“What A Successful Harvest This Was, Let’s Not Rape Anybody”
“The Sailor Who Died Of Old Age (Not Because Of A Weird Old-Age Curse Either, He Really Lived To A Naturally Old Age)”
“The Summer Nobody Died”
“This Lighthouse Isn’t Haunted”
“The Chimney That Wasn’t Stuffed With The Bodies Of Murdered Women”
“A List Of People Who Have Never Drowned”
“The Boy Who Joined A Guild And Worked Hard”
“Life As A Chimney Sweep Is Difficult But I’d Certainly Never Start Murdering Sex Workers Who Remind Me Of My Mother Just To Relieve The Stress”
“Let’s Not Strangle The Dauphin”
“The Landlord’s Daughter (‘s Name Was Penelope And She Was A Great Bookkeeper Who Eventually Married A Prosperous Merchant And They Had Four Healthy Children)”
“A Deer That Is Just A Deer, Not An Enchanted Prince That Will Leave You Pregnant With A Witch-Son”
“A Queen Not Doing Murder”
“You Can Keep Your Heart Inside Your Own Body”
“Everyone In This Mining Camp Respects One Another’s Boundaries”
“There Are No Evil Wizards In This Song, Just Hard-Working Mill Owners”
“I Love You And I Won’t Bayonet Your Brother”
“The Butcher Who Only Slaughtered Animals For Food, Never People”
“Let’s Raise This Baby Instead Of Smashing It On Some Cobblestones”
“Let’s Have A Picnic By The River, Then Not Drown Each Other In It”
“Society Is Functioning Pretty Well (Here In The Past Where We Live)”
“We Have Enough Food This Winter”
“Just An Ordinary Riverboat Captain Who’s Only Had Consensual Sex”
“Margaret, A Woman Who Is Alive And Reasonably Content”
Tags: decemberists album where nobody dies, music, the decemberists
Related Posts
Songs From A Neutral Milk Hotel Album That Does Not Reference The Holocaust
Songs You’ll Never Hear On A Sufjan Stevens Album 
Women In Eagles Songs, In Order Of Trustworthiness
Song Lyrics Improved By Replacing Proper Nouns With Cats 
Songs I Bet New York Times Columnists Sing To Themselves When They Are Alone
Introducing “Hollow Stars: A Tribute to Rory’s Heart”
The Marriage Performed by a Spectral Clergyman, Who Otherwise Plays No Significant Role in This Story, and You Wouldn’t Even Have Known He Was a Spectre If I Hadn’t Just Said It
Although This Raises a Few Interesting If Hypothetical Legal Questions, Which Will Be Explored In Detail Later.
The Spectral Clergyman (II)
The Barristers’ Debate
Exorcise, Or The Life Itinerant
We’re Joined by the Soul
The Marriage Performed by a Spectral Clergyman, Who Otherwise Plays No Significant Role in This Story, and You Wouldn't Even Have Known He Was a Spectre
*gazes at this list with wide-eyed awe at its perfection*
16 Military Wives (Are Interviewed on the Today Show and Make Some Good Points, Actually)
I Went To Sea And Managed To Come Back Unscathed
Upon the Balustrade (Is Where I Remained Content for Some Time)
There Are Absolutely No Wastrels In This Drain-Pipe
He Was Rich, She Was Poor, And Their Families Were Pretty Much Ok With It In The End Actually
We Went To Australia, But Like, Just On Vacation, Not Because We Are 18th Century British Rapists
Hey, This River Is Actually Not That Hard To Ford
We Got A Little Cold And Wet in the River And You Sneezed For A While But It Was a Cold Not Like Consumption Or Anything
“The Landlord’s Daughter (‘s Name Was Penelope And She Was A Great Bookkeeper Who Eventually Married A Prosperous Merchant And They Had Four Healthy Children)”
I … kind of want this to be a book I can read, especially if it includes lots of details about what people ate and how they gave birth.
At this very minute I am reading In for a Penny by Rose Lerner, which is about a Prosperous Merchant’s Daughter Whose Name Was Penelope And She Was A Great Bookkeeper And She Eventually Married A Broke Nobleman. It’s part of my Learn To Like Romance Novels campaign and it’s going well.
Oh boy, I think I am going to be reading this book!!!
Oh, Valencia! I Am So Glad That Your Brother Is Friendly and Reasonable!
I watched the short film for this song and it’s just a literal play by play of the song lyrics. Except they’re like, modern day mobsters or something. It’s too bad because Valencia is a very pretty name.
I love the video for the song precisely for that reason, and also for the reason that all the gangs are like the evil henchmen gangs from Mystery Men.
Mystery Men is the greatest thing ever. EVER.
“I shovel well. REALLY well.”
Also Janeane Garofalo is just the best ever in everything.
The Bagman’s Gambit (He Was Playing Chess Though, Not Doing Anything That Could Get Him Put In Soviet Prison)
This Ocean Is Full Of Salmon And Not Monsters
Your Mother Works As A Professor At A Respected University And Has Tenure And A High Salary
I Am A Rake, And You Used Me Cruelly, To Push The Fallen Leaves On The Lawn Into A Pile
It’s Been Three Months Since We Got Married And Nobody’s Committed Suicide At All
The Conservapedia page for the Decemberists has absolutely no mention of “The Bus Mall” and this remains my favorite thing about the Decemberists that has ever been.
Listening to ‘The Bus Mall’ now that I’ve moved to the East Coast just makes me ragingly homesick for Portland.
Yes I know it’s about sad street hustlers but it is also about Portland which makes it the best song
I didn’t even know such a thing as Conservapedia existed, much less the glory that is their Decemberists page. That may be the most delightful Internet thing I have seen in a very long time. THANK YOU!
Also, the Bus Mall omission is especially strange, given every other song is noted as having a “possible homosexual subtext.”
Is Conservapedia a real thing or is it satire? I can’t tell and either way it is amazing.
I always thought it was like a Tea Party version of Encyclopedia Dramatica.
It’s real, but is so plagued by deep-cover satirists that it might as well not be.
When asked whether he felt his music could corrupt those who listened to by glorifying rape, homicide and suicide, leader singer Colin Meloy said that he “didn’t care.” [Citation Needed]
Too good to be not-satire, right?
I Am A Rake, And You Used Me Cruelly, To Push The Fallen Leaves On The Lawn Into A Pile
i’m slain
but only metaphorically, because my life is not a decemberists song
Thank you for alerting me to the wacked out goodness of the Decemberists on conservapedia. Highlight of my liberal communistic day.
So, uh, this is a bit of a surprise. Because I was in high school when, signed in as ‘QSmith,’ I created the second paragraph of what is now the remarkably extensive Decemberists page on Conservapedia.
Thank you, for revealing to me what that seed blossomed into. Thank you so, so much.
The Gypsy Woman Who Was Not Interested In Men, For Murdering Or Otherwise
The Mallory Ortberg Story (well, except for the murdering)
…except for the murdering…that we know of
plausible deniability, that’s all we’re going for here
It literally hurts, how hard I’m holding back laughter.
We Both Go Down Together, But In An Oral Sex Way, Not A Suicide Pact Way
oh my god <3
Oh my GOD.
(consensually)
My New Stepfather Seemed A Little Shady At First, But Now We Get Along Just Fine And Go Boating Together, Also My Mother Is Alive Still So That’s Good
Margaret Explores Various Biomes And Learns Valuable Lessons About Ecology; She Does Not Encounter Any Witches Or Desperate Outlaws
What is even the point of that deer, then?
See, if only I’d had this list (and the attendant lyrics), I could’ve sung these songs to my friend’s infant instead of ‘Shankill Butchers’ (look, it sounds like a lullaby, it just happens to be a lullaby about murder) and not gotten banned from babysitting ever again!
Oh, hahaah, I have been looking forward to having kids PRECISELY so I can sing Shankill Butchers as a lullaby.
Oh, I’m planning to do the same thing (also ‘The Rake’s Song’); we can both raise the next generation on murder ballads because we’re awesome.
In my family it’s kind of a tradition; my mom sang “Nothing’s Gonna Harm You” from Sweeney Todd to me when I was a child, and I feel like I’d be doing her work a disservice by singing something happy.
(My favorite part of that song is that, for some reason I am utterly unable to pinpoint, in my imagination it is about a group of teenaged boys on bicycles, who are some kind of murder goblins and ride the through the town looking for children to abduct. What? Why would I think that’s what the song is about?)
Next time, try “Wooly Wolly Gong” by Tune Yards. More subtle menace, less overt threatening.
Next time, try “Wooly Wolly Gong” by Tune Yards. More subtle menace, less overt threatening.
Also, “The Legionnaire’s Feeling Pretty Good Actually And Not Particularly Disaffected Or Dying Of Thirst”
A Qing Empire Peasant’s Wife Who Had Her Own First Name And Could Walk Normally
June Hymn
The Mysterious Crane Woman That I Married And Never Found Out Was A Crane Woman Because I Actually Respected The Only Request She Ever Made
Geez, remind me to continue not listening to The Decemberists.
I’m an engine driver (on Thomas & Friends)
I’m a county lineman (I also lettered in track and joined the debate team)
I’m a money lender (and my rates are really pretty reasonable; feel free to shop around)
The Crane Wife Was Not At All A Victim of the Patriarchy Parts I, II, III, and IV
This is a pretty good article, but I have to admit that if the Decemberists stopped writing songs about people getting murdered, I probably wouldn’t like them very much anymore.
That Enormous Sea Creature is Undoubtedly Peaceful and Other Observations from My Beach Telescope on this Pleasant Day
The Perfect Crime Is Taking The Last Cookie Out of the Cookie Jar When No One Is Home
Here I Dreamt I Was an Architect So I Took as It as a Self-Affirming Sign from my Subconscious, Went to Back to School, and Now I’m Relatively Content and Have a Good Job.
My favorite band discussed by my favorite writer, what a nice start to my morning!
Since you’ve brought up butchering animals, here’s a very thoughtful piece I’ve just finished reading and thought it nice to share:
http://modernfarmer.com/2014/10/butchering-animal…
*I’m hopelessly dumb with computers and if my “link” doesn’t work, just go to Modern Farmer and tap “Farm Confessional”.
I’m A Responsible Single Dad Who Didn’t Get Killed By The Vengeful Ghosts Of My Kids Because I Didn’t Even Murder Any Of Them And They’re All Fine
didn’t murder ANY of them? there’s decent self restraint and then there’s taking things too far, sir.
Look, maybe YOU wanna play fast and loose with vengeful ghost kids but I’m gonna play it safe and be a Responsible Single Dad who mourns his late wife for a respectful period of time before he considers dating anyone else, much less abducting pregnant women.
This is the story of your red right ankle
And how the doctor cured your rash…
She’s A Fickle Little Twister With Your Cock in Her Kisser Because You Have A Mutually Consenting Sexual Relationship And You Will Reciprocate Upon the Completion of This Song
(this is my favourite post ever you guys)
Jesus Christ.
A bit obvious and I’m pretty sure there’s some gruesome death/murder in that tale.
“Colin Meloy Sings in Tune”
Burn! I feel like I would like the Decemberists so, so much better if Meloy’s voice wasn’t so very nasal.
The Gymnast, High Above The Ground, Gets A High Score For Her Routine And Her Proud Parents Take Her To Get Milkshakes After The Competition
If ever there was a reason for Toastfolk to start a band, it is this. Let us make this band!
We can practice at my house.
I was just thinking about how badly I want to write “The Summer that Nobody Died”! We can do this! I know all of the chords that the Decemberists use!
Do this, do this, and share it!
And the music genre will be Toastfolk!
