Songs about...

[Alex D]

Hello hello hello...
Inspired by the numerous songs about... that populate the internet and the press, I though I'd start a thread that has the same format. I'll use the term song quite loosely: I'll accept instrumentals, short jazz tracks, arias (I'm far from an opera buff but I'm willing to learn), and even spoken word tracks (where I guess the music would be in the rhythm, mainly)! The idea is that every week, I'll be suggesting (please PM for suggestions! My imagination can easily exhaust itself!) a theme for you to give a list of songs you think match the theme. As in most songs about... columns I'll give some conditions so that the exercise is challenging enough. When you write down your list it would be useful for everybody else if you could explain in a phrase or two why you think the song in question fits the theme of the week, but I won't make it compulsory (or should I? har har) Ok? Great!

As today my wife and I are attending a Spiritualized concert at the Koko, London, I thought we could start with a theme that bears some relation to that great band (ok WE think they're great!!). As those who have followed Spiritualized (and Jason Pierce's previous band, Spacemen 3) his trademark song, some would say "only-trick", is the appropriation of gospel like structures for songs about drugs!
So, for this week's theme, I'd like you to suggest songs that use some kind of recognizable worship-music structure (or at least one that you can explain does so) for some (very) mundane subject. I know, I know, SO MUCH music is hymn like (Elton John, Queen, pretty much all Soul music, anyone?). And yes, even if its mundane, it probably hints at something grander and/or darker. So, the conditions: its subject matter (I'll include song titles here) has to be, on the surface, about something mundane (but it doesn't have to be about something deeper necessarily). Got it? Any questions please post them here in the thread.

Ok, my list:

Walkin with Jesus - Spacemen 3: yes he's talking to/about Jesus, but about WHAT?! All the band were junkies at the time...
Lord Can You Hear Me - Spiritualized: same old, same old
A Man Needs A Maid - Neil Young: a man who feels his life is a mess, so he thinks of getting someone (a maid!) to sort it out... and he transforms this into something EPIC! Worshipful would you say? I guess it's at least a huge clamour towards that (empty?) sky.
Unchain My Heart - Ray Charles: Need I say more?!

Ok, that's it to start the thread... I'll be posting more if no one is interested....

[Alex D]

Har har! Just realized that I've broken my own rules!!!!!
Ok, the theme can be the other way round: songs that seem "worshipful" but are about rather mundane things.
Sorry bout that!

[Alex D]

In other words... songs which subvert the worshipful-structure! in some way... ok, I'm rambling...

[Filterlab]

Good idea for a thread, good rambling too. Hopefully I'm following you correctly.

Ok:

Jesus he knows me by Genesis: An open minded unlacing at the 'dial in' Reverends in the US who despite their self-confessed greed still pull in thousands of dollars from wealth givers whom believe their personal messages to god will be passed on. They won't of course. I admire the balls of the "Reverends" though.

[Iain Sinclair]

The mighty Half Man Half Biscuit are very good at this sort of thing; partly because Nigel Blackwell knows his King James Version very well, and partly because he sets some of his songs to old hymn tunes. Thus, in Uffington Wassail from 'Trouble Over Bridgewater', he declaims,

'Hand me down my silver trumpet
Sound the revolution's knell
There's a Cher impersonator
Rising up in Israel'

Doomy organ noises make for a 'churchy' sound on the most secular songs, as evidenced on many of Nico's solo albums, particularly 'The Marble Index' where John Cale does the keyboard honours.

There's also Mazzy Star, whose 'So That Tonight I Might See' contains several organ-heavy, slightly droney songs, such as 'Into Dust'.

Then there's some of Bowie's earlier stuff, such as The Bewlay Brothers, which even mentions 'the grim face on the cathedral floor'.

[Alex D]

Good idea for a thread, good rambling too. Hopefully I'm following you correctly.

Ok:

Jesus he knows me by Genesis: An open minded unlacing at the 'dial in' Reverends in the US who despite their self-confessed greed still pull in thousands of dollars from wealth givers whom believe their personal messages to god will be passed on. They won't of course. I admire the balls of the "Reverends" though.

reminded me of a Zappa song... The Meek Shall Inherit Nothing... which I haven't heard in a while! Just to settle the deal, as in the inmortal words of Monsieur Zappa in that song: "There is a big difference between kneeling down, and bending over".
Har Har!

[Alex D]

The mighty Half Man Half Biscuit are very good at this sort of thing; partly because Nigel Blackwell knows his King James Version very well, and partly because he sets some of his songs to old hymn tunes. Thus, in Uffington Wassail from 'Trouble Over Bridgewater', he declaims,

'Hand me down my silver trumpet
Sound the revolution's knell
There's a Cher impersonator
Rising up in Israel'

Doomy organ noises make for a 'churchy' sound on the most secular songs, as evidenced on many of Nico's solo albums, particularly 'The Marble Index' where John Cale does the keyboard honours.

There's also Mazzy Star, whose 'So That Tonight I Might See' contains several organ-heavy, slightly droney songs, such as 'Into Dust'.

Then there's some of Bowie's earlier stuff, such as The Bewlay Brothers, which even mentions 'the grim face on the cathedral floor'.

I've heard about the HMHB but never explored... why is that? Too many avenues?
That 'churchy' sound in the Nico albums is due to a harmonium, which is, apparently, the only instrument she could play! This was a good thing as it was an instrument that made possible she could accompany herself with a whole church in a box... yes, I guess you could say A Marble of Index is a pretty atheist and churchy kind of album...

About the Bowie albums... there are a lot of Bowie songs where you can find some kind of religious subtext if you look hard enough. Station to Station for example (kabbalah)?