Songs That Tell a Story

• ared56 +1
• Edward James +1 — This was my favorite by a large margin. Well done. I had considered 2 other Stan Rogers songs for my own submission, but this one beats them both.
• fionmul +1 — Eh it’s ok
• Joseph Harvey +1 — Hauntingly beautiful and leaves me with many questions. It’s a simple and brief story and but well told with just the right admixture of detail and vagueness
• Claire +1 — I hadn’t heard this before. Enjoyed it
• Brad Stalcup 0 — This was another story that was really just told with a musical background. Great storytelling though.

Regina Scime: 50 years on Monday…

• Peter Seeley +2 — This is heads and shoulders above everything else on this play list.
• Edward James +1 — TUESDAY. 50 years on Tuesday. Hence the party/memorial. Getting a vote in spite of the fact we all know it. It's just the best.
• fionmul +1 — This gets a vote (and doubtless many more) and I know this is the perfect category for it but I wanted some more creativity. But I think most of these are weak submissions so I’ll give a vote for it actually being a story and for the meme lol
• Brad Stalcup +1 — Hard to top this one.
• Spicey Riche +1 — I feel like a war of attrition against Eddie and now I have to vote for this song.
• judd.baker +1 — This seemed almost too easy, and then I listened again and had to give in. Unironically brings me to tears. These men died in the line of duty. I’m sorry for making light of their deaths
• Joseph Harvey 0 — This feels a little too easy. Also, I’d never noticed but there is some really awkward phrasing at numerous points in this song. Sting would have done a much better job. Still, plenty of great iconic lines in this
• Claire -1 — Great song, incredibly significant historical event, it’s just not an original pull, sorry 🔔
• shea nowicki -1 — I LOVE this song, but it just felt like an easy choice with the timing of things!

• Corey +2 — Always been a big fan of this one, it's haunting, somber. Appeals to my melancholic side.
• Joseph Harvey +1 — Amazing Bradcore submission. Hauntingly beautiful, sad, and hopeful
• Spicey Riche +1
• shea nowicki +1
• Peter Seeley 0 — I loved this song the first time I heard it, but after 70 times, I realized I didn't love it so much.
• Edward James 0 — It's the GOAT, but a bit of a tired submission for this group, who have heard us talk about it ad nauseam.
• fionmul 0 — Pleasant sounding so I want to vote for it but it doesn’t really give story to me
• Brad Stalcup 0 — Sadly, I think I submitted the second best song about a shipwreck. What it has going for it is the sweet harmonies and psychological depth. The other one is a better told story. But permit me a story. This was one of those songs that I listened to for the first time and immediately listened to a second time. And then a third. The tears flowed, because it's a beautiful song of hope. And I eventually convinced the boys of the hangar to perform this together. To my knowledge, it' remains the only joint hangar musical performance (besides karaoke).
• judd.baker 0 — Songs Mike Whitman Would Love

• SamRobertsND +3
• Joseph Harvey +1 — Incredible boomer “I hate my wife” energy. This is a clever and compelling song and as an enjoyer of country with talking in it I appreciated this
• shea nowicki +1
• Peter Seeley 0 — The way he says "turkey" is the height of the song. Almost got a vote for that alone.
• Edward James 0 — Women, amirite???
• Brad Stalcup 0 — Hilarious title. But they never should have gotten married. I guess I was looking for more of a sing-songy song. This is more talking over a musical background.
• Spicey Riche 0 — There really isn’t much of a story here. Just a guy saying he lost a divorce battle a lot.
• Claire 0 — I just feel like “she got all the money in the divorce” is hardly a story, even if you’re telling me the details of what she got
• fionmul -1 — Arguably not a song for 75%. Either way it sucks. You had your pick of all songs that tell a story and this is what you picked. Be better.

• ared56 +1
• Joseph Harvey +1 — This is absolutely great. A rebuke to class resentment: the people who you think have it better than you are often miserable. It’s a great observation of human nature that the narrator still wants to be Richard Cory at the end of this. Also decently musically compelling.
• Spicey Riche +1 — This is the second song this round about me.
• Sam Ary +1
• Peter Seeley 0 — I like this. Nuanced.
• Edward James 0 — Love this song idea and it's good but didn't stand above others. We don't make up characters with full names for songs anymore, and that's a shame.
• fionmul 0 — Want to vote for this for S&G and also “Cory” in the league of Corey but it’s not really a narrative which is what I’m looking for
• Brad Stalcup 0 — Conflicted about this one, because while it technically tells a story, the story is just "rich guy kills himself." At first I thought I might downvote this, but the music saves it.

• Corey +2 — At the bottom of this league lies a big, big song.
• Spicey Riche +1 — Never heard this before, but it was excellent.
• Sam Ary +1
• judd.baker +1 — When I was a kid, my family used to listen to Old Time Radio, and they would play the original CBS radio commercials from the 1950s. Half of them were commercials for cigarettes, pills, or Pepsi, and the other half were charming public service ads. In the latter category was this series of ads that were literally just retellings of old American tall tales like Paul Bunyan. This song captures that vibe exactly. Wonderful stuff
• Edward James 0 — This was so good, classic Americana mythos. 5th place for me, just misses a vote.
• fionmul 0 — Sorry this just isn’t a song it’s a guy talking
• Joseph Harvey 0 — The plaque just says “he was a really big guy”??? He saved your ungrateful lives! Come on this is stupid
• Brad Stalcup -1 — A cool story of heroism and sacrifice. But not really a song.

• SamRobertsND +1
• Peter Seeley +1 — I hadn't heard this before. I like it.
• Brad Stalcup +1 — This might be the best combination of musicality and narrative on the list.
• Sam Ary +1
• judd.baker +1 — goodness gracious this is beautiful. Jim Croce was a poet
• fionmul 0 — Points for actual singing and brevity but it’s still not really giving story
• Joseph Harvey 0 — Didn’t take in a single thing from this
• Edward James -1 — I LOVE JIM CROCE and I like this song! But all these songs are great, and so I am choosing to downvote the one that stood out to me least, which was this one.
• Regina Scime -1

• ared56 +1
• Edward James +1 — The story song with no real point is one of the best country traditions to still live on in some ways.
• Claire +1 — It’s a little silly but it’s def a story
• fionmul 0 — In all humility this is one of the only ones actually telling a story start to finish and you don’t even need to read the words to follow it.
• Joseph Harvey 0 — Cute
• Brad Stalcup 0 — This was fun and musically interesting!
• judd.baker 0 — this is how you write a cathartic ending to a funny song
• Spicey Riche -1 — I’m amazed this is the only country song submitted. I feel very blessed by that.

• Regina Scime +2
• Edward James +1 — I feel bad upvoting this because I didn't upvote others that I know, and I have even submitted this for an earlier league lol. But it's SO GOOD.
• Sam Ary +1
• Peter Seeley 0 — Fun song, but everytime I listen to Rush I go into "Rush mode" in which I ignore the lyrics, forget which Rush song I'm listening to (they are all variations on a theme) and just vibe out. So I had no idea what the song was about until I looked up the lyrics.
• fionmul 0 — My criteria are “could this be made into an illustrated book and read aloud?” And “does this tell a story with a beginning middle and end” (as well as is this actually being sung) and this doesn’t meet all of these
• Brad Stalcup 0 — I don't know if there's a more joseph song than this one. I just can't imagine there's anything that speaks to him than these lines: Wind in my hair Shifting and drifting Mechanical music Adrenaline surge Well-weathered leather Hot metal and oil The scented country air Sunlight on chrome The blur of the landscape Every nerve aware But I just don't really like Rush all that much. I'm sorry Joseph.
• Spicey Riche 0 — It’s painful to not upvote Rush, but this is not much of a story.
• Claire 0 — Joseph I’m sorry but driving in a car isn’t a story
• ared56 -1 — Feels more like a dream than a story. Love the song, for some reason just didn’t fit for me.
• judd.baker -1 — Listened to this playlist with the lights off sitting in bed. This was the one song on the entire list that I finished and said, “I didn’t understand a single word of that story”

• ared56 +1 — The blues brother version is better
• Brad Stalcup +1 — What even is a hoochie coocher? I think that's a term made up for this song.
• Peter Seeley 0 — Classic song, but not a particularly narrative song.
• Edward James 0 — Should have submitted the Blues Brothers version
• fionmul 0 — He says he’s going to tell a story and then he kinda doesn’t

