Billy The Mountain is about a picturesque mountain that decides to go on vacation with his wife Ethyl (a tree)…and that’s just the setup.
Guy Clark has written many songs with unusual topics. I’ll list just a few.
Homegrown Tomatoes
Only two things that money can’t buy, and that’s true love and home grown tomatoes.
L.A. Freeway - a song about moving
Say goodbye to the landlord for me.
That son of a bitch has always bored me.
Picasso’s Mandolin
He’s born in Spain and died in France
He was not scared of baggy pants
Immigrant Eyes
Don’t take it for granted, say grandfather’s Immigrant Eyes
Stuff That Works
Stuff that’s real, stuff you feel
The kind of stuff you reach for when you fall
Black Diamond Strings
You play Black Diamond strings cuz that’s all you can get.
Watermelon Dream - about sittin’ on the front porch eatin’ peach ice cream
The Mary Ellen Carter – Stan Rogers’ folk song about the former crew of a ship salvaging it after it sank and was abandoned by the owners. A pretty upbeat and uplifting song that’s usually read as a metaphor for overcoming obstacles. As has been observed, the song never does say if they succeeded.
I think it’d be hard to find a Talking Heads song with a non-weird topic. Psycho Killer is about… well, you can guess. A lot of their other stuff was just kind of free associated. This Must Be the Place is probably about as normal as they got. That probably goes for R.E.M., too. Their biggest hits included songs about using someone who thinks you’re in love with them, going crazy, Vietnam and Agent Orange, Andy Kaufman’s wrestling career, suicide, and Dan Rather getting mugged.
“I’ll Be Waiting” by Barenaked Ladies is a love letter from Canada to Quebec.
You say you cannot live with me, you need your own identity
And now we air our laundry on national TV
And so you hate my arrogance, my smothering and sitting on the fence,
But I’m afraid of the hard permanence of letting you go free*
“Murder (or a Heart Attack)” by Old 97s is about a cat running away while Rhett Miller was pet-sitting for a friend.
“The Crab Louse,” by Lords of Acid, is about … getting crabs.
Somebody who kills psychos?
I think Uncle Bonsai (cheerleaders on drugs, surrogate motherhood, K-Mart, family restaurants, liposuction, putting a chihuahua in a microwave, a baby’s head being hexagonal, committing suicide when hearing that “The Love Boat” has been cancelled, and several of the Doug songs) and the Bobs (a lifelong love of helmets, mopping, laundry (5 songs), renting food, a family brought closer by watching the Oliver North hearings, a bus tour to an outlet mall, a cat’s plan to take over the world, a love affair between a UPS driver and a Fotomat clerk, turtles (3), synaesthesia, being inspired to make a breakthrough in cold fusion while making ramen, asking Mickey Mantle to autograph a dog) could give them a run for their money.
“Shout” by Tears for Fears is about politics, apparently.
“Beds Are Burning” by Midnight Oil seems to be about deforestation for agricultural development, from the point of view of the displaced wildlife.
“Be My Girl / Sally” by the Police is about a blow-up doll. (Well, half of it is.)
Son, oh Son by Boiled in Lead (popular in some circles) is about sororicide.
Todd Menton, in talking about the song—possibly in the liner notes to ‘Orb’—claimed that the storyline of the song (a Brother impregnating his Sister, then killing her to hide the fact) was not unusual by itself in celtic folk songs, but that the Mother refusing to hide the Son, and instead threatening to kill him was unusual.
I don’t know that Kate Bush has ever written a song about a usual topic. Pull Out The Pin is from the perspective of a Viet Cong about to throw a hang grenade, the protagonist of The Kick Inside is pregnant by her brother, etc. Her first hit was sung by a ghost.
I videotapes Boiled in Lead many years ago, and they had a different version of this song called The Baby Song. I really need to dig that video up and post it.
ETA: I didn’t see your post before my last one. Son, O Son and The Kick Inside I think are both based on Lizzie Wan.
Plea from a Cat Named Virtute by The Weakerthans is written from the perspective of the owner’s cat. There’s also a sequel - Virtute the Cat Explains Her Departure.
The Fitted Shirt by Spoon is about sartorial taste.
Frontier Psychiatrist by the Avalanches is about ??? mental illness?
Naah, it’s a political song about repatriating native Australian lands back to the indigenous people.
Man Or Astro-Man? has these rather interesting song titles:
Curious Constructs Of Stem-Like Devices Which Now Prepare Themselves To Be Thought Of As Fingers
Fractionalized Reception Of A Scrambled Transmission
Interstellar Hardrive
Krasnoyask-26 / Within The Mainframe / Impaired vision From Inoperable
Many Pieces Of Large Fuzzy Mammals Gathered Together At A Rave And Schmoozing With A Brick
Maximum Radiation Level
Multi-Variational Stimuli Of Sub-Turgid Foci Covering Cross Evaluative Techniques
Obligatory Part 2 Song In Which There Is No Presently Existing Part 1, Nor The Plans To Make One
Song Of The Two-Mile Linear Particle Accelerator, Stanford University, Stanford California
Spectrograph Reading Of The Varying Phantom Frequencies Of Chronic, Incurable Tinnitus
Static Cling
Theoretical Sounds Of Slow Motion
U-235 PU-239
Very Subtle Elevators
Sufjan Stevens is another one whose breadth of song-writing takes in UFOs, serial killers, roads, state holidays, cancer and all manner of stuff. Probably need to walk past him quickly or you’ll get written about.
Also Nick Cave and Birthday Party Tupelo, possibly the best treatment of the apocalyptic non-coming of Elvis’s still-born twin.
I expected there to be several good leads out there, but I’m overwhelmed at the sheer number already presented here.
Good point. Burning down houses, changing one’s shape or face, facts are living turned inside out, etc.
Thank you, everyone! This is really something else. No doubt there are even more songs with out-of-the-ordinary topics…
Stop Stop Stop by the Hollies is about a man so obsessed with an exotic dancer that he goes every week to her place of business, attacks her, and is thrown out on the street on his ass.