seeing as how a recent thread got me thinking about Fairport, this is a cracker...

Craig does almost nothing BUT tell stories. Here's "Chillout Tent".

She don't wanna tell the doctor everything she's taken
The paramedics hovered over her like a sombre mourning family
They gave her activated charcoal and flooded her with saline.

Perfect.

(BTW, this is an all-too-rare example of a good fan-made video. It starts with a snatch of "Citrus", strangely, but the intended song kicks in a few seconds in.)

Yes, he could be a bit schmalzy, but he could write a life story into a short song, like 'Taxi', or this old favourite:

not the first bearded chap obviously

and he's a liar, liar....

is radio "funster" Adrian Juste at the end. In person he is even more 'look at me, wacky, wacky, wacky' than his radio schtick suggests.

but its nice to have it confirmed

Pre Matthew Bannister Radio 1 personified

Simply horrible.

Liam Clancy was the best story teller I have ever seen on a stage. Listen to his set-up on this great song. Some of you might know it by Steve Goodman or Tom Russell but for me this is the version.

A real cracker.

The Shangri-Las did a few beauties,
Leader of the Pack, Past Present Future, Train from Kansas City

And from Bobby Bare (I think)
Marge's at the Lincoln Park Inn

I heart story songs, me.

Couple in the next room bound to win a prize
they been going at it all night long
I'm trying to get some sleep
But these motel walls are cheap
Lincoln Duncan is my name and here's my song....

any excuse to post this and start blubbing

I don't know if being a novelist disqualifies one from this list but Willie Vlautin always tells a great story.

I was going to the Yukon Lounge.
I started hanging out with this girl there.
She said her and her husband had busted up.
She said she wasn't used to drinking
but I could tell she was.

(Richmond Fontaine - The Boyfriends)

Apologies for pasting all the lyrics but it's not on YouTube and not very well known - but to me, this is just gorgeous. Like a mass of regrets and sighing despondencies, echoed in the minimal arrangement, with some beautiful phased tremelo bits. And when she sings 'You got me cry in' over you' - her little tribute to the Big O - it can make grown men weep for their lost youth. It's rather unlike the other stuff she was doing at the time, a vivid, sweet little moment of teenage life. God I sound a prat. Anyway, I love this... (can you tell?!)

When I was young
I crashed the car
I tried to bend it back into shape
With a rake for a crowbar

I wasn't dumb
But I was so naive
I saw the signs
But I didn't believe them

Now it's dark
And I'm tired
All my messages got erased
And I don't know where my friends are

Tell me, who can I turn to when things are so blue?
You've got me crying over you

Dad was home
It was getting lighter
I knew he had to take it to work
In about a half an hour

I wasn't thinking clearly
It was like a panicking sweat gripped my body

And I was stuck on an island
On a cold November morning
Doing coke with Henry
And I totalled my car

Yes, I was stuck on an island
Wondering where my mind went
Getting a cold, wet shower
If I could just black out this hour
From time

Aloha, Doctor Phair...

Whoa oh oh oh Camouflage …

Listen up now and I'll tell you a story - how I met up with the Rose of Tralee....

A film inside a nine minute song.

When I first started posting on this board, there was a long, fascinating RT thread about this song, and about Anne Briggs.
So I'm sorry if this video is a little overfamiliar, but "Beeswing" is such a wonderfully evocative story song.

Enormously evocative and emotional ballad about love, death and a 1952 Vincent Black Lightning.

