Ding ding! Winner! (I think Buddy Guy did it first, but that’s a nitpick.)
The narrator is wrongfully accused of murder. Unfortunately, his alibi is that he was sleeping with his best friend’s wife, and he prefers execution to betraying both friend & lover. (To go further would give it all away.)
Long Black Veil. Folk. A Joan Baez favorite in the early days.
Is that “The Long Black Veil” by Johnny Cash - country?
On preview - Darn, MLS beat me to it.
Madonna’s “Material Girl?”
Yup. I think it could’ve passed for a country song if I’d been less specific.
Yup. Too easy. (I’d tend to call it “folk” rather than “country”, but the distinction is blurry.)
Ayup. Although Streets of Laredo wasn’t written by Johnny Cash, but is “traditional”.
A couple of guys are drinking and gambling. One of them grabs another guy’s hat. The man demands his hat back, and when he is refused, pulls a gun. The grabber begs for his life, but is coldbloodedly shot dead. The shooter is arrested, tried, and executed. Everyone is relieved when the killer is finally dead.
Yup. Although I haven’t heard the Johnny Cash cover – I was thinking of the Roy Clark version.
Bone Thugs and Harmony “Crossroads”, maybe? Rap.
That’s Stagger Lee, by more people than I can name. Folk or country, occasionally rock. I’ve never heard a rap version, but I wouldn’t be surprised to hear an adaptation of it.
A man hits a bar on his way home from work Monday afternoon. Instead of going home, he takes off on a week long bender that crosses a border. He ends up in jail on the right side of the border, where his wife bails him out. She helps him get his job back and straighten himself out a little bit. He goes back to work and his normal life, but he just might do it again at some point.
A man recounts the murder of his cheating(?) fiancee by tying her to a chair and shooting her twice. When he is imprisoned for his crime, he complains that he can hear her footsteps. However, he goes on to suggest his course of action to the listener if faced with a similar circumstance.
Not quite. Here is some additional synopsis from the same song.
Young woman earns doctorate degree only to discover that the only employment oppurtunities are in the administrative assistants field.
Much, much earlier. African-American singer. Meow!
Oh, I so I was right. It’s Eartha Kitt singing Santa Baby (or perhaps My Heart Belongs To Daddy). Blues/Jazz.
That’s the one I was going to post: Delia which I consider folk, but the recording I’m familiar with is Johnny Cash, so some might say country.
First time I shot her
I shot her in the side
Hard to watch her suffer,
But with a second shot she died.
A fiance leads his bride to be off into the woods before they are married. She begs for her life, but he kils her and buries her in an unmarked grave.
I’ll give you this one on points: Eartha Kitt’s Just An Old Fashioned Girl. Madonna, forsooth!
And now for some thug life. The black singer announces the imminent return, possibly after some time away in prison, of a local street gang to their urban haunts. The singer, who seems to be some kind of gang affiliate, reminisces about the gang’s exploits, especially with women. He seems to revere them for their lawless, sharp-dressed bravado, and looks forward to seeing them on Friday night at a local hangout, where he cheerfully predicts drinking, fighting and bloodshed. He warns, however, against any intervention - spilling blood, it seems, is the gang’s prerogative.
That would be The Boys are Back in Town, by Thin Lizzy. Straight up rock and roll.
Since I have a couple of them out there already, I’ll try an obscure one that I’ll be really surprised if anyone gets:
The narrator recounts a conversation with his girlfriend on their way to a wedding. She tells him that she’s tired of saying he’s her boyfriend, since she feels like he’s her husband in her heart. The discussion then turns to their families and future.
Hint:The song is sung in Spanish
Correctamundo.