For this Five on Friday, I wanted to do “story” songs. One of my favorites is Amanda McBroom’s “Crimes of the Heart” above. Below are five songs that can play as motion pictures in your mind while listening to them. Do you have any favorite “story” songs?
Sammy Davis, Jr., “Mr. Bojangles”
One of Sammy’s biggest hits, Mr. Bojangles is so believable than you feel as if you have actually met the old gentleman in that jail cell and saw him click his heels even as the clock ran down on his life.
Barry Manilow, “Copacabana”
From the first line (Her name was Lola, she was a showgirl”) to the end, you get the story of the lives of Lola and her bartender boyfriend Tony who work at the Copacabana nightclub until a rich rival for Lola’s affections takes Tony down. Cut to 30 years later, when Lola sits alone “and drinks herself half-blind” at the Copa. This one actually did become a made for TV movie.
Jimmy Buffet, “He Went To Paris”
This song is literally the story of a whole life from adventurous youth to old age of a man as told to Buffet by an old friend just sitting in the sun chatting.
Townes Van Zandt, “Pancho and Lefty”
Most people have heard the Willie and Waylon version, but this is the original by Van Zandt. It is the last gasp of the “Old West” from the point of view of the outlaw growing old in some city flop house instead of the wide open range of his youth.
John Prine, “Sam Stone”
One of Brother John Prine’s most famous songs about a man coming home from Viet Nam scarred by war.
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