Speaking in Tongues: 5 Songs With Affecting Talk-Singing

This week's songs are from Purple Mountains, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Yard Act, Walter Martin, and Sylvan Esso.

Last week covered earnest songs about generosity. The songs were sincere in their lyrics, how they were recorded, and even who delivered them. Take one or two of those elements away, and is the message the same? Would it make you feel the same when you listen to it?

This week I’ll be focusing on the voice, and how impactful it can be in communicating emotion. To demonstrate just how much the human voice can stir up powerful emotions, we’ll focus on songs where the singers aren’t really singing at all. It’s not exactly spoken word, but no one is reaching for high notes, or wailing for something unattainable. It’s all conversational.

How can a song that is more spoken than sung be so affecting? Is it just the words? The timbre? The delivery? Is it mostly the music on which the voice is resting? I ask these questions because I genuinely can’t figure it out, even as I pick these songs apart. Maybe it’s the performer’s vulnerability, the hidden part of themselves that they are revealing to us in the song. Whatever it is, it’s intangible.

So here are 5 songs with emotionally moving talk-singing vocals.

“It’s kind of an angry thing to say. It can be seen as a positive. It could be something reassuring you’d say to a child, but it can also be said with incredible bitterness.” - Dave Berman

Purple Mountains - “Nights That Won’t Happen”

As quoted above, Dave Berman acknowledges there are multiple interpretations to this song. One is as a son morning the loss of his mother, and the prevailing narrative is that this is a song on an album-length suicide note. I choose the first interpretation and reject the second. It’s a simple but profound insight: “When the dying is finally done and all the suffering subsides, all the suffering is done by the one’s we leave behind.” Berman clearly believed in some type of afterlife, underscored by the spectral background voices and fluid instrumentation.” One might even call it “dreamy,” were it not for the fragile and vulnerable vocal performance. I sense no bitterness, just palpable grief from the slight quiver in his voice at times. That he can share it and express it in such a profound way is a gift for those he’s left behind.

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - “Wide Lovely Eyes”

“Now that we’re done with the heavy stuff…” is not a typical segue into Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, but you’re in luck! This is a Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds love song. They may be rare, but they are incredible. “Wide Lovely Eyes” is no exception. I’m not entirely sure what the instrumentation is on this that forms that kinetic bouncing sound, and frankly I don’t want to know. The subject of the song is a hypnotic mystery, so why not keep it that way for everything else? I’m also pretty sure whatever it is is frequently off tempo from the shakers in the back of the mix that kind of sound like crickets. As a singer, Cave can brood as demonic characters or writhe in histrionics, often to great effect. But here, his restraint pays off. For me, this song was a gateway deeper into Nick Cave’s catalogue beyond The Boatman’s Call, and since then he’s put out a streak of brilliant albums that are worth your time.

Yard Act - “100% Endurance”

Yard Act is a hard-to-classify band out of Leeds. Not quite post-punk, dance-punk, or any kind of punk aside from its attitude, it’s really something else altogether. Most of their songs include the talk-singing of non-sequiturs and surrealist stories such as the one featured here. The organ and bass, driven by the thrust of disco drums provide an almost-silly backdrop for singer James Smith to describe an existential epiphany he’s had brought on by the discovery of life on another planet—one where the aliens are just as clueless as people on Earth. Despite the absurdity, there’s a poignancy to the whole thing that really blows open in the last minute. The punchline, “It’s hippie bullshit, but it’s true” is a perfect way to sum up any epiphany I’ve experienced.

Walter Martin - “The Song is Never Done”

Walter Martin is the bassist from the Walkmen. In their hiatus he’s kept busy with solo albums often rooted in a loose theme like art history, or children’s music. There’s nobody that sounds like him, or doing what he’s doing. I find it charming as hell. Name another person who would put out a fake live album; or could sing a touching tune about early 20th century Scottish architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh. You can’t.

Martin’s voice is often conversational, warm, and slightly fragile. With “The Song is Never Done”, he starts in a mundane day-to-day task and then pivots into the existential before you even really notice. Despite what might seem like the least interesting element in the recording, the song was built around the drum track:

“I was working at Long Pond, a couple of years ago and I was sleeping in the studio. I got up early one morning and recorded the drums with no song in mind, just chopping along mindlessly. I always loved the sound, so I wrapped the whole song around that drum track.”

All of the other instruments are noodling around the same riff. It’s all somehow very moving and it has the same effect every time I listen to it. Like the Purple Mountains song above, Martin is able to connect the human experience to something mystical just beyond or grasp. And now that I’m listening for it, that chopping does have a good sound to it.

“The way that you get people to actually listen and understand what you’re trying to say is if you can figure out a way to be as articulate as possible in the quickest amount of time.” - Amelia Meath

Sylvan Esso - “It’s Playing Now” (Live from WITH LOVE)

Blips, glitches, and a humming synthesizer back up Amelia Meath’s occasionally distorted voice on the album version of “Make it Easy.” There’s a full band involved in this fantastic version filmed during the height of the pandemic, and renamed “It’s Playing Now” in the track list. The song is a plea for things to be simple and comfortable. But the poignancy is brought on from the use of perspective: the asker is an adult, fully aware that the simplicity of childhood is illusory. As such, they call on a familiar song to carry them back to a place of comfort. They make clear their belief that music can temporarily transport them and provide solace in tough times. Meath flatly repeats “it’s playing now” almost as a mantra while the band builds towards a wonderful catharsis. You may have to be in the right mood for it, but if there’s a lump in your throat as you listen, you’re not alone: multiple performers tear up throughout, pretty much proving the song’s point. It’s hippie bullshit, but it’s true.

Thanks for reading. Enjoy the listening.