Songs with Plot Bunnies

Inspired by this interesting thread, it's occurred to me that there are a number of songs out there that contain potential plot bunnies for erotic fiction. (I didn't contribute to the Silent Hill thread because the song puts me in mind of a woman returning home to confront a cult that abused her as a child... which I think is sort of maybe the actual plot of Silent Hill. ) This isn't in the vein of "someone please write these stories" so much as it is a thread for storing potential ideas for anyone's use.

I've been listening to a lot of Zammuto, who has a couple songs that are evocative in this vein. Especially "Henry Lee":

She leaned against the wall / He came in for a kiss
In her hand she held a pen knife / stuck between his ribs

Some of you are taken by his cold white hands
Some of you are taken by his feet
Flowin' in the deep deep well where
He should be / Henry Lee (x 2)

Come down come down now / Alight upon my knee
A man who killed his own true lover / Killed a little bird like me

If I had my bend and bow there / If I had my arrow and my string
I'd shoot you through your soul, and your yearnings
Would be in vain (x4)

Lie there lie there lie there / 'Til the flesh melts off of your bones
The shallows don't know you anymore / Now the crabs crawl out of your skull

He should be / Henry Lee

I originally thought this was about maybe-serial killer and notorious mythomaniac Henry Lee Lucas, but it's actually a rewriting of the old traditional Henry Lee. In Zammuto's hands it's a murder ballad that puts one -- or at least puts me -- in mind of the Erotic Horror genre. He makes it considerably more ambiguous here than in the original song exactly who is killing whom, when and why, so there are a number of directions to take it.

(I kind of see a temporally disjointed narrative going on, with Henry Lee being lured in and slain by a beautiful woman in the first verse -- and left to rot in the final verse -- for the things he himself has done, perhaps to friends or relatives of hers, in the middle verses. But who knows.)

Another one that kind of speaks to me is "Good Graces," which lyrically seems a lot more straightforward:

When I first saw my love / She had her shoes in her hands
Bare feet on the floor (oh yeah) / I've got to get inside her world

Got to get inside / Get inside / Get inside her / Good graces (x 2)

I wish I was a cherry tree
Every time she'd pass she'd take a few of me
Got to get inside her flower
Old Man you're gonna lose your daughter

Got to get inside / Get inside / Get inside her / Good graces (x 2)

Give me roses while I live / If it's me that you adore
Useless are the flowers that you give / When on Earth we meet no more

This one's a lot more about the "feel" of the song, which is both erotic and actually quite creepy -- suggestive that the simple expressions of yearning going on are indicative of a darker, possibly stalkerish obsession that spins out from a something as simple as a single glimpse of a woman. (Or you know, maybe it's just me. ) So again, possibilities for Erotic Horror as well as other genres that could involve obsessive, not-necessarily-requited love. You can listen to it here to see what I mean.

I'll add examples as I think of them. Anyone who wants to toss in some of their own please do so.

Warren Zevon had several that might stimulate some ideas.

Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner

Send Lawyers, Guns and Money

Tenderness on the Block

There are several more if you look.

I have a long list of traditional, vintage and not-so-old songs that beg to be overwritten. So far I've only done Jenny Be Fair. Maybe someday I'll do I Thought The Wreck Was Over (But Here She Comes Again) and (It Ain't No Sin To Take Off Your Skin And) Dance Around In Your Bones and You Done Walked On My Heart (And You Stomped That Sucker Flat). Even a little BDSM there, eh?

I was a songwriter long before I spewed fiction; a very very few of my songs are posted here as Poetry. Some call out for story expansion, like maybe Julia's Escape. Yeah, I need to mine my old material.

I'm quite fond of this version of "Jenny Be Fair":

Jenny be fair, and Jenny be fine, and wants me for to wed,
And I would marry Jenny, but my father up and said,
"I hate to tell you something, son, you maybe never knew,
But Jenny's voted Democrat since Nineteen-Eighty-Two."