“No Need to Break My Mom’s Ex’s Fingers Into Splinters as They Parted Amicably” (Consumption Certainly at No Point Involved)
Oh my god, you guys, I bask in the glory of your collective brilliance.
Hear All The Bombs Fade Away (repeat 11,000 times)
wait that one’s real
I Married a Bird, That Was A Pretty Odd Thing to Do, I Will Admit, But We Started an Amazing Tailoring Business and Our Kids are Adorable Like You Wouldn’t Believe, Here’s a Picture
This was the first song I sang to my twins in their little incubators in the hospital. None of the nurses got why I kept cackling; they presumaby thought it was the morphine.
‘My shins aren’t splintered, My limbs are intact, and by bones aren’t broken’
Having never listened to The Decemberists, my takeaway from this is that their songs are basically the footnotes from Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell.
Accurate. A+
Eli the Barrow Boy Lived a Long and Healthy Life, and When He Retired His Son Took Over the Barrow Business, and When Eli Died of Natural Causes He Stayed Dead And Was Remembered Fondly By His Loved Ones
Yeah, this. But I think their “Long Live the King” album was much better in that respect?
Not really. Burying Davy. E. Watson who died in the civil war…
“Nobody Ever Attacks the Odalisque or Her Baby In Fact She’s Not Even An Odalisque She Is A Sex Worker And That’s Totally Fine and Also People Respect Sex Workers and Pay Them Fairly and They Get Health Care Benefits and Vacation Time & Never Have To Answer Invasive ~Titillating~ Questions About Their Job”
“There Are No Evil Wizards In This Song”
Well that’s no fun.
“There Are No Evil Wizards In This Song, Just Hard-Working Mill Owners”
Oh, why not both?
“During the last century, but at what date cannot be determined, a saw-mill was erected in Poquanticut either by the first John Selee or by his son Nathan—more probably by the former, as the need of such a mill must have been very early felt in the locality where he lived. It was not far from the old Selee place and northeast of the house of John Selee now living. The location of it may still be seen. Nathan Selee sawed lumber there late in the century; and strange stories were told, and even believed by superstitious people, about the Devil or his imps running the mill at night, Nathan Selee being reported as knowing too much about magic arts, and being on too good terms for awhile with their author. But sawing logs by water-power on cold nights seems rather uncongenial work for his Satanic Majesty; it would be more easy to credit his running a steam saw-mill, with a blazing furnace. It is wiser to acquit Mr. Selee of any such questionable partnership, and to think that the rolling and buzzing of wheel and saw, which the belated passers-by supposed they heard, were all in their own brains, and might easily be accounted for by the strength and quantity of hard cider or New England rum they had taken. But it is said that more than one horseless Tam O’Shanter made hot speed past the old mill, and got home breathless with running and fright. This mill ceased doing service about fifty years ago.”
— History of the Town of Easton, Massachusetts by William L. Chaffin (1886), pg. 287-288
oh my god wizard mill owners
Steampunk wizard mill owners.
“It couldn’t have been the Devil, because it’s too cold and wet for the Devil to be abroad on a night like this.”
There is also a sign on the spot where the mill used to be:
The Hazards of Love (Like When Your Husband Leaves His Socks on the Floor not Like When He Drowns You Both While You’re Saying Your Vows)
The Rake’s Song About How He Learned From His Youthful Mistakes and Became A Semi-Respectable Member of Society Who Sometimes Fantasized About Giving His Kids An Extra Dose of Cold Medicine So They’d Sleep Through the Night But Never Ever Thought About Murdering Them.
Is there a parent alive who has not fantasised about that?
Um I mean, if they’re gonna sing “Ring Around the Rosy” to their kids, I think Shankill Butchers is fair game. Not to mention “Rockabye Baby” is pretty literally a threat to throw the thing out of a tree.
“Now That I’ve Found True Love, It’s a Good Thing No Wars Are Coming”
Your Mother Is Doing a Great Job Supporting Your Family With Her White-Collar Career
She Left Her Village for the Big City, Where She Got a Good Job and Was Successful and Respected by Her Peers.
