Exploring one of pop’s strangest sub-genres, the spoken word hit…
Commenting on my post about the deeply strange Peggy Lee hit Is That All There Is?, Worm laments the dying out of spoken word recordings. And indeed the Golden Age of the pop recitative does seem to be long gone. Let’s go back to it…
We must begin with The Deck of Cards – that toe-curling piece of American hokum that is in fact English, and dates back at least to the 18th century. The lyric can be found in a book belonging to a Hampshire woman dated 20 April 1762 (published now as Mary Bacon’s World. A farmer’s wife in eighteenth-century Hampshire). It became a spoken-word US hit in 1948 for the country star T. Texas Tyler, but the best-known version is by game show host Wink Martindale, who reached no 7 on the billboard charts in 1959, adding to the tale its gloriously corny punchline…
If there is anything interesting about Deck of Cards, it is the ambiguity: is the soldier being a smart-arse, or is it a perfectly genuine moral tale? No such doubt exists in one very odd sub-genre of the spoken word record – the right-wing patriotic sermon. A string of these appeared in America in the late 1960s in reaction to hippy opposition to the Vietman war, including Johnny Sea’s Day for Decision and Bill Anderson’s Where Have All Our Heroes Gone? Perhaps the finest example however is Victor Lundberg’s 1967 masterpiece An Open Letter to My Teenage Son, a top 10 Billboard hit… “If you decide to burn your draft card, then burn your birth certificate at the same time. From that moment on, I have no son.” Blimey.
Moralising of a more domestic kind how, with Joe Tex’s observations on relationships between older men and younger women (and vice versa) Buying a Book (1968). Southern soulman Tex actually called his technique of speaking over music ‘rap’, so he bears a heavy responsibility for what has come after. He was a great rival of James Brown, who once fired a gun at Tex in a nightclub, and whom Tex accused of nicking his dance moves. Brown also started dating Tex’s wife, prompting the latter to write a song called ‘You Keep Her’. This track is great fun though….
Spoken word recordings can be said to come under the header ‘novelty hits’. Their scarcity is the appeal – you wouldn’t want to listen to a whole album of them (even subjecting you to four today seems a bit unkind). But hang on in there for this one, for there no hits more novel than History Repeats Itself – Buddy Starcher’s 1966 recitative outlining the remarkable similarities between the assassinations of Abraham Lincoln and (just three years before the ‘song’) John F Kennedy…
Having made it this far, you deserve a treat. Are You Lonesome Tonight? contains one of pops’s most famous talky passages (all the world’s a stage…). Here’s the ‘Laughing Version’, from a 1969 concert in which Elvis just couldn’t keep a straight face. I particularly admire the consummate professionalism of the backing singer, who just keeps going…
Yes I LOVE spoken word songs, the more po facedly ludicrous the better! Loving the Abraham Lincoln one!
Would I be correct in thinking that the last one to grace the uk charts was that ‘sunscreen’ Baz Luhrman one? Cant think of amy others lately
A strange sub-genre indeed. one that always sticks in my mind is “They’re Coming to Take Me Away” by Napoleon XIV, I think at some time in the mid-‘sixties. A few years back, there was an album called “GoldenThroats” where legends like William S Burroughs can be heard reciting the lyrics to songs such as “Mr Tambourine Man”. And I think also the reliably eccentric William Shatner has had a go at a few.
The Deck of cards, deeply embarrassing, slushy, sloppy.
Not forgetting……
I was working in the lab late one night
When my eyes beheld an eerie sight
For my monster from his slab began to rise
And suddenly to my surprise
He did the mash
He did the monster mash
The monster mash
It was a graveyard smash
He did the mash
It caught on in a flash
He did the mash
He did the monster mash
From my laboratory in the castle east
To the master bedroom where the vampires feast
The ghouls all came from their humble abodes
To get a jolt from my electrodes
They did the mash
They did the monster mash
The monster mash
It was a graveyard smash
They did the mash
It caught on in a flash
They did the mash
They did the monster mash
The zombies were having fun
The party had just begun
The guests included Wolf Man
Dracula and his son
The scene was rockin’, all were digging the sounds
Igor on chains, backed by his baying hounds
The coffin-bangers were about to arrive
With their vocal group, “The Crypt-Kicker Five”
They played the mash
They played the monster mash
The monster mash
It was a graveyard smash
They played the mash
It caught on in a flash
They played the mash
They played the monster mash
Out from his coffin, Drac’s voice did ring
Seems he was troubled by just one thing
He opened the lid and shook his fist
And said, “Whatever happened to my Transylvania twist?”
