SONGS WHERE/SONGS THAT/SONGS WITH/SONGS IN WHICH

xp

checked the lyrics and there is no explicit confirmation that the computer is actually listening and not just saying what it’s programmed to say

Fred Lane - I Talk to My Haircut

Songs which have accidental sound in the background (that the artist decided to keep in the recording)
?

There’s some Olivia Tremor Control song that clearly has a old landline ringing in the next room…

Grouper's "Labyrinth", recorded on a portable recorder during a blackout in Portugal, has the beep! of a microwave turning back on when the power was restored.

and the frogs on "Lighthouse" but they're essential to the record

"Black Country Woman" by Led Zeppelin - plane flying overhead while recording outdoors
"Tin Scarecrow" by Game Theory - vacuum cleaner turned on while recording at home

There's a plane flying overhead during one of the tracks on the Lambert/Ingram/Randall album (which feels like part & parcel of "outdoor recording")

Phone ringing in one of those songs on the Moldy Peaches album

Songs about escaping small towns

Broadcast - Ominous Cloud
Bronski Beat - Smalltown Boy
Kingmaker - Hey Birdman (no really, this is good)

Sure there must be many more

Nowhere Fast - The Smiths

Maybe not much escaping there. London by the Smiths instead?

Twist on it in Pavement’s Box Elder, MO. He’s escaping one town for another, maybe even smaller, one.

Smalltown, Lou Reed & John Cale

And another twist in the Jam’s Strange Town (get to the city and it’s horrible)

Some more candidates on this Steve Hoffman thread including one of my favourite ever songs, Lonely Days by Future Bible Heroes, though again there's not much sign of escape.

Continental edition - this stuff goes back centuries!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhJCFBY6UmA
Vicky Leandros • Theo, wir fahr’n nach Lodz

Sundays - leave this city

Steve Earle, "Someday."

There ain't a lot that you can do in this town
You drive down to the lake and then you turn back around
You go to school and you learn to read and write
So you can walk into the county bank and sign away your life
I work at the fillin' station on the interstate
Pumpin' gasoline and countin' out of state plates
They ask me how far into Memphis son, and where's the nearest beer
And they don't even know that there's a town around here
Someday I'm finally gonna let go
'Cause I know there's a better way
And I wanna know what's over that rainbow
I'm gonna get out of here someday
Now my brother went to college cause he played football
I'm still hangin' round cause I'm a little bit small
I got me a 67 Chevy, she's low and sleek and black
Someday I'll put her on that interstate and never look back

"Backwards Town" by the Grapes of Wrath
"Hometown" by Joe Jackson

The Kinks have a trilogy of songs about girls who come to grief in the city, but only "Big Black Smoke" explicitly mentions the "country life" that she is leaving. They also have "Village Green", where the singer "sought fame", then misses the small town.

"Get to the city and it's horrible" also = Gram Parsons, "Streets of Baltimore."

Eilen Jewell, "Blow it All Away"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfpoKzpQ4_E

Let's just keep driving you and me
I like your soft voice and your pleasant company
We can pull each other out of this dusty little town
Make a new start somewhere maybe settle down

btw that is a pretty good song. I played it in a bar recently

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8l_od0G488

Richard Marx - Hazard

My favorite take on this theme is Gerty - Lower Moreland. Such a great (autobiographical) name for a town one would feel the need to escape from.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNBE7IqXg8k

songs which are ruined by a singer singing in a faux-accent that's annoying as fuck

think that was just sold as "Sting's Greatest Hits" in other countries.

Green Day to thread

songs where the chorus seems endlessly stitched together

example - Shania Twain - Man, I Feel Like a Woman

“cut to the feeling” has a similar feel

Not sure if "stitched together" implies a negative judgment, but I'd say ABBA's "The Name of the Game" does this very well. The chorus has four parts (one, two or three of which could arguably be called bridges, but they appear after both of the full choruses).

"Take a Chance on Me," as well? (I didn't read it negatively, btw – I love that Shania song)

That's an odd one because the verse is the main hook, but the "other part" does have three sections.

Live & Let Die

xp Not sure I get what you mean about the verse being the main hook; pretty sure it’s the big ol’ chorus that launches the song(?)

You're right, I guess that is the chorus, but I wouldn't call it "stitched together" because it's all one musical idea/melodic pattern except for the four bars at the end (with the spoken word bits).

Ah gotcha (I wasn’t thinking that the stitched-together pieces necessarily had to be heterogenous)

I'm not sure if I'm understanding this right, but what comes to mind is "Green Light" by Lorde.

How about songs with awesome, multipart bridges? (sorry if I’ve already done this… I love bridges)

“Father Figure” is the gold standard for me:

https://i.imgur.com/HU4HEtJ_d.webp?maxwidth=640&shape=thumb&fidelity=medium

I used to love karaoking that due to the bridges alone.

Good call

songs where the 7" version is a classic and the 12" remix is unspeakable and should never be played again

songs that are remade a million times, but pretty much every remake is based on one iconic cover of the song and not the original.

some obvious ones:

Tears for Fears - "Mad World"
Leonard Cohen - "Hallelujah"
The Roar of the Greasepaint, the Smell of the Crowd Original Cast Recording - "Feeling Good"

“Hound Dog”

ahh yes very good one!

"Feeling Good" I guess is a special case because the song originated on Broadway and music lovers who didn't give a shit about musical theatre reacted to the Nina Simone/Hal Mooney version as if it were the original.

“All Along the Watchtower,” maybe (a case where the iconic cover influenced even the original artist’s live performances of the song)

Tainted Love.

"Blue Bayou"

"You Don't Know Me"

That is, I think most people cover the Linda Rondstadt and Ray Charles versions more than the originals

^excellent!

Not enough covers for this topic probably, but the B-side of “Blue Bayou,” “Mean Woman Blues,” was originally sung by Elvis Presley in the movie Loving You.

"Louie Louie"