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Spinning yarns: songs with shaggy dog stories and tall tales

July 27, 2023 Peter Kimpton

Leaps of imagination …

Witty, mischievous absurdity, hairy hopelessness, irrelevant incidents, or audible anticlimax and a pointless punchline? It’s time to examine the art of tall storytelling in song. Enjoy some examples in comedy and literature here, but how will your suggestions end up?

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In African, avant-garde, blues, calypso, classical, comedy, country, dance, disco, drone, dub, electronica, experimental, folk, funk, gospel, hip hop, indie, instrumentals, jazz, krautrock, metal, music, musical hall, musicals, playlists, pop, postpunk, prog, psychedelia, punk, reggae, rock, rocksteady, showtime, ska, songs, soul, soundtracks, traditional Tags songs, playlists, Laurence Sterne, Peter Cook, The Simpsons, Flann O'Brien, Reginald Bretnor, books, Mark Twain, Marcel Proust, Norm Macdonald, Ken Dodd, Comedy, Ronnie Corbett, Ronnie Barker, Dudley Moore, Derek and Clive, Barry Humphries, Dave Allen, Tom Waits
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Playlists: songs that quote Shakespeare

March 11, 2020 Peter Kimpton
Pop art? The playlist is the thing … and Shakespeare comes in many colours

Pop art? The playlist is the thing … and Shakespeare comes in many colours

Prithee, come along, the bell doth ring! Hear thy song, the playlist is the thing! Rock, classical, funk, soul, hip hop, the Bard is present in all genres, here played out in three splendid acts by guest magicman from a cast of nominations

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In blues, classical, comedy, country, dance, disco, electronica, experimental, folk, funk, gospel, hip hop, indie, instrumentals, metal, music, musicals, playlists, pop, postpunk, prog, rock, songs, soul, traditional Tags Shakespeare, William Shakespeare, theatre, Iron Maiden, Franz Schubert, Lucia Pop, Laurie Anderson, Jeff Buckley, Kevin Johansen, GLM, Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Gentle Giant, Shelagh McDonald, Stormzy, Rufus, Chaka Kahn, Alec Costandinos, Motorhead, Henry Purcell, Half Man Half Biscuit, The Zombies, Bryan Ferry, Inkubus Sukkubus, Kilburn and the High Roads, Ian Dury, Queen, Meic Stevens, Ken 'Snakehips' Johnson, Prince, Roberta Flack, Donny Hathaway, Noel Coward, The Four Tops, Kate Tempest, Taylor Swift, Frank Ocean, magicman, Al Bowlly, Siouxsie and the Banshees
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Sing out, act on CLIMATE CHANGE

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DRINK OF THE WEEK

Tap house ale (DJ)

SNACK OF THE WEEK

cottage loaf

New Albums …

Featured
Barteees Strange - Horror.jpeg
Feb 19, 2025
Bartees Strange: Horror
Feb 19, 2025

New album: A diversely eclectic, genre-hopping, powerfully emotional LP of soul, funk, hip-hop, rock, indie, country, house and pop by the Washington DC-based artist, produced by Jack Antonoff, with songs facing fears as a young young, queer, black person in rural America, and inspired by the likes of Parliament Funkadelic, Fleetwood Mac, Teddy Pendergrass, and Neil Young

Feb 19, 2025
The Veleteers - A Million Knives.jpeg
Feb 19, 2025
The Velveteers: A Million Knives
Feb 19, 2025

New album: Blistering second album of glamorous rock by the trio from Boulder, Colorado, fronted by singer-songwriter Demi Demitro, and produced by Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys, with powerful numbers about heartbreak, but also the volatile truth of being an artist in the music industry while still clinging to the teenage joy of instruments

Feb 19, 2025
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Feb 18, 2025
Manic Street Preachers: Critical Thinking
Feb 18, 2025

