Bardic songs in real life!

[Frostmarrow]

and here I thought you were talking about things like Arena Rock or songs that gave you a plus to hit and damage.

We will...
We will...
Rock you

I just thought of Bohemian Rhapsody when I saw the title of the thread.

Is this the real life
Is this just fantasy
Caught in a landslide
No escape from reality
Open your eyes
Look up to the skies and see
I'm just a poor boy, I need no sympathy
Because I'm easy come, easy go
A little high, little low
Anyway the wind blows, doesn't really matter to me
To me

Mama, I just killed a man
Put a gun against his head
Pulled my trigger, now he's dead
Mama, life had just begun
But now I've gone and thrown it all away
Mama ooo
Didn't mean to make you cry
If I'm not back again this time tomorrow
Carry on, carry on, as if nothing really matters

Too late, my time has come
Sends shivers down my spine
Body's aching all the time
Goodbye everybody - I've got to go
Gotta leave you all behind and face the truth
Mama ooo - (any way the wind blows)
I don't want to die
I sometimes wish I'd never been born at all

I see a little silhouetto of a man
Scaramouche, Scaramouche will you do the fandango
Thunderbolt and lightning - very very frightening me
Galileo, Galileo
Galileo, Galileo
Galileo Figaro - magnifico
But I'm just a poor boy and nobody loves me
He's just a poor boy from a poor family
Spare him his life from this monstrosity
Easy come easy go, will you let me go
Bismillah! no, we will not let you go - let him go
Bismillah! we will not let you go - let him go
Bismillah! we will not let you go - let me go
Will not let you go - let me go
Will not let you go let me go
No, no, no, no, no, no, no
Mama mia, mama mia, mama mia let me go
Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me, for me, for me

So you think you can stone me and spit in my eye
So you think you can love me and leave me to die
Oh baby - can't do this to me baby
Just gotta get out - just gotta get right outta here

Nothing really matters
Anyone can see
Nothing really matters, nothing really matters to me

Any way the wind blows...

 

[Arkham]

Donald MacGillavry
http://www.thewildoats.com/donald.html

 

[Agback]

Steeleye Span has some nice stuff.

They have. I often stack up Steeleye Span CDs to background a fantasy gaming session.

 

[River Tam]

Here are a few songs that I think of as being bardic/epic in nature:

Rod Stewart -- Every Picture Tells a Story (for a Casanova-type bard), The Killing of Georgie, Maggie Mae

Elton John -- Ballad of a Well-Known Gun, Burn Down the Mission, Madman Across the Water, Tiny Dancer, Levon, Indian Sunset, Rotten Peaches, Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy, Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters, Sixty Years On, Rock and Roll Madonna, The King Must Die, The Greatest Discovery, Daniel, Midnight Creeper, Blues for Baby and Me, Elderberry Wine, High Flying Bird, Have Mercy on the Criminal, Candle in the Wind, Sweet Painted Lady, Ballad of Danny Bailey, All the Young Girls Love Alice, I've Seen That Movie Too, Dan Dare, Billy Bones and the White Bird, Grow Some Funk of Your Own, Island Girl, Grimsby, Stinker, Ticking, Gulliver, Cage the Songbird, Shoulder Holster, The Wide-Eyed and Laughing, If There's a God in Heaven

Billy Joel -- Scenes from an Italian Restaurant, Captain Jack, Say Goodby to Hollywood, Piano Man, Miami 2017, Angry Young Man, Big Shot, Stiletto, Zanzibar, Ballad of Billy the Kid, We Didn't Start the Fire, Los Angelenos, Allentown, Goodnight Saigon

Al Stewart -- Year of the Cat, Roads to Moscow, On the Border, Running Man, Nostrodamus, Merlin's Time

 

[Hypersmurf]

For Inspire Greatness, it's hard to go past Survivor's Eye of the Tiger...

-Hyp.

 

[Shadowdancer]

A lot of Jethro Tull's music sounds pretty much how I would expect a band of D&D bards to sound, if they had access to today's musical instruments: Minstrel in the Gallery, Aqualung, Locomotive Breath, Living in the Past, Thick as a Brick, Too Old the Rock 'n' Roll, Life's a Long Song, Songs from the Wood, Heavy Horses, Broadsword, The Witch's Promise

Lots of Led Zeppelin's music also qualifies: Ramble On, Travelling Riverside Blues, Over the Hills and Far Away, Immigrant Song, Battle of Evermore, Gallows Pole, Misty Mountain Hop, Dancing Days, When the Levee Breaks (a song a modern bard might write about the Hurricane Katrina disaster), Stairway to Heaven

 

[Jondor_Battlehammer]

Heart

Back to Avalon. Dosn't sound very midevel, but good lyrics.

These Dreams. So much Ravenloft material...

 

[Wolv0rine]

Hmm, good modern era songs that would work for a Bard...

+Bobby Bare - Running Bear (Running bear loved Little White Dove, with a love big as the sky...)
+Queen - Princes of the Universe
+Paper Lace - The Night Chicago Died

Honorable Mention:
+Carl Douglas - Kung-Fu Fighting (but only if there's a Monk in the party)

 

[Shadowdancer]

Some good, bardic-style story songs

Don McLean: American Pie, Vincent

Bobbie Gentry: Ode to Billy Joe, Fancy

Marty Robbins: El Paso, El Paso City, Faleena (from El Paso), Big Iron, Ballad of the Alamo

Johnny Horton: Ballad of New Orleans, Sink the Bismark, North to Alaska, Johnny Reb

Jennie C. Riley: Harper Valley PTA

Dollie Parton: Coat of Many Colors, Jolene, Joshua

Vicki Lawrence: The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia

Paper Lace: The Night Chicago Died, Billy Don't Be a Hero