Scottish bands give up on singing
What is it about Scottish bands that they all have to do at least one (usually multiple) spoken word songs? I enjoy a good spoken word song, but most tend to be pretty awful or gimmicky. It only seems to be the Scottish bands that can actually get away with such a thing and I don’t have the slightest idea why. Is it something about the accent that makes it appealing? All of the ones included in this post feature thick accents, but there has to be more to it than that. Most bands don’t even tend to try this kind of song, yet Scottish bands all seem to give it a go.
Anyway, this all came about after I discovered Ballboy, and by discover, I mean read about them on another music blog. All of their songs were interesting and I’m happy to have found another band that I like, but it was ‘I Hate Scotland’ that appealed to me the most. It’s not actually a song about hating Scotland, more a moan about settling in our lives. It’s not a particularly complex song, just Gordon McIntyre’s “guy in the pub” words over a fairly repetitive backing track. Yet somehow, it still manages to be fantastic.
MP3 Ballboy – I Hate Scotland (expired)
Please find some more examples of this type of song below. Arab Strap painfully discovering a partner’s infidelity, Belle and Sebastian travelling to Mars and My Latest Novel being kind of non-sensical, but in a fun kind of way.
MP3 Arab Strap – Love Detective (expired)
MP3 Belle & Sebastian – A Space Boy Dream (expired)
MP3 My Latest Novel – The Job Mr. Kurtz Done (expired)
Anyone have more examples of this kind of song?
You must hear ‘Reminisce (Part 2)’ by Dexy’s Midnight Runners. It’s on ‘Don’t Stand Me Down’ – great great music.
He did some amazing records and pulled off a handful of spoken segments. In the song I mentioned earlier, he is indeed reminiscing about a great summer he had seeing a girl – and goes on to describe how they decided to adopt ‘a song’ to remind them of that time..
Check out Arab Strap’s “New Birds” on the album “Philophobia” or for an even better version try the live one on “Mad for Sadness”