rachelmanija | Two musical questions

The Sweet, "Ballroom Blitz" - about a barfight.

Gordon Lightfoot, "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald"

On the border of novelty there's Captain Dan & the Scurvy Crew, pirate-themed rappers, and their signature tune "Rime of the Hip Hop Mariner" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbDfR4UgIWY).

Edited 2015-02-03 02:46 (UTC)

So many of Kate Bush's are so interesting and odd, topic-wise.

Genteel serial poisoning? "Coffee Homeground." Spitfire pilot crashing in flames? "Oh! England, My Lionheart." Wuthering Heights? "Wuthering Heights." (The cover by the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain is a thing of beauty.) Haunted stand-in actors? "Hammer Horror." Revenge tragedy of a widowed bride? "The Wedding List." Very poorly planned bank heist? "There Goes a Tenner." And that just brings us up to 1982.

I'm not 100% sure what qualifies as an unusual subject, but here's a few that might suit:

"From Galway to Graceland" by Richard Thompson, a very pretty song about an Irish woman making the pilgrimage after Elvis Presley's death.

"John Allyn Smith Sails" by Okkervil River, about the suicide of the poet John Berryman.

"Skyway" by the Replacements is at least partially about the Minneapolis skyway system, though kind of more as a setting than about the thing itself. They also have a song called "Beer for Breakfast," but it's basically just a little b-side ditty that maybe falls under the novelty song category.

"Iron Man" by Black Sabbath might qualify?

"Rooks" by Shearwater is about an environmental apocalypse involving swarming birds. (Various apocalyptic themes aren't that unusual, but I feel like the particulars of this song sort of are.)

"Wichita Lineman" by Jimmy Webb, about telephone linemen.

"Cold Missouri Waters" by James Keelaghan, about the Mann Gulch fire of 1949, specifically the survivor of one of the smokejumper crews who in desperation spontaneously used an escape fire (which was not a technique known by the Forest Service at that time; he seems to have come up with the idea on the spot) to save himself.

Maybe also "Northwest Passage" by Stan Rogers? Though historical events in general could be considered a fairly common category, so I don't know...?

It's almost easier to mention artists whose *entire* output (or the majority of it) deals with unusual topics: Robyn Hitchcock, Kate Bush, and Captain Beefheart are always good for a brainboggle, lyrically. (Come to that, the Who's Tommy album, about a catatonic child who becomes a messiah largely by playing pinball, is well up there.)

House of Fun, by Madness? It's about buying condoms.

It depends what "subjects" means- JCB Song is a) about a son's love for his father b) about a big yellow digger.

I think it's a synthesizer set on harpsichord.

Weird songs: Frank Zappa, for instance "the Dangerous Kitchen." Or check out "Punch and Judy," an opera by Harrison Birtwiste, which is creeptastic.

sovay pointed me over here after we started discussin' this very topic.

The Bobs do a lot of strange songs. Three I'd pick as stranger than usual:

"Weatherman": A song of marital strife that can be had when one marries a precognitive prognosticator.
"Elwood Decker": Inspired by an obituary in a local paper about a painter "abstractly struck by a train".
"The Deprogrammer": Monologue-heavy piece about a cult deprogrammer and his latest job; the cheery mantra repeated by his subject eventually takes over the entire song.

Other songs by other artists:

John Prine, "Bottomless Lake": A tale of a family car trip gone awry, after Dad inadvertently drives into a bottomless lake. The baby gets a tummyache and the car just keeps on falling.
Dave Frishberg, "Van Lingle Mungo": A lounge song with lyrics comprised entirely of names of major league baseball players. Bonus points for Frishberg emoting through them all.
John Yager, "Benson, Arizona": From the early John Carpenter film Dark Star, a lament about love and travel at the speed of light. One stays young, the other grows old.
Michelle Shocked, "V.F.D.": Childhood arson. Always a fun nostalgic topic!
Paul Young, "Toast": Paul Young really likes toast. He gets up in the middle of the song to make some, that's how much he likes toast.
Daddy Dewdrop, "The March of the White Corpuscles": Because sometimes you need a biology lesson in the form of a bubblegum pop song.
The Imaginary Village, "Space Girl": Cover of Peggy Seeger's song. A cautionary tale for the atomic rocket age. Blasters and freezer guns are most necessary.

I'm sure I can think of more but I have to make biscuits now.

Edited 2015-02-03 01:07 (UTC)

Well, there's "Crazy ABCs" by Barenaked Ladies.

Also, "Snacktime", "Be My Yoko Ono", and "Tonight is the Night I Fell Asleep at the Wheel".

Donovan, Intergalactic Laxative.

I suppose the full oeuvre of Tom Lehrer. Oedipus Rex, Masochism Tango, Elements, etc.