Leslie Anne Levine Grows Up and Gets a Steady Office Job, Goes to Therapy Every Thursday for her Issues Surrounding Her Mother’s Abandonment
Billy Liar grew up in a loving household and was not made to feel ashamed of his very normal adolescent desires.
I played a soccer match, and I was really good!
Greatness. 😀
I Went Whale-Watching With My Stepfather and Bought A Souvenir Afterwards: There Were No Hard Feelings and Nobody Got Eaten
From my Own True Love (who should be home from his perfectly normal job any minute, I just love when he texts that he’s on his way because we have a loving relationship full of mutual respect)
Edward Snowden Gambit Declined (In Which The Protagonist Does Not Get His Whistle Blown In A Latrine In Return For Political Asylum And Goes On To Launch A Successful Range Of Woman’s Fragrances)
I totally sing Shankill Butchers to my kidlet! I don’t know what your friend was thinking. Kids love morbidity.
My entire family worked for the power company and we all retired with generous pensions
The Bachelor and the Bride (Had A Quirky But Traditional Wedding And Their Families Were Very Happy For Them)
The Well-Run Orphanage
The Missing Jacket (That Was Returned By A Kindly Stranger Who Found It in a Seat at the Stadium)
The Priest Who Took Confession and Thought Very Hard About What to Say That Week to Encourage Everyone
I would just like everyone to know that the Decemberists official page shared this on Facebook and that level of self-awareness makes my college-aged Decemberists-obsessed self very happy.
The Infanta (Turns Out To Be An Amazing Ruler)
The culling of a cockroach infestation (and not people because thats wrong)
Turns out Madeline never was at the bottom of the French Town Pond nor was she rudely abused in any shape or form on some Hesher’s joyride but out getting a tune up and I just totally forgot.
I Was Going to Pick Your Bike Up From the Bike Mechanic, But Then I Got High
I Was Meant for the Stage (Is What My Very Supportive Dad Tells All His Friends)
Let’s Do The Bagman’s Gambit Again (Can You Keep Wearing The Trenchcoat, the Safe Word Is “Greenery”)
I’m Really Sorry Steven
That I Forgot To Refill Your Bike’s Tires With Air
Otherwise Your Bike Is Fine Though
When the War Came (It Was Brief and With Minimal Civillian Casualties).
“Married at 21 Man Lives Happily Ever After with Wife and Angelic Children Whom He Would Never Dream of Murdering”
hahahahahaha best list EVER!
My Mother Was a Chinese Trapeze Artist In the Employ of Cirque du Soleil, But Despite That I’ve Had a Very Normal Childhood.
“We Both Go Down (To The Corner Store) Together”
"We Both Go Down (To The Corner Store) Together"
Our peaceful protest brought about meaningful political change
“I Have Never Strangled Anyone with My Long Hair of Burnished Gold”
“Neither of Us is a Vengeful Fairy”
What a Great World, What a Wonderful World
The Singer Addresses His Contented Audience, Because He Doesn't Sell Out
Philomena, A Well Respected Lady of Integrity
Till the Water's All Long Gone (Down the Bathtub Drain)
The Right Year (When We Were Very Happy Together)
Summersong
I Made It To The Soccer Semifinals But Then Messed Up But No One Judged Me Because It’s Just A Game
A Peaceful Future In Which I Would Be Greatly Saddened If Scores Of Innocents Died
Better Not Wake The Baby (But Don’t Gouge Your Eyes Either)
As for songs, you’re going to want something popular that most students at your school would know. The song should definitely be more vocal than instrumental, and easy to act out for you. It would also add to the humor quality if the song was already someone cheesy.
It doesn’t have to be cheesy in an openly comical way; it can be an extremely sentimental song you choose to poke fun at.
Guitar Building School Queensland
Guitar Building School
Guitar Building Course
Guitar Building School Australia
Guitar Making Course Australia