Damn Good Lyrics

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Damn Good Lyrics

• Theories about songs

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In the beginning was the
And the Song was with God. And the Song was
God. John 11
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Along with speech, Song was a primal means of
communication

• Before writing, Song formed the medium for
• Story-telling
• Drama and dance
• Poetry
• Homers Iliad and Odyssey began as song-stories
  before written Greek came into use
• In non-literate cultures, Song was a means of
  recording oral tradition

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Lyrics

• Lyrics come from theGreek lyre
• Words and music weremutually integral
• But why bother studying lyrics today?

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Why bother?

• Common criticisms
• Lyrics are secondary the words dont really
  matter. Its all in the music, man
• I never pay attention to the words you cant
  really hear most of them anyway
• Functional criticism
• Pop lyrics are just intuited from the music -
  they're just another track in the mix
• (Ian McDonald)

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But what happens if lyrics are removed?

• You are left with
• The instrumental an undistinguished genre
• Top selling Pop/Rock Instrumentals since 1950
• Herb Alpert/Tijuana Brass, The Lonely Bull
• Aker Bilk, Strangers on the Shore
• Booker T the MGs, Green Onions
• Surfaris, Wipe Out
• Kenny G, Song Bird
• Dick Dale, Miserlou (but not until Pulp Fiction)
• Floyd Cramer, Last Date

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Song Lyrics defined

• Lyrics are framed and textured words
• (rhythmically/melodically/sonically)
• Lyrics are staged voices
• "a song doesn't exist to convey the meaning of
  the words rather the words exist to convey the
  meaning of the song
• It is the extralinguistic elements that
  constitute the pop songthe driving bass line,
  earthy guitar, haunting Hammond organ, wistful
  wailing slide guitar, and rasping delivery of the
  lyrics
• (David Boucher)

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Lyrics are closer totheatre than to poetry

• Songs can be poetic, but they are not just poetry
  set to music
• They are someone speaking, performing, to another
  (or themselves)
• