Public Service Broadcasting have built their career on the formula of “electronic music playing along with extended nonfiction spoken word passage”
Go! (Featuring audio from the Apollo 11 mission)
“People Will Always Need Coal” (Featuring descriptions of a Welsh colliery)
Also famously Phil Daniels has long spoken word passages in Parklife by Blur
As well as writing, producing and playing keyboards on the Meat Loaf track “You Took The Words Right Out Of My Mouth” Jim Steinman did the male half of the “Would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses” spoken introduction. Does he count as a guest?
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See post #21.
Kate Bush used a brief piece of dialogue from the 1957 film “Night of the Demon” at the start of her song “Hounds of Love." The dialogue “It’s in the trees, it’s coming" spoken by fairly famous British actor Maurice Denham.
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The Fun Lovin’ Criminals biggest hit song Scooby Snacks includes some dialogue samples from Quentin Tarantino films (Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs I think).
Although not involved in the original assembly and recording of the song Quentin demanded and got a song co-writing credit and 37% of the royalties.
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Phil Daniels provided the narration (as Jimmy) for the backing film on the Who’s 1996/97 Quadrophenia tour.
The original version of the track Inoculated City on the first release of the Clash’s Combat Rock had a voice over of a TV commercial for the toilet bowl cleaner, 2000 Flushes. The clip was scrubbed from subsequent album releases, ostensibly due to a legal dispute over the band’s unauthorized use. But word on the street was that, prior to doing the commercial and unbeknownst to the 2000 Flushes people at the time, the woman in the commercial had been in some porn movies. When 2000 Flushes found out, they did not want that to stain their reputation, so they flushed the commercial. And then they did not want it resurfacing, so they went after the Clash when the clip appeared on the album.
I don’t know who the woman was who did the 2000 Flushes talking, but —and especially if the rumor is true! — that kinda makes her famous in my book.
Producer Ted Templeman studio talking back to David Lee Roth, “Come on Dave, give me a break,” in Van Halen’s ‘Unchained’.
And in “Nobody Home”, there’s a “Surprise surprise surprise!” from Gomer Pyle.
Some from Apollo 11:
Porcupine Tree’s “Stars Die” has Richard Nixon’s “phone call” to Armstrong and Aldrin after they had landed on the Moon and walked. This was a big thing for early Tree, note, but they (lead singer/guitarist Steven Wilson rather) mostly stopped doing it after the turn of the millenium.
Chroma Key’s “Astronaut Down” has the transcript as Buzz is coming out of the LEM, including his
“Magnificent Desolation” line after he alights on the surface.
The last one the Tree ever did I believe was “Last Chance To Evacuate Planet Earth Before It Is Recycled”, which has a clip from that crazy leader of the Heaven’s Gate cult, Marshall Applewhite.
Fields of the Nephilim liberally used an actual reading by Alestair Crowley reciting his poem “At Sea” on their album Elizium.
Cabaret Voltaire on their cut “Yashar” has a repeated clip of Robert Culp wondering “There’s sixty million people out there, where are they hiding?” from the Outer Limits ep. “Demon With A Glass Hand.”
Got tons more as I think of them.
Masses against the classes by Manic Street Preachers begins with a Noam Chomsky passage:
At the beginning of Daydream Believer by the Monkees, Davy Jones asks “What number is this, Chip?” to producer Chip Douglas. In response, Douglas and engineer Hank Cicalo respond in unison with “Seven A!” Both men are fairly famous in the industry, Douglas also was a member of the Turtles and wrote several hits.
The vocals to Providence by Sonic Youth consist entirely of a few answering machine messages left by Mike Watt.
After an Outer Limits one, one from the Twilight Zone just played here, that I thought of earlier.
“I’ve Been Dying” by Single Gun Theory (despite the name they aren’t a political band at all, just some trip-hop tinged alt-pop):
Twelve months ago to the moment you destroyed yourself,
Much as I told you you would.
From ep. “The Silence”, a takeoff of Chekhov’s “The Bet”.
The voice of Dada poet Kurt Schwitters reciting his “Ursonate” is heard in “Kurt’s Rejoinder” by Brian Eno, from Before and After Science.
The founders of Sub Pop Records(or maybe their answering machines show up on this one…
Let’s not forget Bread’s “If” sung by Telly Savalas.
Hehehe, I had forgotten about that one. It’s where I learned the phrase “At your earliest convenience”
A great deal of Ministry’s Thieves is R. Lee Ermey from Full Metal Jacket (and I kinda almost swear that fast palm muted guitar riff is actually a pitch shifted recording of a stun gun).
“Jesus Built My Hot Rod” features lines from Wise Blood
Well long versions do