Happy birthday to me! And happy Wednesday, I guess. I’m currently in the heart of Oklahoma, visiting family. Anyway, here’s a playlist of songs that feature talk singing.

1. Bob Dylan, “Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues”: A tongue in cheek look at the very real John Birch Society, an anti-communist group back in the ‘60s that was more than a little paranoid.

2. Beck, “Loser”: “In the time of chimpanzees, I was a monkey.” If that doesn’t speak to your soul, you probably weren’t in your teens in the ‘90s.

3. Butthole Surfers, “Pepper”: I’m not really sure what this song is about. A group of friends who all die horrible deaths? Maybe. Random word association? Far more likely.

4. Cake, “Never There”: The band that made the donkey call cool again.

5. Shawn Mullins, “Lullaby”: “She’d be a whole lot prettier if she’d smile once in a while” just comes off real creepy, Shawn. Maybe…maybe don’t say things like that in a song, yeah?

6. Soul Coughing, “Blame”: Sampling and bass & drums and repetitive lyrics, oh my.

7. Arlo Guthrie, “Alice’s Restaurant Massacre”: An 18 minute epic that tells the story of Thanksgiving, littering, getting drafted, and getting out of being drafted by telling the psychiatrist you can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant and then just walking out.

8. Ted Leo & the Pharmacists, “Bomb. Repeat. Bomb.”: A raucous, punky song that rips.

9. Van Morrison, “And the Healing has Begun”: The featured spoken-word section really makes the song drag, but it’s still a fun tune.

10. Harry Nilsson, “Everybody’s Talkin’”: There’s no talk-singing in this song, but the title sure fits.