New Song of the Day #40: Wet Leg "Catch These Fists"

The Isle of Wight duo return. A brief history of spoken word pop w/ a playlist.

I’m currently teaching a course at NYU on the artistry of Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson, so I’ve been thinking quite a bit about how words can be combined with music — sung words, but also spoken words, and those that split the difference.

The latter approach is sometimes tagged with the German terms sprechgesang or sprechstimme. Both mean “spoken singing,” more or less. And I was delighted — laughed out loud, in fact — when I saw Wet Leg listed in a Wikipedia entry alongside Alban Berg, Arnold Schoenberg and other artists known for using sprechgesang vocal style.

Anyway, Wet Leg has a new single! It’s a wickedly entertaining example of sprechgesang, as is the video.

Now I could’ve just jotted down addenda here re: the band’s UK roots on the Isle of Wight (and evident, admirable commitment to shooting all their videos there); their breakout singles “Chaise Longue,” “Angelika” and “Wet Dream” (see below); and their magnificently-evolving fashion sense. I could’ve then clicked the green button and gotten on with my day.

But, of course, I didn’t do that. I went down the rabbit hole, and spent hours researching/revisiting the work of musicians who decided that something nearer to colloquial speech was a better expressive route than conventional singing. There was Richard Wagner and his 19th century musikdrama operas. There was Berg’s Wozzeck and Schoenberg’s Pierrot lunaire in the 20th century. There’s myriad African griot styles. There’s church sermons and work songs. Talking blues: Chris Bouchillon, Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan. Jazz poetry. Caribbean toasting and African-American DJ jive-talking. There’s 50+ years of hip-hop.

It’s worth noting how many groundbreaking women artists have used the approach. Juliette Gréco, the iconic French chanteuse, voiced lyrics written by Jean-Paul Sartre and Jacques Prévert, the latter of whom penned the words for "Je suis comme je suis” (“I Am What I Am”), her 1945 signature.

From Greco — who was revered by Marianne Faithful — I revisited Lotte Lenya, who I recalled was a favorite of Patti Smith. This is from a vintage interview with her, conducted by David Fricke:

In a 1971 issue of Rolling Stone, you reviewed an album by the German actress and singer Lotte Lenya, and at the end you wrote, “It was hard for me to face up to being a girl. I thought girls were dumb. But Lotte Lenya showed me how high and low down you can shoot being a woman.”
She was pretty tough. I only saw rare footage of her doing “Pirate Jenny,” but she was pretty strong. And when I was a teenager, I listened to Nina Simone, another strong female. But in terms of women I could relate to, there weren’t too many. I related to Lotte Lenya, but I related more to Bob Dylan. I loved Billie Holiday, but as a performer I related more to Mick Jagger.

That led me back to the Patti Smith tribute concert I wrote about last month, and Karen O’s show-stopping performance.

Fast-forward to newer artists harnessing this approach. I discovered the band Dry Cleaning during the pandemic with their potent breakout "Scratchcard Lanyard." I later read that one of the songs that sent singer-talker-songwriter Florence Shaw off in her particular direction was Grace Jones’ sung-spoke 1980 cover of Chrissie Hynde & The Pretenders’ “Private Life.” And fyi, I’m delighted that Shaw just launched a Substack this month.

Special stuff

Dry Cleaning sent me back to earlier post-punk models, like the great Au Pairs.

Spoken word intonation in a song can be confrontational. It can be very punk. Isaac Wood, former vocalist of Black Country, New Road, told a journalist a while back:

There are people, understandably, who are cringed out by spoken-word stuff […] It’s too direct. They think it’s like an open mic slam poetry night or something. But if you are in any way inclined towards it, it is less easy to ignore, because there are conversational elements to it.

I could go on. But I’ve got other chores on my list today. So here’s the speak-singing playlist (multi-platform, per usual) that I’ve been working on, plus a few more video clips. Enjoy. — Will