Well, Julie be fair, and Julie be fine, and wants me for to wed,
And I would marry Julie, but my father up and said,
"Now listen, boy, a girl's a toy for cold and lonely nights,
And Julie's worked the last decade for women's' equal rights."

Well, Mary is fair, and Mary is fine, and wants to marry me,
But Father said, "You're out of your head, she's not the girl for thee,
She works in an abortion clinic, lives with pain and strife,
And might get blown to smithereens one night by Right to Life."

Well, Rachel is cute, and thinks of me as husband-on-the-hoof,
But when my father heard of it, he up and hit the roof:
"How can you think to marry her? My God, the girl's a Jew!"
I didn't mention Stephanie, who's pagan through and through.

Fine! Gail is cute, and Gail is tough, and wants to be my pal.
But Dad said, "Marry her if you must, but don't befriend a gal!"
I tried to tell him Gail does not want to marry me,
But Gail told him better than I -- best two falls out of three.

Well, every time a woman seems to be the one for me,
My father blows it all to Hell with his philosophy,
But I prefer my lady friends, and they have much more class,
So I'll have an affair with whomever I care, and Dad can kiss my ass.

Anyway, back to the plot bunnies. This is an obvious one, but also an ambitious one, from Leonard Cohen -- a complicated and tantalizingly ambiguous narrative of a bizarre love triangle that could be strung out into a pretty epic tale of... BDSM? Mind Control? Other? I'm sure there are lots of angles to take, pretty much a whole colony of plot bunnies in here:

Master Song

I believe that you heard your master sing / when I was sick in bed.
I suppose that he told you everything / that I keep locked away in my head.
Your master took you travelling, / well at least that's what you said.
And now do you come back to bring your prisoner
wine and bread?

You met him at some temple, / where they take your clothes at the door.
He was just a numberless man in a chair / who'd just come back from the war.
And you wrap up his tired face in your hair / and he hands you the apple core.
Then he touches your lips now so suddenly bare / of all the kisses we put on
some time before.

And he gave you a German Shepherd to walk / with a collar of leather and nails,
and he never once made you explain or talk / about all of the little details,
such as who had a word and who had a rock, / and who had you through the mails.
Now your love is a secret all over the block, / and it never stops not even when
your master fails.

And he took you up in his aeroplane, / which he flew without any hands,
and you cruised above the ribbons of rain / that drove the crowd from the stands.
Then he killed the lights in a lonely Lane / and, an ape with angel glands,
erased the final wisps of pain with the music of
rubber bands.

And now I hear your master sing, / you kneel for him to come.
His body is a golden string / that your body is hanging from.
His body is a golden string, / my body has grown numb.
Oh now you hear your master sing, your shirt
is all undone.

And will you kneel beside this bed / that we polished so long ago,
before your master chose instead / to make my bed of snow?
Your eyes are wild and your knuckles are red / and you're speaking far too low.
No I can't make out what your master said before
he made you go.

Then I think you're playing far too rough / for a lady who's been to the moon;
I've lain by this window long enough / to get used to an empty room.
And your love is some dust in an old man's cough / who is tapping his foot to a tune,
and your thighs are a ruin, you want too much, / let's say you came back
some time too soon.

I loved your master perfectly / I taught him all that he knew.
He was starving in some deep mystery / like a man who is sure what is true.
And I sent you to him with my guarantee / I could teach him something new,
and I taught him how you would long for me / no matter what he said no matter
what you'd do.

I believe that you heard your master sing / while I was sick in bed,
I'm sure that he told you everything / I must keep locked away in my head.
Your master took you travelling, / well at least that's what you said,
And now do you come back to bring your prisoner
wine and bread?

CyranoJ said:

I'm quite fond of this version of "Jenny Be Fair":

Click to expand...

Quite good. It's an interesting Erotic Couplings bunny.

I always thought "Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree" was a good bunny for an erotic story. What if it isn't love that he is looking for, but rather he wonders if his old freaky sex partner is still into the sort of things they used to do together? What would he ask her to tie around the Oak Tree as his signal?

