What songs, at least to a fairly decent extent, list things, ie have enumeration?
Some starting examples:
We Didn’t Start the Fire, Billy Joel
It’s the End of the World, REM
Though it’s overall less pronounced in it, American Pie has an element of listing things off too.
What others?
50 ways to leave your lover.
Popsicles and icicles.
My Favorite things. And I guess Do Re Mi from the same movie.
“Enumeration” made me think you wanted numbered lists; and the first thing that came to mind was the Traveling Wilburys song “Seven Deadly Sins” (“Sin number one was when you left me…”).
From the examples you gave, I see the lists don’t have to be numbered. You can find some other examples in this 2009 thread, which is similar but not as specific:
“We Didn’t Start the Fire” type songs
That use didn’t occur to me, I just meant the one from Merriam-Webster: “to name (things) one after another in a list,” which is how I’ve heard it used in literary conversation. Thanks for pointing me to that other thread!
Life Is A Rock–Reunion
Done Too Soon- Neil Diamond
The end of “Hardware Store” by Weird Al Yankovic is a list of things you can buy at hardware store, plus a few oddities.
The Righteous Brothers “Rock and Roll Heaven” is a list of rock stars who died young.
George Jones’ “Who’s Gonna Fill Their Shoes” is a list of classic country singers.
Bobby Troup’s “Route 66” features a long list of cities and towns along the actual highway Route 66.
There’s also Ko-Ko’s “I’ve Got a Little List” song from Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Mikado, which is a list of people he’d like to kill.
Johnny Cash’s I’ve Been Everywhere, Man.
“Reasons to be Cheerful, Part 3” by Ian Dury. Also, arguably, his “Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick.”
There was this 80s college-radio type song called “80 lines for 40 women” (or something) where the singer runs through all the women he’s slept with. I first heard it in high school and thought it was so cool. I heard it again some time later and realized it was the most awful, d-bag, embarrassing song of all time.
“List” songs always make me think of Cole Porter (as does anyone carrying a hod of coal)
Violent Femmes-“Kiss Off”
This reminded me to mention 52 Girls by The B-52’s. (Not a song about women they slept with…AFAIK)
88 lines about 44 women - The Nails
People who died - Jim Carroll
Some “enumeration” songs:
The bridge to “The Book of Love” (“In Chapter 1 you love her, you love her with all your heart, in Chapter 2 you tell her you’re never ever ever gonna part…”)
“Rock Around the Clock” (“We’ll have some fun when the clock strikes one…”)
“Twenty Flight Rock” (“One flight, two flight, three flight, four…”)
“Three Days” (“Three days filled with pain and sorrow/Yesterday, today and tomorrow”)
“Helplessly Hoping” (“They are one person, they are two alone, they are three together, they are four for each other”)
And then there’s the songs listing days of the week, such as “Stormy Monday” (“Well, they call it Stormy Monday but Tuesday’s just as bad/Wednesday’s worse and Thursday’s oh so sad”), “Friday I’m In Love”, and “Friday On My Mind”.
And months of the year (“Calendar Girl”)
And years (“In the Year 2525”)
Oh yeah, and I expected one of the first three posts to mention Tom Lehrer’s “The Elements”!
Neighbourhood - Space
*song about his neighbours in the various apartment units.
Pepper - Butthole Surfers
People Who Died - The Jim Carroll Band
88 Lines About 44 Women - The Nails
ETA: D’oh! Ninja-ed by QuickSilver!
Sweet and Tender Hooligan - The Smiths
That’s the one I couldn’t think of! :smack: