My dear old mum was particularly keen on an abomination called "No Charge"...

There was a horrible American version which was a mid-70s hit for a country singer called JJ Barrie but she preferred a version by a Northern Irish singer called Bridie O'Gallagher! Horrible...

"...for the nine months I carried you, growing inside me there's... no charge. For the hopes and the fears, the worry and tears there's... no charge." Shudder

PS I rather liked old Tex Ritter's "Deck of cards"

...how haunting this stuff is. And you're right, it does strike you long before music does. I remember hearing this on the radio when I was very young and there's something about the way he speaks that has stayed with me ever since. The fact that it's corny and calculated doesn't make any difference.

In all it's gory (sic)

I actually quite liked this one for some reason, possibly the brass...however by now I was a nutty boy...but strangely i know all the words...

IF

I remember Deck of Cards and Teddy Bear vividly too.

Vietnam produced its fair share of this kind of thing, but Ballad of Two Brothers by Autry Inman probably trumped them all - and might just be the most ludicrous record I've ever heard. The ending is fantastic.

Excuse me, but I think I have something in my eye, etc.

I loved this kind of stuff as a nipper. I just liked Deck of Cards because my Grandad's record was by Wink Martindale, which is still a favourite name of mine. My desire to call our first born Wink was sadly vetoed. My favourite of all these story songs though is Big Bad John by Jimmy Dean. Just great, and contains the line 'a crashing blow from a huge right hand, sent a Louisiana fella to the promised land, Big John'. I still have the 7 inch single that I grew up with, even though it pre dates me by about 9 years. My kids can quote from it now - aaah, the circle of life.

By Les Crane, a sub-Patience Strong bit of preachy tweeness, a forerunner to Everybody's Free (To Wear Suncreen).

Then there's that 1960s US one An Open Letter To My Teenage Son, designed to make boy not go off the rails. If it was aimed at me then, however, it would have had the opposite effect.

I am a fan though of Frank Kelly's (latterly of Father Ted) Christmas Countdown, a 12 days of Christmas-themed series of letters at first thanking someone for their gifts then despairing as the gifts of six geese and 12 pipers or whatever get out of hand. Very funny.

I loved and still love 'Albert and the Lion' by the great Stanley Hollaway. It's a tiny bit subversive (for the time), funny and charming. A marvellous record.

I have been auditing my record collection for examples of this genre. The contemporary equivalents of these songs typically have narrated verses with the chorus being sung either by the lead singer or the backing vocalists. Tom Wait’s – Black Wings and Patti Smith’s - Piss Factory are pure spoken word performed against a musical backdrop and in my opinion don’t qualify.

Spoken songs also tend to have a strong narrative. I think this is why Nirvana’s – Downer, with its mumbled stream of consciousness verses doesn’t really fit the bill either and why Nada Surf’s – Popular teeters on the brink.

Of the songs that do tick the boxes, a prime recent example is Saint Etienne’s - Teenage Winter (which you can stream on their myspace site - www.myspace.com/saintetienne). This also imitates the genre’s tendency towards blatant emotional button pushing, with the choruses being progressively layered – the first sung by Sarah Cracknell with minimal accompaniment, the second adds some mournful clarinet and the third is draped with plaintive backing vocals.

Another relatively modern classic of the genre is Robbie Robertson’s – Somewhere Down The Crazy River.

Black Box Recorder trailed all three of their albums with spoken songs - The Facts of Life, The School Song and Child Psychology.

Another band who did this kind of thing a lot were Giant Sand (on Dreamville New Mexico for example). Then there is Piano Magic’s – No Closure and Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds’ – Dig Lazarus Dig!!!

Pulp - She’s a Lady (In this live performance Jarvis Cocker sings the verses a bit more than he does on the studio version).

Eels – Susan’s House

The strangest example of a modern spoken song must go to Cathal Coughlan for Eerin Go Braghag - the story of an Irishman who encounters a talking donkey with the head of a pig, while attempting an illegal border crossing from America to Mexico.

Victoria Williams played fast and loose with the genre on her early albums. She treated improvised, freeform compositions such as Happy, TC and Tarbelly and Featherfoot more like performances, with some lines spoken and some half sung. Listening to these songs the overall impression is of a 1940s Hollywood musical; you can imagine Williams in a gingham dress, cavorting around an indoor stage set made to look like rural Kansas.

I grew up in a house full of this stuff, The Bachelors, Val the Man, "Pub With No Beer", RTE Knorr Chicken Soup Hour etc. but my fave was "The Drunken Driver" by Ferlin Husky. Fantastically overwrought. Not on You Tube so Viacom must have clamed it for themselves.

He did whole album of schlocky spoken word epics (Just A Quiet Conversation), of which this, The Deal, is a pretty good example... (sorry I don't know how to embed mp3s
http://blogfiles.wfmu.org/DP/2007/08/243_12_Pat_Campbell_-_The_Deal.mp3

And here's Ken Nordine paying the rent with the Billy Vaughn orchestra...

Billy Braggs spoken word re-write of Don't walk away Renee.
Beautiful, touching, funny.

Camouflage/Stan Ridgway.
My random has been throwing this at me repeatedly of late. It is a cracking song.

'I saddled up and away I did go...'

I'll give Texas Radio and the big beat a shout. But not Horse latitudes.
Jerusalem tomorrow: Emmylou Harris.
Most of Andy White, to be fair. Searching for James Joyces Grave and Six string street would be my choice.
Beaks of Eagles: Beach Boys.
And Chestnut Mare: The Byrds, of course.
Theres more outthere than you might think.

... "Seymour - son of the hundred and forty second fastest gun in the west" ?
(Frequently played on Family Favourites, circa 1966).

I thought Ringo was just great.

I suppose a novelty spoken sung hybrid

Check out "Can I Smoke in Here ?" - a very funny spoken piece on his brilliant new "I Flathead" album.

... or could even find it online but I had a spoken word song called "Goodnight Sam." It was on a cassette I bought (years ago when cassettes used to be sold in shops) called The Worst Rock and Roll Songs Of All Time. I bought it because the Troggs tapes were featured.

Anyhow "Goodnight Sam" starts as a standard spoken word song; the speaker is a man bemoaning his lost love Sam, a woman he took for granted, abused and only upon her death does he realize how much he has loved and lost. But towards the end things change, "Sam" isn't a woman, she's America! The entire song has a new, completely unexpected twist!

You can only imagine how toe-curlingly awful this thing is, it ends with a bunch of children pledging their allegance to the flag, guns firing and the speaker yelling things like "If only I had the guts to take a stand and say America I love you" and things like that. I don't think it's a mickey take. It's too awful for that.

On their new album Phill Jupitus takes the lead in a re-working of Old Tige. A spoken word song in which a man returning from army service doesn't know his home area has been flooded by a dam. He's met by his old dog who leads him to safety in the dark. But guess what, the dog died years ago - he was rescued by 'the ghost of my dawg'.

I also wished I still had a 'spoken song' called "Geordie was a Club Man". Any suggestions about who the performer was anyone? The words start...

Geordie was a clubman a club man through and through
He liked his beer he supped his share of Federation brew
Of all the early drinkers George was always first
The steward said that Geordie had the most prodigious thirst

Geordie was a clubman he never missed a session
To help him pay his drinking debts his wife she took in washing
On Mondays at the tournament he’d sup twelve points or more
And six more on the bus back home and never ever swore

...and I have more verses

I'm attempting to find a record from anywhere up to 1985 with these sorts of songs on.
My grandma said it was a favourite, and I'm hoping to find it for her again one day.

Can anyone assist??? It was a compilation LP record.