In the second half of today’s episode we’re going to be speaking with fellow member of my QOYF trivia team, award-winning crime novelist Sarah Bailey, now on her fifth book.
But first, I thought we might flip things round and I might suggest ten songs which are short stories themselves.
1. Ode to Billie Joe, Bobbie Gentry
And mama said to me, child, what's happened to your appetite?
I've been cookin' all morning, and you haven't touched a single bite
That nice young preacher, Brother Taylor, dropped by today
Said he'd be pleased to have dinner on Sunday, oh, by the way
He said he saw a girl that looked a lot like you up on Choctaw Ridge
And she and Billie Joe was throwing somethin' off the Tallahatchie Bridge
And the great thing about Ode to Billie Joe by Bobbie Gentry is we never do find out what the narrator and Billie Joe McAllister were throwing off the Tallahatchie Bridge. Why not see if you can work it out.
2. Cat’s in the cradle, Harry Chapin
I've long since retired, my son's moved away
I called him up just the other day
I said, I'd like to see you if you don't mind
He said, I'd love to, dad, if I can find the time
You see, my new job's a hassle, and the kids have the flu
But it's sure nice talking to you, dad
It's been sure nice talking to you
And as I hung up the phone, it occurred to me
He'd grown up just like me
My boy was just like me
Cat’s in the Cradle by Harry Chapin was used in a 1993 anti-terrorism advert in Northern Ireland. It depicted a terrorist neglecting his family and his son and turning out to be just like his own father, then suffering the consequences by going down the same life path. The video ends with the slogan "Don't Suffer It, Change It".
3. Up the Junction, Squeeze
I got a job with Stanley
He said I'd come in handy
And started me on Monday
So I had a bath on Sunday
I worked eleven hours
And bought the girl some flowers
She said she'd seen a doctor
And nothing now could stop her
In two and a half minutes flat, Squeeze’s Up the Junction takes us from a euphoric first date to an acrimonious blended family, blighted by alcoholism. Also noticeable for its phenomenal deployment of half-rhymes.
4. Winter, The FallI’d just walked past the alcoholics dry-out house
The lawn was littered with cans of Barbican
There was a feminist’s Austin Maxi parked outside
With anti-nicotine anti-nuclear stickers on the side
On the inside and they didn't even smoke
Anyway two weeks before the mad kid had said to me
"I’ll take both of you on,
I’ll take both of you on"
Then he seemed the young one
He had a parka on and a black cardboard archbishop’s hat
With a green-fuzz skull and crossbones
He'd just got back from the backward kids party
Anyway then he seemed the young one
But now he looked like the victim of a pogrom
In the early ‘80s with songs like Winter (here), New Face In Hell, Jaw Bone and the Air Rifle, The NWRA, Prole Art Threat and Spectre vs Rector, Mark E Smith’s The Fall created an unparalleled run of actual short stories in a paranoid mash-up of M R James, H P Lovecraft, Philip K Dick, Wyndham Lewis and Arthur Machen. I especially like the no-compromise approach to cultural specificity.
5. Regulate, Warren G
They got guns to my head, I think I'm goin' down
I can't believe it's happenin' in my own town
If I had wings I would fly, let me contemplate
I glanced in the cut and I see my homie Nate
16 in the clip and one in the hole
Nate Dogg is about to make some bodies turn cold
Now they droppin' and yellin', it's a tad bit late
Nate Dogg and Warren G had to regulate
There is clearly a vast library of rap narratives, a subject I don’t feel remotely qualified to pontificate upon, but Warren G’s Regulate is an early prototype and remains powerful now.
6. The first big weekend, The Arab Strap
I couldn't sleep again so went up the park to look at the tomb, taking a detour through the playpark. To get in we had to climb over a ten-foot steel fence, which resulted in severe bruising of our hands, legs and groins, but we had a good laugh on the stuff, especially the tube-slide, which probably doubles up as a urinal for drunk teens. Then we walked through the woods to have a look at the tomb. It was a big disappointment, but the mist on the lake was cool.
Sunday afternoon we go up to John's with a lot of beer in time to watch the Simpsons. It was a really good episode about love always ending in tragedy except, of course, for Marge and Homer. It was quite moving at the end and to tell you the truth my eyes were a bit damp.
A glorious story of The First Big Weekend of summer by The Arab Strap remains utterly beguiling in its Glaswegian sense of time, place and character.
7. Fall of the Star High School Running Back, The Mountain Goats
By July
You'd made a whole bunch of brand new friends
People you used to look down on
And you'd figured out a way to make real money
Giving ends to your friends and it felt stupendous
Chrome spokes on your Japanese bike
But selling acid was a bad idea
And selling it to a cop was a worse one
And a new law said that seventeen year olds could do federal time
You were the first one
My friend Dave recently leant me a copy of John Darnielle’s novel, Devil House and the guy is a genuine novelist. This is from his band, The Mountain Goats’ song Fall of the Star High School Running Back.
8. Funeral, Phoebe Bridgers
I have a friend I call
When I've bored myself to tears
And we talk until we think we might just kill ourselves
But then we laugh until it disappears
And last night I blacked out in my car
And I woke up in my childhood bed
Wishin' I was someone else, feelin' sorry for myself
When I remembered someone's kid is dead
Funeral by Phoebe Bridgers is written by someone struggling with insomnia and bad dreams. It is revealed her friend has overdosed on heroin and that she is due to sing at the ceremony later that day. A devastating compressed story.
9. Two halves, Richard Dawson
Suddenly we find ourselves with a corner to defend
I am on the near post
Somehow it gets bundled underneath my feet
At the final whistle, I am inconsolable
I reckon dad is really disappointed with me
He tries his best to not show how he really feels
In the car home he says "Dust yourself down
Move on to next week's game
Shall we pick up a Chinese or would you rather fish and chips?"
Anyone who’s ever played sport as a kid, or been a parent watching on, will recognise the raw emotion in Two Halves by Richard Dawson.
Quarry, Wednesday
The Kletz brothers parents fight in the yard in their underwear
Bobby and Jimmy sit in the baby pool with lice in their hair
They have scoliosis from constant slumps in misery
Flat parts on their crew cuts from laying their heads on their knees
Karly Hartzman’s perceptive snapshots of life in Asheville, her North Carolina town remind me of Raymond Carver’s short stories. In her band Wednesday’s Quarry, each verse picks out the goings-on in one of the houses on her street.
(We then go into the interview with Sarah.)