Here is a great song by Cavale, (real name Sarah Mount).
It just blows my mind away.
I’ll let an excerpt from the lyrics speak for itself:
Cavale is also one of the performers on the Instant Love compilation, but this is an original song from long before that.
Which takes it out of the realm of this thread, since the protagonist of the Animals version is a guy.
I’m sure there’s probably a version sung by a man, using the original lyrics, but the Animals version isn’t it.
“Danny Boy” gets a lot of covers by male vocalists.
Suzanne Vega’s “Luka”
Although sung in a third-person voice, I’d also count Aerosmith’s “Janie’s got a gun”, which is mostly about her thoughts and feelings. YMMV
I Don’t Know How To Love Her. Sorry link messed up
[- YouTube](I Don’t Know How To Love Her)
I’ve always like Lyle Lovett’s “Stand by Your Man” from The Crying Game. He lends an interesting perspective to the song.
I don’t understand. Isn’t Danny Boy about the father seeing his son off to war?
John Prine wrote “Angel from Montgomery”. I think both his version and Bonnie Raitt’s version are great.
No, but also yes.
Danny’s leaving. That’s the only part that’s clear.
Nobody’s sure why he’s leaving. War? Emigration? Terminal illness?
Nobody’s sure who’s going to be missing him. Father? Mother? Lover (male or female)?
From here:
Danny is definitely going to war, because the pipes don’t call for emigration, and the narrator isn’t going to be predeceasing him if he’s called by Death. But that doesn’t make it any clearer who the narrator is: I think the consensus is that it’s probably a parent, but mother or father would work equally well.
Creepy-as-shit one: Eminem had a song called “97 Bonnie and Clyde”, about a dude who’s murdered his wife and stuffed her corpse in the trunk and is driving it to the ocean, young daughter all unawares riding along in the back seat:
I’ve not heard the original, but apparently it’s very morbid humor, part of Eminem’s persona.
I’ve only heard the Tori Amos cover, which freaks me the hell out just thinking about it.
Tom Waits, “Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis”:
“This Woman’s Work” by Kate Bush. She wrote it specifically for the movie She’s Having A Baby after John Hughes sent her a clip from the movie. I believe it was the montage used in the movie. This YouTube clip starts before the song does, but it’s worth watching the whole thing to see what leads up to the song, which is, yes, sung from a man’s point of view.
Nick Cave’s done more than one, but the one that’s coming to mind is the murder ballad sung from the point of view of a psychotic teenage girl, Curse of Millhaven.
I never knew this before now, but to me the song makes much more sense with a female protagonist. Ignorance (my own) fought yet again.
Cait O’Riordan sings the vocals on The Pogues (hauntingly beautiful) version of “I’m A Man You Don’t Meet Every Day”.
Pretty much any Mecano song which is in the first person. They were always written by men (Nacho or José Cano) and sung by a woman (Ana Torroja).
María de los Guardias is sung from the pov of the titular character; it was written and made famous by an all-male group (José Aceves Mejía y los de Palacagüina).
Lots of boleros, coplas… are from the pov of one gender but are sung by people of any gender you can name.
And then there’s those songs which are specifically cross-dressed, from Count Orlovsky’s in Fliedermaus to Pichi in Las Leandras to a zillion panto characters…
Sure, but I would argue that wife/girlfriend would work as well for the general feeling, although I agree the lyrics regarding time support a parent as the intended interpretation. Frankly, the song is probably better for its vagueness.
And I Moved by Pete Townshend. Supposedly written for Bette Midler.