Sealegs
-noun
1-The ability to adjust ones balance to the motion of a ship, inversely the slow readjustment to stable land.
2-The title of Irish singer songwriter Riona Sally Hartman’s Debut CD.
'I'd die for you': we're so used to hearing the sentiment in pop songs we barely notice it, but when you really pay attention to it it's a wee bit worrying. At best it's manipulative and super melodramatic, at worst it's suicidal and unhinged.
Here are a few common variations on the theme:
'if you leave me I'll die''
Being broken up with is a bitch, ringing the person up and telling them you're gonna kill yourself coz they broke up with you is NOT a healthy response. You hear it so frequently in pop songs you'd think we're all running around making suicide pacts with our loved ones (I really really hope you're not doing that!).
It should be pretty obvious but just a reminder: great people don't usually ask, or expect, you to die for them.
'If I could just die in your arms, I wouldn't mind'
Justin Bieber's best chat up line is that he 'WOULDN'T MIND' dying in your arms. When facing his own mortality he's...indifferent. You'd think a young lad like him would have a strong will to live but apparently not.
A little while ago I ran a night called The Acoustic Picnic in The Back Loft and invited some of my favourite acoustic musicians and poets to come perform. It was a pretty excellent, and rather eclectic night if I may say so myself. One of the musicians I had the pleasure of sharing the small, but nicely decorated, stage with was Peter Delaney. At the end of the night we swapped CDs and I went home and listened to Duck Egg Blue on repeat for weeks and realised I had a million questions I wanted to ask him about his lyrics.
Well do you know what happens to be the best thing about having a blog? It’s the perfect excuse to ask musicians nosy questions about their music, so that’s exactly what I’ve done here;
One of the things that struck me when I was listening to you perform live, and also with the CD, was the delivery of the lyrics. The lyrics seem to be woven into the fabric of the song and it's only after a few listens, or a little while, that my ear could separate the words from the harmony. It's like at first you hear the overall colour of the songs and then the words and meanings start coming out and making themselves heard very gradually.
That’s interesting. Maybe it’s because when I’m coming up with the vocal part to a song I think more about melody and how it fits with the music rather than the words I’ll be singing. Then when I work on the lyrics I try to make them go with the melody so I suppose they can become hidden in the music and it could take a while for the words to make themselves noticed.
I was reading through the CD liner notes after listening to the CD and the thing that struck me was that a lot of the lyrics work well as written pieces independent of the songs. Do you usually start by writing or singing?
A lot of the songs have their basis in scraps of lyrics and ideas that I’ve written but I’d never have the entire lyrics written before I put them to music. When I’m working on the lyrics with the music then I try to flesh out the ideas a bit. I try to be aware that the words I’m writing are for a song and that how they are sung can have an effect on the meaning so I don’t think it would be a good idea for me to write them entirely independent of the music. I don’t always do that but I try. Having said that, sometimes some of the more interesting lyrics can just come out of nowhere when you’re rambling along with the music.
There's a real mix of very ordinary, homely everyday images (like Spiderman wallpaper in a kids bedroom, I love that line) mixed in with the fantastical in the songs. Is it an intentional mix of reality and fantasy?
I don’t think I ever really think about it in terms of reality and fantasy. The songs are definitely based on reality and real experiences but I try to look for interesting ways to describe them so maybe they can seem a bit fantastical. Other times the songs can be about very subjective experiences and the only way to approach them lyrically is with more abstract ideas and in that sense I can see how they could be seen as fantastical alright. I don’t use metaphors that often but I do like to play with ideas in a way that they take on a whole new appearance in a similar effect to metaphors and that can really blur the line between something based in reality and the subjective response to it but it’s not something I really think about.
I hold onto one rather sexist belief that boys don't listen to lyrics, but I have a feeling you might be able to prove me wrong. So go for it, who's your favourite lyricist?
