who gives a crap about your lyrics

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Nave, I never heard Waters say that, it just strikes me that way. I dont believe Floyds music is really top 40 material and what explanation does that leave us with? The average Joe cant relate to all that otherworldly nonsensical musical
dissonance?
 
Right on, nave!

You know, I wonder if there isn't some sort of confusion as to the nature of what makes good prosody. It's not necessarily a matter of getting the most high-fallutin' words to sit pretty in a melody line. I cited Paul Simon in another thread because he claims that poetry and poetic language don't usually make good lyrics.

Besides, there are plenty of good words to use that are essentially simple. It's kind of like a high performance auto that can go from 0 to 60 in a heartbeat. You rarely will make use of the power, but it's there if you ever need it. That idea comes from a roundtable discussion in a guitar magazine regarding playing speed, but it seems appropriate here, too. Maybe occasionally you'll need some language that's uncommon — for example, maybe a Jethro Tull-ish song with interplay between a beggar and a lord. The lord's language should contrast from that of the beggar, so choose words appropriate to the character. But most of the time simple lyrics (not *plain* or *ordinary*) will serve thee best :p.
 
Right on, nave!

You know, I wonder if there isn't some sort of confusion as to the nature of what makes good prosody. It's not necessarily a matter of getting the most high-fallutin' words to sit pretty in a melody line. I cited Paul Simon in another thread because he claims that poetry and poetic language don't usually make good lyrics.

Besides, there are plenty of good words to use that are essentially simple. It's kind of like a high performance auto that can go from 0 to 60 in a heartbeat. You rarely will make use of the power, but it's there if you ever need it. That idea comes from a roundtable discussion in a guitar magazine regarding playing speed, but it seems appropriate here, too. Maybe occasionally you'll need some language that's uncommon — for example, maybe a Jethro Tull-ish song with interplay between a beggar and a lord. The lord's language should contrast from that of the beggar, so choose words appropriate to the character. But most of the time simple lyrics (not *plain* or *ordinary*) shalt serve thee best :p.
 
Well dragon ,.....You and Mr. Waters must be of like mind.....He said EXACTLY what you said..........He said it on either Pink Floyd behind the music or some other VHI special.....:)

David Crosby said basically the same thing........Face it good melodies are a dime a dozen.......They are every where....Every generation pumps out dozens of great melodies........Nearly every top forty song has a decent to good or great melody....Nearly every top 40 song is also forgotten............

So what makes a "classic" song? Is it the marriage of good lyrical content and good melody? I would say so.......Afterall melody and lyrics are the two essential factors of song writing...People like to say that the bass and drums are the back bone of songs and from a producers perspective that is true.....However, the backbone of a song is really melody and lyric.......Without which .....There is no song.......


-nave
 
Yah beaver, I believe that simplicity is usually key to good prosody.................I would say that their are certain words that seem to always fit into songs for some reason and always seem to enhance prosody and they are usually simple one syllable words........

Just a note : I often notice that when I write tunes in the manner that I discribed as childish that there are words that constantly reoccur.....One in particular being the word "You" another being the word "down." Hmmmmm...... Does that elude to something that is deep within my own psyche.....Some sort of limiting belief of some sort....Hmmm...........There are also other reoccuring words that I see in my quasi stream of consciousness child like writing....Another one is the word "come" or "comes." I can't think of any more off the top of my head but there are surely others and these are words that ALWAYS seem to fall on the meter within the melody perfectly.....

I would bet that if you took all the songs that were ever written in the history of the world you would find that there are many of these words that consistently reoccur as if they come from the collective unconscious mind of all songwriters..........My guess is that the word "You" probably occurs in more songs than any other word.......Because of it's flexabilty and it always seems to fit in with the prosody of the song......

There are many things like this that I have noticed .....Things that seem to stem from folk music.....e.g....The first line of the verse being repeated in the last line of the verse......


It seems there are many unsung and unwritten rules and techniques that all songwriters use even if they are unaware of it.......


I don't know.....Maybe all that above is just nonsense....Maybe there is something to it......


-nave
 
First off, sorry about the previous double post. I think I goofed while trying to edit, but yesterday was a long day :rolleyes:. So anyway. . . .

nave, I think you make an valid point. Certain letters in the English alphabet occur more frequently than others, so why wouldn't the same hold for words? Makes sense to me. It would be interesting to see which words are used most often in general and also which words occur most often in songs. "You" and "love" and probably at the top; "Kodachrome" and "pompitous" are most likely at the bottom :D.

