Not literally, you don’t have to send me in a story you wrote.  Well, I mean you could, but that’s not the point of this post.  I’m not even talking about a normal story.  I should start to explain.

This past Tuesday I purchased Drive-By Trucker’s new album ‘The Big To Do.’  This post isn’t a review of the album, nor is it to discuss my love of the Truckers, I already did that here.  What I want to talk about here is my love of music that tells a story.  I think that’s why I don’t listen to a lot of Top 40 type stuff.  I feel like most of that has gone the way of fluff, fluff is always an easier sell than something that can challenge you and make you think.  I’m not saying that is always bad, sometimes I enjoy some fluff myself, but as a whole music I truly love has some kind of story to tell.  More of a story than some girl/boy who is the outcast/musician but loves some football player/homecoming queen but they just don’t know it.  That’s been done.  I want something new.

Like on ‘The Big To Do’ there is a song called ‘The Wig He Made Her Wear.’  It is about a town minister who is found murdered and it was his wife that did the slaying.  Mostly because the dude was a sexual deviant who abused is wife in weird ways.  Depressing… yes, disturbing… yes, interesting… totally yes.  The Truckers have a ton of great songs with thought-provoking stories.  Hell, their album ‘Decoration Day’ is all about consequences of actions.  From a story of the only people currently in jail for incest to a pair of songs about a friend of the band who had committed suicide.

Most of my truly favorite albums are chock-full of stories, not just songs.  ‘Wish You Were Here’ is all about Pink Floyd’s original guitarist Syd Barrett and is descent into drug-fueled madness as well as the pitfalls of corporate music.  I can listen to that album over and over again.  Muse’s latest album is all about a 1984 type future and the people who rebel against it.  Some of my favorite Dylan songs are ones that are crazy complicated stories, go check out the song ‘Brownsville Girl’ to hear what I am talking about.

Music can be used for some many different things.  At the base level it is there to entertain, and I feel like a lot of current popular music does that quite well.  However, I think that is the extent of it.  They won’t be the songs that last for the next 20 years.  I think what more bands need to remember that music can be used to tell a story, one that the audience wants to hear.  So in closing, enjoy all types of music, just remember to support those that have turned music into an artform, they are the ones we want to stick around to keep us enthralled with what they have to say.

See you on the other side – Derek