I was listening to Beck’s *Que’ Onda Guero * this morning. At several points someone yells “Que’ Onda Guero?” (“Where you going, white boy?”) and says other things in Spanish and English. It got me thinking of a few other songs with conversations or voices which are not part of the song in the musical sense:
Marvin Gaye’s *Got to Give it Up, Part 1 * - Starts with the voices of a few people at a party; well it pretty much has the voices throughout the whole song.
Weezer’s Undone (the Sweater Song) - This song also starts at a party where the main character chats with a good friend then a girl who asks for a ride to another party.
Sublime’s Bad Fish - Starts with party sounds: laughter, conversation and the unmistakable CLINK of an empty beer bottle being thrown in a plastic trash can filled with other empty beer bottles
R.E.M.'s Orange Crush - Has a break with Michael Stipe yelling things into a megaphone over the sounds of soldiers drilling.
That’s all I can think of. I left out songs with audience voices (too broad). I got one from the 70’s, one from the 80’s, two from the 90’s and one from this year, so I’m thinking there’s got to be some I’ve missed.
Well, one could make a case for “For Those of Y’all that Wear Fanny Packs,” but that’s just Ben Folds, Darren Jessee and Robert Sledge goofing off after a recording session with the equipment still running.
How about Extreme’s “Warheads?” It starts out with a male voice saying something like, “Recruit! When I give you the word…[I forget]…no lollygaggin’ around my area.”
Anything off of Queensryche’s Operation: Mindcrime, as that’s a conceptual CD. Della Brown, among others, by the same band, off of the EmpireCD.
I’ve been remastering Tim Curry’s three albums for my own collection (they’ve never been on CD), and on a couple of songs he does little asides, for instance in “Paradise Garage”.
A number of Pink Floyd tracks have conversations going on under the music, particularly on “The Wall.”
I know there’s many, many more… one on the tip of my tongue, but I can’t seem to think of what it is… an ELO song, maybe? **Mr. Blue Sky ** might know.
In the Bonzo Dog Band’s Shirt, there’s an actual “man on the street” interview about shirts.
Stevie Wonder’s Living for the City has a drug bust, with the conversation with the cops and judge, etc.
Pink Floyd’s Talk to Me starts with a spoken introduction.
Conversations appear from time to time in Beatles songs (“I Got Blisters on my Fingers” in Yer Blues, for instance). And, of course, “Number nine. Number nine. Number nine.”
Well, now, from baby boomer geezerdom, I’ll chime in with Spanky and Our Gang’s second album “Like to Get to Know You.” The whole second side is a beautifully planned and executed lengthy segue in which songs and bits of dialoge flow effortlessly into one another for a satisfying artistic whole. The segment just before the title cut is called “Stuperflabbergasted” and consists of a party background with various voices which evolves into a short conversation initiated by a guy trying to pick up a girl. “I’m here with a date!” Spanky concludes the conversation, and ::cue violins:: he slips into song, with “But I’d like to get to know you…”
Well worth looking up. As the review from All Music Group puts it
Several songs from the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds have barely-perceptible conversations in the background (in Here Today, two of the Wilson brothers are discussing cameras) – apparently a studio mistake, although Brian Wilson said he kept them in the final mix to provide atmosphere.
“Kids Don’t Follow” by The Replacements opens up with a recording of a party being broken up by the Minneapolis police. Apparently, one of the people who can be heard mouthing off to the officer is future Soul Asylum leader Dave Pirner.
I truly don’t know if it was their intention or not, but I always thought that Weezer’s Sweater Song was supposed to bring to mind listening to a bootleg concert recording where the conversations near the taper overwhelm the music in quieter moments.
Purple Haze has voices in the middle. Does Anybody Know What Time it Is? by Chicago has a spoken word part over the third verse. They Might Be Giants’s Snowball in Hell has a 1950esque pep talk in it.
Can’t recall the name of the song, but in one of the ones in the Macross Plus sound track, there is a recording of a phone sex conversation. That was a bit surprising.
In Sparklehorse’s “Spirit Ditch”, an apparent phone message from Mark’s (singer/songwriter) mom warning him about a bad dream she had about him is mixed into the middle of the song.
Grandaddy’s “So You’ll Aim Toward the Sky” from The Sophtware Slump features a phone message mixed in the instrumental intro. The friend in the message says “I just got my second DUI” and orders Jason Lytle to come over and (IIRC) bring beer.
The exact title, off of their Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme album is “7 O’Clock News/Silent Night”. This is a 60’s album to add to the decades list.
Also most of the songs on the 1967 album “Days of Future Passed” by the Moody Blues contained spoken word poems (I believe written by the Moody’s own Graeme Edge). Several of their subsequent songs also had spoken word poems in them.