Sam Ary: 🍌

• fionmul +2 — Lowkey Flannery O’Connor vibes. But then again maybe that’s too generous. Reads like a children’s book that would be read at a public school.
• Claire +1 — Yep this is for sure a story
• Edward James 0 — This was fun, and it made me realize "Biggest Ball of Twin in Minnesota" by Weird Al is a style parody of this song. But didn't stand out above others.
• Joseph Harvey 0 — This is not a very compelling or interesting story at the end of the day, basically nothing happens
• Brad Stalcup 0 — Surprisingly morbid song of the heroism of a truck driver. Didn't much care for it musically but loved the story telling.
• Spicey Riche 0 — What was this?
• judd.baker 0 — Musically I quite enjoyed this, and the narrative is interesting, and the line in the middle about the protagonist calling upon “the only man who could save him now” is great, as is “God, make this a dream!” All that said, it’s still just too much. There is no cathartic ending to this story, it’s just bleak and sad without a real payoff. It feels like the song can’t quite decide whether it’s supposed to be funny or sad and instead of threading the needle between those two, it doesn’t really fully succeed at either. It starts well and ends up frustrating.
• Peter Seeley -1 — Ghastly little story. Music is alright. I was expecting something more tropical. Down vote for not living up to such an enticing title and for obnoxious ending.

Spicey Riche: Best Beatles song, no question.

• shea nowicki +1
• judd.baker +1 — I adore this song. One of my favorite Beatles tracks. It’s beautiful, funny, clever, poignant, everything a narrative song could be. I think Paul McCartney succeeds at doing the Americana thing here.
• Peter Seeley 0 — Every time I hear this song , I think of an actual raccoon with a cowboy hat. It is only by the most strenuous mental effort that I dispel this image.
• Edward James 0 — It's always important to remember that all the 60s British invasion bands just wanted to be American country and blues artists. Love this song.
• fionmul 0 — Some of these are just not really enough to be a story like it’s a fragment of one. Reminds me of reading my middle school students writing assignments and also my 1st graders for that matter.
• Joseph Harvey 0 — I would think there would be far more compelling Beatles options than this. This is not all that memorable (the white album is also just kind of weird and not always in a great way)
• Brad Stalcup 0 — Rocky faced with a choice as he confronts Gideon's Bible. Will he forgive the man or not? It seems he does not, to his own demise. Loved the honky tonk feel of this one.

• Peter Seeley +1 — I was actually touched by the story .
• shea nowicki +1
• Edward James 0 — It's the GOAT - only doesn't get a vote because I want to prioritize songs that we don't all know.
• fionmul 0 — I like this song a lot and im not sure what all to vote for but this song is similar to Livin on a Prayer in that it’s not really a story to me it’s just like oh a couple of people have it hard and we wanna get outta here together and we are in love etc
• Joseph Harvey 0 — I’m very torn on this one. The narrative is very subtle and sad, it doesn’t hit you over the head with “this happened and then this happened” and leaves you to paint a picture of what is going on in these people’s lives. However, despite some strong melodies and sections, the way these solid pieces are put together dumps the momentum over and over again the way we get FOUR bars of that main guitar part between every verse and chorus. There’s also some awkward phrasing at some points and these fumbles hold the song back from receiving a vote.
• judd.baker 0 — upon listening again I was struck by how the verses don’t rhyme, they’re just sort of stream of consciousness. Kind of cool
• Sam Ary -1

• Regina Scime +2
• Brad Stalcup +1 — Man I think I could say every word to this song. I've listened to it so many times. It was the song I analyzed the lyrics for as a project in 7th grade language arts class. I'm pretty sure my teacher hated me for it. As far as story telling goes, though, it's a bit meandering.
• Claire +1 — Hell yeah. Assuming this is Eddie. I haven’t heard this song in a number of years now and I’d forgotten just how many insane one liners it introduced into the young Murphy kids’ repertoire
• Peter Seeley 0 — I hate it. I love it. I mostly hate it. Yet I am in awe or p
• Edward James 0 — One of the songs I'm most glad to have heard live
• fionmul 0 — I think the key for me was songs that had melodic lyrics that told a story and this has a lot of talking
• Spicey Riche 0 — This song is amazing and awful and hilarious and terrible.
• judd.baker 0 — I did not care for Weird Al’s “Albuquerque.” Did not care for Albuquerque. It insists upon itself, Lois.
• SamRobertsND -1
• Joseph Harvey -1 — Brevity is the soul of wit
• Corey -1