# Music acts whose songs tend to be "quirky" -- not just about love or sex. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 23, 2011, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-acts-whose-songs-tend-to-be-quirky-not-just-about-love-or-sex/568624 "2011-01-23T04:25:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2011, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-acts-whose-songs-tend-to-be-quirky-not-just-about-love-or-sex/568624/41 "2011-01-23T22:03:40Z")
Stephen Lynch and Bo Burnham are my two favorite musical comedians. YouTube either for many examples. ---
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2011, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-acts-whose-songs-tend-to-be-quirky-not-just-about-love-or-sex/568624/42 "2011-01-23T22:50:12Z")
The Presidents of the United States of America. They have songs about cats, Cleveland, mentally retarded girls, peaches and gigantic billboards but barely any love. I guess Caroline’s Booty counts in the sex department. But that is overshadowed by the bug driving the tiny buggy. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim_r.mortiss/32/142_2.png) [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2011, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-acts-whose-songs-tend-to-be-quirky-not-just-about-love-or-sex/568624/43 "2011-01-23T23:14:23Z")
Nobody has mentioned Pink Floyd yet? The closest I think they’ve ever come to a love song was “Young Lust” from _The Wall_. Although, “That Great Gig In The Sky” could be interpreted as an audio version of an orgasm. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2011, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-acts-whose-songs-tend-to-be-quirky-not-just-about-love-or-sex/568624/44 "2011-01-24T01:10:00Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > Actually, pretty sure “Supper’s Ready” is the only love song on that album, & it has some kind of apocalypse in the middle. I’m not at all sure that “Supper’s Ready” is a love song, to be honest. Yes, there are elements of love and romance in there (as I mentioned above, Gabriel called it a “personal journey” which could be assumed to have elements of those in it), but what is one to make of the “six saintly shrouded men,” the “Guaranteed Eternal Sanctuary Man,” Willow Farm, and the (as you alluded to) “Apocalypse in 9/8 Time”? At best, I’d suggest that “Supper’s Ready” as a love song taken in its entirety is arguable. ---
**Author:** ![Flutterby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Flutterby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flutterby)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2011, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-acts-whose-songs-tend-to-be-quirky-not-just-about-love-or-sex/568624/45 "2011-01-24T01:41:53Z")
> [@Garfield226](#): > > In the vein of The Bobs, **The Arrogant Worms**. From the same area of the world **Captain Tractor**. They tend to sing about drinking (Dublin Lullaby, Up The Hill), being in a band (Another Drinking Song, which also fits in the previous category), local colour (North of the Yellowhead, City of Champions). Heck, even their love songs are quirky ([Frozen Puck to the Head](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-Hf3hPR9fg))! ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2011, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-acts-whose-songs-tend-to-be-quirky-not-just-about-love-or-sex/568624/46 "2011-01-24T02:14:25Z")
**Warren Zevon** had a wonderfully dark, quirky sense of humor in many of his songs. ---
**Author:** ![Green\_Cymbeline](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/green_cymbeline/32/9244_2.png) [@Green\_Cymbeline](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Green_Cymbeline)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2011, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-acts-whose-songs-tend-to-be-quirky-not-just-about-love-or-sex/568624/47 "2011-01-24T02:28:27Z")
[Coheed and Cambria](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coheed_and_Cambria) does concept albums with a science fiction storyline that mirrors a series of comic books written by the band’s frontman. In fact “Coheed” and “Cambria” are characters in the story. [From the plot summary:](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Amory_Wars) The Amory Wars takes place in Heaven’s Fence, a collection of 78 planets held in place by interconnecting beams of energy, known as the Keywork. The story revolves around the messianic Claudio Kilgannon, son of Coheed Kilgannon and Cambria Kilgannon. Over the course of the story, Claudio assumes the mantle of The Crowing, foretold savior of Heaven’s Fence. In the end, he must face the “Supreme Tri-mage” Wilhelm Ryan, absolute ruler of Heaven’s Fence and the one ultimately responsible for the death of Claudio’s family. ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2011, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-acts-whose-songs-tend-to-be-quirky-not-just-about-love-or-sex/568624/48 "2011-01-24T03:39:19Z")