It’s now the mash
It’s now the monster mash
The monster mash
And it’s a graveyard smash
It’s now the mash
It’s caught on in a flash
It’s now the mash
It’s now the monster mash
Now everything’s cool, Drac’s a part of the band
And my monster mash is the hit of the land
For you, the living, this mash was meant too
When you get to my door, tell them Boris sent you
Then you can mash
Then you can monster mash
The monster mash
And do my graveyard smash
Then you can mash
You’ll catch on in a flash
Then you can mash
Then you can monster mash
Yes, yes, I know, the chorus was sort of sung. Dear, dear Boris, sadly missed.
Dancing to it was problematical, there again for me, all dancing was a problem. Except the twist.
Then there’s Pete ‘n Larry’s….
It’s been a hard day’s night
And I’ve been working like a dog
It’s been a hard day’s night
I should be sleeping like a log
But when I get home to you
I find the things that you do
Will make me feel allright
You know I work all day
To get you money to buy you things
And it’s worth it just to hear you say
You’re give me everything
So why on earth should I moan?
‘Cos when I get you alone
You know I’ll feel okay
When I’m home
Everything seems to be right
When I’m home
Feeling you holding me tight
Tight
It’s been a hard day’s night
And I’ve been working like a dog
It’s been a hard day’s night
I should be sleeping like a log
But when I get home to you
I find the things that you do
Will make me feel allright
Malty, don’t forget Eamonn Andrews 1956 smash The Shifting Whispering Sands. It made number 18. And, not being content with giving us Part 1, he added Part 2 to the flip side. BBC Radio’s top boxing commentator never made a follow-up. I wonder why?
I discovered the valley of the shifting, whispering sands
While prospecting for gold in one of our western States
I saw the silent windmills, the crumbling water tanks
The bones of cattle and burros, picked clean by buzzards
Bleached by the desert suns
I stumbled over a crumbling buckboard nearly covered by the sands
And stopping to rest, I heard a tinkling, whispering sound
Then suddenly realized that even though the wind was quiet
The sand did not lie still
I seemed to be surround by a mystery
So heavy and oppressive I could scarcely breath
For days and weeks I wandered aimlessly in this valley
Seeking answers to the many questions
That raced through my fevered mind
Where was everyone
Why the white bones
The dry wells
The barren valley where people must have lived and died
Finally I could go no farther
My food and water gone
I sat down and buried my face in my hands
And resting thus, I learned the secret
Of the Shifting, whispering sands
(I think it wise to stop there)
Kenny Everett had the measure of Eamonn:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKCeVLiXaiY
John, there is simply no known answer to that, Eamonn, the wavy haired Irishman, he of What’s My Line (top clockers bottom knocker) fame, talking a song? next you will be telling me that Charles Hawtrey recorded Brahms Die Schonen Magelone
He didn’t, did he?
Well, I’ve carried out a bit of research, Malty, and it’s clear from this clip that Charles was fluent in German. He also did a lot of conducting whilst wearing headphones in this docudrama, so it is just possible that he was the composer of the piece hitherto attributed to Brahms:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-i9-5Fzkymc
Mein Gott! a man of many talents was Herr soldat Widdle.
Johnny Cash did quite a few of these, the cheesiest being “Ragged Old Flag” which may pop up in a record rehab if I can ever find the time.
Punk Punk Punk! – but here’s a bit of post: bought Magazine’s long-awaited – for me anyway – single Song From Under The Floorboards and as I flipped it over on the bus coming back from college I ‘heard’ the B-side, The Book, as a talking song.
http://youtu.be/4Iia8SgD6J0.
Blimey, I was right!
Thanks all – great comments and additions.