Favorite Character Study Songs

[harmonicon]

There are loads by Al Stewart that are great, mostly on the early albums, before he decided to pigeon-hole himself. Two that come to mind:

Year of the Cat
Swiss Cottage Maneuvers

[Bones]

[sbpirate]

how bout this un

[trev333]

[OlRedNeckHippy]

Nice Trev! Thats the soundtrack of my youth.
"Making Maple Syrup for the Pancakes of Our Land!"
"Cover that girl with Chocolate Syrup and Lick her till the Cows Come Home!"

And Ethel was a Tree growing off of his Shoulder.......

Life & Death stories and Tales of Men, in the Old West:

[Telemarkman]

David Ackles has so many fantastic songs about outsiders that I can't choose between them ... Here are a few though.







And what about this James Taylor song, masterfully performed by George Jones ...

[mal paso]

The whole LP, really.




And Dylan and Cohen of course

[Coop47]

"Rachel's Song" by James McMurtry, as well as a bunch of others. The guys has written some incredible songs.

[Skully]

This week, I was watching "Two-Lane Blacktop," starring Warren Oates, James Taylor and Dennis Wilson, for the first time, and "Me & Bobby McGee" sung by Kris Kristofferson (the song's co-author with Fred Foster) came on the soundtrack. I decided I'd try to play it, and I found it was an enjoyably emotional number to perform.



I did some web research and found that seven artists recorded it before Janis Joplin -- including Sam the Sham, Kenny Rogers & The First Edition and Billy Haley & The Comets -- and two, Roger Miller and Gordon Lightfoot, had significant chart hits with it, which is a testament to the quality of the song divorced from performance or production.



Sam (The Sham) Samudio's version was recorded at Miami's Criteria Studios at the same time as "Layla" and features Duane Allman on dobro.





Joplin made a few lyrical alterations, most of which were insignificant. She changed "Nothin' ain't worth nothin', but it’s free" to "Nothin', it ain't nothin' honey, if it ain't free," which is dopey, but the substitution of "Nothin', and that's all that Bobby left me" later in the song carries a nice emotional punch.

I think I'm gonna do it when our Pros and Schmoes dad band plays a barbeque on Sunday. I'm also going to see if I we can do another character song I like, Shel Silverstein's "The Ballad of Lucy Jordan," which should tweak the middle age ladies in attendance a bit.

The most famous version is by Marianne Faithfull...



... but it was originally recorded by Dr. Hook, who made a career out of doing Silverstein songs.



The vocal on the Dr. Hook version is almost unbearably over the top, but co-lead singer Dennis Locorriere does a better job with it here:

[blowtorch]

Yeah, Robert Earl Keene has a bunch of them, so does Kris Kristofferson ("The Pilgrim" immediately sprang to mind "He's a walking contradiction, partly truth and partly fiction") , Johnny Cash, and Steve Earle, and yep the Boss has tons as does Dylan

[cband7]

Fezz beat me to it - Tangled Up In Blue has enough of a story to make an entire movie. My all time favorite.


Also Subterranean Homesick Blues right there next to it.


.

[Wailin' Tele]

I couldn't find a live version with the original lineup.

[Sidney Vicious]

Great thread!

[hymiepab]

The first tune to pop into my head was Leonard Cohen's "Suzanne".
Lots going on in that one!

[boomsling99]

"Highway Patrol"
---Junior Brown

[fezz parka]

Another fave:

[Skully]

Originally Posted by fezz parka

Another fave:

That reminds me! Learning White's "Polk Salad Annie" is on my to-do list.

Here's the Elvis version:

[fezz parka]

Just make some grits and collard greens, you be playin' it in no time flat.

Another one of my faves:


Another:

[Telemarkman]

Gentlemen, we are forgetting maybe the most famous and most covered(?) and definitely one of the best of them all!

Here one of many versions with the songwriter himself:



Rich S, what do I win?

[pbenn]

Lily, Rosemary, and the Jack of Hearts...

Besides lots of narrative, there's foreshadowing and resolution, and Dylan's spot-on delivery.

And the crack studio band seems to get a bit faster every verse....