Songs That Tell Stories

Well, if were going with 4th of July...


Independence Day

Words & Music by Ani DiFranco
As performed by Allison Crowe

We drove the car
To the top of the parking ramp
4th of July

Sat out on the hood
With a couple of warm beers
And watched the fireworks
Explode in the sky

There was an exodus of birds from the trees
'cause they didn't know
We were only pretending

And the people all looked up and looked pleased
And the birds flew around
Like the whole world was ending

I don't think war is noble
And I don't like to think love is like war
But I got a big hot cherry bomb
And I wanna slip it through the mail slot
Of your front door

You can't leave me here
I got your back now
You'd better have mine

And you say the coast is clear
But you say that all the time

So many sheep I quit counting
Sleepless and embarrassed
About the way that I feel

Trying to make mole hills out of mountains
Building base camp at the bottom
Of a really big deal

Did I ever tell you how I stopped eating
When you stopped calling me
I was cramped up
Shitting rivers for weeks
And pretending that I was finally free

You can't leave me here
I got your back now
You'd better have mine

And you say the coast is clear
But you say that all the time

We drove the car
To the top of the parking ramp
4th of July

I planted my dusty boots on the bumper
Sat out on the hood
And looked up at the sky

thanks for the great prose

Thank Ani Panz! I'm interested that the lyric works for you without hearing the song. If you're bored try and track it down on the web - I got it free from Amazon when they used to do free mp3s - but there's a bunch of sites streaming it. Her site also has links and freebies http://www.allisoncrowe.com/music/

I'm pretty sure it's off the 2005 live album, but it doesn't sound live (as in audience noise) to me. Great delivery. I've never heard Ani sing it. What does the righteous babe do these days?

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Usb9N2czOO8
"4th Of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)"bruce springsteen


Sandy the fireworks are hailin' over Little Eden tonight
Forcin' a light into all those stoned-out faces left stranded on this Fourth of
July
Down in town the circuit's full with switchblade lovers so fast so shiny so
sharp
And the wizards play down on Pinball Way on the boardwalk way past dark
And the boys from the casino dance with their shirts open like Latin lovers
along the shore
Chasin' all them silly New York girls

Sandy the aurora is risin' behind us
The pier lights our carnival life forever
Love me tonight for I may never see you again
Hey Sandy girl

Now the greasers they tramp the streets or get busted for trying to sleep on the
beach all night
Them boys in their spiked high heels ah Sandy their skins are so white
And me I just got tired of hangin' in them dusty arcades bangin' them pleasure
machines
Chasin' the factory girls underneath the boardwalk where they promise to unsnap
their jeans
And you know that tilt-a-whirl down on the south beach drag
I got on it last night and my shirt got caught
And that Joey kept me spinnin' I didn't think I'd ever get off

Oh Sandy the aurora is risin' behind us
The pier lights our carnival life on the water
Runnin' down the beach at night with my boss's daughter
Well he ain't my boss no more Sandy

Sandy, the angels have lost our desire for us
I spoke to 'em just last night and they said they won't set themselves on fire
for us anymore
Every summer when the weather gets hot they ride that road down from heaven on
their Harleys they come and they go
And you can see 'em dressed like stars in all the cheap little seashore bars
parked making love with their babies out on the Kokomo
Well the cops finally busted Madame Marie for tellin' fortunes better than they
do
This boardwalk life for me is through
You know you ought to quit this scene too

Sandy the aurora's rising behind us, the pier lights our carnival life forever

4th Of July
Aimee Mann

Today's the fourth of July
another June has gone by
and when they light up our town I just think
what a waste of gunpowder and sky
I'm certain that I am alone
in harbouring thoughts of our home
it's one of my faults that I can't quell my past
I ought to have gotten it gone
Oh, baby, I wonder -
if when you are older -
someday-
you'll wake up
and say, 'My God, I should have told her -
what would it take?
But now here I am and the world's gotten colder
and she's got the river down which I sold her.'
So that's today's memory lane
with all the pathos and pain
another chapter in a book where the chapters are endless
and they're always the same
a verse, then a verse, and refrain
Oh, baby, I wonder -
if when you are older -
someday-
you'll wake up
and say, 'My God, I should have told her -
what would it take?
But now here I am and the world's gotten colder
and she's got the river down which I sold her.'

great stuff

The Strawberry Roan

[Horse whinnies and then farts. Someone yells "Whoa!"]

I was hanging 'round town
In a house of ill fame
Laying up with a twister
Of hustling dame

When a hop-headed pimp
With his nose full of coke
Beat me out of the girl
And left me stone-broke

When a stranger walked in
Said he, "Say, my lad
Are you any good riding
Horses that's bad?"

Said I, "You damn right
That's one thing I can do
I'm a second rate pimp
But a good buckaroo.

"Bring on your bad horses
I never saw one
That could set to guessing
Or bother me none."

Said he, "Guess again
There's one horse that I own
You might have heard of him
The strawberry roan."

"Well I guess we've all heard
Of that of that ball bearing stud
He had the fessudie [?]
And glanders and crud.

"He's the worst ******* bronco
That has ever been foaled
He's never been road
And he's twenty years old."

