bear out that he's talking to her before she leaves, like, "i know that you have to go, but please be back soon" rather than it being some sort of reverie.

I would like to take this opportunity to publicly apologise to Alex and Fred.

And Ally, I think you were right in the first place about 'Wannabe'. I mean people do say 'Zigazigah' round my way quite a lot. Only since 'Wannabe' came out, I grant you, but that makes it all the more clever. It's like a self-fulfulling prophesy. Or at least it would be if it had had "This song is a conversational monologue" printed on the sleeve.

While stretching the natural language idea to include Positively 4th is fair dos, "Darling Be Home Soon" has about the least natural language in 60s pop - "beat your crazy head against the sky"!! And the rest of it reads like a hippie attempt to essay courtly love.

Ha! You're right Tom. I publicly retract my apology.

I was bloody right about Ansaphone too, quite frankly, but that doesn't change anything.

tom, how many hippies do you know? well, i know at least one. and that's how they all talk. or at least this one does. hell, even i've been known to say "go and beat your crazy head against the sky" from time to time. why, just the other day, a wee nipper approached me and he said, "sir, what am i to do with my life?" and i said, "young man, go and beat your crazy head against the sky." and i'll be damned if he didn't do just that.

Was his name Adam and did he go on to start a band and get signed to Pooptones? ;-) That's the only person I've ever met to use the phrase "beat yer crazy head against the sky" in polite conversation!

People *do* talk like Dylan, though. I know loads of them. Most of them wish they were A) amphetamine addicts or B) crazy, Warholian hipster characters, maaaaaan. However, this may as much of a studied affectation as the essexian Zig-ahzig-aaaah-sayers.

pooptones. you are so american witty.

and you don't even know lovin' spoonful!

mother, by goldie? would that count?

hahaha...

has anyone listened to that all the way through?

The Beach Boys - "Busy Doin' Nothing"

Brian Wilson spends most of the song giving directions to his house. Could easily be a phone call conversation even if not, obviously, face to face.

What album is it on, Tom?

It's on the Friends / 20/20 2-on-1 CD, cant remember which of the LPs its from though.

Re. "Mother" - I got 30 minutes into it.

I had thought of "Busy Doin' Nothin'" earlier, but the entire song isn't addressed to a single person. It's certainly colloquial and prosaic, however. (And it's on "Friends")

was thinking about an answer for this one. Would Tim Hardin's Suite for Susan Moore and Damon do? It seems to be based around conversations......that entire album.

I don't have friends. Grr...

I got 10 minutes into it. Was my ex girlfriend's cd. When we broke up she left Mother behind and took the other one. It's still sitting in a drawer. Terrible.

that was probably the first sign of nuttiness to come from brian. and to top it all off, it was bossa nova. great one, though, love those changes. and ty, it's on friends, which is now available on a two-fer with 20/20.

has anyone heard tim hardin's suite for susan moore and damon?

1. Nicky D sure has a charming persona on the go here. But what's all that 'Len' stuff? I've never heard anyone call you 'Len', Nick.

2. Tom E's right, I guess - Dylan is too idiosyncratic to be conversational.

3. How sweet of Stevie T to bring up 'Personism' again. He doesn't need its help, of course. Heck, no.

4. Youn said something like: 'craft is hard to disguise'. Hm - I'm not sure about that one. Why?

5. I was going to say: 'There's ANOTHER song called "Punk Rock Love"?'. Then I remembered that 'Punk Love' is called 'Punk Love', not 'Punk Rock Love'.

6. I'm still not totally sure what Nick is / was after here, actually. I have heard none of the songs that he's actually offered or approved as examples.

Pimpology, by Too $hort. Also, "That Was Her (This is Me)" by Dream.

Also, quite a bit from The Mountain Goats.

Maybe "Catch" by the Cure. Still lovely: "Yeah I know who you remind me of, a girl I think I used to know..."

How about Biz Markie's classic:

Oh baby you
You got what I need
But you say he's just a friend . . .

― bnw, Wednesday, 30 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I don't know if I'd argue he *stayed* this way (and I'm sorry I keep talking about him at the moment) but a lot of the pull of early Mark E. Smith was sort of just this: that he "sang" (ha ha) stuff that wasn't anything like songs were "supposed" to be like, but made you think of actual people in actual places, talking. Or ranting, yes, but naturalistically. Having said that, even from the start his stuff is also so compressed and montaged, that it's more like cut-up of dozens of conversational conversations (he's not just chatting).

Conversations with the over-intense near-lunatic at the bus-stop, maybe, rather than yr auntie or yr boyfriend or the milkman.

What was so vivid and weird and hard to understand — because it was so very clear and unambiguous that you weren't sure if you DARED accept what he was saying, if that makes sense — about "I've got shears pointed straight at my chest" was that it used these extremely concrete, unmythological words ("shears"/"chest"): how many songs hae the wiords "shears" in them anyway. Not "knife", not "switch-blade", not "shotgun"...

Even when he's being cryptic or elliptical, it's still — sort of — something someone would say, like an in-joke among bitter drinking buddies (who read Blake and watch too-much off-peak TV).

Or is this not what you're talking about either?