'I see angels and ariels in leather and chrome
Swooping down from heaven to carry me home'

Dixie Drug Store

It was muggy july around supper time
When I pulled into new orleans
I got dropped off at south rampart street
I was hungry for a plate of greens

I made my way down the banquette
Where I could see an open door
And overhead a sign made of painted pine read
The dixie drug store

Peppers and roots were hanging
From the rafters above
There were oils and sprays all on display
For money luck and for love

I reached down to pick one up
When a dark hand grabbed my arm
And before I could see just who it was
She said you don’t want that charm

The last man to walk that thing out of here
Just up and disappeared
Found his wallet and his wingtip shoes
Near a tombstone down in algiers

What you need my travelling friend
Is a place to wash your jeans
And I wouldn’t be the least surprised
If you were hungry for a plate of greens

She beckoned me on up the stairs
For she’d done made up her mind
Said take off your hat and kick off your boots
And leave your pride behind

She was turnin’ tricks and nothing clicked
And the room was black as pitch
She had me backed up against the wall
I was fumbling for the switch

I could hear her crack the shutters
As I felt a little draft
When she gave me a shove into the tub
And said it’s time to take your bath

I lay there in my stockinged feet
I was soaked from head to toe
At the same time down on rampart street
I heard the trumpet blow

Sparks started poppin’ from an old tin cup
Sitting on the window sill
The whole place smelled like matches
And onions on the grill

I was catchin’ cold and I told her so
As I let out a little cough
She told me since my pants were clean
Why don’t I just dry off

I found myself a little tea-towel
Wrapped it around my waist
I was standin’ there half naked
When I noticed we were face to face

And now it seemed the picture’s
Gettin’ pretty strange
Stripped bare in her chamber and
I hadn’t even asked her name

I started to inquire
She knocked me upside the head
My noggin felt on fire
As she pulled me into bed

You needn’t ask no questions
Of the things that don’t concern you
If you aren’t afraid of the fire son
Fire it won’t burn you

She took me down to a secret place
In the bayou of her blankets
She offered to share her bourbon
I thanked her then I drank it

Thru a small crack in the ceiling
Burst the louisiana moon
It shone down on our bodies
And we began to croon

Like a couple of coyotes
We were howling thru the night
And I swear they were a beatin’ those
Congo drums outside

I told her she was crazy
And she replied it’s true
And she finally introduced herself
As the famous marie laveau

I said now come on darlin’
She died a century ago
Don’t believe the paper she said
It simply isn’t so

I shot back that’s impossible
There ain’t a ghost of a chance
But I wouldn’t turn a pretty ghost down
If she asked me up to dance

We laughed until the mornin’
By then my pants had dried
I picked up my hat and pulled on my boots
And I gathered up my pride

I figured she had done stepped out
I didn’t see her anywhere
And I set out to find her
I headed on downstairs

Got down to the bottom
I couldn’t believe my eyes
Gone were all the bottles
And the remedy supplies

I shouted out for marie
I darted out the door
An old man on the wooden porch said
What you in there for

Son you got no business
The hoodoo store’s been closed
Long as I remember
A century I suppose

But mister I just spent the night
With a young gal named laveau
He said the widow paris
Done had a little laugh on you

I said you mean to tell me
That was the voodooin’
He nodded yes none other
The queen of new orleans

Richard Thompson - Galway to Graceland
Kate Rusby - My Young Man
But this is a favourite:

This is up there too:

Don't You Want Me - Human League
Camouflage - Stan Ridgway
Say Hello, Wave Goodbye - Soft Cell
Up the Junction - Squeeze

or even going underground

WARNING: Unadulterated folk ahoy!

Here's June Tabor demonstrating that with a voice like hers, any accompaniment is superfluous singing "Green Bushes" at the Albert Hall:

The late Mike Waterson wrote a few crackers. Here's Martin Carthy singing 'A Stitch in Time', complete with one of his semi-epic introductions:

And here's the man himself at one of this last gigs ("How're you doing Mike?" "Ah'm fucking dying") singing "The Cold Coast of Iceland":

Putnham County

Bob Dylan - Hurricane

McGarigle sisters - Dancer with Bruised Knees

All brilliant.

Warning: more unadulterated folk ahoy!

Here's Chris Wood doing "One In a Million", a 10-minute ballad of love in a chip shop, from his impeccable "The Lark Descending" album:

His Bobness: