#31
|
|||
|
|||
I sing Paul Simon's own added "concert" verse when I do "The Boxer", but I know it confuses everyone singing along.
Due to cultural factors which have changed over the years, I also change one word in the second-to-last line of the original recorded version (Mason Williams) of "J. Edgar Swoop", which is consistently one of my campfire crowd amusers. Of course when it comes to altering lyrics I imagine a bunch of us here are like me and my friends - a bit of the "Weird Al" gene becomes dominant when alcohol is imbibed during jam sessions and such |
#32
|
|||
|
|||
Yes. I’ve read enough articles about music and even endured an oral history of African folklore course in college to state with 100% certainty that changing the lyrics of songs and tweaking tales has been going on for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. I have no morally aligned hesitations changing lyrics.
|
#33
|
|||
|
|||
I’ll change a he to a she or maybe alter a line a little to maximize effect but that’s about it. Of course when I play You Can’t Always Get What You Want, the third verse becomes “We decided to have a soda. My favorite flavor Budweiser red...”.
Oh and Long Haired Country Boy’s last line always becomes “If you don’t like the way I’m living...Just leave this short fat bald guy alone”.
__________________
'59 Gibson J-45 "Spot" '21 Gibson LG-2 - 50's Reissue '94 Taylor 710 '18 Martin 000-17E "Willie" ‘23 Taylor AD12e-SB '22 Taylor GTe Blacktop '15 Martin 000X1AE https://pandora.app.link/ysqc6ey22hb |
#34
|
||||
|
||||
FYI - Those words are the third verse of Honky Tonk Woman by the Rolling Stones.
__________________
Waterloo WL-S, K & K mini Waterloo WL-S Deluxe, K & K mini Iris OG, 12 fret, slot head, K & K mini Follow The Yellow Brick Road |
#35
|
|||
|
|||
Quote:
__________________
"Militantly left-handed." Lefty Acoustics Martin 00-15M Taylor 320e Baritone Cheap Righty Classical (played upside down ala Elizabeth Cotten) |
#36
|
|||
|
|||
In my core I guess I'm a folk musician. That means an approach that there is no "official" version of a song, that if you're playing for an audience you might fit the song to the audience, that authorship belongs somewhat to the singer, and that you can freely move between the antique charm of a very old song to the immediacy of making it sound like it happened last night.
I revere wordsmiths and songwriters, and I even take a persnickety exception to those that assume more famous musicians must have written the lyrics to their songs. But then I revere John Coltrane too and I don't play My Favorite Things note for note (not that I could!) and it's unlikely he felt he had to follow Julie Andrews' phrasing exactly either. Others feel differently, and produce fine performances too. The folk process, where stuff gets modified by performers produces plenty of failed attempts to improve things, which isn't a definitive argument against it because it can also keep things alive. As to mistakes and mondegreens: there's a line in one of my favorite Dylan lesser-known songs Please Crawl Out Your Window which is usually written down as "their religion of little ten women" which is a bad enough line that "Dewey Cox" could have written it. Dylan never got a take he liked, and there several bootleg/out-take versions where he sings slightly different lyrics, but in one I heard him sing what sounded like "his religion of polluted women." I've loved that misheard line so much that I always use my mondegreen when I sing it. I just think it's a great line and adds to the song's impact. In a version of Robert Johnson's Hellhound on My Trail, Peter Green reversed the blues stanza Johnson sang and instead sung "If today was Christmas Day/If today was Christmas Day/and tomorrow was Christmas Eve." Mistake or intended? I don't know, but it's a genius line isn't it. There are whole songs wringing out that metaphor: If I Could Turn back the Hands of Time, Yesterday, and so on. But in the middle of that dark song with wind sounding leaves in December trees, it sure works.
__________________
----------------------------------- 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.... |
#37
|
|||
|
|||
I was in a cover band that played "Take It Easy." Bob the singer liked to do the third verse with "... just a little hard to find," like in Jackson Browne's version. On a break, one club owner called Bob over to the bar and told him to stop doing that.
|
#38
|
|||
|
|||
I just write new lyrics to fit the tune if I don't like the original ones....
|
#39
|
|||
|
|||
Would "The Boxer" verse refered to be the "Years are rolling by me, they are rockin' easily" verse? I've often wondered why I don't hear it on radio(edited for time?). When I play the song, I nearly always sing that verse, many people don't seem to know it.
Gibson Dove 67 Fender Coronado mod |
#40
|
|||
|
|||
I present you the final boss of this lyrical debate.
"There were plants and birds and rocks and things there was sand and hills and rings" - America You changing that or? |
#41
|
|||
|
|||
I hereby grant you all permission to change the lyrics when you sing my songs.
__________________
Original music here: Spotify Artist Page |
#42
|
|||
|
|||
Quote:
Quote:
My feeling on changing lyrics depends wholly on the song. If it's a traditional folk song, or a blues, where the original composer is either unknown or never existed (because the existing lyrics are a combination from various unknown sources), then clearly the lyrics are fair game. You sing the ones you like. I don't think I'd rephrase anything, or add new words, I'd just choose the verses I liked. I might sometimes modify a line if I felt it sounded too archaic or unnatural - but if that became a big issue, requiring a lot of modification, I might just not sing the song at all. (Being English, I naturally feel a bit weird singing African-American songs....) If the composer is known, then I wouldn't change anything - not the lyrics anyway. If I didn't like some of the words, I just wouldn't sing the song in the first place. Why bother? Why not just choose songs where you're 100% happy with all the words? There's surely enough of those about. If not - then write your own songs! It's not because I care about what an audience might think. I'm sure I would care much more about the content of the song than they will. The point is that I only choose a song to perform in the first place because I love it - meaning all of it. The words as written would speak to me as powerfully as the tune does. That doesn't mean I'm going to perform it as an accurate copy of an original recording. I might change the key, I might change the arrangement (how I play the guitar, whether I play it with a band). I will certainly improvise my own solo, if appropriate. On very rare occasions I might even change the chords - but then I know how much I hate it when other people change the chords of songs I like: it always sounds to me as if they just haven't listened properly to the original - if they don't care, why are they bothering at all? Having said that, I know there are Dylan songs where substantial re-arrangements - including new chord sequences - can work wonders. He does it himself, after all! I think he's a rare case, in that his original songs (i.e., words and melody) are strong enough to take that kind of treatment. Most jazz standards are similarly strong. Not many rock songs are.
__________________
"There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in." - Leonard Cohen. Last edited by JonPR; 08-11-2018 at 08:26 AM. |
#43
|
||||
|
||||
Thanks man. I was worried about that.
__________________
Waterloo WL-S, K & K mini Waterloo WL-S Deluxe, K & K mini Iris OG, 12 fret, slot head, K & K mini Follow The Yellow Brick Road |
#44
|
|||
|
|||
Quote:
Then they're my songs, of course. mwahahahahaaa!
__________________
"There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in." - Leonard Cohen. |
#45
|
|||
|
|||
Quote:
Very well said, Jon... As I briefly mentioned previously, if the lyrics of a song didn't move me, I wouldn't bother singing it in the first place...and if I thought I could rewrite lyrics better than the original writer, I'd be writing my own...
__________________
"Music is much too important to be left to professionals." |