> [@Peter\_Morris](#): > > Madness have sung songs about: > > Apartheid > School days > A man having a heart attack > Buying your first condom > An old, clapped out, but much loved car > A single mother with a mixed race baby > A happy family > an I.R.A. informant > Life in a borstal > Excuses offered by a burglar caught in the act. > Homeless people. Don’t forget the one about meeting Michael Caine! I can only think of maybe 5 **Dead Milkmen** song that even come close to being about love/relationships (oddly enough, their biggest hit “Punk Rock Girl” is one of them). **The Barenaked Ladies** are maybe 50/50 love/not love. Maybe 40/60. **Schaffer the Darklord** , another nerdcore rapper like MC Frontalot, doesn’t write about love but I don’t think that topic really fits in nerdcore. **Belle & Sebastian** do have some beautiful love songs but, at least on their earlier albums, they sing a lot about just being twee and doing twee things, and character studies. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2011, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-acts-whose-songs-tend-to-be-quirky-not-just-about-love-or-sex/568624/49 "2011-01-24T03:42:43Z")
> [@ZipperJJ](#): > > Don’t forget the one about meeting Michael Caine! And the one about the underwear thief! ---
**Author:** ![The\_Scrivener](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@The\_Scrivener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Scrivener)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2011, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-acts-whose-songs-tend-to-be-quirky-not-just-about-love-or-sex/568624/50 "2011-01-24T03:52:57Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > And the one about the underwear thief! I’m intrigued; did it involve gnomes? And was there a profit to be had? ---
**Author:** ![Askance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askance/32/8281_2.png) [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2011, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-acts-whose-songs-tend-to-be-quirky-not-just-about-love-or-sex/568624/51 "2011-01-24T04:03:03Z")
**REM** anyone !?! Sure, a few songs about sex (especially later), but Radio Free Europe, World Leader Pretend, Coyahoga, Losing My Religion, Stand, Orange Crush, Swan Swan Hummingbird, Ignoreland, What’s the Frequency Kenneth … must be 75% of their catalog. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2011, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-acts-whose-songs-tend-to-be-quirky-not-just-about-love-or-sex/568624/52 "2011-01-24T04:27:13Z")
Every single song by [**Bongzilla**](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xftx2MUT87A) is about marijuana. **Sleep** did a 65 minute song called _Dopesmoker_ (it’s the whole album) about smoking pot. I’m not aware of any songs by **Butthole Surfers** that would qualify as a love song, and I’m not even sure the ones about sex are about sex. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2011, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-acts-whose-songs-tend-to-be-quirky-not-just-about-love-or-sex/568624/53 "2011-01-24T06:43:55Z")
> [@PookahMacPhellimey](#): > > Kate Bush. In a thread like this, just stating a name is a bit pointless without examples. Kate has written “love songs”, but the ones she has written tend to be from a very different point of view. Her debut hit **Wuthering Heights** is from the POV of Cathy calling to Heathcliff from the grave. Some of the other songs on **The Kick Inside** are arguably about love and sex, but even then, they are so personal and idiosyncratic that it is hard to say who the character in the song is singing about like **The Man with the Child in His Eyes** , or the title track, with is about an incestuous relationship. As she matured and obtained more control over her career, she wrote less and less about love and sex. Her masterpiece **The Dreaming** has only two songs that could even be described as about relationships between lovers - **Night of the Swallow** and **Houdini** , and neither is straightforward. Her second biggest hit (and the only one to chart in the US) **Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)** is about the desire to swap places with a lover to try to understand them. Hard to say that a single one of Kate’s songs are what we would call a traditional “love song”. ---
