I Wanna Tell You A Story: Great Storytelling Songs

Relatively few opportunities to squeeze it into WFC related posts but I have mentioned it before on one of the “**** stuff that’s happened to me” threads in the past. Not prepared to let my ex wife ruin my life so i just get on with it. I often forget I have/had kids !

 

Last one from me. Thanks @Moose for this thread, I've had great fun finding songs I've not listened to for sometime with only several posted here

Marissa Nadler - 'Daisy, Where Did You Go'
This is just the saddest song which to me describes the hours between the death of one conjoined twin, Daisy, before her sister Violet died some 2 to 4 days later in tragic circumstances. In fact their whole lives were a tragedy and I've included their story in the spoiler below so as not to take up the whole page

Spoiler: Lyrics

There are days that I feel
Something is really
Next to me on my arms
And inside the room
A cold wind does blow
There are two of us here that i know
Daisy where did you go?
You left first and I didn't know
How to unfold the gatekeepers light
I am stuck here in this plight of woe
I had a sister
And I had a home
With many chairs
And we earned our keep
In the circus deep and deflected all the stares
Daisy nothing could scare you
As you'd enter into the room
So why did they take you first
And leave me too soon?
Daisy where did you go
Daisy where did you go
With my phantom limbs and eerie hymns
There are two of us here that I know
Daisy where did you go
Daisy where did you go
With my phantom limbs and eerier hymns
There are two of us here that I know
Daisy where did you go
Daisy where did you go
With my phantom limbs and eerie hymns
There are two of us here that I know
Daisy where did you go
Daisy where did you go
With my phantom limbs and eerie hymns
There are two of us here that I know

Spoiler: The Story Of Daisy & Violet Hilton

Daisy and Violet Hilton were born in Brighton, England, on February 5th 1908. Their mother was Kate Skinner, an unmarried barmaid. The sisters were born joined by their hips and buttocks, they shared blood circulation and were fused at the pelvis but shared no major organs.

Skinner's boss, Mary Hilton, who helped in childbirth, saw commercial prospects in them, bought them from their mother and took them under her care. The midwife, 'Auntie Lou' as she ordered the girls to call her, and her husband, 'Sir' (they also had a daughter, Edith) taught them to sing, dance, and play the saxophone, piano and clarinet. They exploited the girls from the time they were 3 years old, making them tour circuses, fairs and side-shows, and kept all the money for themselves.

When Mary Hilton died, the twins were around 15 years old, her daughter and her husband took over. They kept the twins from public view for a while never letting the girls out of their sight and trained them in jazz music. Eventually the girls were taken from the circus shows and brought into vaudeville. When the girls were 23 years old, they were falsely named in a divorce case, so 'Sir' drove them to meet the lawyers, who instructed 'Sir' to step out of the room. The twins saw this as their chance.

The twins begged for help from the lawyer. They told him in their meeting that they were treated like slaves and begged him to help get them free of their "owners." In their own words, "We've been lonely, rich girls who were really paupers living in practical slavery." The lawyer took them on as clients, sneaked them out of their music lesson and smuggled them into a hotel. Again, in their own words, "We had dresses sent up, and selected no two alike, and all the silly hats we wanted. We could dress and act our age, and no longer be made up as children, with bows in our hair. I, Violet, had always wanted to drink a cocktail. I, Daisy, wanted to smoke a cigarette. We did."

They took Edith and 'Sir' to court and came away with their freedom and $100,000. They left the sideshows and went into vaudeville as "The Hilton Sisters' Revue". Daisy dyed her hair blonde and they began to wear different outfits so they could be told apart. Harry Houdini taught the girls to use their mind power to separate themselves emotionally, giving each of them an individuality. They had to be together physically, but could block the other out totally.

In 1926 Bob Hope formed an act called the Dancemedians with the Hilton Sisters, who had a tap dancing routine. In 1932 they appeared in the movie Freaks, which dared to pose the question of whether or not conjoined twins can have a love life. Over the coming decade, it would become quite clear that the answer was yes. They had numerous affairs with Violet, the more outgoing of the pair, having a string of celebrity boyfriends including the musician Blue Steel, boxer Harry Mason, and guitarist Don Galvan, before becoming engaged in 1933 to bandleader Maurice L. Lambert.

