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High Fidelity: The Lists

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Regrettable Juvenilia

12:53 / 15.08.01

Top 5 songs with lists of names in them!

1. Le Tigre - 'Hot Topic': Kathleen Hanna and co big up their favourite people. List includes David Wojnarowicz, Ann Peebles, The Slits, Nina Simone, Mia X, Ariel Skrag, Gertrude Stein, Aretha Franklin, Sleater-Kinney, Billie Jean King, Laurie Weeks, Cibo Matto and Yoko Ono. These kinds of list are always cool because you can then spend a ridiculous amount of time finding out who the people you've never heard of are...

2. Saul Wiliams - 'Coded Language': at the culmination of this manifesto/statement of intent/spell, Saul Williams yells "Therefore, in the name of!" and we get a huge list of (sur)names that includes Robeson, Lennon, Whitman, Ginsberg, Joplin, Holiday, Shakespeare, Rachmaninov, Coltrane, Morrison (sadly probably Jim not Grant), Dubois, Kali, Plath, Ganesha, Hendrix, Gaye, Nefertiti, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Kennedy, King, Biko, Marley and Shakur.

3. Manic Street Preachers - 'Archives Of Pain': in which the Manics list lost of people they don't like. Still very useful for expanding your knowledge of the twentieth century. List goes like this (bear in mind that this is the bloody chorus): "Kill Yeltsin, who's saying? Zhirinovsky, Le Pen, Hindley and Brady, Ireland, Allit, Sutcliffe, Dahmer, Nielson, Yoshinori Ueda, Blanche and Pickles, Amin, Milosovic... Give them the respect they deserve, give them the respect they D-E-S-E-R-V-E..."

4. Genius/GZA - tie between 'Labels' and 'Publicity': not straight lists exactly, but merit inclusion for the way the GZA works names of record labels and music publications respectively into his lyrics (eg, "Rap Sheet show you Details of wars in streets / Where the most live, catch Vibe and Blaze heat").

5. Daft Punk - 'Teachers': I actually don't think this is a particularly good song, but it is the best example of a list song I could find... It's a bunch of influences, largely DJs, someof whom we are told are "in da house", recited in that annoying vocoder style: George Clinton, Lil Louis, Dr Dre, Jeff Mills, etc etc...

Any more for any more?

[ 15-08-2001: Message edited by: The Flyboy ]

13:41 / 15.08.01

Difficult. These may or may not count.

Phil Lynott - Ode To A Black Man: As covered - fantasically - on the recent Dirtbombs' album, Ultraglide In Black. Does exactly what it says on the tin.

Six By Seven - Ten Places To Die: On a TV screen, in a magazine, in a crazy game, in complete and utter vain, for the industry, for the family, in a European field, pickin' apples from a tree, in an aeroplane escaping from the rain, lying next to you in the quiet of the night.

S*M*A*S*H - I Want To Kill Somebody:
Margaret Thatcher, Jeffrey Archer,
Michael Hestletine, John Major,
Virginia Bottomley - especially,
Gill Shepherd's got an appalling unemployment record.

That's it. I'm stuck.

[ 15-08-2001: Message edited by: E. Randy Dupre ]

14:26 / 15.08.01

88 Lines About 44 Women, The Nails--surely the classic of the genre.

Hello, by the Beloved, and Welcome, by the Church--which are essentially the same goddam song ten years apart.

Regrettable Juvenilia

14:31 / 15.08.01

Shit, I forgot 12 Reasons Why I Love Her by My Life Story. Even if they couldn'y manage the full twelve...

14:35 / 15.08.01

I like list songs.

Hilman Minx - I've Had Enough
I know nothing sbout this band except that this single got quite a lot of airplay and was quite good. As I recall, they'd had enough of: Courtney Cox, Versace Frocks, Quentin Tarantino, Drum N' Bass, Jerry Springer's face, porno mags, loads of fags (that's cigarettes rather than homosexuals obviously), Tony Blair, Nike trainers, Michael Jackson and no doubt many other things besides..

