As suggested by Townsman trigmogigmo in the comments to a recent thread, what’s the Most Blatant Lie Ever Told in a Rock Lyric? trigmo suggested the following to get us started: Continue reading »
Mar 242011
Feb 122011
In a recent thread Townsman dickbonanza asked, “Why do I like Dylan’s melodies more than his lyrics?”
Has anyone else ever felt this way? As much as I love some of Dylan’s more direct, personal lyrics, I’m sometimes so mystified by his more impressionistic ones that I’m happy to sit back and enjoy the melodies. For instance, I love the song “Visions of Johanna,” but I’m not able to begin to contemplate the lyrics. I have a friend who’s spent so much time analyzing and appreciating the lyrics to that song that he wants to wrte an essay on the topic. He’s a lot smarter than me.
Think of all the relative “lightweights” with conventionally great voices who’ve sung their hearts out on Bob’s music. Some of them must be as confused as I sometimes am by the words. In fact, perhaps as much as 40% of Dylan’s lyrics hold little interest for me; those songs are carried by the melodies. How about you?
Jan 202011
Guilty of one too many ding-a-lings?
We know there is a solid history of nonsense syllables in popular music, from Mairseydotes and Ragmop to Ob-La-Di and De Doo Doo Doo. Some of this usage is intentional or wordplay, but some of it is basically lazy lyric writing by a composer, who can’t seem to find better words to replace the ones that were ad-libbed.
On this front, is there any greater offender than Phil Collins? I know that ABACAB is a reference to musical structure, but let’s dispense with that lame defense because ABACAB is not a word. What is a “Paperlate” and a “Sussudio?”
I recall an interview with Paddy MacAloon, the man behind Prefab Sprout. He relayed a conversation he had with Paul McCartney about the song, “The King Of Rock and Roll,” which has the chorus lyric: “Hot dog, jumping frog, Albuquerque,” which is really intended to be a parody of mindless pop song lyrics. The irony was that this was Sprout’s big hit, thus McCartney told MacAloon that the song was his “My Ding-A-Ling” and that every songwriter gets to have one “My Ding-A-Ling.”
Thus, Phil Collins, in writing at least three nonsense songs, has vastly overshot his “My Ding-A-Ling” quota, which I believe is grounds for charging him with a Rock Crime, and surely he’s guilty of others. But the Cocteau Twins aside, is there anybody more guilty of lazy, nonsense, my-dingalinging than Phil Collins?
Nov 022010
Off-mic, rockers are probably just as foul-mouthed as the average person, if not more so, but for various reasons expletives are not used in recorded rock all that often. If nothing else, it hinders the likelihood of a song getting airplay. Still, there are plenty of notable exceptions, good and bad, of rock expletives that made it onto the record. What are your favorite examples?
I’ll start things off with these two. First: I am curious if anyone knows whether Roger Daltrey‘s “who the fuck are you?” was part of the penned Pete Townshend lyric for “Who Are You” or just ad-libbed at the mic.
Second: Warren Zevon‘s “My Shit’s Fucked Up.” Zevon gets extra credit for using two high-scoring expletives, putting them right there in the song title, and not using them just for a joke, but also for something serious. It’s all the more poignant to watch this video now, given his untimely death just 3 years later, when his shit got incurably fucked up.
May 262010
IL45YOtbuy0]
I’ve been thinking about the musical choices that bands/musicians/record producers make when mixing a track, and realized that there is whole subgenre of music that could be defined by the complete unintelligibility of the lyrics. Whether the choice to distort or smear over the lyrics was made to heighten the caché of the music (possible examples = My Bloody Valentine, New Order) or to cover up really stupid writing (see My Bloody Valentine, New Order) it can grant an instant point of discussion and, my thesis, make the listening experience even more enjoyable. As someone whose enjoyment of REM is in inverse proportion to the intelligibility of their lyrics, I would tenderly propose that some songs are made better by the obfuscation of the words. Some examples for me include Cocteau Twins, Les Georges Leningrad, later Talk Talk, Liquid Liquid, some Deerhunter, and plenty on the 4AD label. And yours? Think of it as musical Mumblecore.
May 192010
Little red fly.
Townswoman ladymisskirroyale raised the following question for discussion on The Main Stage. We may have had a thread or two related to this topic long ago, but there’s been lots of turnover since then, and lots of new Townspeople to add to the collective personal history of rock that is part of our mission. To that end, please do us one favor: keep your misheard lyrics personal, OK? Don’t copy entries out of some “There’s a Bathroom on the Right” book. Here’s what ladymiss wants to see discussed:
I see a post that needs to be done of misheard lyrics. Shall we start one? One of my favorites: My brother thinking that Wings‘ “Live and Let Die” actually says, “Little Red Guy.” Hmmm.
Feb 162010
Totally unloaded questions here in that I’m not wedded in advance to getting one right answer, but I would indeed like to know three things:
1) Can you name any submissive love songs by men to women? Submissive here defined as: “You lead the way and are in control and I like it” or “I wish you were leading the way or in control because I would like it.”
2) Can you name any submissive love songs by men to women that you actually like?
3) Can you name any submissive love songs by men to women that you like significantly, or mainly, because of the attitude expressed in the lyrics (as opposed to “great bass line,” “very tuneful,” etc.)?
Note: Explicit or implicit gay love songs are not the subject here because they’re an entirely different set of dynamics. Judas Priest love songs have complicated submission/dominance dynamics, but they (mainly) just don’t sound like songs from a man to a woman and so the issues at stake are different.
