TTT: Some Great Storytelling

I have always appreciated songs with great lyrics and especially songs telling an actual story with characters and twists.

Storytelling is our theme in this week's #threetunetuesday and I have picked three tunes that made a huge impact on me by telling a great story.

If you are wondering about the theme and why three songs, then this quote from @ablaze might clarify things a bit:

Every Tuesday I'm going to share 3 songs that I like to listen to and I invite your feedback in the comments below. Better still, why not have a blast of your own Three Tune Tuesday and mention me in the post and I'll come and find the post and upvote it. If you could also use #threetunetuesday tag that would be great, as that is what I use when sifting through all the entries every Wednesday. It'll be a sweet way for us all to discover new music. You'll also be in with a chance of winning the prize - more on that later.

This might not be the happiest #ttt I've made but hang in there, here we go:

Peter Sarstedt - Where Do You Go To My Lovely

I first heard this one a long time ago but just like back then, it is still giving me the chills.

There is a lot of name-dropping and listing of things defining a jet-set lifestyle in the lyrics. This is strangely bringing a kinda modern feel to it while I'd guess the story is set somewhere in the 60s or 70s.

The question asked in the song is what is going on in the mind of Marie-Claire who is surrounded by all these beautiful things in her life.

With a sudden twist in the end, we learn her secret and also the storyteller's relationship with her when it's revealed there's more beneath the shining surface of her life. I really love how it's done with just a couple of sentences and still leaving room for the listener's imagination.

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Bob Dylan - Hurricane

In the second song, the Nobel prize winner, the folk legend Bob Dylan tells a story of the incredible injustice that was done to the former boxer Rubin Carter.

It's written in almost the form of the script as Dylan is describing in a very detailed way what led to sentencing Carter. Seems like Dylan did a lot of research on court files and newspapers and took the subject quite personally.

With a pretty fast beat, the song is like a locomotive on a track and not stopping at any stations. An interesting true story catches the listener's attention from the beginning and images of the surroundings become rushing into the mind.

Some tunes make me happy, some sad while this leaves a mixed feeling of anger and frustration because of what they did to Hurricane Carter.

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Immortal Technique - Dance With The Devil

Talking about mixed feelings...

Ok, so this tune made by New York rapper, Immortal Technique, contains perhaps the darkest story I've ever heard in a song. A word of warning here - if you listen to it, you can probably never unhear it.

The background melody from the film, Love Story, is extremely haunting in this context, and watching the movie without thinking about this song is now forever impossible.

I'd always thought the story is an urban legend going around in New Your city even though there's a disturbing notion of it being a true story witnessed by the artist himself.

Nevertheless, Immortal Technique is an amazing storyteller and this is one of his finest works. Dance With The Devil holds the listener in its brutal grip from the beginning to the what-the-hell-did-I-just-heard -end.

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There you have it. How much do lyrics and/or stories matter to you in songs? Leave a comment!

Thank you for reading!