Songs that tell a story

[SocksinBoots]

Lola

Coward of the County

Any others you can thinK of?

Loads of Kate Bush's songs are story songs - There Goes A Tenner, Pull Out The Pin, Hammer Horror, all of The Ninth Wave, Houdini, Experiment IV...

Haitian Divorce - Steely Dan (another great story song band)

Lots of stuff by the Delines - Colfax Avenue, State Line, The Oil Rigs At Night, He Told Her The City Was Killing Him...

Carrie Brown - Steve Earle & the Del McCoury Band

The whole of A Grand Don't Come For Free by The Streets, though to be fair each song is its own story too.

Most 10cc songs (particularly album tracks) are story songs. Oh Effendi, Clockwork Creep, Somewhere in Hollywood, I Wanna Rule the World, Old Wild Men. Probably the best is Une Nuit a Paris (parts 1-3). Yes - I am very old (and very much looking forward to the upcoming BBC4 doc on them)

Ah - someone has mentioned teh Bob Dylan one I was going to mention.

what about ISIS by Bob Dylan.

Telegraph Road - Dire Straits
Romeo and Juliet - Dire Straits
American Pie - Don McClean

Puff the magic Dragon...still makes me WEEP

Deacon Blue - Born in a storm album

Copacabana Barry Manilow

Babooshka Kate Bush
Lots of Suzanne Vega

Up the Junction - Squeeze
Prettiest Eyes - The Beautiful South

Actually, quite a lot of Beautiful South stuff

Wires - Elbow. Heart wrenching. P

American Idiot Album - green Day

LOADS of these.

Also Anchorage by Michelle Shocked.
Coat of Many Colours by Dolly Parton.
Homeward Bound by Simon and Garfunkel.

Loads more that I can't think of!

Blake Shelton's "Ol' Red". I love that song!

A few more straight off the top of my head ...

Four songs about real crimes:

Husker Du or Therapy? 'Diane'

Catatonia 'Road Rage'

Asian Dub Foundation 'Free Satpal Ram'

The Dodgems 'Lord Lucan Is Missing'

And ...

Pixies 'Dead' (and most other songs. This one tells the Bible story of David and Bathsheba)

The Handsome Family 'The Snow White Diner'

Patti Smith 'Horses'

Rolling Stones 'Dear Doctor'

Elvis Costello or Robert Wyatt 'Shipbuilding'

Billy Connolly 'John Stonehouse Went Swimming'

Luke Haines 'Inside the Restless Mind of Rollerball Rocco'

The Beatles 'The Ballad of John and Yoko'

Kirsty MacColl 'England 2 Colombia O'

The Pogues 'Fairytale of New York' (and many others ...)

The Clash 'Washington Bullets'

Drugstore ft. Thom Yorke 'El President'
(about the death of Salvador Allende)

The Kinks 'Come Dancing'

Elvis Presley 'In the Ghetto'

The Human League 'Don't You Want Me'

Soft Cell 'Say Hello, Wave Goodbye'

NWA 'Fuk Da Police'

Mott the Hoople 'All the Way From Memphis'

Ian Dury and the Blockheads 'Sweet Gene Vincent'

Joe Gideon and the Shark 'Civilisation'

REM 'Orange Crush'

Hazard-Richard Marks(?)
Where the Wild Roses Grow- Kylie and Nick Cave

Little Green - Joni Mitchell
Sonny's Lettah - Linton Kwesi Johnson
He Knows - Futureheads

I know it's been mentioned, but Ode to Billy Joe is the most intriguing story ever. still trying to figure out what happened.

All the songs on Bob Dylan's Desire album tell stories.
Rainy Night House - Joni Mitchell

Copa Cabana - Barry Manilow

Delilah -Tom Jones

Loads of country and western ones.

Tom Waits 'Tom Traubert's Blues'

Leonard Cohen 'Chelsea Hotel #2'

Nico 'Chelsea Girls'

Marianne Faithfull 'Incarceration of A Flower Child'

Pink Floyd 'Brain Damage / Eclipse'

John Cale and Lou Reed 'Smalltown'

The Police 'Don't Stand So Close to Me'

The Who 'Pinball Wizard' (and the whole of Tommy and Quadrophenia)

Simon & Garfunkel 'America'

Glen Campbell 'By the Time I Get to Phoenix'

Gene Pitney 'Somewhere in the Country'

Carter USM 'Sheriff Fatman'

Dusty Springfield 'Nothing Has Been Proved'

Morrissey 'Staircase At the University'

Burl Ives '(Ghost) Riders in the Sky'

Lonnie Donegan 'Rock Island Line'

Eddie Cochran 'Summertime Blues'

Weezer 'Buddy Holly'

The Jam 'The Bitterest Pill (I Ever Had to Swallow)'

Madonna 'Papa Don't Preach'

ABBA 'The Day Before You Came'

Pulp 'Common People'

PJ Harvey 'Down By the Water'

Kenickie 'In Your Car'

Arab Strap 'The First Big Weekend'

Tindersticks 'My Sister'

The Libertines 'Up the Bracket'

Blur 'Country House'

The Divine Comedy 'Something For the Weekend'

Stereophonics 'A Thousand Trees'

Pretty much all folk songs

Moonlight Shadow - Mike Oldfield

Jesus take the wheel-Carrie Underwood

Jacob's Dream by Alison Krauss
Mr Garfield Was Shot by Johnny Cash
Lots of songs by Dolly Parton

Father and son - Cat Stevens

Trapped in the closet by R Kelly. Very funny.

Tribpot- I have an album of Victor Jara poems made into songs. Amazing.

Diamonds and Rust- Joan Baez (about Bob, surely)
Year of the Cat- Al Stewart, most songs on the album.
She is always 17- Harry Chapin
Red Army Blues- the Waterboys
Goodnight Saigon- Billy Joel