nave
Cave Relic
Ever wonder what a song is or what a song means? I'm going to give you folks what most of you will probably say is a cold analytical look at what a song really is. I hope it will challenge you to step out of your song and look at it with alien eyes.
I want to start by addressing all the people who think that their lyrics don't mean anything and that they write just "whatever" and that people interpret them as meaning somehting but that really they are about nothing.
First, I will say that the above is impossible. NO song can ever be about nothing. The reason why is a little more complicated. Even those songs supposedly about nothing are in fact all about something. What these songs about nothing are actually about is something that only the writer of the song knows. The problem is that the writer of the song is saying the song is about nothing right? Wrong. All songs are about the song writer by default. All songs are expressing something about the song writer whether he/she likes it or not. It could be a feeling or a point of view or a combination of many feelings and many points of views that are disguised as the so called "nothing." If even it is supposed to be about nothing, then what does that mean. Psychologists and even scientists would tell you that trying to write something about nothing would imply great meaning and ironically a song about nothing could actually be about something that is deeply seated in the psychology of the songwriter.
Second, I will tell you that all charactors and places and events within a song are all representatives of the self: the song writer. In this way a song psychologically operates in the same fashion as a dream. All charactors and places and events in your dreams are also you by default because they are the creations of your own mind. Any charactor you can create no matter whether your writing novels or songs is actually just a part of yourself and when you add up all the conflicting points of views of all the charactors you ever create be they in songs or dreams what you get is the conflicting view points with in your self. We are all made up of conflicts, no one doesn't have internal conflicts.
Third, Why songwriting is good for you? Songwriting serves the purpose that all art serves and all art serves the same purpose that dreams serve. Dreams and art are very closely related from a psychological point of view. Scientists agree that our inherent need for dreams and art is that all art, like all dreams is about resolving internal conflicts. Scientists might also say that writing songs could prevent you from having a schizophrenic crack up. A person Suffering from such a mental illness is suffering because they have not acknowledged the personal conflicts that exist in all of our unconscious minds. The results of disregarding your own internal conflicts and not letting them see the light of day is mind numbing. Ultimately, all internal conflicts in the unconscious mind refuse to go unheard and they always find a way to the surface. Many people help themselves by ushering these things to the surface in the form of poems, songs, paintings, books, and other art. What happens to a person that completely refuses to acknowledge all these conflicts? What happens is that the unconscious mind goes to it's last resort in the quest for obtaining acknowledgement in which case the entire unconscious opens up and floods the conscious mind. When this happens all those unsung conflicts come to life resulting in something similar to a never ending acid trip. Being a schizophrenic would not be much different then having all the charactors and places and events in your songs come to life before your very eyes. In fact it would be exactly like that only worse because it would consist of even the charactors that exist within you that you are afraid to write about because of your fear of being laughed at or people saying your crazy. Maybe they are charactors that want to kill people or maybe they are the repressed homosexual charactor within you.
see I laughed and thats why you don't write about him. Yes, my friends there are charactors within all of us that we are afraid to confront. And that's what we have nightmares for. A nightmare is when you are confronting a part of yourself that you ordinarily don't let see the light of day. If someone is trying to hurt you or kill you in your dreams then there is by default a part of yourself that wants to kill and to hurt yourself or someone else within you.
Finally, the people that came up with traditional methods of writing songs never thought of songs as being as deep as I have just describe them. Consequently, there are vestigial (left over) parts to songs that no longer apply to the current scientific understanding of songs. "Point of View" would be just one example. Some people worry about the point of view shifting in a song, worring whether or not they confuse people or whether it makes sense. The fact is that in your mind the point of view is constantly shifting as you interact with the environment. And anysong that doesn't acknowlegde the shifting of the point of view that we all go through every day could not qualify as a authentic and accurate self expression. Are your songs as interesting as your dreams? If they aren't then they don't authentically represent you. Don't worry I am guilty of writing songs in the traditional manner as well but I am trying to stop. The fact is most of us aren't in the present. We are still living in the past in terms of the song. We just aren't up to date on what a song really is and consequently we have old fashion ideas of what song writing can and can not be. We have biases.
Do you want to live in the past? I don't either but thats what we are all doing. I'm not afraid to admit it. Are you? Wouldn't you rather be ahead of your time than clinging to old traditional standards and biases that no longer serve a purpose in terms of people growing as people? Think about how much more interesting songs would be if we all knew what we were actually doing when we are writing songs. If we knew we are performing our own therapy. Think about the charactors that would see the light of day if people acknowlegded a song for what it really was. I thought about it.