In a similar seventies vein, "The Pina Colada Song" has lots of potential for being kinked up.

They may be silly, but Birthday by Katy Perry and big girls don't cry by fergie are full of plot bunnies for some reason.

Yeah, there are lots of Perry songs like that. I've got all kinds of respect for Katy Perry, really. She's mastered the art of putting a bright, wholesome-looking wrapper around lots of wink-wink nudge-nudge naughty sexual content and teasing. Not an easy balancing act. (And she's a more genuinely talented singer than she normally gets credit for, too.)

Never heard that Fergie song. Hmmm.

Plenty of country songs for plot bunnies. All those about cheating, drinking, gambling, losing, dying -- not to mention ghost hitchhikers and general melancholy. Especially older 'classic' C&W, from the Carters and Hank Williams to Kenny Rogers ('Ruby', 'Lucille', etc). The drama just keeps on comin'. The bunnies just keep on hoppin'.

Quite so. Or there's the Dolly Parton classic Jolene (the Miley Cyrus version, just for the hell of it).

Some good contemporary (non-Nashville) country for that, too. Over The Rhine is pretty great for evocative songs, like the elliptical, ambiguous tale of late-teenaged debauchery and regret -- and general small-town malaise -- hinted at in Ohio.

Someone has to have written a story on LitE based on The Demon Lover by now, right? Or Bruton Town?

CyranoJ said:

Quite so. Or there's the Dolly Parton classic Jolene (the Miley Cyrus version, just for the hell of it).

Some good contemporary (non-Nashville) country for that, too. Over The Rhine is pretty great for evocative songs, like the elliptical, ambiguous tale of late-teenaged debauchery and regret -- and general small-town malaise -- hinted at in Ohio.

Click to expand...

I don't have the link but there's a video of Jolene slowed way down...sounds even better. Brilliant.

The Nat Lungley version, maybe? Her voice is pretty great for it.

And then there's Sand or Some Velvet Morning by Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra. Or most especially Summer Wine:

She:
Strawberries, cherries and an angel's kiss in spring
My summer wine is really made from all these things

He:
I walked in town on silver spurs that jingled to
A song that I had only sang to just a few
She saw my silver spurs and said let's pass some time
And I will give to you summer wine
Ohh, summer wine

She:
Strawberries, cherries and an angel's kiss in spring
My summer wine is really made from all these things
Take off your silver spurs and help me pass the time
And I will give to you summer wine
Ohh, summer wine

He:
My eyes grew heavy and my lips they could not speak
I tried to get up but I couldn't find my feet
She reassured me with an unfamiliar line
And then she gave to me more summer wine
Ohh, summer wine

She:
Strawberries, cherries and an angel's kiss in spring
My summer wine is really made from all these things
Take off your silver spurs and help me pass the time
And I will give to you summer wine
Mmm, summer wine

He:
When I woke up the sun was shining in my eyes
My silver spurs were gone, my head felt twice its size
She took my silver spurs, a dollar and a dime
And left me cravin' for more summer wine
Ohh, summer wine

She:
Strawberries, cherries and an angel's kiss in spring
My summer wine is really made from all these things
Take off your silver spurs and help me pass the time
And I will give to you my summer wine

CyranoJ said:

And then there's Sand or Some Velvet Morning by Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra. Or most especially Summer Wine

Click to expand...

If you're going all Nancy Sinatra on us (she wore those boots because she didn't like how her legs looked) you should focus on Something Stupid a.k.a The Incest Song -- a love duet with her father Frank. And then I go and spoil it all by saying something stupid like "I love you" A hot little bunny there, eh?

As for Lee Hazelwood, he's in a tradition of singing DJ's going back to The Big Bopper, BB King, Sly Stone, and Willie Nelson. Hazelwood was responsible for Dwayne Eddy's slow twanging guitar. But I digress.

Ohh, nice catch on the daddy-daughter duet.

Didn't know that about Hazlewood, actually, but it makes sense now you mention it.