Really? I know a lot of guys who listen to lyrics. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to prove you wrong though because I haven’t always really paid a lot of attention to lyrics but that’s probably because they don’t seem to be a concern for most singers you hear these days. I think people like Leonard Cohen are great lyricists but there’s not many people out there who write like that. I really like the idea of playing with language so I think I probably look more to writers than singers. I really like Vladimir Nabokov and Dylan Thomas. They both have an amazing way with language and do some crazy things with words. I also read Moby Dick recently and that has some lovely prose in it. I think Joanna Newsom is a very talented lyricist. I started listening to her around the same time I started to write the songs I play now and what really struck me was how apparent her own sensibilities are in her lyrics. She isn’t just singing a bunch of borrowed expressions or the clichés of a particular style of music but exploring things that really interest her. I think that made a big impression on me and since then I try to be even more aware of my own personal sensibilities and the things I find fascinating and not just go along with the obvious imagery or sentiments that belong to a particular genre. One of my favourite lines Joanna Newsom wrote is from her song Sawdust and Diamonds:
“I wasn’t born of a whistle, or milked from a thistle at twilight,
No; I was all horns and thorns, sprung out fully formed, knock-kneed and upright.”
For more info on Peter Delaney you can visit www.peter-delaney.com. Duck Egg Blue was re-released in 2011 by Deadslackstring Records and is available from Bandcamp. Go see him live! If you live in Limerick you’re in luck because he’s playing there soon.
She passed him by every morning just outside his house. On Monday he caught her name. He went home and repeated it to himself quietly over and over. On Tuesday a ribbon fell from her hair. He took it home and hid it between the pages of the encyclopedia under the letter F. It looked fantastic. On Wednesday it was foggy and he could only see her blurry silhouette. He took her smell home and kept it in a jar next to the encyclopedia. On Thursday she was looking very pale, almost translucent, but he could make out her blue eyes. He went home and painted a swatch on the opening page with her eye colour. On Friday he didn't see her pass. This probably isn't a love song:
All at once
Slow motion scene
Savor
The air she breathes
Pulse thunders under over
Lips mumble of her 'own her'
All at once
This sun drenched scene
And her eyes are all I see...
...So I'll take them, hide them, own them
And at night when I'm alone
I can piece her back together
Same but better
She goes to speak Oh her lips are all I see...
...So I'll take them, hide them, own them And at night when I'm alone I can piece her back together Same but better
Glee* recently had an episode that was all about one of the character (named Santana) coming out to her family and so all the songs were supposed to be 'by girls for girls'. The big finale number was 'I kissed a girl' by Katy Perry. A song that condescendingly treats lesbianism as a fun past time to try on for the weekends when you're hammered. The Same Katy Perry who sang about hoping her 'gay' ex boyfriend hangs himself with his H&M scarf! This is the artist they chose to represent women in the LGBT community?! I'm not on board. Not at all. It might be a bit much to be expecting Glee kids to break into Tori Amos but would a bit of Indigo Girls really do them that much harm!? So here are my choices of songs by women, for women that I think would better accompany a story about supporting women being open about their sexuality.
Playboy Mommy by Tori Amos
Any conversation about female sexuality should include a conversation about motherhood, and here's a song that approaches the subject honestly and leaves the saccharine for the mothers day cards. It's both completely personal to Tori Amos and the situation she was in at the time, and also opens up a bigger conversation about not just the relationship between mothers and daughters, but also how women judge each other.
One of my favourite things about Tori Amos is her ability to be both absolutely heart wrenching, and pretty hilarious in the same sentence. In this song, where she sings to her miscarried daughter who she feels judged by, you get gems like;
'Don't judge me so harsh little girl You got a playboy mommy Come home But when you tell them soldiers my name And cross that bridge all on your own Little girl they'll do you no harm Cause they know your playboy mommy'
So my interpretation is she's saying 'well you chose not to be born because you didn't think a slut like me would make a fit mother, but when you get to heaven mention my name coz heaven's full of dead soldiers that I'm good 'friends' with so they'll treat you well'. That's quite a complicated, and I'd say witty, sentiment to be singing about.
She has a habit, I think, of wavering between very profound and very inane lyrics. Unlike Kate Bush, who often intentionally writes silly lyrics, Tori Amos seems to sometimes just get a bit lazy (I know I might get hung for saying that, but come one! I mean in black dove she sings 'you're not a helicopter, you're not a cop out either'!) but like the girl with the curl when she's good she's very very good. In Playboy Mommy there's a very clear narrative throughout and every lyrics means something and has a reason for being there.