You know, maybe the goal should be to use everyday language but in doing to also try to find words that aren't so frequently bandied about. "Kayleigh" by Marillion has a bunch of common words and phrases that aren't so commonly used: "chalk hearts," "melting," "playground wall," "dawn escapes," "barefoot," "shooting stars," "park," "dancing," and "snow." The only truly unusual words in the song are "confetti," "Belsize" (but do place names really count?), and "stilletos." Maybe mixing in the occasional uncommon word is enough to make plain songs great. Any thoughts?
 
Cool Posts!

Wow, those were all very insightful and helpful posts.

Beaver,

Thanks for the encouragement. I usually get very positive feedback on most of my songs, But unfortunatly I have the curse of perfectionism, but only when it comes to music. But, after all these great posts I am ready to just go home and scribble down some lyrics that don't make any sense and build a song around it. :D

And on the topic of prosudy - I just wanted to add that different genre's of music will have different words that are repeated more often than others. For example - In Blues I would bet that the word Baby is used more often than most every word. Prosudy is a very cool talent, one I would love to develope more than about any other part of my song writing.

Matt
 
mgiles7, that's yet another good point — the one about genre-specific words. My background is metal (wouldn't guess it to look at me, since I'm an ancient 35 year old who needs to lose about 50 pounds :rolleyes: ), and I'm sure that the cover tunes my first band used to play were loaded with catchwords. Let's see: death, black, hell, power, God — I bet all these words are used often. I could spend a bunch of time and actually figure it out, but you get the point.

Was it Duke Ellington who said (and this is not necessarily verbatim) "There's only two kinds of music — good and bad"? While a good lyric might only be presentable within its original genre, perhaps a great lyric is one that can stand on its own merit in other genres. For example, "With a Little Help From My Friends" seems to me to be a great lyric that works equally well for Joe Cocker's bluesy interpretation as it does for Paul's original.

But maybe I'm reaching here. I guess it could be a matter of how talented the performer/arranger is. It just seems to me that, if a lyric is well-situated within the vernacular, it has the potential to reach an audience considerably larger than originally intended. I can't relate to skate music very much; it's not because the lyrics aren't necessarily good, it's just that I'm not part of that culture. There is no element of universality — not sameness, just a feeling of "Yeah, I know what this guy's talking about."

That's why love is such a common theme in song. The trick is taking the universal and manipulating it in such a way as to avoid staleness. Find a facet of the universal gem that hasn't been explored or has been explored only rarely or superficially. Express the feeling or idea without using the label, as in a love song that covers the subject without using "love" fifty times or even once in the lyric.

BTW, I'm not saying I am some sort of expert on how to do this. I'm working on this stuff, too, and this "advice" is as much a reminder to me as it is my form of encouragement to anybody reading who gives a broken rusty damn about songwriting :D. I'm just glad we can bounce these ideas/theories around in here, 'cause it gets my creative flow, uh, flowing :p.
 
Floyd and words

Speaking of Pink Floyd and Kodachrome, Syd Barrett managed to use the word "Ektachrome" in his (horrifically recorded) solo track "Birdie Hop" (from "Opel"):

"You know the way
Ektachrome plain
I see the flies

Birdie hop, he do, he hop along
A lonely bird upon
A window there, he, he, there he blow
A windy snow
He knew the snow
You know the snow
I know the snow
A hoppy bird

...a camel woke up to a Polish dawn..."

The thing with Syd's overly-LSD'ed solo stuff is that some of the lyrics are so jaw-droppingly obtuse that I can't tell if they are sublime genius that I fail to grasp or just a load of crap. I lean towards both.

Beaverbiscuit: I recall a writer back in '88 reviewing "...And Justice for All"-- he gave it a good review (shocking, coming from him), but *counted* the number of times "death" (or variants "die," "dead," etc.) appeared. I wonder how he would have reacted to "Reign in Blood"...
 
escatun, I'm sure *Reign in Blood* would have won the "death" contest hands down. I mean, the album opens with the song "Angel of Death," for crying out loud, and it doesn't mellow out any time afterward!

