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1. What are the instruments playing in this song before the vocals come in? An organ? And... a piano? Chimes? Glockenspiel?
2. Please name a few songs with unusual subjects. Ideally, not pure novelty songs like "Mommy Got Run Over By A Reindeer."
2. Please name a few songs with unusual subjects. Ideally, not pure novelty songs like "Mommy Got Run Over By A Reindeer."
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Welp, there goes my suggestion of "In Der Fuhrer's Face".
Just about everything by TMBG would qualify. "You Probably Get That a Lot" is the only song about cephalophores that I'm aware of, for example.
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"Homecoming (Walter's Song)" is a narrative of a man coming to peace in a hotel room, "A Decade and One" is a woman reflecting on the past ten years of her life, "Mission Street" is a night on the eponymous street narrated by what sounds like a street busker, "Shasta" is a woman making the choice to keep a baby, "Passage" is the time after a woman's death in a car crash narrated by her ghost, "Whatever You Want" is the story of a white collar criminal getting his comeuppance via the people he took for granted, "1br/1ba" is a woman after a breakup trying to get used to her new living space, "In Another Life" imagines reincarnation through several lives, "Grandmother Song" is from the pov of Teng's grandmother disapproving of her life choices, "No Gringo" imagines a future where the US economy has collapsed completely, from the pov of a child whose family illegally seeks work in other countries, "Radio" recreates the anxiety of listening to all the bad things that happen in the world and imagining they're happening to you (while everyone's sure it "can't happen here"), "Watershed" narrates global flooding from the pov of the planet/flood, and basically the ENTIRETY of AIMS is non-standard.
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"Miner's Refrain", Gillian Welch, about miners. [Video.]
"Barbie Girl", Aqua, about being a Barbie doll and living in a Barbie universe. [Video.]
"The Coming", Arsenal & Gabriel Rios, about... I really have no idea, but I love it. [Video.]
"Shinda Shima, Mellow, about... travel? [Video.]
Oh god, you didn't set prog rock off-limits. Dude.
"Die Eier von Satan, by Tool, ABOUT COOKIES, done in electronic German-rally style. [Video.]
"In The Court Of The Crimson King", King Crimson, I'm not paid enough to determine what prog pieces are about. [Video.]
"Pigs", Pink Floyd, uh... corporate greed, I believe. [Video.]
And then the really out-there shit.
"Butter", by Hot Butter.
"Focus", by Hocus Pocus.
So what's closest?
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"Yellow Submarine"? Actually, come to think of it, the Beatles have a few of these. On the general topic of the 1960s, there's also "Pinball Wizard", though that one's also kind of on the novelty song end of things. (Or ... about half the songs The Who ever wrote, come to think of it. "Boris the Spider"? "Happy Jack"? Maybe it's just something about the 1960s.)
"Copperhead Road" (Steve Earle) is about bootleggers.
When I was a teenager, I had an album by Fred Small, a little-known folk singer/protest singer, whose songs are basically ALL this. "Heart of the Appaloosa" - the last stand of the Navajo. "Talking Wheelchair Blues" - woman in a wheelchair is repeatedly ignored/dismissed by servers in a restaurant. "Larry the Polar Bear" - filmmaker takes a zoo-raised bear to the remote coast of Alaska to film a movie, but things really don't go as he'd hoped. And so forth.
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"England 2, Colombia 0" by Kirsty MacColl is about a football match (though it's also about a guy who's a cheating liar, which is a much more common song topic).
Oingo Boingo's "Burn Me Up" is about paranoid schizophrenia. "No Spill Blood" is about The Island of Doctor Moreau. "Cinderella Undercover" is about fairy tale characters in a dystopian future. "Reptiles and Samurai" is about, uh, reptiles and samurai. Like TMBG, you should probably just look at the entire oeuvre.
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Oh haaa, "Rock 'N' Roll High School" by The Ramones.
OMG ELO. "The Jungle", "Mr. Blue Sky", "The Diary Of Horace Wimp"...
*physically restrains myself*
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songs with unusual subjects
"North Dakotachrome" and "Boxes y Boxes" by Lawsuit.
"One Piece At A Time", "The Chicken In Black", "The One On The Right Is On The Left" by Johnny Cash.
A lot of Christine Lavin's work.
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"My Girl", the least sexist song about arguing with your girlfriend ever to be a hit single
"Embarassment", a protest song about the family of one of the band members freaking out over his sister having an inter-racial baby
"Shut Up", about a cheeky criminal under police interrogation
"Primrose Hill", about agoraphobia, if you're looking for songs about mental problems not usually explored in pop music
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Kate and Anna McGarrigle's "NaCl" is about an atom of chlorine and an atom of sodium who fall in love and produce salt.
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There was also one kid in my suburban eighties Southwestern neighbourhood who LOVED THIS ALBUM AND PLAYED IT EVERY DAY. Evvvvvvvvery day. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2112_%28album%29 I think that's the one based on an Ayn Rand book.
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