-Evan
I want to start by addressing all the people who think that their lyrics don't mean anything and that they write just "whatever" and that people interpret them as meaning somehting but that really they are about nothing.
First, I will say that the above is impossible. NO song can ever be about nothing. The reason why is a little more complicated. Even those songs supposedly about nothing are in fact all about something. What these songs about nothing are actually about is something that only the writer of the song knows. The problem is that the writer of the song is saying the song is about nothing right? Wrong. All songs are about the song writer by default. All songs are expressing something about the song writer whether he/she likes it or not. It could be a feeling or a point of view or a combination of many feelings and many points of views that are disguised as the so called "nothing." If even it is supposed to be about nothing, then what does that mean. Psychologists and even scientists would tell you that trying to write something about nothing would imply great meaning and ironically a song about nothing could actually be about something that is deeply seated in the psychology of the songwriter.
Second, I will tell you that all charactors and places and events within a song are all representatives of the self: the song writer. In this way a song psychologically operates in the same fashion as a dream. All charactors and places and events in your dreams are also you by default because they are the creations of your own mind. Any charactor you can create no matter whether your writing novels or songs is actually just a part of yourself and when you add up all the conflicting points of views of all the charactors you ever create be they in songs or dreams what you get is the conflicting view points with in your self. We are all made up of conflicts, no one doesn't have internal conflicts.
Third, Why songwriting is good for you? Songwriting serves the purpose that all art serves and all art serves the same purpose that dreams serve. Dreams and art are very closely related from a psychological point of view. Scientists agree that our inherent need for dreams and art is that all art, like all dreams is about resolving internal conflicts. Scientists might also say that writing songs could prevent you from having a schizophrenic crack up. A person Suffering from such a mental illness is suffering because they have not acknowledged the personal conflicts that exist in all of our unconscious minds. The results of disregarding your own internal conflicts and not letting them see the light of day is mind numbing. Ultimately, all internal conflicts in the unconscious mind refuse to go unheard and they always find a way to the surface. Many people help themselves by ushering these things to the surface in the form of poems, songs, paintings, books, and other art. What happens to a person that completely refuses to acknowledge all these conflicts? What happens is that the unconscious mind goes to it's last resort in the quest for obtaining acknowledgement in which case the entire unconscious opens up and floods the conscious mind. When this happens all those unsung conflicts come to life resulting in something similar to a never ending acid trip. Being a schizophrenic would not be much different then having all the charactors and places and events in your songs come to life before your very eyes. In fact it would be exactly like that only worse because it would consist of even the charactors that exist within you that you are afraid to write about because of your fear of being laughed at or people saying your crazy. Maybe they are charactors that want to kill people or maybe they are the repressed homosexual charactor within you.
see I laughed and thats why you don't write about him. Yes, my friends there are charactors within all of us that we are afraid to confront. And that's what we have nightmares for. A nightmare is when you are confronting a part of yourself that you ordinarily don't let see the light of day. If someone is trying to hurt you or kill you in your dreams then there is by default a part of yourself that wants to kill and to hurt yourself or someone else within you.Finally, the people that came up with traditional methods of writing songs never thought of songs as being as deep as I have just describe them. Consequently, there are vestigial (left over) parts to songs that no longer apply to the current scientific understanding of songs. "Point of View" would be just one example. Some people worry about the point of view shifting in a song, worring whether or not they confuse people or whether it makes sense. The fact is that in your mind the point of view is constantly shifting as you interact with the environment. And anysong that doesn't acknowlegde the shifting of the point of view that we all go through every day could not qualify as a authentic and accurate self expression. Are your songs as interesting as your dreams? If they aren't then they don't authentically represent you. Don't worry I am guilty of writing songs in the traditional manner as well but I am trying to stop. The fact is most of us aren't in the present. We are still living in the past in terms of the song. We just aren't up to date on what a song really is and consequently we have old fashion ideas of what song writing can and can not be. We have biases.
Do you want to live in the past? I don't either but thats what we are all doing. I'm not afraid to admit it. Are you? Wouldn't you rather be ahead of your time than clinging to old traditional standards and biases that no longer serve a purpose in terms of people growing as people? Think about how much more interesting songs would be if we all knew what we were actually doing when we are writing songs. If we knew we are performing our own therapy. Think about the charactors that would see the light of day if people acknowlegded a song for what it really was. I thought about it.
-Evan