She and Lambert began a nationwide search for a clerk who would issue them a marriage license. Each of her requests - in 21 states - was denied. Unable to get married, Violet and Maurice split. Eventually, two years later she got married to James Walker 'Jim' Moore. It was a fake marriage arranged by the twins' agent. Daisy, too, got to experience wedded bliss when she married vaudeville dancer Harold Estep, stage name Buddy Sawyer, at Elmira, New York, on September 17, 1941. Their marriage lasted two weeks.

In 1951 they starred in Chained For Life, an exploitation film loosely based on their lives. The film was a colossal failure, banned in many places due to its lurid subject matter. Having spent nearly all of their fortune and struggling to survive, in 1955 the twins opened a hotdog stand, 'The Hilton Sisters' Snack Bar' in Miami, but the business failed in part due to the objections of fellow vendors who "didn't like a pair of freaks stealing their business."

Short on cash, having been unable to manage their showbusiness earnings responsibly, the sisters decided to bank on the cult revival of their first movie, Freaks. In 1962 they arranged to appear at a drive-in movie theatre in Charlotte, North Carolina. It was their last public appearance, their tour manager abandoned them there, and with no means of transportation or income, they were forced to take a job in a nearby grocery store where they checked and bagged groceries.

On January 4th 1969, after they failed to report to work, their boss called the police. The twins were found dead in their home, victims of the Hong Kong flu. Daisy and Violet were found dead lying on a heating grate on the hallway floor. They were probably trying to stay warm. According to a forensic investigation, Daisy died first. Violet died between two and four days later.

 

Post liked, but not in the literal sense…

It’s obviously upsetting that children who are now adults (?) can’t make decisions for themselves. I have no expertise/experience at all here but… maybe with time?

 

Go listen to Tonight’s the Night and D’ya Think I’m Sexy then tell me that never happened.

 

Ban?

 

Don’t know some of the tracks you have posted and will definitely catch up on them.

 

Objects In The Rear View Mirror - Meatloaf

 

I imagine at one point this would have been the most well known ‘story’ single.

 

At one time it was indeed the leader of the pack, but now it’s gone. The leader of the pack, but now it’s gone.

 

Brilliant. I wasn’t keen on Benny Hill, but Ernie was great.

Have you heard any music since 1973?

 

I was gonna put both of these into the criminal/punishment thread but wasn't sure whether they qualified.

 

Gallows pole more than Stairway, surely?

 

Always loved this song, even if a bit corny.

 

This one's quite dark:



Edit: therapy's cover version is lot clearer

 

A couple of old bubblegum songs that I remember for the story more than the music.

 

Baker Street
Lola

 

Boy named sue

 

Cindy Lauper, I drove all night

 

Story of what happened to a friend of the band visiting London in the early Eighties. He ended up concluding Belfast would be safer.

 

My parents had these two records and I played them a lot as a young kid, which probably explains why I'm so miserable now.

What's the old maxim? You're depressed so listen to depressing music or you listen to depressing music and become depressed.

 

Also from the Liege & Lief album by the Fairports is ‘Tam Lin’ which is another good story, albeit with heavy folklore overtones.

In a different vein, ‘Me & Bobby McGee’ part written by Kris Kristofferson is a good example. The versions by Janis Joplin and Grateful Dead are particularly fine.

 

I was today years old when I found out the Shangri-las were white

 

Imagine how I felt when I found about Vanilla Ice. It was so obvious!

 

Don’t do it Moose…

 

Has to be in the top ten.

 

Grim up North in New Model Army revenge/vigilante thriller The Hunt.

 

This phrase belongs in the Things You Hate thread.

 

Yeah it does. It hurt me to type it a bit.

 

My FIL was on the crew. He would have been on it for that voyage, but got called home because of a family medical emergency.

 

Classic Cher Gypsys, Tramps and Thieves.

 

Highly suspicious…..

 

Great song, probably his greatest - but I remember hearing the original version of his best known song (on an R4 thing a couple of years back) that was supposed to be on, his extremely (good) introspective album, "Nebraska":