Speaking of the Cure, what about Letter to Elise? It's not a conversation in the spoken sense but it's meant as a letter (duh) to a specific person...would that count under these guidelines or would it have to be something that is strictly implied as being spoken to someone?

Am I reading this right, Ally? You're talking about a Cure song with no reference to mocking the band? Cool.

The fucking Cure fucking suck, Ned.

Is that better? :)

Only cockfarmers like the Cure, etc. Anyhow, I only bought that one Cure best-of that has Letter to Elise on it because of Letter to Elise, so I could stick it in my by-boyfriend-categorized record collection. But then I realized I actually did like the song, and I wanted to kill myself.

To Josh -- yes, much. Even though you're wrong.

In the meantime, Ally, liking one Cure song is still better than liking none. Hurrah!

Nick, this isn't fair. Nobody talks like a song. Some songs come close to conversational style but the fact that words have to be twisted to fit a rhythm makes it seem all unnatural when you try to read the lyrics aloud and act them out. It just sounds silly. Silly, you hear? However, I am giving this my best shot, so first I suggest Peter Sarstedt (sorry)

They say that when you get married It'll be to a millionaire But they don't realize where you came from And I wonder if they really care, or give a damn

Where do you go to my lovely When you're alone in your bed Tell me the thoughts that surround you I want to look inside your head, yes I do

Does anyone say 'my lovely'? They say things like that in Devon, don't they? And the 'yes I do' at the end reminds me of baby talk. Hmm. OK, well how's this then?

Maybe if we think and wish and hope and pray it might come true Baby then there wouldn't be a single thing we couldn't do We could be married And then we'd be happy Wouldn't it be nice?

No, that's not quite right either. This question's rubbish. Hrumph.

My formatting is also rubbish. Sorry.

Girl, I'll house you.

There's another song by Peter Sarstedt called 'Take Off Your Clothes'(which, for some reason, always reminds me of Peter Miller). Another function of direct address in songs - humor!

Early Tom Waits used to do this, before he got all weird. Even "Frank's Wild Years" off of the same album had that sort of feel to it.

Youn said something like: 'craft is hard to disguise'. Hm - I'm not sure about that one. Why? (the pinefox)

My impression is that writing dialogues in texts is difficult. If the character is an established type, then there are probably a slew of lines that come with the type. There's definitely an art to this, a mixture of lighthandedness and overstatement, i.e. in the songs of Peter Sarstedt, and the effects can be humorous and enlightening. But writing what ordinary people say in ordinary situations seems extraordinarily difficult.

[...] they are usually dressed up in romantic language and shorn of the awkwardness, trivialities, tangents, dumb choices of words found in the way we really speak in such situations. (Nick)

To stick to ordinary language but to use particulars of the situation, juxtapositions in what is said and what happens, and the momentum of the text to make ordinary language say more... David Gedge is really good at this. Lines like "Orange slices and a Fall lp" say so much in the song. And "your clothes on the floor" in 'What Have I Said Now?'.

But in pop songs particulars get lifted by the context of the song - things which would be dull on the page are lifted by melody and by the relatively minimal nature of the text (ie the pop lyric). So I think details in a pop song actually get given more weight by their genre than details in a novel do. (the pinefox)

The reason I said that I thought it would be harder to convey particulars in pop songs than in fiction is that compression is required in the former whereas in the latter being longwinded doesn't necessarily hurt (but can get annoying, i.e. Stephen(?) Dixon). It's true that melody can 'lift' details, but it also works against lyrics, so to speak, in that there's other stuff to pay attention to. (And I don't think it's good if the lyrics STAND OUT.) It's not like reading a book. It has to be something that sounds good when spoken, or sung. I don't think lyrics have to count: in some songs they're just not that important. (I'm embarrassed by the memory of Sundar saying that he hated lit crit applied to pop songs.) But if they do, it's like they have to say something that is easily recognized (the disguise), yet surprising (craft).

I used to have Submarine Bells by the Chills, and I remember thinking that the lyrics were overwritten (you just couldn't sing along to them), but since Keith and Alasdair have both spoken favorably of them, I'll have to reconsider.

Jolene

Youn said:

>>> It's true that melody can 'lift' details, but it also works against lyrics, so to speak, in that there's other stuff to pay attention to. (And I don't think it's good if the lyrics STAND OUT.) It's not like reading a book. It has to be something that sounds good when spoken, or sung.

This seems right to me (though - come to think of it - *sometimes* it's good when lyrics STAND OUT). But in a sense, it's *because* something can 'sound good while sung' that I think that particulars in a pop lyric are relatively easy to pull off.

Hey, they don't even say things like that in Devon. Unlike Ned Raggett.

(old, old private joke)

I was listening to Bizarro this morning and thinking that "Brassneck" is a really good example of this. I like it because of the change that takes place in the song: the first verse is all weepy, but then it seems like the process of letting out those feelings helps him realize that he doesn't need her anymore. (I'll probably regret reviving this because of my previous answers, but then I thought this insight was so fantastic that I had to let it out, if only to regret it again in a few years time.)

youn! I have secretly been reading this thread all week.

"things happen" by coil with annie anxiety is kinda like this. it's not the most "everyday" conversational monologue (she's just killed someone?), but it's a direct address that approximates talking (or on-the-edge rambling, as it were)