#1
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Does it ever seem to you that songwriters get more credit than they deserve?
I like songs, and appreciate good lyrics. They can be powerful and meaningful, and the message is certainly enhanced by their musical and repetitive nature.
However, sometimes when people talk about Dylan or Cohen or whomever, I think they give them way too much credit. They aren't really in the same ballpark as Shakespeare or Yeats, but from some of the statements I read, it would appear that some think they are. Songs are typically pretty short with lots of repeated sections. There just isn't much there, less that many nursery rhymes. I'll end this post with the lyrics to Blowin' In the Wind. How many roads must a man walk down Before you call him a man? How many seas must a white dove sail Before she sleeps in the sand? Yes, 'n' how many times must the cannon balls fly Before they're forever banned? The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind The answer is blowin' in the wind Yes, 'n' how many years can a mountain exist Before it is washed to the sea? Yes, 'n' how many years can some people exist Before they're allowed to be free? Yes, 'n' how many times can a man turn his head And pretend that he just doesn't see? The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind The answer is blowin' in the wind Yes, 'n' how many times must a man look up Before he can see the sky? Yes, 'n' how many ears must one man have Before he can hear people cry? Yes, 'n' how many deaths will it take 'til he knows That too many people have died? The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind The answer is blowin' in the wind |
#2
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How much time have you spent reading Shakespeare or Yeats this last year?
They're different category of communication with different expectations and boundaries. Put a melody to the following and see if it makes it into the top forty. "Can death be sleep, when life is but a dream, And scenes of bliss pass as a phantom by? The transient pleasures as a vision seem, And yet we think the greatest pain's to die. How strange it is that man on earth should roam, And lead a life of woe, but not forsake His rugged path; nor dare he view alone His future doom which is but to awake."
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Made to one with pride and love To be that we hold so dear A voice from heavens above |
#3
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Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon The handmade blade, the child's balloon Eclipses both the sun and moon To understand you know too soon There is no sense in trying Pointed threats they bluff with scorn Suicide remarks are torn From the fools gold mouthpiece the hollow horn Plays wasted words, proves to warn That he not busy being born Is busy dying Temptation's page flies out the door You follow, find yourself at war Watch waterfalls of pity roar You feel to moan, but unlike before You discover that you'd just be one more Person crying So don't fear if you hear A foreign sound to your ear It's alright, Ma, I'm only sighing As some warn victory, some downfall Private reasons, great or small Can be seen in the eyes of those that call To make all that should be killed to crawl While others say don't hate nothing at all Except hatred Disillusioned words like bullets bark As human gods aim for their mark Make everything from toy guns that spark To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark It's easy to see without lookin' too far That not much is really sacred While preachers preach of evil fates Teachers teach that knowledge waits Can lead to hundred-dollar plates Goodness hides behind its gates But even the President of the United States Sometimes must have to stand naked And though the rules of the road have been lodged It's only people's games that you got to dodge And it's alright, Ma, I can make it Advertising signs that con You into thinking you're the one That can do what's never been done That can win what's never been won Meantime, life outside goes on All around you You lose yourself, you reappear You suddenly find you got nothing to fear Alone you stand with nobody near When a trembling distant voice, unclear Startles your sleeping ears to hear That somebody thinks they really found you A question in your nerves is lit Yet you know there is no answer fit To satisfy, ensure you not to quit To keep it in your mind and not forget That it is not he, or she, or them, or it That you belong to But though the masters make the rules For the wise men and the fools I got nothing, Ma, to live up to For them that must obey authority That they do not respect in any degree Who despise their jobs, their destiny Speak jealously of them that are free Do what they do just to be Nothing more than something they invest in While some on principles baptized To strict party platform ties Social clubs in drag disguise Outsiders they can freely criticize Tell nothing except who to idolize And say "God bless him" While one who sings with his tongue on fire Gargles in the rat race choir Bent out of shape from society's pliers Cares not to come up any higher But rather get you down in the hole That he's in But I mean no harm, nor put fault On anyone that lives in a vault But it's alright, Ma, if I can't please him Old lady judges watch people in pairs Limited in sex, they dare To push fake morals, insult and stare While money doesn't talk, it swears Obscenity, who really cares Propaganda, all is phony While them that defend what they cannot see With a killer's pride, security It blows the minds most bitterly For them that think death's honesty Won't fall upon 'em naturally Life sometimes must get lonely My eyes collide head-on with stuffed Graveyards, false goals, I scuff At pettiness which plays so rough Walk upside down inside handcuffs Kick my legs to crash it off Say, okay, I've had enough What else can you show me? And if my thought-dreams could be seen They'd probably put my head in a guillotine But it's alright, Ma, it's life, and life only |
#4
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To a degree you are comparing apples and oranges. Songs are generally short by nature, due in part to the attention span of the listener. Neither Shakespeare nor Yeats had that limitation: their works could be as long as they needed to be to say what was needed.
