By epic I mean quite long, almost a narrative style. There are plenty of fictional long songs but I'm interested in true stories, with only partly fictional elements.

Like this one...

 

Or this one...

 

These two come to mind...

oops... you posted the gordon lightfoot one as i was typing

 

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probably a boring subject to some, but it's true story and I can tell it's genuine. it's about a certain bandmate of his that died, one that he kinda knew it was about to happen judging by the amount of narcotics bro been abusing but he didn't do anything about it back then. the song screams regret at its purest IMO. The bass player is a guest bass player for this song, a politician these days but happens to be part of the trio on their glory days. there's even a documentary of the whole recording process of this song, they were destroyed by this song after it is done recording. kinda have to watch it for full experience I guess.

oh the drummer also died after, been struggling with the same thing.

 

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? You mean something like this ?
Smog - Our Anniversary

 

Pedro the Lion's "Winners Never Quit" is a concept album telling the (fictional, sorry) story of a right wing politician and his drunk brother who they try to hide from the press. Pedro the Lion is considered a christian band i believe, but it's actually good music so i'm not sure that counts. local to me.

edit: the story is fictional but is a very genuine questioning of the faith based politics and a look at the hypocrisy it can have. one of the better concept albums i can think of as far as a cohesive story goes. start middle end, good stuff.

 

I had a phase where I really like the song "Option" lol

 

Forss - Journeyman (words by Rich Medina)

Pearl Jam - Jeremy was inspired by a newspaper article Vedder read about Jeremy Wade Delle, a high school student who shot himself in front of his English class on January 8, 1991.

 

fun fact - Forss went on (after making that fantastic fucking album) to make a little site called SoundCloud iirc

 

Video says it all.

 

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Making the ordinary epic...

 

Don't have a video for it ... "I Don't Like Mondays" by the Boomtown Rats tells a real story.

U2's "Sunday, bloody Sunday" fits the bill too AFAIK. Peter Gabriel "Biko, Biko". And - in a way - Beatles "A Day In The Life".

 

 

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Iron Maiden - Trooper is about the infamous "Charge of the Light Brigade" during the Crimean War. Iron Maiden has a couple of songs based on the historical events like Aces High (WW2 Battle of Britain), Flight of Icarus (a story from the Greek Mythology) and such.
Also Creeping Death by Metallica was inspired by the plague in Egypt as told in the Bible (probably based on some real historical events).
Hard Rock and Heavy Metal beginning from late 60s, then various kinds of metal music borrow several stories from the history
I believe all those songs are epic enough
Ah one last note, if you are also interested in biblical / religious stories in music please check Four Horsemen by Aphrodite's Child, a quite underappreciated Greek prog band containing his highness Vangelis. Demis Roussos... It is a song of rare ingenuity

 

Last edited: Oct 31, 2023

Lots of good suggestions. I created the thread because I'm not aware of many songs like the Marillion one I posted which isn't just a song telling a story, it's epic in its production and themes within the song, like illustrating the story with sound. Wowbagga is right, Trooper is similar in its presentation. Alan Parsons did something similar with his Poe album, though that was all fiction - but even restricted to fiction there aren't many concept albums like this - War of the Worlds was also great.