Half Man Half Biscuit - Irk the PuristsTo the tune of "give me oil in my lamp":

"Give me Love, give me Can, give me Meatloaf,
give me Rush, give me Marquee Moon,
Michael Ball or The Fall, I can listen to them all, in the twilight or the afternoon.."

Ganesh

14:50 / 15.08.01

Madonna - 'Vogue'
Bette Davis, Ann Monroe, Dietrich and DiMaggio...

Billy Joel - 'We Didn't Start The Fire'
Oh, bloody loads.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

15:07 / 15.08.01

quote:Originally posted by The Flyboy:
Top 5 songs with lists of names in them!
3. Manic Street Preachers - 'Archives Of Pain': in which the Manics list lost of people they don't like. Still very useful for expanding your knowledge of the twentieth century. List goes like this (bear in mind that this is the bloody chorus): "Kill Yeltsin, who's saying? Zhirinovsky, Le Pen, Hindley and Brady, Ireland, Allit, Sutcliffe, Dahmer, Nielson, Yoshinori Ueda, Blanche and Pickles, Amin, Milosovic... Give them the respect they deserve, give them the respect they D-E-S-E-R-V-E..."

What about Revol then? "Mr Stalin awaken the boy, Kruschev self-love in his mirrors..." Absolutely bonkers and makes no sense.

17:19 / 15.08.01

quote:Originally posted by The Flyboy:
"Therefore, in the name of!" and we get a huge list of (sur)names that includes Robeson, Lennon, Whitman, Ginsberg, Joplin, Holiday, Shakespeare, Rachmaninov, Coltrane, Morrison (sadly probably Jim not Grant), Dubois, Kali, Plath, Ganesha, Hendrix, Gaye, Nefertiti, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Kennedy, King, Biko, Marley and Shakur.

Uh, given the context, I'd say it's neither Jim nor Grant but Toni. (which is odd, since that's my sister's name). She wrote Beloved and all sorts of other stuff.

The only list song that comes to mind is that End of the World as We Know It song by them R.E.M. fellas.
I'm very fond of all the LB names (Lester Bangs, Lenny Bruce and Leonid Brezhnev).

I've been interested in songs with lists of dances in them for a while, though.

Dance This Mess Around by the B52s.
"Do the Campell Walk!
Do the Shy Turnip!
Do the Aqua Velva!
Do the Hypocrite! Ahhhh... hippy hippy hippy hippy hippy hippy hippy hippy, shake!"

Shake Your Tail Feather by Ray Charles (Blues Brothers soundtrack)

and

Madison Time by Teisco Del Rey -- which reminds me so much of that dance step scene in Hairspray that I want to go back and see if they did the scene to that "song".
Teisco does guitar instrumentals, but in this one he's got a slightly unhinged caller announcing these increasingly complicated dance steps.
"Now, come out of the shuffle with a J-curve, cross your step and back to the Madison!"

(Hey, the web says they did that scene to the original version! Cool! The original is on the web as an mp3
here!)

17:33 / 15.08.01

Teena Marie's Square Biz.

"Shakespeare, Maya Angelou/
and Nikki Giovanni just to name a few"

17:34 / 15.08.01

How about... The Hymn for the Cigarettes by Hefner:

Lucky Strikes remind me of my friends out on the west coast,
Camel Lights remind me of my ex-girlfriend at Chistmas time,
Malboro Reds remind me of giving up in Berlin,
B&H remind me of not giving up but giving in.

...

Red Cross Iodized Salt

18:31 / 15.08.01

Only thing I can think of that hasn't already been mentioned is 'Endless Art' by aHouse (the full lyrics to which can be found here).

Henry Lamb, Cezanne and Paul Gauguin,

Johann Strauss, Richard Strauss and Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse...

There was a version that just listed female artists, but I can't find it anywhere.

[ 15-08-2001: Message edited by: Suddenly there's Vancouver ]

19:04 / 15.08.01

How could I have forgotten?

Steve Threw Up by Beck.

"Well there must have been some pizza, and there must have been some beer, and there must have been some tequila, you could see it all so clear.. well there must have been some falafel's, and there must have been some wine, and there must have been some pickles, and there must have been some .. sauerkraut!"

and it carries on like that for about 2 and a half minutes..