New album: The veteran Welsh rockers’ 15th studio album delivers everything you’d expect - direct lyrics on big social and political themes, huge, surging melodies and powerful choruses, variously wistful, playful, angry, sincere, and even includes a slanted dedication to the Smiths with one of their strongest for years

Feb 18, 2025
John Glacier - Like A Ribbon.jpeg
Feb 18, 2025
John Glacier: Like A Ribbon
Feb 18, 2025

New album: The Hackney, east London producer-vocalist and model, who presents a persona as evasive, oddball, deliberately obfuscating “20,000-year old” “alien”, releases an esoteric, at times beguiling debut of offbeat trip-hop, filled with talking, stream-of-consciousness vocals mixed variously with guitar, assorted samples and electronica, also co-produced by Kwes Darko and Flume

Feb 18, 2025
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Feb 16, 2025
Hifi Sean and David McAlmont: TWILIGHT
Feb 16, 2025

New album: Twinned with last summer’s LP DAYLIGHT, the duo of Scottish musician and the English soul singer return with the darkside – an absorbing adventure from dusk to dawn, with evocative, cinematic, experimental, old-school synths and electronica and McAlmont’s extraordinary, wide-ranging voice

Feb 16, 2025
Horsegirl - Phonetics On And On.jpeg
Feb 16, 2025
Horsegirl: Phonetics On and On
Feb 16, 2025

New album: Minimalistic, pithy, nostalgically twangy, wistful, undersyated indie-folk-pop by the Chicago/New York trio of Nora Cheng, Penelope Lowenstein, and Gigi Reece in this second LP with a refreshing sound produced by Cate Le Bon

Feb 16, 2025
Richard Dawson - End of the Middle - album.jpeg
Feb 15, 2025
Richard Dawson: End of the Middle
Feb 15, 2025

New album: Extraordinary songs about ordinary lives by the wonderful Newcastle alternative folk singer-songwriter – poetic, strikingly detailed, touching, warm, gently humorous, melancholy, original and gorgeously profound, bringing beauty to banality, private tragedies and small joys

Feb 15, 2025
Nadia Reid - Enter Now Brightness.jpeg
Feb 13, 2025
Nadia Reid: Enter Now Brightness
Feb 13, 2025

New album: Warm, tender, thoughtfully profound, intelligent, finely crafted indie-folk with Laurel Canyon-era and Americana elements by the now Manchester-based New Zealand singer-songwriter on themes of hemes of change, motherhood, home, and heartbreak

Feb 13, 2025
HONESTY - U R HERE.jpeg
Feb 11, 2025
HONESTY: U R HERE
Feb 11, 2025

New album: Moody, dark, atmospheric, cross-genre inventiveness comes aplenty in this debut LP for Partisan Records by the Leeds-based collective who bring a hard-to-define fusion of ambient, restless electronica, shoegaze, goth, abstract industrial, krautrocky momentum, soulful trip-hop and alt-pop

Feb 11, 2025
Helen Ganya - Share Your Care.jpeg
Feb 9, 2025
Helen Ganya: Share Your Care
Feb 9, 2025

New album: The Brighton-based Scottish-Thai singer-songwriter’s new LP is inspired by the death of her grandmother in 2021, exploring and celebrating her east-Asian heritage in a gorgeously warm, eclectic collection that includes sounds of the Thai dulcimer.

Feb 9, 2025
Squid - Cowards.jpeg
Feb 9, 2025
Squid: Cowards
Feb 9, 2025

New album: Fabulously strange, inventive and and cleverly unsettling third album by the Brighton experimental post-punk, alt-rock quintet with a series of first-person narratives and inner monologues by fictional, disturbing characters - from cult leaders, serial killers, cannibals, sociopaths and arsonists

Feb 9, 2025
Heartworms - Glutton For Punishment.jpeg
Feb 9, 2025
Heartworms: Glutton For Punishment
Feb 9, 2025