In or Out by Ani DiFranco
I'm not choosing an Ani DiFranco song because she's gay (or bi) and the Glee story line was about a gay character coming out, same as I wouldn't just choose songs by Asian artists for Mike Chang.
And I have to say this isn't my favourite Ani DiFranco song but it fits the bill perfectly because it's not a song about Ani DiFranco's sexuality, it's about other peoples reactions to it.
Get Out Of My House by Kate Bush
It's pretty debatable whether this song is about female sexuality at all, but it's definitely about asserting yourself and being confident in your choices. I absolutely LOVE in this song the way Kate Bush screams 'get out of my house'! It's the most amazing piece of acting/singing I think I've ever heard. It really sounds like it could be a real life recording someone took of their (very) disfunctional neighbours fighting. The first few times I listened to it it was just the raw timbre of it that appealed to me but the more I listen the more melodic it sounds. It repeats again and again throughout the song and I could listen to it forever.
Kate Bush often acts out characters voices during songs. Sometimes they get a bit silly for my tastes (like on 'There Goes a Tenner') but on this song she does it to perfection when she sings from the point of view of the Russian (or maybe eastern european!?) door man. The vibe I get isn't so much that she's putting on a characters voice but that she's saying 'I can be both the emotional, visceral woman screaming 'get out of my house', and the boss who can very calmly but authoritatively tell you you're not getting in.'
I only noticed recently that the chanting that comes in at the end is actually Konnakol with lots of effects on it. What this song has to do with South Indian rhythms I have no idea, I'm guessing she just thought it sounded cool and she was right.
*I'm pretty sure anyone who says they don't like Glee is lying, along
with people who say they 'don't have a sweet tooth' or 'love the gym'
Untitled as of yet but one idea for a title is maybe 'Miss Havisham and the Sweetest Word'.....or maybe not. Maybe I'll just call it 'Waiting', I dunno yet....let's just go with 'Untitled'
I've watched the swollen sea swallow girls whole
And they've come back out clean, cold and shining
And I've watched birds carry grown men away
While, for the sweet word, I've sat here, impatient and wanting
I also considered having the last line:
While for the sweetest word I've sat waiting, pining
But I thought maybe that was a bit too rhyme-y. Actually maybe it's all too rhyme-y.......hmm there's a lot of self questioning in this post. Maybe I should go think about this some more <---There it is again! The self questioning! Ok no more maybes, I should definitely go think about this some more.
If you think you might have an answer to any of my 'maybes' in the post (or would like to share an opinion on any post for that matter) you can leave comments here on the blog or on my facebook page. I like feedback, on my list of favourite things it's right up there with cake.
Apparently collectors of Picasso painting would have his paintings screwed into the walls when he'd come visit becuase he'd take one look at them as say 'Oh that's not finished, I'll just take it home and make a few minor adjustments and drop it back to you tomorrow' and they'd never get the paintings back coz he'd keep insisting it wasn't finished yet.
Here's an update on yesterday's post, the lyrics are still unfinished (I didn't just compare myself to Picasso, not even a little bit).
I want my words to eat me
Like a big starving thing
Eat my bones my skin my hair
Till there's nothing left to see
But my words
Only my words will be left of me.
Still Hungry! Every night when you seek sleep
They'll thunder through your window
Just when you think you're alone
You'll hear my words looking for something good to eat.
Some new lyrics I started this morning after reading this paragraph from a short story*:
Do you have any pets? he asked. No. Not even a cat? No. Why not? I'm not sure I could care for a pet. I travel a lot. But you could get a very little pet that wasn't very hungry. I knew all about those things that weren't very hungry; my life was full of them. I didn't want any more weaklings who were activated by water and heat but had no waste and were so small that when they died, I buried them only with forgetfulness. If I was going to bring something new into my home, it would be a big starving thing.
And the lyrics in progress are:
My words will eat me
Like a big starving thing
My hair and bones
There'll be nothing left to see
But my words
My songs will eat me
Like a big starving thing
In it's jaws dying
I'll hear the sweet singing
Of my songs
Initially for the first two lines I had 'I want my words to eat me like a big starving thing. Consume my bones my skin my hair till there's nothing left to see but my words'. Not sure which I prefer yet. I only just scribbled these down today so by the time I'm finished with them they may have changed beyond recognition. They might go well with some lyrics I posted up here a little while ago....maybe, we'll see.