There is some skill to being able to convey your point in a short space. Dorothy Parker could say some awesome things in two sentences. Savvy Haiku? Songwriters are also more limited by being restricted by the form of the song structure itself. I was listening to a dissection by Polyphonic on YT yesterday of the Blue Oyster Cult's "Don't Fear the Reaper," which has a couple lines that go something like "More than 40,000 coming every day, 40,000 men and women coming every day" implying that 40,000 people die every day, when it fact, even in 1976, it was far greater. But the songwriter, Buck Dharma, has said in an interview, that it was the number that he used because it had the right number of syllables to fit the scansion of the song. Leonard Cohen was a poet before he was a songwriter. Many works of prose are no longer than many a song is. Consider Yeats "The Stolen Child," performed as a song by The Waterboys (with the blessing of the Yeats estate) It has 4 unique verses, each followed by a repeated chorus (for lack of a better word. I am sure it is called something else in poetry-speak) There are many song lyrics that have the power to move the listener. Will they still do so over time? Ask this question in a hundred years. Just my two Rupiah. Last edited by Mycroft; 12-20-2020 at 12:43 PM. |
#5
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If Dylan isn't in in the same ballpark as Yeats, it's because they're not playing the same game. Of course, both are working with language. But Yeats is writing for the page, where the music must inhere in the words themselves or be lost. Dylan has the benefit and limitation of writing for, or along with, music. And there is also the emotional element brought by a singing voice. Both are impressive artists, in their own way.
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#6
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Quote:
But I did read a lot of other classics and novels by fine authors. Quote:
edit: found this, lol Last edited by mc1; 12-20-2020 at 01:05 PM. |
#7
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#8
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Does it ever seem to you that songwriters get more credit than they deserve? Not even remotely, But the opposite does .
You are somewhat correct ( not in the same ballpark) in the reverse direction. Written word poets only have to consider and create a prosody, that deals with spoken language and is significantly simpler, in comparison to songwriters having to consider the complexity of the language in the context of the addition of the musical prosody as well,,, inherent in great songwriting . Juss sayin'
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Enjoy the Journey.... Kev... KevWind at Soundcloud KevWind at YouYube https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...EZxkPKyieOTgRD System : Studio system Avid Carbon interface , PT Ultimate 2023.12 -Mid 2020 iMac 27" 3.8GHz 8-core i7 10th Gen ,, Ventura 13.2.1 Mobile MBP M1 Pro , PT Ultimate 2023.12 Sonoma 14.4 Last edited by KevWind; 12-20-2020 at 05:03 PM. |
#9
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At this point I would like to point out that both Yeats and Dylan have won the Nobel Prize for Literature, so clearly some people put them in the same category.
Shakespeare has not. |
#10
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I strongly disagree. Plus, they're not novelists, they're not writing plays, they're writing songs. You're comparing apples to grapes, and I'm not saying which is which.
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#11
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Just as skateboards and space shuttles are in the same "category."
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2018 Guild F-512 Sunburst -- 2007 Guild F412 Ice Tea burst 2002 Guild JF30-12 Whiskeyburst -- 2011 Guild F-50R Sunburst 2011 Guild GAD D125-12 NT -- 1972 Epiphone FT-160 12-string 2012 Epiphone Dot CH -- 2010 Epiphone Les Paul Standard trans amber 2013 Yamaha Motif XS7 Cougar's Soundcloud page |
#12
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Quote:
Also Seems ol' Willy S was dead some 200+years before Al Nobel was even born Also if getting a prize is even a measurement of "prodigiousness". then observe as far as prodigious prizes,,,, Dylan just sold his song catalog for $300 million clearly a different category than Yeats, hey ?
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Enjoy the Journey.... Kev... KevWind at Soundcloud KevWind at YouYube https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...EZxkPKyieOTgRD System : Studio system Avid Carbon interface , PT Ultimate 2023.12 -Mid 2020 iMac 27" 3.8GHz 8-core i7 10th Gen ,, Ventura 13.2.1 Mobile MBP M1 Pro , PT Ultimate 2023.12 Sonoma 14.4 Last edited by KevWind; 12-20-2020 at 05:08 PM. |
#13
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Well I can now check a shuttle ride off my bucket list, as I have been on many skateboard rides
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Enjoy the Journey.... Kev... KevWind at Soundcloud KevWind at YouYube https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...EZxkPKyieOTgRD System : Studio system Avid Carbon interface , PT Ultimate 2023.12 -Mid 2020 iMac 27" 3.8GHz 8-core i7 10th Gen ,, Ventura 13.2.1 Mobile MBP M1 Pro , PT Ultimate 2023.12 Sonoma 14.4 |
#14
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One way I look at it is sure, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Paul McCartney and John Lennon have been lionized in popular culture for the past 50 some years.
But look at other great songwriters who have devoted, but smaller followings/accolades: Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark, John Prine, Steve Goodman to name just some of the better known ones. Many of these didn't get much attention until after they died. And there are other awesome current songwriters you'll never hear or hear of: Slaid Cleaves, Joe Pug, Jeffrey Martin, Chris Knight.... Its like when I was in the service and we'd roll our eyes at getting medals just for doing our job. The Chief would say "this isn't just for you - its also for all the other squids who work hard everyday and never get any recognition." IMO the "superstars" help keep it alive for everyone else, though Dylan et al do deserve credit, too. |
#15
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Well, they can both be sour.
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