Telling Your Band's Story in a Song

What was the first song in which a band told its own story?

The answer is found on three singles released in 1967. In April of that year, by sheer coincidence, the Mamas and the Papas came out with “Creeque Alley” (an a-side) and Paul Revere and the Raiders came out with “The Legend of Paul Revere” (the b-side of “Him or Me, What’s It Gonna Be”). Don’t ask me why, all of a sudden, two of America’s top rock acts decided to tell their stories in song--trust me, it hadn’t been done before. 

Well, actually, it had. In fact, way back in 1965, Van Morrison’s band Them recorded “The Story of Them” (part 1 and part 2), which, I have to warn you, is a total bore. But “The Story of Them” wasn’t released until September 1967 (again, as a 45-rpm single), five months after “Creeque Alley” and “The Legend of Paul Revere.”

"Creeque Alley" is fascinating, but it's not really a great song--there are way too many in-jokes for my taste, it's pretty cruel to Mama Cass, and it features one of the lamest flute solos I've ever heard. “The Legend of Paul Revere” is far better--I love the way they namecheck Dick Clark and then complain about how hectic their lives have become. As for “The Story of Them,” it was improvised in the studio, and it’s perhaps the closest a rock band has come to the stream-of-unconsciousness of Lightnin’ Hopkins (Hopkins used to sit down and sing for hours about whatever happened to be on his mind, which often wasn’t a whole lot).

These songs are one facet of a genre I’ve identified as autobiographical song. What I mean is not vague stuff like Hank Williams’s songs or Percy Sledge’s “When a Man Loves a Woman.” What I mean is a song that tells a detailed story that really happened to the singer. (The Barbarians’ terrific 1965 single “Moulty” would qualify, except that Moulty didn’t write it, and the Barbarians didn't actually play on the song.)

Van Morrison would soon become the king of autobiographical song, pop music’s very own Marcel Proust, revealing more about his childhood and early years than anyone else before or since. Whether anyone really cared about his childhood and early years is another matter. As for me, I love Astral Weeks, the crown jewel of autobiographical song, but I get more joy from wacky lines like “The light is on the left side of your head” (from “Ballerina”) than from learning about Van’s younger days.

Now outside of a few blues songs, there hadn’t been much autobiography in the 1960s prior to the release of these singles. The only songs I can think of are the Beatles’ “Norwegian Wood” and Bob Dylan’s “Talking New York” and “Ballad in Plain D” (far from his best songs). Arlo Guthrie’s “Alice’s Restaurant” and Bobbie Gentry’s “Chickasaw County Child” were also released in 1967, though I doubt the Mamas and the Papas or Paul Revere had heard either of them by the time they recorded their songs. Most of the great autobiographical songs of the 1960s—the Beatles’ “Ballad of John and Yoko,” Astral Weeks, and so on—would come a wee bit later.

Autobiography has become something of a requirement in hit songs these days—just think of Ashlee Simpson’s albums Autobiography and I Am Me, or The Diary of Alicia Keys, or Usher’s Confessions. But back then it was damn hard to find.

In 1978, Freddy Weller, a country singer who had spent four years in Paul Revere’s band, released a song called “The Legend of Paul Revere and the Raiders,” one of my favorite autobiographical songs. Without hardly trying, Weller delivers a beautiful and ultra-succinct account of what it was like to be in a world-famous band and what happened when the band broke up. He hints that he wishes he were known more for his own career—which was pretty substantial—than for having once been a member of the band, but he seems pretty happy with the way things turned out. Could this be the best song ever about no longer being in a famous rock’n’roll band? It certainly beats John Lennon’s “How Do You Sleep.” (Van Morrison probably wrote a song about not being in Them anymore, but don’t ask me if I care.)

Here's a nice website devoted to the song “Creeque Alley.”

And here's  an invaluable list of band theme songs, though you won’t find Freddy Weller’s there.

—Yuval

Comments

[mcc]

Yuval, I have a feeling you might like my friend Sport Murphy's sort of unheralded album _Uncle_ (http://www.killrockstars.com/press/383/ ). autobiographical in the extreme and, in a way, also about 'the news' (9/11, but, more relevantly, his nephew's death on 9/11) -- but also integrating 'documentary' (in the form of childhood and family tape recordings) -- it's like little other music I've heard; but it's hard to tell if a personal acquaintance with the artist is a minor prerequisite (these explanations (http://www.killrockstars.com/press/383/comments.html ) may help). I'll try to get you a copy..

mc

[hank]

remember "ballad of the gizmos" ?

[andy]

i just wanted to put in a plug for my favorite story-of-the-band song, saturday gigs by mott the hoople.

and to say that i loved the paul revere song. thanks for giving it to us.

[Yuval Taylor]

Here's an e-mailed conversation with Eric Weisbard on this topic:

Eric: Did the Monkeys theme song precede the other “autobiographical” songs? Not that they wrote it, of course, just wondering if that’s a piece of the story there.

Yuval: Yes, it did--it was a Boyce and Hart number, came out in 1966. But it didn't tell the band's story at all, it just said, "Hey, we're the Monkees, come see us sing and play." Oh, and "we're the young generation, and we've got something to say." Of course, that last bit was a white lie.

But you're right--maybe it was part of the story, and I probably should have mentioned it in my post. It could very well be that the Mamas and the Papas and Paul Revere and the Raiders decided to write theme songs with more to them than the Monkees theme. Them's song, though, predates the Monkees in terms of recording date. And so does "Moulty."

Eric: I think that there was this quasi-cartoonish sense of the rock group as mythical media beings, likely started by A Hard Day’s Night, but what would I know, wasn’t even born then. In general, I suspect, a movie influencing a TV show influencing a set of pop songs is pretty typical cultural transmission, leaping across formal boundaries but all part of the same general “conversation.”

[Hugh Barker]

Reading Eric and Yuval's conversation I was thinking about the difference between a band doing an autobiographical song and a song that simply announces the band (as in 'We Are Motorhead', or Madness covering 'Madness').

Looking at the list of band theme songs, the latter approach is more common, and tends to come from bands that don't mind being seen as a bit preposterous (rather than bands who are bothered about authenticity). Because writing a song about how great your band are is a bit of an embarrassing thing to do - The Monkees were kind of lucky in having songwriters to do it for them (possibly before the band had even been chosen...?) I can't really imagine 'Hey, Hey we're REM' getting written, though you never know.

Band themes like 'Ant Music' or 'Monktime' seem designed to kick off a gig's setlist by 'introducing the band' rather than anything more personal. I can't immediately think of any examples, but wouldn't this kind of song have been performed by showbands in the 1950s or earlier? (I mean band themes rather than 'story of the band' songs.)

[Yuval Taylor]

Yes, indeed, band theme songs far pre-date rock'n'roll. There's a nice one here: http://redhotjazz.com/Songs/misc/jtblues.ram (it's "Jasper Taylor Blues" by the Original Washboard Band with Jasper Taylor, 1928).

[Carl]

I mention an even earlier example in my post here:

http://www.zoilus.com/documents//2007/001026.php