*The short story is called 'The Boy from Lam Kien' and it's by Miranda July
There's a lyric I love from the talking heads song 'This Must Be the Place':
"Sing into my mouth"
It's a funny line and a bit of a gross idea if you take it literally, someone else singing directly into your mouth.
My thoughts on it were that he's imaging the singing coming to him rather than from him, as if his own words are feeding him, his own creativity sustaining him.
With that and lots of other things in mind here are some lyrics I'm working on at the moment. No recording of them yet because they don't have a melody yet:
Waiting for it all to fall into place Waiting For when the words fall into my mouth Waiting For ripeness to reach it's peak The stem will break But not before The falling fruit It's sweetness take From branch to fruit From fruit to me From me to you
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
I went for a gander to my local library and came back with three goodies. I've just started reading the first, entitled 'Crap Lyrics', and so far my reaction has been like those videos you see on youtube of babies laughing uncontrollably*.
Anyway in the introduction there's a quote from Noel Gallagher:
" I get the odd night when I'm halfway through 'Don't look back in anger' when I say to myself 'I still don't know what these words mean! I'm thinking what the...'Stand up beside the fireplace! Why? And all these kids will be singing it at the top of their voices with all their arms around each other and I kind of feel like stopping and going 'Look can someone help me out here? Am I missing something?"
Why did he pick that lyric to single out as nonsense? Of all the Oasis lyrics that make absolutely no sense whatsoever like: "Slowly walking down the hall, faster than a cannonball"
'Stand up beside the fireplace' is at least a fully formed sentence. It's even got a sense of gravitas to it, like maybe you'd stand beside the fireplace to give an important speech or if you wanted to be taken seriously but when would you ever be "Caught beneath the landslide in a champagne super nova in the sky".
*except I'm not a baby obviously.
Monday, April 4, 2011
I had so much fun making my Venn Diagram the other day that I decided to make some more (click on the images to view them larger)
Here's one for
Mahalia Jackson
And here's one for Damien Rice
(*I just want to point out that when I say 'sad' I mean unhappy, I'm not being all Irish and equating the perfectly reasonable emotion of sadness with being a loser)
And Lastly
Jay Z
I had a great idea for one for Jennifer Lopez but I got so sick of researching her lyrics that I gave up......the themes were 'I'm a normaller like you' (Jenny From the Block, I'm Real...) and 'The music in clubs is always too quiet' (play my favourite song, let's get loud...)
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Lots of people never listen to lyrics! Especially boys! I like to begin blog posts with wide sweeping, unresearched generalisations about large portions of the population and end the sentences with exclamation marks!
Listening to lyrics can be a bit of hinderance, it can stop you liking otherwise perfectly good music. First example: the jazz standard 'How High the Moon'. It has the worst lyrics of all time in the history of the world ever! A completely nonsensical ream of words that rhyme and are vaguely associated with romance. No narrative, no plot, no characters...the song makes no sense (and Ella Fitzgerald does it no favours when she scraps the lyrics and instead improvises her own, she managed somehow to make even less sense).
'Somewhere there's music How faint the tune Somewhere there's heaven How high the moon There is no moon above When love is far away too Till it comes true That you love me as I love you'
...Say What!? Yes somewhere there is music, you are singing this song so music is right here so you are making music, do the lyrics mean to say 'I hear music when I see you' 'wherever you are there's music' 'falling in love makes me hear music'...I have no idea, and why is the tune faint? Is the narrator only a little bit in love, is that why the love is far away? Unrequited love makes the moon move further away? We can probably guess what the lyricist wanted to say in this song (only because the sentiment is such a cliché) but he never actually says it. I'm assuming what he meant to say was something along the lines of 'would you please love me back coz that'd be great and the moon would shine brighter and I'd hear music and it'd be like heaven on earth', but he never bothers to actually tell that story, and instead just uses a few key words and hopes we'd fill in the details. I'll show you exactly how this song was written:
Someone made a list that looked something like this: Love Dove Above Tune Moon Soon Room True Blue You Too
He then chose sentences at random from a chick lit novel and replaced randomly chosen words with ones from the list. Job Done. Another day at the office.