Oh, another group with lots of weird songs is Rasputina. "My Little Shirtwaist Fire" is a favorite of mine, about the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, but they also have ones called "Howard Hughes", "Rose K." (about JFK's mom), "The Donner Party", "1816, The Year Without a Summer", "Herb Girls of Birkenau" (about Auschwitz), and for extra weirdness, "Rats", which is about the 16th century decision by the then Pope to declare the semi-aquatic capybara as fish for Catholics to eat during Lent.

Also one of the all-time great TMBG videos, up there with "The Mesopotamians" (there's another one for you, Rachel) and "I'm Impressed" (which is about being intimidated by authority figures... is that an "unusual" topic?).

My Iron Maiden-loving SO suggests "Alexander the Great."

Another one that occurred to me, maybe "The Queen & the Soldier" by Suzanne Vega.

Absolutely! I love the video.

I have a lot of affection for "A Marine Biologist" by The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets.

"Sometimes" by James is supposed to be about a guy who got hit by lightning I think seven times.

Dar Williams has quite a few unusual songs, my favorite of which is "When I Was a Boy", which is about how patriarchy screws up gender expression for everyone.

OMD's "Enola Gay" is also what it says.

"Kino" by Nena is about the cinema generally, which isn't a thing I think I've seen another song do.

Argh. Where have I heard that opening riff before? It's going to nag at me. I can almost, but not quite, make the jump to the rest of the song my brain wants it to be.

Jerdacuttup Man by The Triffids, sung from the perspective of a peat-bog mummy in the British Museum. Unexpectedly catchy.

"Istanbul Not Constantinople (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsQrKZcYtqg)" is probably the most famous TMBG song (about the history of Middle Eastern geography!) but my personal favourite is "Kiss Me, Son Of God (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLcp8Dm-ejU)." I'm not actually entirely sure what that one's about, but I think the main message is "capitalists are evil."

Edited 2015-02-03 07:56 (UTC)

"Istanbul" actually predates TMBG by quite a bit - The Four Lads recorded it in 1953.

I think. I does sound electronic.

Jan and Dean "The Little Old Lady from Pasadena", about a street-racing granny.
Jonathan Coulton "Under the Pines", which is about a romance between Leonard Nimoy and Bigfoot.
Jonathan Coulton "Skullcrusher Mountain", which is a love song from a mad scientist to an abductee.
(Actually, a lot of JoCo, but those would be my two nominees)
Moxy Fruvous "King of Spain", which relates the tale of how the king of Spain makes pizza and drives a zamboni in Canada.
Cobra Starship "Snakes on a Plane", title track to film of the same name.
Reverend Horton Heat "Cowboy Love", which is about an interracial cowboy gay romance, set to a 60's country tune.
Deep Purple "Smoke on the Water", about a nightclub fire in Switzerland
Nena "99 Luftballons", about accidental nuclear war.

And then there's Wings' "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey", which is definitely unusual (and catchy as hell), but only Paul McCartney knows if it's actually about anything.

"Andrew In Drag (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jf_l3EGQvL8)" by the Magnetic Fields- about a guy who falls in love with his buddy after seeing him do a drag show.

"Heretic Pride (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZ6O7Jk4MXs)" by the Mountain Goats- about being burned at the stake.

If we're counting songs from musicals, "All The Men In My Life Keep Getting Killed By Candarian Demons (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yx2m1sfupmI)" is . . . pretty self-explanatory.

"Download This Song (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBkuiChImb8)" by MC Lars is about how pirating is good for the music industry.

I came by to tell you it's a harpsichord and probably an organ, but apparently other people've covered that.

So, songs:

French Perfume (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxymPEErVSo) by Great Big Sea might qualify - there are lots of songs about pirates, but probably fewer about the Mounties failing to arrest smugglers. A Boat Like Gideon Brown (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUo5NqEBNWU), same artist, is about the singer and his father's desire to buy a new fishing boat.

The Cobbler's Daughter (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rk_NHr4lvqc) by Kate Rusby is about how the singer got her mother sent to prison for life and is generally a brat. It's not really that unusual for English folk genre, granted.

Dry Town (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBqi8CMYhoU) by Miranda Lambert -- the singer complaining about having broken down in a town with no alcohol.

My Favorite Plum (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCgOe77SB6A) by Suzanne Vega, about the subject of the title. Also by her, Room Off the Street (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPFhaLwPdqg), which is difficult to describe IMO, but definitely unusual.

Odessa Chen's Archives of the Natural World is an album of songs from the perspective of extinct or endangered animals.

Odessa Chen's Archives of the Natural World is an album of songs from the perspective of extinct or endangered animals.

That's incredibly cool.

In case anyone cares, there may be another source that both songs are quoting, but I managed to get my brain to cough up the fact the opening riff of the Magdalena song is almost identical to the beginning of Al Stewart's "The Palace of Versailles."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZDEpjj7l4g

Two musical questions

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I believe it's a Yamaha synsithizer

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