cover image source: GIPHY
Story time, y'all! Our theme this week is storytelling and there are many ways to take this one. There are songs that tell amazing stories, but also songs with amazing stories behind them (think about the behind-the-scenes making of a song...) — both are welcome in this thread. And why stop there? If you'd like to highlight a specific artist/album/music video that is particularly good at storytelling — go for it! Beyond the art itself, we also have our own personal stories that are tied to music... what song were you listening to when you had your first kiss? What reminds you of your teenage years? What was your first concert? I'd love to hear any stories you have that are tied to music. And yet another angle, there's a whole cottage industry of podcasters out there covering music history — digging into the stories and lore of our musical heroes. Wanna talk about those stories and/or link me to your sources? Let's do it! Whatever goes, I'm an open book. 📖
How we do
In this weekly series, folks can chime in and drop links to whatever it is they've been listening to recently + browse others' suggestions. You can follow the suggested genre if you'd like, but don't feel confined to it; you're free to suggest whatever you wanna. 🙌
If you're interested in having other discussions about music, consider following the aptly named #music discussions organization.
Siked to hear how y'all interpret this one! 😀
Note: you can embed a link to your song using the following syntax {% embed https://... %}. This should work for most common platforms!
Looking forward to listening to y'all's suggestions! 🎶
🚨p.s. Check out @rachelfazio's sister series to Music Monday, called Podcast Palooza!🚨
Top comments (33)
A samurai inspired battle song that talks about the struggles of a relationship and fighting for it despite how many years have passed, why not?
I love love loveeeee the animation ✨
As I was watching the video, I was thinking on how much effort the video animator had to do to create the animations... I know that just producing a few seconds is a matter of hours. Have you made some animations that I can see?
Wow yeah, I'm with everyone else on this one. Such a cool video with amazing animation!
@ilizette @balagmadhu @michaeltharrington
Just remember another video with a cool animation style, I think you might like this:
Ohh!!! This reminds me of the movie Inside Out. Absolutely beautiful!!!
Interesting association... didn't think of it... but now that you say... actually is a lot like Inside Out, haha. Glad you like it.
thats cool animation !!
Cool idea for this week!
I have one that a friend recommend it to me, for what she told me, he dedicated this song to a friend who was fighting against cancer.
“pink robots” refers to the tumors.
Wow, I didn't know that about the song. I love this one and the music video too.
Speaking of stories in music, I think that The Flaming Lips have one of the most impressive growth trajectories as a band. They started off super punk and kinda raw, but just keep on growing as musicians.
Didn't know that, actually the reason why I know The Flaming Lips is because that friend recommended that song to me, maybe I should listen to them a bit more. Looking forward to the next Music Mondays!
Over the weekend, I watched this awesome little documentary on dance punk music:
It reminded me of my love for LCD Soundsystem and got me excited for the genre again!
How about the story-telling in Childish Gambino aka Donald Glover's music videos?
By the way, y'all gotta check out the series Atlanta.
I absolutely love listening to music that tells a story: I listen to an artist named Asa, she has several story-telling music but they aren't in English. One of my favorites is Good Times, it's a song about friendship, It's a love song to friends. The first time I heard the song, I shared it with my close friend and now we sing along to it whenever I play it.
The genre is called Highlife and Highlife is a Nigerian music genre that you generally would listen to with a group of friends while sharing a meal.
When she talked about her inspiration for the song, it was a love song to her closest friend Janet, who has played a vital role in her career growth and acted as a problem solver when things got rough.
Dang! I absolutely love this, Elizabeth. This is so uplifting... I'm gonna have to look into this genre some more. And wow, Asa's voice is just so unique and beautiful... it's relaxing!
I'm gonna have to look up and translate the lyrics now. Appreciate you explaining the backstory and the genre of Highlife. So awesome. 💚
Oh I’m glad you like it, her voice sounds peaceful
These days I only listen to some rock/metal while I'm running. No story (or maybe quite a bit of story behind). I just rock and run :D.
Here is my playlist (some of the songs might be explicit): https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyloxWtfy6yXRaMkgCNpVCYIO-1TTJiXn&si=BZZ9a1v0fc9rH20J
I’ve been listening a lot to the new Vampire Weekend album “Only God Was Above Us”. The song “Classical” is about how history is made up of stories told over time, who gets to write those stories, and what that means for how we look at the past.
This is dope! I haven't listened to Vampire Weekend in too damn long. They still got it! And wow, Ezra Koenig just refuses to age at all, haha!
This is literally called "story" xD. It's pretty intense.
Also, there might be a tiny bit of profanity. I haven't listened to this song in a while, so I forget. Hopefully that's ok.
Haha very on the nose! It is intense, but pretty dope. Lotsa energy!!
Since many of my favorite podcasts tell the stories behind songs, I'll share a few of those:
I've been binging lately on "A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs" by Andrew Hickey. This podcast is very detailed and amazingly well-researched. It's fascinating to explore all the different careers and styles and threads of influence and how they came together to make rock and roll into a genre of its own. You can listen from the beginning as I'm doing (I'm nearly to the Beatles, I think now, after 95 episodes! Let's see... yup, "Love Me Do" is episode 100. He must've done that on purpose! Anyhow, OR you can pick and chose your favorite songs to learn about; each episode does stand nicely on its own.
I also enjoy I Am the EggPod (Beatles and solo Beatle album reviews, often by people with some connection to the group - No! I went to find the link and discovered that the last episode ever is about to be released next month. Dang, I'll miss it.), McCartney: A Life In Lyrics (Paul McCartney on his songwriting process and more), and I'm In Love With That Song (detailed breakdowns of well-known songs and recordings).
the world's first 24 hour music video.
You know a crazy little fact was that Pharrell tried to sell this song to Cee-loo, but it was rejected so he recorded it himself.
Yes...something not unusual in music industry. 👀