But there are loads of great recordings of this tune, you just have to make your brain forget it understands English so you don't notice the lyrics so much and just hear them as abstract sounds to enjoy them.
So after that long intro I'll get to my point. Here are some albums with great lyrics, and/or great lyrical delivery. If you're the kind of person that winces every time you hear this then you might enjoy some of these (they're not in order of preference, and not necessarily my favourite, just three off the top of my head):
First a jazz one: The Newest Sound Around Jeanne Lee and Ran Blake
Jeanne Lee knows how to deliver a lyric. 'Loverman' is performed almost exactly as written in a drawn out monotonous tone, starkly simple it hits you with the melancholic frustration of a woman who knows nothing of love who sits at home all day waiting for a man she's never met. Lyrics of 'Evil Blues' could be a cliché if it wasn't for her believability (and of course Ran Blake's kick ass 'Monkish' piano playing...I love the beginning of his solo, just three cantankerous notes sung out timed to perfection)
Next: Knuckle Down Ani DiFranco
I'm gonna let her speak for herself:
'I love the way your stories seem to fall from your lips With just enough slobber so it sparkles and drips The way you hang the whole room on a word Like a little stick in the beak of a bird
First we touched fingers and then we touched toes Then my army surrendered My government overthrown I threw myself a little role reversal and followed you home Just dying to be chewed The dog was chosen by the bone'
She's got the story telling and imagery of folk, the raw energy of punk and some unbelievable guitar skills, there is nothing not to love about this woman. I saw her live recently and you could see that like all great super heroes she uses her power for good and had a load of tunes about important political issues and, one of my favourites, a tune about how promiscuity is an important part of growing up and learning who you are and you shouldn't be ashamed of it. What is not to love about this woman
And lastly: Trampoline Miriam Ingram
There are some tunes on here with lyrics I hate, but the ones I love I really really love. They're crunchy and taste of metal, they're also completely melded with the soundscapes she creates and don't necessarily work so well in print so I won't do them a disservice here, instead go listen to 'Inhale' and 'Winter' (can't find them online so you might just have to go support an Irish artist with a trip to Tower Records).
Well now that title might be a little misleading because todays blog isn't strictly about 'songs about songs', it's about lyrics that arise from a frustration with song writing...but that's just not quite as catchy. At first when I was writing this blog I thought to myself 'I need to link these ideas together more, to draw more comparisons and conclusions...' and then I remembered it's not a leaving cert essay. If you'd like to draw a conclusion please do.
1) Fiona Apple: Waltz
Fiona Apple has written one song about writing songs, arguably two. I'm a big fan of Fiona Apple's two earlier albums, they're clever, they sound honest, the production is good BUT every single song is about boys. Not that that's always a bad thing, I mean the girl can put a clever spin on heartbreak but by the end of the second album I was thinking I hope she doesn't spend her whole life wracked by teenage self doubt worrying about whether 'he' really loves her. It's tempting to want to shout at her 'Hey Fiona, he's a douche' and hope that she'll hear you from the other side of the CD, move on and come across some new territory.
So when 'Extraordinary Machine' came out, her most recent and very possibly last album, I was excited the first time I listened to it and heard the lyrics on 'Parting Gift':
'Oh you silly, stupid pastime of mine You were always good for a rhyme'
This song is meant as a parting gift to the men in her life she's written songs about (I don' think I'm just making that up, I'm pretty sure she's said so in interviews). Great I thought, nows when I get to hear an intelligent woman sing about something other than silly boys. Alas it wasn't to be. Instead the album closes with 'Waltz'
'If you don't have a song To sing you're ok'
Supposedly this is her retirement song. So as soon as she decides not to write about heartbreak the only thing she has left to write about is how she has nothing left to write about?* This is my least favorite 'song about a song'. It's really more of an excuse, an explanation for bowing out. Singing about having nothing to sing about isn't really very interesting so lets move onto a song about a song that has a LOT to say.
2) Saul Williams: Surrender
The lyrics really work on many levels, a love song recognizing the destructive powers a lover can wield, and a song about trying to overcome his ego and surrender himself completely to his muse (who scares the bejaysus out of him). Now here's a portrayal of a strong woman that you don't get in songs often, even if she may be a mythical figure. Her strength doesn't come from adopting male traits, it's her openness, her willingness to love and her ability to reinvent herself that make her strong. You find this character a lot in Saul Williams music, he's the one of the greatest feminist lyricists I can think of off the top of my head.
The whole idea of inspiration coming from a muse is really very useful. Believing the creative idea comes from an external source is such a great way of tricking your brain into shutting your ego down. 'Is this lyric good? Is that melody too catchy/not catchy enough?' 'I dunno, not my problem I'm just doing what my muse tells me to, she's the boss'. But this song is more of a lovers wrestle, his muse won't stay still for him, her honesty and love scares him like a bachelor scared of intimacy.
Throughout the whole song he keeps repeating 'I need a second, I need a second to think' as if he has no control over the song writing, the muse is having her way with him (the cheeky minx), writing the song through him and he's fighting to have his say.
Really the first half of the song is about the futility of music, the self indulgent folly of being a musician. In the face of tragedy what good can a song do? There's an instinct sometimes to rewrite tragedy in music into something heroic or meaningful but I don't think that approach is necessarily very honest.
The second half of the song is sung to the living:
'I'm another song, let me try to keep you warm, let me hold you hand, let me try to heal what's sore, And I'll search for the sun should a darkness overcome you. I'm a hopeful song hopeful for and end to the suffering of young men.'
It's split into two halves, one half for the dead should they choose to listen and one half for the living. Deciding to write a song about a tragedy is a tricky one. Firstly for selfish reasons I'm not big into writing weepys. The term singer songwriter has taken quite a bashing over the last while unfortunately. People have stereotypes of guys with their guitars singing depressing music to their friends. Personally I think the stereotype is completely unfair but I try to avoid it none the less. The other more important reason I'm cautious about writing about tragedy is that I feel like you have to take responsibility for what you put out into the world and if what your putting out there is songs with no hope
But that's exactly how I felt about this particular tragedy that I was writing about. People had died, it was too late there was no hope for them and I wanted to be honest about that. Your instinct is to try to make everything ok, to rewrite history with a song, but sometimes tragedy makes you realize the very narrow limits of art....
*To be fair the other song on the album that is arguably a song about song writing is 'Please please please' which is supposedly aimed at her record label which was pressuring her into writing:
'something familiar Something similar To what we know already That will keep us steady Steady, steady Steady going nowhere'
So it's possible she's not a one trick pony after all, maybe she's a circus pony who's owners are big into dressage or something. Maybe given some time and artistic freedom she'll join a circus and surprise us all with her jumping through fire tricks. Here's hoping......That'd make a great children's story.
**It was hard to pick one part out of this verse to quote, Saul William's lyrics flow from one line to the next with each line revealing a possible alternate meaning for the one before it so it doesn't lend itself well to dissection. I think that's what rappers mean when they talk about 'flow', I wouldn't know though coz I'm not down with the cool kids. So here's a link to the full lyrics.
As promised I'm going to write a blog about the best ambassador pop music could ever ask for; Annie Lennox, specifically Annie Lennox's music (it needs specifying because she's an interesting lady in lots of ways).
Pop gets a bad name. Classical and jazz snigger about it behind it's back. Pop is stupid. Pop has no subtlety. All pop sounds like the Girlz Aloud or U2. Pop in the X Factor. Pop is generic*.
Of course I'm sure pop is sitting at the back of class telling all the cool kids that jazz is a nerd. All jazz sounds like a lounge lizard version of So What or Michel Bublé. Jazz doesn't know how to have fun**.
Ok enough of anthropomorphising musical genres. My point is I don't really think genres matter much. Like any label they can be useful but generally are quite limited (revolutionary I know). Think of sandwiches. Think of the best sandwich you've ever had sitting next to the worst. They're both sandwiches but the word is just so inadequate in describing either.
Which brings me to Annie Lennox.
