Plenty of songs have been recorded about love, hate, men, women, cars, animals, and so forth. What’s some of your favorite (and, perhaps, no so favorite) songs with weird subjects?
Here’s a few to start:
“Timothy” - The Bouys - Ahh, not enough songs about cannibalism, I say!
“Disco Duck” - Rick Dees & His Cast of Idiots - Man goes to a disco and turns into a dancing duck. We all knew those places were bad for you.
“Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” - The Beatles - Early hit about a serial killer.
“Attack of the Giant Ants” - Blondie - Japanese horror movie goes new wave.
My favorite song - MacArthur Park! A song about cake, leaving it out in the rain, sweet, green icing flowing down and never having that recipe ahhhhgain. Oooooooh nooooooo!
How about ‘He’s Nobody’s Moggie, Now’, by Eric Bogle. It’s a great singalong when you’ve got the kids in the car…the subject is pussy road-kills!
“Somebody’s moggie, by the side of the road
Somebody’s pussy who forgot his highway code
Someone’s favourite feline, who ran clean out of luck
When he ran onto the road and tried to argue with a truck…”
Gonna buy me a dog - The Monkees, my favorite Monkee song. It is what it is Boris the Spider - The Who, hey there’s a spider, let’s squish him. SPLAT! Istanbul - They Might be Giants, I mention this mainly to complain they never mention that Istanbul, which used to be Constantinople was Byzantium even earlier. Starman David Bowie, defines the early 80s for me. In the Year 2525 - Zager & Evans. An 8,000 year journey into the future. Star Trekkin’ - Firm, Why? I don’t know. I’m Going Slightly Man Queen, madness, you have to see the video.
Rasputina has a bunch of them. The Donner Party which comes to the conclusion that the Pilgrims were forced to consume their dead by comparing them to the Donner Party. The Olde Headboard mentions “Space Ghost: Coast to Coast.” I’m not so sure I get this song, perhaps cause I’m male?
Perhaps every song by Wally Pleasant. I’ll name a few of my favorites The Day Ted Nugent Killed All the Animals,How I Got Lost On The Road Less Traveled But Then Got Instant Karma On I-96 and Rumble At The Karaoke Bar and many many more.
I know musicals probably shouldn’t count but Springtime for Hitler is a hilarious song. Suicide is Painless which speaks for itself. I wonder if it got any airplay when MAS*H came out
Björk - “F***ing in Rhythm and Sorrow” - ahh… There’s a naked man in her flat, and the entire song is bascially about the singer trying to calm him down. It gets hilarious at times and she yells a lot in this song, too. She’s good at that. My guilty pleasure.
In my last art class, my teacher had a weird mix tape that she’d play. Most flok/indie stuff. It was pretty cool. One song that always made me giggle was about… a bad haircut. Yes. The chrus went bad haircut, ooooh, bad haircut or something like that. I have no idea what the actual title of it is, or who sung it, but… definitely odd. Anyone else heard of it?
Barenaked Ladies also have some strange songs. ** Tonight is the Night I Fell Asleep At the Wheel , Alcohol, ** In The Car, Conventioneers… the list rather goes on. That band is simply a strange bunch.
Tori Amos has a song called ** She’s Your Cocaine** that seems to be about cross-dressing that I’ve always liked.
I Leaned Against the Sofa - Dave Gordon - about, as he said, “a moment of cosmic insignificance.”
A friend of mine thinks about it is about the after effects of chemotherapy, which DB was going through.
My Brother John is a CPA - Dave Gordon
I Would Not Be Here - John Hartford. John explains he would not be here if a friend hadn’t introduced him to steamboats. THe friend learned about them from a teacher who was only there because her husband had left to work with an army buddy who he met because of a sergeant who would have died in a car accident if it hadn’t been for…
The Naked Truth - Joel Mabus - How Truth and Falsehood used to be friends until Falsehood stole Truth’s dress and ever since then…
When did we have sauerkraut? - Lou and Peter Berryman - about having heavy philosophical thoughts while cleaning the fridge.
Mysterious Woman - Christine Lavin - CL tries to write a heavy philosophical song, ala Suzanne Vega, but keeps getting distracted by thoughts of cleaning her refrigerator. A salute to the Berryman song, I think.