New album: After a series of outstanding singles, the British artist Jojo Orme releases her debut full LP of inventive, goth-tinged post-punk, with echoes of Siouxsie Sioux and PJ Harvey, and produced the the ever inventive Dan Carey on his Speedy Wunderground label

Feb 9, 2025
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Feb 8, 2025
Sharon Van Etten: Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory
Feb 8, 2025

New album: With a strong, seasoned new band, the acclaimed New Jersey singer-songwriter takes a new direction, from her more recent country and folk output, into an expansive sheen of synth, indie, rock and a hint of goth, and themes of emancipation, letting go, and relationships

Feb 8, 2025
Matt Berry - Heard Noises.jpeg
Feb 7, 2025
Matt Berry: Heard Noises
Feb 7, 2025

New album: The British comic actor, known now for 20 years, from Garth Marenghi’s Dark Place to Toast of London to What We Do In The Shadows, returns with his other great indulgent passion, as eccentric multi-instrumentalist and singer of 60s and 70s-inspired psychedelic rock and pop on this impressive 11th studio album

Feb 7, 2025

new songs …

Featured
Preoccupations band.jpeg
Feb 20, 2025
Song of the Day: Preoccupations - Focus
Feb 20, 2025

Song of the Day: A pulsating, sharp new number on history’s repeating patterns with a gripping video showing footage of various cults, this heralds the Calgary, Canadian post-punk/ new wave quartet’s forthcoming album Ill At Lease, ou on Born Losers Records on 9 May

Feb 20, 2025
Anika - Hearsay.jpg
Feb 19, 2025
Song of the Day: Anika - Hearsay
Feb 19, 2025

Song of the Day: After yesterday’s number by Peter Murphy of Bauhaus, further, dark, menacing, alluring, experimental grunge-goth rock, this time by by the Berlin artist Anika Henderson, heralding her upcoming album Abyss, out on April 4, 2025 on Sacred Bones Records

Feb 19, 2025
Peter Murphy - Swoon.jpeg
Feb 18, 2025
Song of the Day: Peter Murphy - Swoon (featuring Trent Reznor)
Feb 18, 2025

Song of the Day: Dark, smoky, gothy, simmering, bizarre and Bowie-esque, the Bauhaus singer joins forces with old friend and the frontman of Nine Inch Nails, relating to the state of performer and audience, and heralding his upcoming album Silver Shade out on 9 May via Metropolis Records

Feb 18, 2025
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Feb 17, 2025
Song of the Day: The WAEVE - Love Is All Pain
Feb 17, 2025

Song of the Day: A new single of catchy, punchy dynamic electro-pop-rock by the couple duo of Rose Elinor Dougall and Blur guitarist Graham Coxon (also adding meaty saxophone), heralding their new EP Eternal, out on Transgressive Records

Feb 17, 2025
Rebekka Karijord - The Bell Tower.jpeg
Feb 16, 2025
Song of the Day: Rebekka Karijord - Sanctuary
Feb 16, 2025

Song of the Day: Delicate, exquisite, but melancholic new single by the Norwegian Stockholm-based singer and composer about the beauty of the natural world, and the grief involved with watching it slowly be erased. It heralds her forthcoming album The Bell Tower due out on 25 April via Bella Union

Feb 16, 2025
Japanese Breakfast.jpeg
Feb 15, 2025
Song of the Day: Japanese Breakfast - Mega Circuit
Feb 15, 2025

Song of the Day: A mix of melancholy with an uplifting shuffle colours this engaging latest single by the Philadelphia experimental pop band fronted by singer-songwriter Michelle Zauner heralding their upcoming For Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women), out on 21 March via Dead Oceans

Feb 15, 2025
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Feb 14, 2025
Song of the Day: Ezra Furman - Grand Mal
Feb 14, 2025

Song of the Day: A striking, slow, simmering, smoky, shivery strings-laden new single by the acclaimed American artist, heralding a tenth studio album Goodbye Small Head, out on 16 May on Bella Union

