Songs Where Someone Dies At The End

Writers are unique creatures. Most of them will tell you that their ability is like a little machine in their head, or perhaps a writing gremlin that can occasionally take days off. But when the gremlin is working, it's as if the words just can't stop flowing — and if all the gremlin wants to write is Orange is the New Black fan fiction, well, the writer probably doesn't have much say in the matter.

That is to say that most writers have areas of specialty, and in particular, there are two very different skill sets involved between writing songs and writing stories. Not all songwriters have a firm grasp of narrative, and most prose authors probably couldn't write lyrics if their lives depended on it. But the authors of these songs are literarily ambidextrous, if you will — and their creations function just as effectively as complete, compelling narratives as they do killer pop tunes. Emphasis on the "killer," because in these stories (as in most of the best ones), someone buys the farm at the end.

KRS-One has never exactly been a household name, but in the Hip-Hop world, he gets more respect than the guy who invented Cristal. As a member of Bronx crew Boogie Down Productions, he helped pioneer a rapid-fire, technical rhyming style, and his freestyle skills are the stuff of legend. But his mastery of the rap narrative doesn't get discussed nearly as much as it should, as he's displayed his penchant for crafting vivid, cinematic narratives ever since the beginning of his career with lively tunes like "9MM Goes Bang" and "P is Free."

"Can't Stop, Won't Stop" is a deep cut from his gold-selling 1997 effort I Got Next, and it's his leanest and meanest narrative. In it, a low-level weed dealer who is constantly on the lookout for undercover cops accidentally kills three of them during a raid. After his arrest, he discovers that they were crooked, and he's being forced to become an unwilling participant in a federal investigation. He's set up in a new weed spot by the feds, who promptly rescue him from an attempted robbery — at which point the poor sap finally lets his guard down, at the precise wrong time: "Suddenly a sense of trust came over me / I thought to myself 'Well, soon I'll be free' / But as I turned around I heard the gun go click / I said 'Wait' / But it was too late." Actually, he could and did stop; all it took was a bullet.

It seems like AC/DC has been one of the world's top-selling bands forever, but before 1980's Back in Black — their first release with new vocalist Brian Johnson after the death of original lead singer Bon Scott — few people in the U.S. even knew who they were. After that record sold a gazillion copies, label Atlantic started pumping everything they could think of from the band's vault into the States, including their classic 1976 album Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap (not released stateside until 1981) and a few outtakes cobbled together for the five-song EP '74 Jailbreak. Its title track revealed that Scott had not been just an awesome singer, but a hell of a storyteller as well.

The tune's narrator recalls the story of "a friend of mine on murder / And the judge's gavel fell / Jury found him guilty / Gave him sixteen years in hell." It seems the guy had caught his wife fooling around with another man, and left the poor chap "lying on the ground / With a hole in his body / Where his life had been." The guy vows to regain his freedom, and in the chaos of a prison riot, he makes it out ... "with a bullet in his back!" Pretty harsh, but it would've been a bit less dramatic if he had served his time, gotten out on parole, and gotten a job at the local grocery store.

For a poppy country band made up of a trio of genial ... well, chicks, the Dixie Chicks have never shied away from provocation. They famously ticked off a large portion of their audience by talking smack about then-president George W. Bush at a concert, then responded to the inevitable death threats by releasing a song basically telling anyone who didn't like it what they could go do with themselves. In case you're wondering what their stance is on male-on-female domestic violence, suffice to say that they are not in favor. For evidence, look no further than "Goodbye Earl," a cheerful little tune about a woman who helps her friend murder her abusive husband.

Lead singer Natalie Maines regales the listener with the story of Mary Anne and Wanda, friends since their high school days. After graduation, "Wanda looked all around this town / And all she found was Earl." Wanda's lout of a husband immediately begins abusing her, putting her in intensive care and ignoring restraining orders, until Mary Anne offers up a solution: a poisoned batch of black-eyed peas. After some jovial taunting ("Ain't it dark wrapped up in that tarp, Earl?") it's revealed that nobody ever heard from Earl again, nor cared what happened to him. The song ends with a suggestion that Earl might like to go for a ride in the trunk, but he was clearly in no condition to answer.

Boots Riley finally revealed himself to the world as a master storyteller with his debut feature film Sorry to Bother You, but fans of his rap group The Coup have known it for years. A cut from 1998's Steal This Album, "Me and Jesus the Pimp in a '79 Granada Last Night" has a title as unwieldy as its seven-minute-plus length, ensuring that it would get no airplay — which is a crime because it's one of the greatest rap narratives ever.

The narrator explains the history of the complicated relationship between himself and his father figure ("His name was Hay-soos, but his pimp name was Jesus"), who is out of jail after doing time for murder ("Fifteen years, but it seemed like a century"). Through flashbacks, it's revealed that Jesus killed the narrator's prostitute mother, and that as an adolescent the narrator had written letters of forgiveness and reconciliation to the pimp in prison. As they drive around town on a cold and rainy night in the present day, it becomes clear that the narrator has plans far beyond reconciliation, and as he "pull[s] into a vacant lot, the road to recovery," he grabs a gun and spits the last piece of game Jesus will ever hear. It's a masterful, spellbinding piece of storytelling as compelling as anything Riley is ever likely to put up onscreen, and proof that you can't judge a song by its unbelievably silly title.

Everybody loves Weird Al Yankovic — there's probably some kind of national law. But Al's biggest fans know that, despite the fact that he seems like the nicest guy in the world, there is a thick dark streak underpinning his humor. Every once in awhile, this streak can come bubbling to the surface, and the results can be every bit as disturbing as they are hilarious.

"I Remember Larry," a deep cut from 1996's Bad Hair Day, is a prime example. Over an uptempo, new wave-y track, Al waxes nostalgic about Larry, "the neighborhood clown," and all the increasingly cruel pranks he used to pull. "All those wedgies he gave, all the shoestrings he tied / All the brownies he made with the Ex-Lax inside ... Remember when he cut my car in half? / Well, he really got me good that time!" The chorus seems just a bit more sarcastic than nostalgic ("Boy, what a joker / What a funny, funny guy"), and the final verse reveals that the narrator "dragged him by his ankles to the middle of the forest / and stuffed him in a big plastic bag." Al winds up by musing, "If the cops ever find him, who knows what they'll say / But I'm sure if ol' Lar were still with us today / He'd have to agree with me it was a pretty good gag." Don't get on Weird Al's bad side.