People that Died by Jim Carrol Hard rocking and a bit emotional
Ballroom Blitz
Death on Two Legs by Queen.
“She Loves My Cock” by Jackyl might have just the right mix of aggression and raunch.
Does it have to be from the last thirty years? If not, it seems to me that “The Wanderer” by Dion and the Belmonts would work.
Note: “there’s Flo on my left arm, and there’s Mary on my right” and “I tear open my shirt I show her Rosie on my chest” are referring to tattoos with those girls’ names.
Bad Boy Boogie by AC/DC or any song from* Let There Be Rock* would work.
“So What,” by the Anti Nowhere League.
That should curl some toes.
Holy crap. Clearly I should have come to you guys first. It’ll take some time to find all these songs, but thanks for your great recommendations. I can always use more, to listen to if nothing else.
Edward the Head: I didn’t hear it on the radio; a friend played it for me. It’s a nice one, but the singer isn’t a bad guy; he’s an idealist who’s disgusted by what he sees.
One of my all-time favorite angry songs is “Wake Up” by XTC, off of The Big Express (1984). [Scroll down a bit to see the lyrics.] The song’s narrator is the inner voice of a guy who’s HAD IT with the everyday working world, with its banalities, irritations, and anxieties. His outlook is nihilistic and decidedly more enraged than depressed. But there’s no escape, is there? Every day is the same, unless you happen to witness some accident victim dying in the street on your way to work… And then there’s the music – just as angry, in-your-face, and punchy as the lyrics – with its slashing guitar riffs and mocking choir effects. Good stuff.
You didn’t say if you’d have to perform your number *a capella * or if you’d get to use a musical accompaniment of some sort. I wouldn’t recommend doing this one without some sort of backing track, even if it’s a stripped-down synth rhythm track.
Since it’s for acting class, I suggest a song that you can actually perform. Go back to the 50’s where the stagecraft was more important than musicianship. Something like Great Balls of Fire by Jerry Lee Lewis, Good Golly Miss Molly by Little Richard, or many of the fine songs from the Elvis catalog, including Hound Dog and Blue Suede Shoes.
Get yourself appropriately costumed, slick your hair back, manhandle the microphone, jump on the piano and go to town.
Then again, given the criteria you mentioned, perhaps a better selection would be “Swamp” by Talking Heads, off of **Speaking In Tongues ** and included in the live lineup on Stop Making Sense. Deep, baritone voice? Check. Angry, evil, even unreliable narrator? Check. Easy to refer to for researching and known, but not overly so? Check! Granted, it’s probably one of the least-beloved of songs in the Heads’ discography, but that gives you the opportunity to restyle it. Plus, it’s profoundly theatrical: David Byrne’s version of it is well-known to anyone who’s seen Stop Making Sense, in which he established the narrator as, to quote from a book on the Heads, a “frightening, half-cracked voodoo man” by “affect[ing] a deep, buzzing voice a little like those of blues masters Howlin’ Wolf and John Lee Hooker, to evoke a gleefully threatening spook”.
“Swamp”'s lyrics are open to interpretation. Again, to quote:
“A literal reading… evokes the image of Satan rounding up souls to lead to Hell after a nuclear holocaust. But literal readers of Byrne’s lyrics usually miss the point that their real role is to color the music. It’s best to say that ‘Swamp’ is a song about menace and leave it at that.”
His narrator could just as well be another one of Byrne’s evangelical-preacher characters. You could have fun tinkering with the persona of the narrator and departing from Byrne’s vocal stylings. What if you gave it a Cab Calloway treatment and made him smoothly, suavely, seductively evil? (Replete with just a bit of soft-shoe shuffle.) Could be fun…
Shitlist by L7
Along the same lines: Sixteen Tons.
I’ve always wondered why no one took an electric guitar and an amp and played “If I were a Rich Man” up proper. And Gwen Stefani’s ska-hip-hop version does not suffice…
Throw in a break with “Tradition” to keep the administration happy…
If you want to go the “One fist of iron, the other of steel/If the right one don’t get you, then the left one will” route, let me know and I’ll send you a MIDI.
I’d recommend something by A Perfect Circle - maybe like “Weak and Powerless” or “The Noose”. They’re both rock and rather dramatic.
Sweet F.A. by Sweet has some seriously “bad guy” lyrics. Maybe too much so.
… instead I’d probably go with Search and Destroy.
Moving thread from IMHO to Cafe Society.
Lou Reed/Velvet Underground’s “Heroin.” Because intensity is not always best conveyed by yelling and clomping.
Iron Maiden’s too high, Rage won’t be much better. Danzig or Misfits is good–check out “Die, Die My Darling” or “Death Comes Ripping” for good, aggressive baritone songs. Everything else I can think of requires that you be able to growl a song, and if you don’t have experience, that’s tough.
Cocaine Blues
Johnny Cash whipped the inmates at Folsom into a frenzy when he performed it.