Spoken hits that aren't Rap.

The past sixty years there have been isolated instances of mostly-spoken poetry with musical accompaniment on the radio. In the early years there was crap like Jimmie Dean’s sausagefest, “Big Bad John”. Others existed because the artists had singing ranges of roughly one note, like Walter Brennan’s “Old Rivers” and Rex Harrison’s “Why Can’t The English?”

Please note that I am using a flexible definition of “hit” because the 60s and 70s gave us Gil Scott Heron’s “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” and Mick Jagger’s “Memo from Turner,” which got airplay but only on “underground” stations. On AM radio you could hear “The Americans: A Canadian’s Opinion” by Gordon Sinclair, but that doesn’t count because it has no poetic pretensions. I am not excluding Rap out of spite, but because an entire genre that fits the definition will swamp everything else. However, I am including Beck’s “Loser” because Scientologists by definition cannot rap.

Any more suggestions, either or both entertaining and horrifying?

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds by William Shatner

was both entertaining and horrifying.

The two that come to mind are Little Becky’s Christmas Wish, 1968, and Everybody’s Free to Wear Sunscreen, 1997 (and performed by none other than Baz Luhrmann).

I’ll let you decide which is entertaining and which is horrifying. :slight_smile:

Mr. Tambourine Man!

“Valley Girl” by Frank Zappa featuring Moon Zappa might count. Moon’s lead vocal is spoken word, and the song peaked at #32 on the Billboard Hot 100.

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However, I am including Beck’s “Loser” because Scientologists by definition cannot rap.
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??? What about Beck’s “Where It’s At”? Is that also not rap.

Ah, true…but would that count as a hit ‘song’ by any standard?

Does Kraftwerk’s Autobahn count? The lyrics, such as they are, are in tune, so are they really spoken, or are they sung?

Neither is poetic, at least as far as I could bear to listen. Prose doesn’t count, even horrifying prose. “Sunscreen,” like “The Americans,” was a reading of a newspaper column.

By the standards of this thread, yes. Kinda iffy, as the Shat is reading the lyrics of a real song, but popular enough to be a hit.

The Ballad of Irving (The 142nd Fastest Gun in the West)

The repeated chorus of “Wir fahren fahren fahren auf der Autobahn,” is more spoken than sung and is treated like an atonal part of the musical landscape. The verse is entirely spoken, not sung. Altogether it is pretentious enough to count.

Trio - Da Da Da
Solitaire - I like Love (mostly)

Two very different songs, but I like ém both

Does Alice’s Restaurant count?

Does The Werewolves of London count?

A Boy Named Sue-- Johnny Cash

Interesting Slate blog on this http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/music_box/2009/04/flukes_of_the_universe.2.html

Telly “Kojak” Savalas - If.

Eminem’s *Kim *is not rap per se - it’s just a long crazy monologue, with a few choruses thrown in. Doesn’t follow a beat, doesn’t rhyme. Very emotional - I’m not sure “moving” or “touching” would be the right words, but it kicks in the feels.

Our side of the pond has Léo Ferré who considered himself a poet first, a singer second. He did a lot a “poetry or free verse on a background melody”, like so.

Some of these might have singing in the chorus but spoken verses:

Butthole Surfers - Pepper
The Nails - 88 Lines About 44 Women
King Missile - Detachable Penis (lots of their songs, but the rest aren’t really hits)
Nada Surf - Popular
The Doors/Jim Morrison did a lot

Sprechgesang. E.g. Fred Schneider of the B-52’s.

Since you’re using “hit” loosely, this.

Lorne Greene – The Ballad of Ringo.

Red Sovine – Teddy Bear

Oh we got trouble…