I have a few specific questions, but I’d be happy if this thread takes on a life of its own, and people start asking similar questions about other songs. This is not a lyric thread- it’s a “spoken words in the middle of a song” thread.
On a regular basis, I hear songs in which someone is talking or people are conversing, and I can’t figure out exactly what they’re saying. Some are recent, but some have baffled me for years. So, if someone knows what’s being said in these songs, please share.
"Happenings Ten Years Time Ago" by the Yardbirds
During the solo, someone puts on a faux Cockney voice and seems to be saying something like “Rock group are ya? HAHAHAHAHAHA! Why you lot wear long hair?” And a few other lines I can’t make out. Anyone know what they’re saying?
***Coda to “Larks Tongues in Aspic Part 1” by King Crimson
Toward the end of this piece, Fripp is doing some guitar feedback while David Cross plays softly on violin and Jamie Muir is shaking some chimes, and some voices (Bruford and Wetton? I dunno) are murmuring something. Any idea what they’re saying?
Answer these, or add your own. The more the merrier.
According to this Jeff Beck biography, that’s Beck’s own voice, and the bit was inspired by some chit-chat a doctor made during a visit to a VD clinic.
My best guess: “Rock group are ya? Bet you’re making the money. (laughing) All right, are ya. Why you lot wear long hair?.. Bet you’re pulling the crumpet, are ya? Every night there on stage, swinging with girls?”
At the of “Blind Hope”, the last song on Son Volt’s “Wide Swing Tremolo” album, Jay Farrar is muttering something under the outro. All I can make out is the very end where he says “We’re the transgressors” and someone else says “That’s it!” and the song fades out. I’d love to know what the rest of that little monologue is.
How about in The Scorpions “Rock you like a Hurricane” ? After one of the chorus lines (“here I am…rock you like a hurricane”), there’s this really fast “something” blurted out. Not just a scream. Though it could be gibberish, it sounds like it was an attempt at actual words.
I’ve always wondered what was being said.
And the part just before it, there’s a woman and curmudgeonly-sounding dude sounding like they’re from a movie or something. (while Fripp plays single notes and Cross’s playing meanders yet gradually builds.)
What’s the spoken word (“below”?) that Plant says after “let my love come running in” from Zep’s Rock’n Roll?
What about the barely audible whispers in the beginning (?) of Everlong by the Foo Fighters? Is that all just non -word gibberish or is it something more?
Once I heard Pink Floyd’s One of These Days on the radio. My pleasure quickly faded afterward when the DJ commented, “I don’t even know what he’s saying there.” :mad:
Dear ignorant DJ from a long time ago, he is saying, “One of these days I’m going to cut you into little pieces!”
I really like Big Audio Dynamite’s E=MC2, but they used at ton of dialog from a movie, and the accent makes it nearly unintelligible. It also doesn’t help that it’s all taken from the same movie, one that just isn’t that well known on this side of the pond.
I’m never sure if the dialog is supposed to help the song, or if it’s just there for the sound. Either way, I’d sure like to have a version without it.
The most notorious of my favorite bands for this are the Clash. Typically, half of the songs is Joe Strummer speaking or screaming words besides the regular lyrics, and I just know that these passages are often crucial, but I still don’t understand half of it after all those many times I’ve listened, and printed lyrics and now lyrics sites usually don’t render those parts.
There’s the “hidden” track 6 on the CD version of Tom Petty’s Full Moon Fever album:
"Hello CD Listeners…you’ve come to the point in this album where those listening on cassette, or records, will have to stand up, or sit down, and turn over the record. Or tape. In fairness to those listeners, we’ll now take a few seconds before we begin Side 2.
David Bowie had some ‘background talking’ in his song "Ashes to Ashes.’ Some of it is just repeating what he’s singing, but not all of it. (See post by user ‘Schmeng’.)
