Might need to start grouping the Dylan story songs by album. I’ll just do Blood on the Tracks and Desire for now. I’m gonna repeat some that have already been mentioned:
Blood on the Tracks:
Tangled Up in Blue
Lily, Rosemary, and the Jack of Hearts
Simple Twist of Fate
Desire:
Hurricane
Isis
Joey
Romance in Durango
Black Diamond Bay
Lots of the ones I would nominate have already been mentioned, but here’s a few more…
“Buffalo Skinners”
“Cowboy Movie”
“Polly on the Shore”
“Christmas in the Trenches”
“Roads to Moscow”
Dark Lady by Cher
Wolf Creek Pass by C. W. McCall
Pink Floyd - When the Tigers Broke Free
Leonard Cohen - The Stranger Song
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - John Finn’s Wife
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - The Kindness of Strangers
Almost any murder ballad is a great story song. Someone mentioned Leonard Nimoy – I like his version of “Ruby.” I’ve always thought thought of that song as a murder ballad.
“Pink Houses” by John Mellencamp
“Delia’s Gone” by Johnny Cash
“L.A.County” by Lyle Lovett
Here’s a unique take on Pretty Polly… “Do you like wildflowers?”
A few of these examples are not what I’d call “story songs” but rather “vignette songs.” (“Pink Houses” is an example, though I don’t want to pick on just that one in particular.) To me, a story song has to tell a story, it has to have a plot: something has to happen in the course of the song.
See:
Dylan
Chapin
Kinks
Grateful Dead
Springsteen
And too many C&W to shake a stick at…
Pluto Shervington’s Ram Goat Liver.
Probably the only UK hit about stealing and eating a goat then shitting yourself in the street as a consequence…
O’Malley’s bar by Nick Cave
How about Velvet Underground’s The Gift.
I suppose you could technically argue it’s not a song because John Cale is talking rather than singing, but then again it’s by a band with words set to music so…
I’m buying into that. Poor old Waldo…
Indeed, he’s probably the modern master of the form. My favorite story song of his is The Armadillo Jackal. It’s actually pretty short for a story song, but he sets up an atmosphere and feel that makes me able to picture everything vividly. That it’s a life/death struggle expressed in modern economics makes it just about perfect.
Many songs by the British group Squeeze have narrative depth but the stand out example is the early hit single “Up the junction”.
Has no choruses. Basically a sung monologue of working class London, kitchen sink melodrama documenting boy meets girl, boy and girl start a family, it all goes wrong. The song title only appears at the end of the song as the singer rues the unlikeliness of getting his family back:
***And now it’s my assumption
I’m really up the junction
TCMF-2L
Paul Simon (solo and in Simon and Garfunkel) usually has loads of narrative and biographical elements in his songs. Try “The Boxer”, “Homeward Bound”, the infamous “Go **** yourself” to Garfunkel of “Frank Lloyd Wright”, “The Last Living Boy In New York” and so on and so on.
But I think the best example for the OP is “America” which is not only eschews a repeated chorus but doesn’t even bother with rhymes either.
And still sounds great and I like it.
TCMF-2L
I’m just flicking through my iTunes here and in truth most singers attempt to put some sort of narrative into at least some of their songs.
Hole In The River by Crowded House - Because it was inspired by, and describes, the real life suicide of the song writer’s aunt. Tries to be celebratory rather than maudlin. Crowded House also have Mean To Me inspired by an obsessed American fan flying to New Zealand to meet the band.
Cloudbusting by Kate Bush - Not a clear narrative but inspired by a real person (psychologist and philosopher Wilhelm Reich) and because it has the first line “I still dream of Orgonon” and Orgonon is a word I had never heard used in a song before or since.
Family Snapshot by Peter Gabriel - Gets into the mind of Lee Harvey Oswald as he prepares to assassinate JFK. More of a narrative to the song than, for example, Gabriel’s Biko which is based on the real murder (in a South African jail by the authorities) of Steve Biko.
Man On The Moon by REM - The song about American comedian Andy Kaufman and as a narrative isn’t particularly clear. But nor was Kaufman. It went on to help inspire a biographical film and - this is only my opinion - I reckon the song tells you more about Kaufman than the film.
Bodies by Sex Pistols - Inspired by a mentally ill female fan of the infamous punk rock band and her rapes and abortions. Noteworthy - in the context of being a narrative song - by it’s extremely visceral nature. Musically, lyrically and every way you can imagine violent, aggressive and spewing out loathing. Very much NSFW if you choose to look it up. Unlike much of the extreme, thrash and hardcore music it inspired, the lyrics are pretty easy to make out.
But there are so many songs and artists I could have mentioned.
Elvis Costello does narrative and social commentary in his songs so well. Elton John in the early days. Dire Straights. Tracey Chapman. (British Band) Stereophonics. A few Rush songs.
(British Band) Pulp base a lot of their stuff on real events and people - I really should have included Common People or Disco 2000. Disco 2000 was the singer (Jarvis Cocker) reminiscing about a real girl he platonically knew as a child before he was famous and wondering, in song form, whether he should try to meet her again at a Millennium Party - the song written in 1995. Rather sadly to anyone who knows and enjoys the song, in real life, his muse (who married, had kids, became a dedicated nurse) died of cancer in 2014.
The Tubeway Army (Gary Numan) album Replicas is fantastically evocative of a specific kind of Science Fiction - Philip K Dick for example - and I simply love listening and falling into that world but I must admit no single song has much of a specific narrative to it. But the mood it creates. Are Friends Electric is a stunning piece as are Down in the Park, You Are In My Vision, Me, I Disconnect From You… Tying into the OP, Gary Numan apparently created themes and ideas for a novel before abandoning that and converting the lyrics to songs.
TCMF-2L
Not JFK, I think, but a President or some other VIP. The lyrics include the line, “And the governor’s car is not far behind…” Gov. Connally was riding in the same limo as President Kennedy.
Uh oh!
Well it certainly has a narrative! According to Wikipedia:
The song was inspired by An Assassin’s Diary, published in 1973 and written by Arthur Bremer, who attempted to assassinate George Wallace, a politician who supported racial segregation.
However Gabriel has admitted in interview he threw in a portion of the JFK assassination as well.
TCMF-2L
The Frozen Man, by James Taylor. Haunting and beautiful.
“Big Bad John” - Jimmy Dean
Tam Lin - Fairport Convention or Steeleye Span