dainbramage
Well-known member
That's interesting for sure! Thanks for sharing.
I especially enjoyed the stuff on turning clichés inside out and would recommend some Townes Van Zandt lyrics in this regard. IMHO he was a true inside-out-turning prophet of songwriting.
I especially enjoyed the stuff on turning clichés inside out and would recommend some Townes Van Zandt lyrics in this regard. IMHO he was a true inside-out-turning prophet of songwriting.
grimtraveller
If only for a moment.....
It's an interesting article, as is often the case, there's lots to agree and disagree with.
The point made about songs communicating is true but not quite the way the conclusion was leaning. At so many points in man's musical history, people with a different bent to the norms of the time have been told "You can't do this, it'll leave people behind". And sometimes it has but virtually every time, some of the originators are the sacrificial lambs, the ones that force the door open for others to climb in and exploit/utilize. And the public get used to it. When Charles Wesley started writing christian themes to ribald drinking song tunes, he was told "no, no, no !". Now a few hundred years on, they're regarded as classics that few church people would dare criticize.
Closer to home, when Dylan started writing 13 verse songs that went on for 7 minutes, filled with bizarre imagery, eventually the public caught up and dug it. Now, "Desolation Row" or "Mr Tambourine man" don't seem so odd.
When rappers began dispensing with regular verse and chorus forms, the general perception was that it couldn't break big. 30 years on and millions of record sales hence, it wouldn't be much of a surprize if a little rap section popped up in a country song.......
Originality in songwriting is only original for a short, almost fleeting moment. Then you get used to what once seemed so different.
The point made about songs communicating is true but not quite the way the conclusion was leaning. At so many points in man's musical history, people with a different bent to the norms of the time have been told "You can't do this, it'll leave people behind". And sometimes it has but virtually every time, some of the originators are the sacrificial lambs, the ones that force the door open for others to climb in and exploit/utilize. And the public get used to it. When Charles Wesley started writing christian themes to ribald drinking song tunes, he was told "no, no, no !". Now a few hundred years on, they're regarded as classics that few church people would dare criticize.
Closer to home, when Dylan started writing 13 verse songs that went on for 7 minutes, filled with bizarre imagery, eventually the public caught up and dug it. Now, "Desolation Row" or "Mr Tambourine man" don't seem so odd.
When rappers began dispensing with regular verse and chorus forms, the general perception was that it couldn't break big. 30 years on and millions of record sales hence, it wouldn't be much of a surprize if a little rap section popped up in a country song.......
Originality in songwriting is only original for a short, almost fleeting moment. Then you get used to what once seemed so different.
arcadeko
Illuminatius Overlordious
You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to grimtraveller again.
There is also a pretty good article on songwriting in this months recording magazine.
There is also a pretty good article on songwriting in this months recording magazine.
S
SEDstar
Active member
I mean, *yeah* I think I know what he means... my best example i can think of off the top of my head? I mean masterful cliche/new both at once?
I remember one of deep purple's "back door" albums lyrics:
"so we put her on the hit list, of a common cunning linguist... a mas-ter of many tongues..."
b-u-t... when you HEAR it, it sounds a LOT more like "of a common cunnilinguist", cunnilingus being latin for male to female oral pleasure, LMAO
then, I always liked the led zeppelin line, too:
"if you hear a bustle, in your hedgerow, dont be alarmed now... its just a spring clean for the may queen"
and giving the may queen a "spring cleaning" is in itself a new take on a old cliche, lol... but before the internet and knowing the lyrics? I heard it all those years as:
"its just a sprinkling for the may queen", which made ME think the bustle in the hedgerow was a peeping tom young boy, and the "sprinkling" in the bushes was the result of, well, never mind.... LMAO
I was personally never sure what was going on. I mean, they could have both been trying to get one past the censors, IE, iits written ONE way yet sung in an "ambiguous" manner where the guy COULD have said... (lol)
OR... is this deliberate "big pun" part of the good songwriter's craftsmanship?
Hmmm... this article touches on the "too deep" aspect too. If its too deep or abstract, the common audience doesnt "get it"... if its too banal and common? EVERYone gets it immediately, and its boring.
"RUSH" is a good example here. They were very good selling, and had fairly abstract lyrics. Now personally, I liked hearing "absalom... absalom... absalom..." as lyrics, I knew just what they meant, but does every listener? No, they dont! my buddy had some bizarre ideas abotu those lyrics until I explaind the biblical story of absalom, lol...
Duran Duran went so far as to have such "abstract" lyrics, they made no coherent sense of anything as a whole. 2 decades later, I picked out hte phrase of theirs "when I ride the outside rail" to being a racing term of passing on the outside...
PS - an old laura branigan lyric says "they were playing desolation row, on the radio---" and I alays thought it was an old radio serial or something, lol... NOW I realize its a bob dylan cllassic song, hee hee... see? sometimes you find something new out about a 20 year old song lyric, lol...
