#61
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I liked your transformation of the Dadaist poem int blues. If I’m reading you right about purposely mixed diction though, I think the blues folks were careful about sound when doing so. E.g,
The lights is on people, but it happens just the same. The lights is on, happens just the same. In the swaying nights, you can hear the flames. Rings true partly because “is” is more propulsive than “are.” But “those” here isn’t as propulsive as either “the” or “them.” I heard those shrill bells, there was spinning in the dust. When I heard those shrill bells, there was spinning in the dust. When the levee breaks, the dams is torn apart. I’m going to read some more of your blog. Have you put that poem to music yet? Quote:
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#62
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#63
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With the "those" choice I think I liked the sound of the z sounding s in those combining with the concluding s of bells. Looking at my choice again, I'm not so sure that I should go to present tense: "I hear shrill bells. There's spinning in the dust..." My posts with audio pieces on the blog all had player gadgets to hear them, but some blog reader software (and maybe even some web browsers with some settings?) won't show them. I've started putting in alternative hyperlinks to play stuff on recent posts, but given that I've done more than 500 of them, I haven't gone back and added the alternative links to all. Here's a link to the the Ghost Blues recording. Play Ghost Blues The amount of time I can put into each composition and recording varies, but given that I was doing a bit more than 2 pieces a week for most of this Project, and doing the research, writing the blog posts, and at times doing new translations of the words from other languages, you can image how fast I needed to knock out the recordings. At the time I did this recording I thought of it as demo and that I'd get together with others to do a better recording, but schedules couldn't line up and then the rest of 2020 happened.
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----------------------------------- Creator of The Parlando Project Guitars: 20th Century Seagull S6-12, S6 Folk, Seagull M6; '00 Guild JF30-12, '01 Martin 00-15, '16 Martin 000-17, '07 Parkwood PW510, Epiphone Biscuit resonator, Merlin Dulcimer, and various electric guitars, basses.... |
#64
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I don't believe Dylan was a dadaist though. Many of his lyrics - in fact most - make good sense, and have a poetic charge. Even if his poetic techniques were sometimes crude, amateurish, there are plenty of beautiful images in his songs, some of them stunning. He always took music dead seriously, even when he was trying to be funny - just not in the same way as many of his fans did. I don't think he meant to feed the nerds. Quote:
1. Complex poetry that means something, and is understood correctly (as the poet meant it). 2. Complex poetry that means something, but is incomprehensible.. 3. Complex poetry that means something, but is misinterpreted (given the wrong meanings). 4. Complex poetry that means something, but is perceived as Dada-ist nonsense (assumed to have no meaning at all). 5. Dada-ist wordplay that is clearly nonsense.. 6. Dada-ist wordplay that is perceived to be complex poetry (and thereby misinterpreted). 7. Dada-ist wordplay that accidentally evokes unintended meaning. IMO, Dylan, at different times, was responsible for 1-4. I can accept occasionally he was responsible for 5-7. And of course sometimes he just wrote fairly straightforward song lyrics, not "poetry" at all, except in the sense that they rhymed and scanned! John Lennon was never really much good at 1-4. But (at least in I Am the Walrus) he had a good crack at 6. (His books, btw, used sardonic neologisms based on puns, with occasionally unintentional surrealist impact - i.e., they sometimes worked as 7.) Leonard Cohen, meanwhile, barely wrote complex poetry at all. He had the skill to use common language to express deep meanings - just the occasional striking image - seemingly surreal, but loaded with meaning. ("You notice there's a highway that is curling up like smoke above his shoulder"; "The rich have got their channels in the bedrooms of the poor"; "I'm junk but I'm still holding up this little wild bouquet".) (Rest of your post is great stuff, no further comment here. )
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"There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in." - Leonard Cohen. |
#65
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Dang! That's a fine list there of the various ways folk, in both song lyrics and page poetry, depart from the straightforward and narrow. Yes, Lennon had a strong preference for nonsense intended as nonsense. Dylan has so many modes, but Dada and put on was one of them. He'd improvise it in his mid 60s interviews. There's a good deal of non-sense stuff in the Basement Tapes era material for example. Non-sense turned into song lyrics has an advantage, in that listeners won't necessarily be bothered by "What the heck is he talking about" if there's a nice tune, a compelling performance, some rocking riffs, or a refrain line they can relate to. I think of some of Pete Brown's lyrics for Cream. I knew about Dada as an art movement not as a literary one before my project, I was kind of surprised at the range of the literature when I dipped into it. The couple of Tristian Tzara poems I've translated are more emotionally charged, intentionally so I think, than I expected. At least in the UK, I suspect the whole "Art School" as a place for the academic odd-balls factor led British lyricists onto that influence You mentioning Leonard Cohen reminds me that I need to translate some more Lorca, apparently a big influence on Cohen.