"pineapples, mangoes, nice fresh cream, cucumber, biscuits, beef jerky and mayonnaise, steak sauce.."

I guess Steve was a pretty greedy guy.

09:03 / 16.08.01

The Clash: "The Magnificent Seven"

Karlo Marx and Fredrich Engels
Came to the checkout at the 7-11
Marx was skint - but he had sense
Engels lent him the necessary pence

What have we got? Yeh-o, magnificence!!

Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi
Went to the park to check on the game
But they was murdered by the other team
Who went on to win 50-nil
You can be true, you can be false
You be given the same reward
Socrates and Milhous Nixon
Both went the same way - through the kitchen
Plato the Greek or Rin Tin Tin
Who's more famous to the billion millions?
News Flash: Vacuum Cleaner Sucks Up Budgie
Oooohh...bub-bye

Magnificence!!

FUCKING LONG, INNIT?

09:03 / 16.08.01

quote:Originally posted by Jack Fear:
88 Lines About 44 Women, The Nails--surely the classic of the genre.

Hello, by the Beloved, and Welcome, by the Church--which are essentially the same goddam song ten years apart.

Don't forget that piece of crap (Pepper) that got the Butthole Surfers radio play.

No star here laces

10:38 / 16.08.01

Tchoh. This is way too easy. There are an innumerable number of chicago house records made between '90 and '95 that do this kind of thing.

Strictly Jaz Unit - "Take me back"

"Glenn Underground, bring back those vocals from way back when, roll me with that 70s sound.... Boo Williams!" Love this record, kind of hard to replicate how cool the vocal is in text form though...

Honourable mentions in the same kind of vein would be Fast Eddie - "Jack to the sound of the underground", Maurice Joshua - "Feel the mood", Tuff Jam and Tyree Cooper - "History of house music"

A personal favourite might be Necro - "Get on your knees" with it's hilarious Dionne Warwick sample and lists of pornstars:

"I have diplomacy in sodomising Ona Zee
Im known to be, quick to fuck madams like Buck Adams
Juggle my lizard tounge in your snatch
Lickin Lana Sams tits be like
licking a cutting board with two points attached
Believe me I've tried it often
My schlong almost put Nina Hartley up in a coffin"

Regrettable Juvenilia

11:31 / 16.08.01

That reminds me, both Notorious B.I.G. and Lil' Kim recorded near-identical songs called Dreams, about which r'n'b singers they'd like to shag. Biggie's has the classic line "I'd fuck RuPaul before I'd fuck those ugly-ass Xscape bitches", whilst Kim's shopping list includes making Tony Rich her "bitch" and getting head from the entire Harlem Boys' Choir...

No star here laces

12:58 / 16.08.01

Now you see that is what Victoria Beckham's solo career should've been about. Imagine her singing about how Dane Bowers is a fat fuck from Streatham and she'd rather take it up the bum from L'il Bow Wow than make a record with him, let alone fuck him...

Disco is My Class War

06:47 / 17.08.01

Betty Davis, uh, can't rmember the title. Oh yeah, it's 'They Say I'm Different' on the Nasty Gal LP.

List includes Jimi Hendrix. Miles. Little Stevie Wonder. Marvin Gaye. Ray Charles. Sly Stone. Loadsa others.

12:52 / 07.09.01

Just remembered a winner:

"Pop Songs Your New Boyfriend's Too Stupid to Know About" - by Tullycraft.

It's poppy, fast, and goooood.

"Sure he likes the Breeders, he thinks Green Day's pretty swell/ but what about the Bartlebys and Neutral Milk Hotel?"

There's a 30 second sample
on this review page, and the full lyrics are well, impossible to find.

[ 07-09-2001: Message edited by: grant ]

16:22 / 07.09.01

I expect this doesn't count (Ganesh got the two I was gonna mention), but the Velvet Acid Christ song "Fun With Drugs" samples that one speech from Terry Gilliam's film version of Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas.

"We had three bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid... a saltshaker half-full of cocaine... a whole galaxy of multicolored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers... also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls."

18:25 / 07.09.01

"Abraham, Martin and John" by Marvin Gaye.