I listen to a lot of what I call slash music. If you've never heard of it it's coz I just made the name up. What I mean by slash music is music that doesn't really fall into any one genre neatly, like Julie Feeney is pop/classical/choral (as in pop slash classical slash coral) or Rachel Ferrell's (Can I be Me) Soul/RnB/Jazz/pop. People love to categorise things but there's nothing wrong with a bit of genre bending. Mingus apparently tried for ages to get in contact with Joni Mitchell to do some collaborations but was finding it really difficult because her record label was scared if they did collaborate it'd be the death knell of her career. His label of course thought the exact same thing. Imagine! The absolute arrogance of the record labels. Maybe I'm naive but I think that's just astounding. They're an unlikely and great pair, like nutella and salami (ok here's a little tangent that has nothing to do with music or lyrics but it's my blog and I get to write about whatever I want and right now I want to write about how good nutella and salami is. On toast, cheapy white bread toast, now is not the time for health concerns, loads of nutella and spice salty salami. Yum! Of course the Mitchel Mingus analogy doesn't really stand up coz who'd be the nutella and who'd be the salami? Mingus would have to be the salami but Joni Mitchel is nothing like nutella.)
Back to Annie Lennox. Annie Lennox is NOT slash music
Annie Lennox is pure pop. Go back to that image you had of the worst sandwich sitting next to the best. Annie Lennox is the best...I don't know enough about pop to know who the worst is, maybe boyzone. Oh no wait I do know who the worst is. The worst is Westlife***.
Fist things first, pop has to be catchy. Pop is instant gratification. There's nothing wrong with a bit of instant gratification every now and then. Of course there has to be something there to sustain you...but we'll get to that later. Cue the opening bars of Walking on Broken Glass. Oh the joy! Syncopated counter melodies on piano then the strings come in and about 15 seconds in the big percussive crash and the drums kick in. Your hooked. If you're not hooked you don't have blood in your veins (or you've been studying music too long and ear training has completely leavened the hierarchy of pitches to the point where you can't tell dissonance from consonant, don't worry you can be cured I prescribe a week of dancing to Annie Lennox and singing power ballads).
The contagiousness of pop music of course is why it's so popular but it's also why it's seen as shallow, which is ridiculous. Jazz can be instant gratification in a jar, so long as you know where to look. How catchy is Blue Monk? Very. How catchy is (insert name of a million classical songs that I can hum but don't the name of here)? Very. Catchy isn't bad. What is bad is when something catches your attention, but on closer inspection you realise it's not actually a tub of ice cream in the freezer it's left over soup you made last week and put in an old ice cream tub to freeze for later (I promise that's the last ridiculous food analogy).
Usually the ideas behind pop songs are pretty simple. Something like 'I love you' or 'I hate you'. Simple isn't always bad. One of my favourite lines in a pop song is 'I hate you so much right now'. Pretty simple, sung well it's pretty effective. Of course having little twists is always nice. Like Imogen Heap's 'I love you' song Goodnight and Go which is written from the point of view of a stalker, a nice little twist that you only realise in the second verse when she sings about staring in a guys window while he gets undressed and flicks through the TV channels 'and you think you're alone'.
Back to Annie Lennox. In general Annie Lennox's lyrics aren't very 'clever'. I don't mean that as a bad thing. They're more emotional than intellectual. She's an openly emotional lady, that's what I love about her. Unfortunately she probably finds it a burden. Poor Annie, no ones gonna pay attention to your chronic depression if you write anthemic pop songs, even if you do call them Walking on Broken Glass or Dark Road or The Hurting Time. Love is Blind is a great funky ass wiggler, you're on the dance-floor wiggling away having loadsa fun but pay attention and you'll realise you're wiggling to ; 'Sometimes I feel like I don't exist, cut my veins slit my wrists, goodbye goodbye that's all she wrote as she tied that knot around her throat...tired of being so screwed up, tired of all this desperation...'.
I feel like every blog post should have a conclusion or a summary. In conclusion: go listen to Annie Lennox.
***Westlife's song 'What about now' is the worst song in the history of the planet. You know that song 'The Venga Bus'? It's worse than that. You know the music on the Harry Norman adds? This is worse than that. Now I realize that the boys from Westlife probably had very little to do with the writing of the song but they put they're name to it so now it's out in the world it's their responsability. The chorus is nothing but questions? I swear? Wanna know how to write an epic pop ballad? Just put a question mark at the end of every sentence? The sentences don't even have to be particularly coherent or form any kind of a story or narrative? Hinting that the song might be about a relationship is good coz people love lyrics about relationships but the vaguer you are the better coz then everyone can relate? The lyrics go something like:
What about now?