I remember one of deep purple's "back door" albums lyrics:
"so we put her on the hit list, of a common cunning linguist... a mas-ter of many tongues..."
b-u-t... when you HEAR it, it sounds a LOT more like "of a common cunnilinguist", cunnilingus being latin for male to female oral pleasure, LMAO
then, I always liked the led zeppelin line, too:
"if you hear a bustle, in your hedgerow, dont be alarmed now... its just a spring clean for the may queen"
and giving the may queen a "spring cleaning" is in itself a new take on a old cliche, lol... but before the internet and knowing the lyrics? I heard it all those years as:
"its just a sprinkling for the may queen", which made ME think the bustle in the hedgerow was a peeping tom young boy, and the "sprinkling" in the bushes was the result of, well, never mind.... LMAO
I was personally never sure what was going on. I mean, they could have both been trying to get one past the censors, IE, iits written ONE way yet sung in an "ambiguous" manner where the guy COULD have said... (lol)
OR... is this deliberate "big pun" part of the good songwriter's craftsmanship?
Hmmm... this article touches on the "too deep" aspect too. If its too deep or abstract, the common audience doesnt "get it"... if its too banal and common? EVERYone gets it immediately, and its boring.
"RUSH" is a good example here. They were very good selling, and had fairly abstract lyrics. Now personally, I liked hearing "absalom... absalom... absalom..." as lyrics, I knew just what they meant, but does every listener? No, they dont! my buddy had some bizarre ideas abotu those lyrics until I explaind the biblical story of absalom, lol...
Duran Duran went so far as to have such "abstract" lyrics, they made no coherent sense of anything as a whole. 2 decades later, I picked out hte phrase of theirs "when I ride the outside rail" to being a racing term of passing on the outside...
PS - an old laura branigan lyric says "they were playing desolation row, on the radio---" and I alays thought it was an old radio serial or something, lol... NOW I realize its a bob dylan cllassic song, hee hee... see? sometimes you find something new out about a 20 year old song lyric, lol...
gecko zzed
Grumpy Mod
I read it from start to finish. It was an interesting and informative article. A good find, Ido.
rayc
retroreprobate
interesting & contentious (or visa versa)
"Around here, if your writing avoids the clichés and whatnot too cleanly, you're seen as a kind of 'songwriting snob.' The same goes for musical terminology; if I mention key signatures or tonic chords too often, other musicians get self conscious and start to take offense. Heaven forbid I get on a technical bent and start talking about phase relationships and stereo imagining in the studio--then I'm written off as a techno nerd junkie wanna be."
Sounds like he hangs in the wrong forum and that he's a dog with a bone as well. Hopefully everything was in full context.
Lyrics need context - finding DD abstract or not knowing the linkages for Desolation Row make the point that culture influences language and therefor lyrics. Without exposure to that culture & its events/landmarks/icons/breakfasts & heroes we, at best, guess & speculate or at worst/best create our own context from our own culture and experiences within which to create an understanding that works for us (& that is the usual reason given by lyricists for NOT explaining their words).
Puns, well on a personal level I can rarely resist them & insert them when and where ever I can. I threw one into my most recent lyric (Purely Visual...) - in fact the title was almost a pun - but the actual pun probably hasn't become one as it's been read by so few people and it was based, itself, on a pun about the manifestation of a religion which hikes up the, not necessarily, wilful obscurity factor. I assume I wrote it to a) amuse myself, b) bewilder the innocent & c)seek affirmation from those who had the cultural background/experince/chance to read the related text to recognize it thereby finding a "tribe" or not as the case may be.
On that note "...we each get the audience we deserve,,," should probably be rewritten as "...each deserve the audience we get".
"Around here, if your writing avoids the clichés and whatnot too cleanly, you're seen as a kind of 'songwriting snob.' The same goes for musical terminology; if I mention key signatures or tonic chords too often, other musicians get self conscious and start to take offense. Heaven forbid I get on a technical bent and start talking about phase relationships and stereo imagining in the studio--then I'm written off as a techno nerd junkie wanna be."
Sounds like he hangs in the wrong forum and that he's a dog with a bone as well. Hopefully everything was in full context.
Lyrics need context - finding DD abstract or not knowing the linkages for Desolation Row make the point that culture influences language and therefor lyrics. Without exposure to that culture & its events/landmarks/icons/breakfasts & heroes we, at best, guess & speculate or at worst/best create our own context from our own culture and experiences within which to create an understanding that works for us (& that is the usual reason given by lyricists for NOT explaining their words).
Puns, well on a personal level I can rarely resist them & insert them when and where ever I can. I threw one into my most recent lyric (Purely Visual...) - in fact the title was almost a pun - but the actual pun probably hasn't become one as it's been read by so few people and it was based, itself, on a pun about the manifestation of a religion which hikes up the, not necessarily, wilful obscurity factor. I assume I wrote it to a) amuse myself, b) bewilder the innocent & c)seek affirmation from those who had the cultural background/experince/chance to read the related text to recognize it thereby finding a "tribe" or not as the case may be.
On that note "...we each get the audience we deserve,,," should probably be rewritten as "...each deserve the audience we get".