Feb 14, 2025
Divorce - Hangman.jpeg
Feb 13, 2025
Song of the Day: Divorce - Hangman
Feb 13, 2025

Song of the Day: A clever, passionate, powerful new single with an extended game metaphor by the Nottingham indie band from their forthcoming album Drive to Goldenhammer out on 7 March via Gravity Records / Universal

Feb 13, 2025
The Nightingales.jpeg
Feb 12, 2025
Song of the Day: The Nightingales - Same Old Riff
Feb 12, 2025

Song of the Day: “The powerless are the problem, as if, as if … it’s the same old riff.” The cult Birmingham post-punk band fronted by Robert Lloyd return with a catchy, caustically witty number inspired by UK national unrest, David Bowie’s Queen Bitch rekindling class war struggles and other repeating events, heralding their next album, The Awful Truth, out via Fire Records

Feb 12, 2025
Caity Baser - Watch That Girl.png
Feb 11, 2025
Song of the Day: Caity Baser - Watch That Girl (She’s Gonna Say It)
Feb 11, 2025

Song of the Day: Undeniably infectious, catchy, cheeky, flamboyant confidence-boosting, table-turning pop with brassy embellishments by the charismatic Southampton-raised, Brighton-based artist, out on Chosen Music / Capitol / Polydor

Feb 11, 2025
Jadu Heart - Post Romance.jpeg
Feb 10, 2025
Song of the Day: Jadu Heart - Post Romance
Feb 10, 2025

Song of the Day: A simple, gentle, but wonderfully effective new single with a beautiful building melody across a four-chord sequence with guitar and orchestral string arpeggios by the Bristol experimental dream pop duo of Alexander Headford and Diva Jeffrey

Feb 10, 2025
Dora Jar - Lucky.jpeg
Feb 9, 2025
Song of the Day: Dora Jar - Lucky
Feb 9, 2025

Song of the Day: A gentle, simmering, intimate, delicate, sensitive, insecure-but-thankful love song by the New York-born singer-songwriter Dora Jarkowski, in this first single album last year’s debut album No Way To Relax When You Are On Fire, out on Made of Elves / Island Records / UMG

Feb 9, 2025

Word of the week

Featured
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Feb 11, 2025
Word of the week: withershins / widdershins
Feb 11, 2025

Word of the week: Also variously spelled widershins and widderschynnes, this Lowland Scots dialect word term derived from German means counter-clockwise, literally “against the way”, not only on a clock face, but originally against the perceived motion of the sun in the northern hemisphere

Feb 11, 2025
Chateau Marmont.jpeg
Jan 29, 2025
Word of the week: xenodocheionology
Jan 29, 2025

Word of the week: It’s something in which many of us may indulge during the thick of winter, planning for holidays via booking websites, this noun meaning the study of hotels, extending also to researching their lore and history

Jan 29, 2025
Cupped hands.jpeg
Jan 16, 2025
Word of the week: yepsen
Jan 16, 2025

Word of the week: A timeless noun emanating from Middle English ȝespen and first used in around 1325, meaning a unit of measurement being the amount of that can be held in two hands cupped together

Jan 16, 2025
Gingerbread guitar.jpeg
Jan 9, 2025
Word of the week: zingiberaceous / zinziberaceous
Jan 9, 2025

Word of the week: Two alternative spellings, spicily evocative and colourful, they are adjectives pertaining to the Zingiberaceae family of flowering plants that variously bring that distinctive flavour of, and are a rather fancy way of saying – ginger

Jan 9, 2025
icicles.jpeg
Dec 12, 2024
Word of the week: aquabob
Dec 12, 2024

Word of the week: Sounding like some water-based children’s TV superhero, it’s actually a particularly apt and descriptive word for wintertime, being an 18th-century English Kent dialect noun meaning icicle

Dec 12, 2024
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