Can't think of the name, but there's a wicked Co Flow track where Big Jus namechecks all the graf writers/artists that influenced him when he was growing up.

Saul Williams describes "Coded Language" as a spell, "calling on eighty named deities" in his own words.

The “Revol” theory I heard is that Richey was comparing the failure of revolutions with the failure of love and relationships (“Revol” backwards: “Lover” ). Makes sense, and it’s the kind of thing he’d write. Perhaps that’s why Nicky never understood the song, as it has a hopelessness he can’t identify with. Last “Revol” fanboy fact: the reason the band hate it so much is because there’s a remix that’s supposed to be much better than the album version. James has hinted that it’ll end up on the greatest hits. I’m also hoping the original “Love’s Sweet Exile” will be there, too, as apparently that’s much better.

[ 07-09-2001: Message edited by: expressionless ]

20:01 / 07.09.01

patti smith's horses where she lists all the old dances.

the divine comedy's the booklovers and a-house's endless art and more endless art

09:49 / 08.09.01

Small correction: that bit in Patti Smith's "La Mer" is a cover/quote of the early 60s song "Land of a Thousand Dances."

In a related vein, the B-52s parody "Land..." in their classic "Dance This Mess Around," listing such absurd dances as the Dirty Dog and the Shy Turtle. Come to think of it the B-52s had a thing for lists: the end of "Rock Lobster," f'rinstance.

11:01 / 10.09.01

Thought of one: There are at least two (that I know of) musical remixes of the William S. Burroughs "Words Of Advice For Young People" spoken-word piece.

"Beware of whores who say that don't want money. The hell they don't. What they mean is, they want more money. Much more."

12:19 / 11.05.06

There's the Jim Carol Band song, 'These Are the People Who Died'. They were all his friends and
SPOILERS

They all died

14:13 / 11.05.06

Badly Drawn Boy "You Were Right"
The Queen, Madonna, Sinatra, Jeff Buckly , Kurt Cobain, John Lennon.

19:06 / 11.05.06

Alabama 3 - Woke up this morning

And just like Charles Mingus wrote that beautiful piece of music, ‘Epitaph’, for Eric Dolphy, I say ‘So long, Eric; so long, John Coltrane and Charles Mingus; so long, Duke Ellington and Lester Young; so long, Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald; so long, Jimmy Reed; so long, Muddy Waters; and so long, Howlin' Wolf.’

Hydra vs Leviathan

20:31 / 11.05.06

Uh, given the context, I'd say it's neither Jim nor Grant but Toni. (which is odd, since that's my sister's name). She wrote Beloved and all sorts of other stuff.

That's exactly what i was going to say (well, apart from the sister bit)...

How about Bird's World by The Last Poets? Can't find a link to the lyrics, but it's basically a rundown, in loosely chronological order, of all the great jazz artists over jazz backing that changes to match the styles of each time period of the narration... best bit is the massive build-up to John Coltrane, where it goes "and along and along and along and along and along andalongandalongandalong... CAME... TRANE, just like an approaching (steam) train and its horn thingy...

Or... there's "Punky Reggae Party" (the Wailers will be there, the Ruts and Dr Feelgood too), or... fuck, what's that reggae song from a few years ago? Guy with a really "sweet", "slick" voice... Freddy McGregor? Beres Hammond? Goes on about how great the soul dances used to be and namechecks a load of people like Marvin Gaye and Aretha Franklin...

The Return Of Rothkoid

01:19 / 12.05.06

How about I Am The Very Model Of A Modern Major-General?

05:50 / 12.05.06

neil diamond's being done too soon

starts out 'jesus christ, fanny brice, wolfi mozart, humphrey bogart, ghengis khan on to hg wells....' and the list extends to the chorus, naming names! s'on hot august night.

how about that old blues standard, one scotch, one bourbon, one beer - my kind of list!!

and the australian folk/country/truckin' classic i've been everywhere, manby geoff mack and lucky star in 1959 rattles off australian place names in a dizzying pre-rap tongue twister 'oodnadatta, parramatta, what's the matter?' (it was later adapted for johnny cash & nth america, after a nz version was a hit in 66)

Janean Patience

15:22 / 14.02.07

I can't believe nobody mentioned It's Grim Up North by The Jamms, aka the KLF.