**Author:** ![scabpicker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scabpicker/32/8268_2.png) [@scabpicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scabpicker)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2011, 9:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-acts-whose-songs-tend-to-be-quirky-not-just-about-love-or-sex/568624/54 "2011-01-24T09:21:11Z")
Seconding **Cibo Mato** , but with the contention that their songs are often using food as a metaphor for something else. \* Also seconding **Butthole Surfers**. The one love song (Goofy’s Concern) I can think of by them is a angry rant that only becomes a love song in the last line. As you can expect from their name, lots of their songs are scatological (Pee Pee the Sailor, I Saw an X-ray of a Girl Passing Gas\*\*). Other subjects are obscure pop culture references with a psychedelic twist (The Shah Sleeps in Lee Harvey’s Grave), and semi-schizophrenic word play (Creep in the Cellar). **NOMEANSNO** does have the occasional bit of romance in their songs, for very loose definitions of romance. I can only think of one very early song that would qualify as a love song. When their songs aren’t about abusive parents or psychotic brothers, they are often a kind of existential poetry. They would be more accurately described as “uncomfortable” than “quirky” but **Big Black, Rapeman, Shellac**. You can pretty much count on Steve Albini to not write a love song. Even when they’re about sex, it’s not normal sex. I’ve heard it claimed that he selects a subject to write about by reading a newspaper, and writing about the article that made him the most angry. It’s believable, considering the lyrical content. \*I didn’t believe it when I first heard it, but a friend explained how Birthday Cake is about the U.S.'s shortcomings as a parent state. The more I think about it, the more I think he was a genius of interpretation. \*\*You won’t actually find a song by this name on a CD of theirs. The album _Hairway to Steven_ has pictures instead of song titles. ---
**Author:** ![mr.jp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/48db29/32.png) [@mr.jp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mr.jp)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2011, 9:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-acts-whose-songs-tend-to-be-quirky-not-just-about-love-or-sex/568624/55 "2011-01-24T09:36:19Z")
Isn’t that really most rock bands today? It’s not 1964 anymore. ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2011, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-acts-whose-songs-tend-to-be-quirky-not-just-about-love-or-sex/568624/56 "2011-01-24T22:29:56Z")
> [@mr.jp](#): > > It’s not 1964 anymore. band name! ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2011, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-acts-whose-songs-tend-to-be-quirky-not-just-about-love-or-sex/568624/57 "2011-01-24T22:37:37Z")
> [@The\_Scrivener](#): > > I’m intrigued; did it involve gnomes? And was there a profit to be had? No, it was (if I recall correctly) about a real guy who got caught after a serial string of underwear snatching. ---
**Author:** ![Infovore](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/infovore/32/420_2.png) [@Infovore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Infovore)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2011, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-acts-whose-songs-tend-to-be-quirky-not-just-about-love-or-sex/568624/58 "2011-01-24T22:54:43Z")
Savatage/Trans-Siberian Orchestra (at least their later concept albums (_Dead Winter Dead_, _The Wake of Magellan_, and \*Poets and Madmen \*for Savatage, and \*Beethoven’s Last Night \*and \*Night Castle \*for TSO). I’m not as familiar with their earlier pre-concept album work. ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2011, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-acts-whose-songs-tend-to-be-quirky-not-just-about-love-or-sex/568624/59 "2011-01-24T23:26:33Z")
Might as well include Kraftwerk We Are the Robots Pocket Calculator Trans Europe Express Tour de France Numbers ---
**Author:** ![woodstockbirdybird](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/woodstockbirdybird/32/7905_2.png) [@woodstockbirdybird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/woodstockbirdybird)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2011, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-acts-whose-songs-tend-to-be-quirky-not-just-about-love-or-sex/568624/60 "2011-01-25T00:44:32Z")
> [@The\_Scrivener](#): > > And a quick-and-dirty writeup for post-Soft-Boys \*\*Robyn Hitchcock \*\*[if anyone feels like re-doing it better, please do!]: all sorts of offbeat topics, including trains, a widower who sees his wife’s ghost; failed parenting; churches, homoerotic body-building mags, and more trains. From the Wiki on RH: “Hitchcock’s musical and lyrical styles have been influenced by the likes of Bob Dylan, John Lennon and Syd Barrett. Hitchcock’s lyrics tend to include surrealism, comedic elements, characterisations of English eccentrics, and melancholy depictions of everyday life. His themes include the eternal contingencies of existence — namely: death, sex, and eating. (Recognising these themes, he released an EP in 2007 called Sex, Food, Death and Tarantulas.)” Who I came in to mention. Although I can’t believe fish and insects weren’t brought up in the list of themes. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-acts-whose-songs-tend-to-be-quirky-not-just-about-love-or-sex/568624.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-acts-whose-songs-tend-to-be-quirky-not-just-about-love-or-sex/568624.md?page=4)