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----------------------------------- Creator of The Parlando Project Guitars: 20th Century Seagull S6-12, S6 Folk, Seagull M6; '00 Guild JF30-12, '01 Martin 00-15, '16 Martin 000-17, '07 Parkwood PW510, Epiphone Biscuit resonator, Merlin Dulcimer, and various electric guitars, basses.... |
#66
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"Does it ever seem to you that songwriters get more credit than they deserve?"
I could pontificate, eloquently and prolifically, or I can just say No... No, I've never, ever thought that.
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"Music is much too important to be left to professionals." |
#67
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(It's Xmas, we can't go boozing with pals due to lockdown, there's crap on TV, so we have to find some way to enjoy ourselves ... )
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"There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in." - Leonard Cohen. |
#68
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I'm off now to read some Foucault and Derrida. (Actually no, I'm probably going to surf some more guitar forums... )
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"There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in." - Leonard Cohen. |
#69
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I am old enough (just barely) to remember when beatniks sat around in their cool cat uniforms, celebrating their self anointed intellectual sophistication and individualism ,,,, by snapping fingers at poetry readings because clapping was ....well...so plebeian and bourgeoisie
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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 Ventura 12.2.1 |
#70
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The OP is only looking at one side of things - the lyrics.
I was never a lyrics guy. Unless the lyrics make some point I find completely odious, they’re fine with me. I’m a music guy. If I don’t like the music the lyrics won’t make me like the song.
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Some Acoustic Videos |
#71
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Where it was once "hit me daddy, swing that thang!", it was now "hmm, interesting harmonic substitution there..."
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"There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in." - Leonard Cohen. |
#72
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The need for many to establish an artificial set of criteria, to justify what is fundamentally the subconscious insecurity of desperately wanting to believe we are somehow elevated just a bit from the madding crowd, has not changed much in 10 thousand years......
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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 Ventura 12.2.1 Last edited by KevWind; 12-24-2020 at 11:03 AM. |
#73
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All true...I think the 2020 Isolation Blues (there may be a good song there) has exhausted my usual willingness to take up either side of a good scrap... I'll rest up over the Holidays, and try to hold up my end better next year...
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"Music is much too important to be left to professionals." |
#74
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"Again and thrice be it said " . NO
And here is why Consider the profundity and predictive nature of the Double D's (Dickens) “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair …, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way …” (Dylan) Come gather 'round, people Wherever you roam And admit that the waters Around you have grown Come writers and critics Who prophesie with pen And keep your eyes wide The chance won't come again And don't speak too soon For the wheel's still in spin And there's no tellin' who That it's namin' Come senators, congressmen Please heed the call Don't stand in the doorway Don't block up the hall
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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 Ventura 12.2.1 |
#75
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"Rulers like to lay down laws
And rebels like to break them, And the poor priests like to walk in chains And God likes to forsake them." Robin Williamson, October Song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KN84ld5xM9M Poetry is the ability to use a few well-chosen words to express profound and complex concepts - which would take many paragraphs to explain in prose or conversation, if indeed it was possible any other way. IMO, no one has managed to sum up the entire worlds of Politics and Religion as succinctly and perfectly as those four lines do. And he wrote that song in his teens (or early 20s at latest)! (He claims it was the first song he ever wrote, but I have my doubts there.) Incidentally, Dylan recognised it at the time as a great song too.
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"There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in." - Leonard Cohen. |