Grimsby, Glossop, Hebden Bridge....

15:52 / 14.02.07

There's Mary Lou Lord's "His Indie World"

I don't think I fit into his indie world
Guided By Voices and Velocity Girl
Eric's Trip and Rocket Ship, Rancid and Rocket from The Crypt
Bikini Kill and Built to Spill, it's plain to see that I don't fit

He says my songs are too deep and gloomy
He wishes that I could be more like Jenny Toomey
Just give me my Joni my Nick, Neil, and Bob
You can keep your Tsunami, your Slant 6 and Smog

What's the story he says Butterglory
I say what's the news he says the Silver Jews
His Heavenly hang-up is getting me down
And it's making me wonder why he's hanging around

Cause I don't fit into his indie scene
Huggy Bear and Helium and Half-Japanese
Sebadoh and Sentridoh and Superchunk and I don't know
Doug and Lou and Calvin too and Kim and Kim and Kim and Kim

Yeah I’m stuck in the past and he's stuck on his four-track
But I can't get through to his one-track mind
I push play and record and a major chord
Maybe I’ll win his heart this time
Maybe I’ll win his heart this time

The sing-songy cadence Lord gives this song is just dreamy. It looks awkward in plaintext, but it rolls out so beautifully when she sings it.

at the scarwash

19:31 / 14.02.07

Chatterton, by Serge Gainsbourg

Chatterton suicidé
Hannibal suicidé
Démosthène suicidé
Nietzsche
Fou à lier
Quant à moi...
Quant à moi
Ça ne va plus très bien

Chatterton suicidé
Cléopâtre suicidé
Isocrate suicidé
Goya
Fou à lier
Quant à moi...
Quant à moi
Ça ne va plus très bien

Chatterton suicidé
Marc-Antoine suicidé
Van Gogh suicidé
Schumann
Fou à lier
Quant à moi...
Quant à moi
Ça ne va plus très bien

Make me Uncomfortable

19:55 / 14.02.07

These stray a little bit from a list of Names/Proper Nouns, but the above posts stray equally a far as these do...

Legend of John Henry's Hammer- Johnny Cash

The refrain is a list of the skills John Henry has accumulated over his years of employment:

And he said, I can turn a jack, I can lay a track,
I can pick and shovel too
(Can you swing a hammer boy?)
Yes, Sir, I?ll do anything you hire me to.

Inside- Sting

The refrain here is also a list- a list of all the different things love is:
Love is the child of an endless war
Love is an open wound still raw
Love is a shameless banner unfurled
Love's an explosion,
Love is the fire at the end of the world
Love is a violent star
A tide of destruction
Love is an angry scar
The pain of instruction
Love is a violation, a mutilation, capitulation,
Love is annihilation.

For that matter, a lot of Sting's songs list various analogies and similies. For example, the last half of Brand New Day from the album of the same name:

I’m the rhythm in your tune
I’m the sun and you’re the moon
I’m the bat and you’re the cave
You’re the beach and I’m the wave
I’m the plough and you're the land
You’re the glove and I’m the hand
I’m the train and you’re the station
I’m the flagpole to your nation

I'm the present to your future
You're the wound and I'm the suture
You're the magnet to my pole
I'm the devil in your soul
You're the pupil I'm the teacher
You're the church and I'm the preacher
You're the flower I'm the rain
You're the tunnel I'm the train

You're the crop to my rotation
You're the sum of my equation
I'm the answer to your question
If you follow my suggestion
We could turn this ship around
And go up instead of down
You're the pan and I'm the handle
You're the flame and I'm the candle

See also Fill Her Up, A Thousand Years, and Mad About You, all by Sting

Make me Uncomfortable

19:59 / 14.02.07

And why not throw in Tubthumping- Chubawamba with the refrain:
He drinks a whisky drink,
He drinks a vodka drink,
He drinks a lager drink,
He drinks a cider drink.

Although I guess both this and the above post might be better as examples of parallel construction and less like a proper list. Oh well- I tried.

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