There are many artists who sing songs that are practically not hummable. Usually the singer delivers the words accompanied to guitars and other instruments but there is no melody or refrain or tune. Usually folk singers employ this style.
For eg Coyote by Joni Mitchell. Carly Simon too did a few of them.
Is there a name for this lazy style of singing where the artist cant even be bothered to devise a tune.
Moved to Café Society.
Colibri
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Moving thread from General Questions to Cafe Society, our home for musical stuff, whether it’s hummable or not.
Instead of calling it “lazy,” it could just be a stylistic choice. See talking blues, for example. (And, of course, rap, but that’s a rabbit hole I don’t want to go down, knowing the tastes of SDMB). Does every musical piece need to have a hummable melody?
There’s certainly a tune to “Coyote.” It’s complex, and there is a chorus (“You just picked up a hitcher/A prisoner of the white lines of the freeway”). It doesn’t conform to standard songwriting, but it’s all there.
The only melody in the song is the weak attempt by the singer to introduce some random tonal changes to the song. Otherwise its just stand a deliver the lines with no care for any tuneage.
Could we add to this list of songs. Maybe Coyote was not the best example. Its a good example by a famed singer but not the best.
Any others blatant non tune songs.
No it doesnt but it helps. Otherwise it becomes narration set to music.
After all getting a tune, chorus line and melody in the song are perhaps the most difficult aspects of song writing. An achievement is when anyone can recall and hum the tune.
Narration set to music is dear to the hearts of country music fans. An example is the old Red Sorvine hit Phantom 309.
Is the Beatles’ “Rocky Raccoon,” or at least its first part, an example of the kind of thing you’re talking about?
What about rock groups where the vocals fall somewhere between rap and rhythmic shouting? Like The Offspring, Rage Against the Machine, or the Beastie Boys?
Everybody clap your hands.
Should be illegal at all sports events. When I get to be dictator, it will be.
I disagree. Consider a very simple folk tune, a nursery rhyme for example, and an aria. For many of us, things start getting interesting when you can’t understand something after just a listen or two.
But this may be beside the point. When lines of verse have a lot syllables, they’re often sung in a way that is closer to speaking.
Well, would my “talking blues” genre work for you? “A Boy Named Sue” by Johnny Cash? (Though there are small parts where the talking does hit defined notes and turns briefly into singing. But there’s nothing that I would call a “hummable tune” in there.) You can also look into Woody Guthrie for a number of examples.
Where does something like “Walk This Way” by Aerosmith fit in your scale? I mean, it’s kinda sorta got a melody, but it really mostly just sounds like patter. The chorus kind of has a melody (though not much of one), and it’s similarly a song that I would not consider eminently hummable or whistleable (although there are notes in there.)
Also, just remembered Jimmy Dean’s “Big Bad John”. The vast majority of “Alice’s Restaurant” also fits, although it does have a singable refrain.
The whole Hejira LP is sublimely melodic. One of the milestones of all time. It’s intimate and subtle.
But anyway sometimes a song is dependent on the instruments to make the tune happen and the words are decoration and story. In these songs you could say the vocals are like a drum track. Boy named Sue might be one. All the talking blues, maybe including Charlie Daniels uneasy rider, lots of Bob Dylan and so on.
Sometimes the melody is there but it’s not wide ranging: I’d say Walk this way does have one. I’m going to say that Rocky Raccoon has one. It starts out with at least 10 reps of the same note, but it moves on as a good intro.
And then there’s scat.
Obviously, John Adams is pure trash.
I know what the OP means, though I’m having trouble coming up with an example. Some of Adele’s songs - the verses anyway-seem to be like that. When I first heard Hello, I thought it was boring and monotone until it got to the chorus. Leonard Cohen has some stuff that’s not particularly melodious. Let’s not even bring up Bob Dylan.
<hijack> I know this should go in the hatable commercials thread but mentioning Bob Dylan made me think of that befucked commercial for some egg farm or another where we see footage of chickens and children and whatnot and the background music is BD warbling about how all he really wants to doOOOOOO is baby be friends with you. :mad::mad:
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I do agree that there is a melody there, but I was wondering if it fits the OP’s “practically not hummable.” I could see that going either way, and am wondering one what side of “practically” that particular song is.
I listened to Coyote, having never heard it before, and I don’t see how anyone could call anything about it “lazy”.