Of course, one could take a peek at Metallica's *Ride the Lightning* and see that "Creeping Death" is a treasure trove of death. In the slow-down after the first main lead, the backing vocal "Die!" occurs 16 times alone, along with James' "Die" and "killing" (twice apiece). Every chorus has the word "kill" and "death" (once apiece). Fun and games in the realms of metal :D.

As to the Syd Barrett thing, I tend to think it's perhaps genius heavily augmented or warped by acid. He fell into the trap of letting LSD replace his own creativity, or at least letting it drive the train instead of it being a sometime passenger thereon. Personally I believe acid does not complement or induce creativity. My experiences in the past with LSD certainly changed my thinking processes, but acid never truly made me more creative or better able to write music. I know there have been a few threads in this bbs regarding acid, its qualities, and the "more potent in the past" issue; I'm sure some people feel they have benefitted greatly from their use. I can't say necessarily that I'm ashamed I used it or that I regret my past, but I certainly wouldn't recommend it to anyone, not even for its reputed ability to enhance artistic creativity. It's just too much of a wild card in its unpredictability, and it's not worth the risk (to me). Not to preach, but I'll take the Holy Spirit over acid any day; better to use what God gave me than rely on a chemical to make my days shine with wonder :).
 
Beaver -

I'm totally in agreement with your last post, although a little off of the topic, I had similar LSD experiences where at the time I sure thought that I felt much more creative, But that was probably because all the nerons in my brain had floated into my frontal lobes and really I wasn't in a right frame of mind to think anything but what my messed up frontal lobes were telling me.....:D

Looking back, I was just afraid of where I was in life and therefore felt the need to create an alter-reality, in which LSD and any other drug played and intregal role. It may not be so in every case, but for the most part I believe drugs to be a cop out on life and do much more damage than good. :(

And your right about the Holy Spirit, Much more beneficial in his effects. And I don't have to drool on myself when he indwells me! :D

Matt
 
mgiles7 said:
And your right about the Holy Spirit, Much more beneficial in his effects. And I don't have to drool on myself when he indwells me! :D

Matt
Click to expand...

:D :p :D
 
'Cid Barrett gave a crap about his lyrics.

Beev--

I agree on the LSD front. It can provide a creative tweak or a blob of inspiration, but only as an "occasional passenger". With El Cid, for every glorious realization of profundity, there are multiple instances of pointing at something and laughing. I think Syd's 'cid led him to lyrically end up in the latter category:

"Honey, love you, love you honey
Lots of honey, sunny morning
Love you more funny, love in the skyline, baby
Ice cream, 'scuse me, I seen you looking good the other evening..."

Come again?!?

Seeing "Creeping Death" live was... well... creepy. Several thousand dudes in "Metal Up Your Ass" t-shirts (faded to grey, of course!) all screaming "DIE!" in unison. As I get older I'm starting to see why parents were so freaked out about it. ;)
 
Re: 'Cid Barrett gave a crap about his lyrics.

esactun said:


Seeing "Creeping Death" live was... well... creepy. Several thousand dudes in "Metal Up Your Ass" t-shirts (faded to grey, of course!) all screaming "DIE!" in unison. As I get older I'm starting to see why parents were so freaked out about it. ;)
Click to expand...

ROTFL

Yeah, I would have liked to be able to see these guys when Cliff was still kickin' it with 'em, but no such luck. The metal cover band I was in back in '89–'90 did a cover of that song. It was probably one of our better numbers, but it was a bit of a workout for me. I bet I couldn't downpick like that today to save my life, not without some serious hours woodshedding anyway.

You know, I wonder how many of the guys yelling "DIE!" knew they were participating in a song that's about the Passover? Would love to see the looks on their faces when they heard that :p.
 
Re: Re: 'Cid Barrett gave a crap about his lyrics.

beaverbiscuit said:
You know, I wonder how many of the guys yelling "DIE!" knew they were participating in a song that's about the Passover? Would love to see the looks on their faces when they heard that :p.
Click to expand...


Yeah, huh?? Who'd have thunk it--Metallica as Christian rock? ;)
Every time I heard that tune I thought of Cecil B. DeMille's "The Ten Commandments." Yul Brenner was an awesome Pharaoh--and when else could anyone ever say "I dig Yul Brenner's hair?" ;)
 
Have you ever heard Billy Crystal's bit about TTC and its actors? I can picture Edward G. Robinson saying, "Where's your Metallica NOW?" Hee hee hee :p.
 
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