What about today?
What if you’re making me all that I was meant to be?
What if our love had never went away?
What if it’s lost behind words we could never find?
Baby, before it’s too late,
What about now?
Is that a lamp in the corner?
How about chinese for dinner?......eugh I made those last two lines up but only coz I was getting so bored with the actual lyrics.
Just so you don't think I'm unfairly bashing pop here I promise to write about how bad the lyrics to jazz standards can be sometime.
I’ve had this blog for a while without really knowing what to do with it so I’ve come to the well worn conclusion, ‘write what you know’. What I know is lyrics, more specifically my own lyrics (I should know them I wrote them after all).
The same characters pop up in jazz standards all the time. There’s the woman who’s waiting around for the man she loves either because he isn’t treatin’ her right or because she hasn’t met him yet (black coffee, weeping willow, mean to me, lover man…etc) and the lesser heard woman who’s in love and he loves her back (all the love songs like the nearness of you, oh watcha doin to me…).
The feminist in me cannot stand this first character, the woman waiting around for some fictional or no good man. Part of me thinks maybe the reason the character is so prevalent in jazz standards is because jazz began in brothels and possibly the character was a useful and lucrative one for the Madames and prostitutes to adopt. But apparently the prostitues at the time were very powerful figures, feared for their vodoo powers and their agility with a razor so that belies that idea (I’m not an expert on this, in fact I’m totally winging this theory but I think the musicians who played in the brothels wrote songs about their patrons the madames so this powerful female character is pretty common in the early blues tunes like: sea lion woman and evil blues).
But maybe I’m reading too much into things as usual, the story is hardly exclusive to jazz standards as proved by the Penelope in the Odysee and every fairy tale princess that’s ever been.
So the character gets on my nerves. Like in ‘ain’t misbehaving’ who is this guy that has Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald, two of the most powerful sounding women I’ve ever heard, moping at home all day? and why is staying out past eight considered misbehaving? Or Lover Man, if Sarah Vaughan longs so badly to try something she’s never had why doesn’t she just go out and get some? But after all my protestations, Seasnail is a ‘waiting-round-for-love’ song. Hopefully one that breaks with some of the tradition. I might be waiting, but I will not wait quietly. Waiting will not be a passive state of inertia. Waiting will be an empowering choice. Contrary as usual the first line in my ‘waitin-round’ song is:
‘I won’t wait for you…’
The contrariness is intentional. What I mean is ‘I don’t have to wait’, ‘I could be writing a not-waiting-round-for-love song if I wanted’, or more precisely I’ll wait on my terms, because then I go on to describe the ways I will not wait…I will not wait:
‘porcelain faced a *willow pattern plate in this tent I’ve made from your love letters.
And then the line I love to sing
‘coz I’m so sick of love letters’.
I spend most of my days singing about a world entirely inhabited by weeping willows, starlight, faces that flower and daisy petals to sail away on** so it’s a nice refreshing break to sing about being a horny devil who’s sick of love letters. No matter how romantic or poetic a love letter is it couldn’t possibly compare to the reality of having your love there with you, even if the reality is usually messier (I mean you can’t exactly argue about who’s turn it is to wash the dishes in a love letter).
‘So I’ll wait for you the only way I know how, Like a bride on fire Like a statue come alive Like a horny devil drunk on love and crazy for a fight’
I’ve already decided what I’m gonna write about next time. It’s something I get asked about a lot ‘who are the songs about’ or ‘they’re so personal, don’t you mind getting up on stage and telling everyone your business’…so tune in next week, or possibly a little later on that, whenever I get round to writing it really.
*you mightn’t know what a willow pattern plate is but you probably own one, or maybe your granny does. Willow pattern is that blue on white oriental pattern you see on crockery. It tells some ancient oriental love story about a woman who is about to marry a man she doesn’t love when the man of her dreams shows up and they flee together. I can’t remember what happens in the end, I think maybe her father sends an assassin after them and they die and turn into birds, metaphorically at least. The point is it’s a very romantic traditional love story where the man comes along and saves the lady in distress.
**name that tune: willow weep for me, stella by starlight, my shining hour, stariway to the stars.