O, that strawberry roan
How many colts has he thrown?
He's got gonorrhea and cankers and syph
He's strictured with clap
But his cock is still stiff
That renegade strawberry roan.

Well, the upshot of it was
That I found myself hired
To snap out some colts
That great stud had sired.

They were knot-head cayuse's
Just like their Dad
Most of them roans
But all of them bad.

With their feet in my pockets
Those bastards would fight
Till my ass drug my tracks out
Way before night

My balls in my boots
And my mouth full of dung
My ears were all scratch
Where I got my spurs hung

Then the boss came in
He said, that's enough
The strawberry roan's colts
Are too God damned tough

"I'm damn sick and tired
Of seeing you taking them falls
Rope that wind-milling stud
And we'll cut out his balls"

O, that strawberry roan
We went out to unbend his bone
We built a big loop
And went in the corral
We roped his front feet
He farted and fell
We flattened that strawberry roan

Well, the boss held his head
While I hog-tied his legs
I reached for my jack-knife
And went for his eggs

When I opened his bag
Why, he let out a moan
And he squealed like a pig
When I cut out that stone

But all I could locate
Was one of his nuts
The other was hidden
Some place in his guts

So I rolled up my sleeve
And swimming in blood
I felt for the seed
In the guts of that stud.

I thought that I found it
I felt something pass
But its only a turd
On the way to his ass

Just then I heard one of them
Blood curdling squalls
And I looked and the roan
Had the boss by the balls

Well, I stomped on his head
It was no use
He was just like a bulldog
He wouldn't let loose

So I untied his legs
And he got to his feet
But the boss's voice changed
And I knew he was beat.

O, that strawberry roan
We advise you to leave him alone
He's a knot-headed cayuse
With only one ball
But the boss is a eunuch
With no balls at all
Lay off of that strawberry roan.

[The sound of a fart. Someone yells "Whoa! You son of a bitch!" Horse makes "Awww" sound.]


Note the song (or tune) was not written by Glenn Ohrlin though he does know a version of the Castration of the Strawberry Roan. Glenn's version was recorded by Max Hunter in 1964 and again by Lou Curtis in about 1978. The Curtis recording is found on the LP Just Something My Uncle Told Me (1981). Baxter Black also knows a version of The Castration of the Strawberry Roan.

In 1943, while they were in New York, Dick Foran and the Pioneers (the Dr. Pepper crew) were asked to sing "The Strawberry Roan" for the Dr. Pepper annual stockholders and board of directors' meeting. Someone found the alternate words Curley had written, "Castration of the Strawberry Roan" and the guys recorded it privately as a joke. Dick Foran sings the solo with the Pioneers backup

Thanx for tunin up this ol' jalopy of a thread edgar. I'm eager to hear more

A terrific album featuring a lot of covers is Raising Sand with Robert Plant and Alison Krauss.

Green Green Grass of Home

poignant story edgar

Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues

Leadbelly
Black Girl

The Byrds "Chestnut Mare"

(R. McGuinn, J. Levy)
Always alone,never with a herd
Prettiest mare I've ever seen,you'll have to take my word
I'm going to catch that horse if I canand when I do I'll give her my brand
Well I was up on Stony Ridgeafter this chestnut mare, been chasing her for weeks
Oh I'd catch a glimpse of her every once in a whiletaking her meal, bathing, fine lady
This one day I happen to be real close to herand
I saw her standing over thereso
I snuck up on her nice and easygot my rope outand I flung it in the air!CHORUSI'm going to catch that horse if I canand when I do I'll give her my brand
And we'll be friends for life
She'll be just like a wife
I'm going to catch that horse if I can

And I got her and I'm pulling on her
And she's pulling back like this mule going up a ladder
And I take a choice and I jump right up on her
Damned if I don't land right on top of her
And she takes off, running up onto the ridgehigher than I've ever been before
She's running along just fine'til she stops and something spooked her
it's a sidewinder, all coiled and ready to strike
she doesn't know what to do for a second,
but then, she jumps off the edge, me holding on
(Canyon music!)Above the hills, higher than eagles were glidingsuspended in the sky
over the hillstraight for the sun we were riding
my eyes were filled with light
behind those black wallsbelow was a bottomless canyon
floating with no sound
ghosts far belowseemed to be suddenly risingexploding all around
(Chorus)
We were fallingdown this creviceabout about a mile down it seemand I looked down
And I see this red thing below us coming up real fastand it's our reflection that'sthis little pool of water about six feet wide and one foot deep
We're falling down right through it
We hit, we splashed it dry
that's when I lost my holdand she got away
but I'm gonna try and get her again some day
(Chorus)

How do you embed a video? Here's a link to one, best I know how to do.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXTnYCg8v8o

Here is how to embed youtube.

[youtube]here you paste the link[/youtube]

cool. thanks, edgar.

great example of a song telling a story....and thanks for the lyrics , Jack

My brother and a co-worker bought Harleys in Detroit and rode them back to WA State. Then they put their pictures to this song. It turned out great

Still is overpoweringly sad...to this day

Marty Robbins
Streets of Laredo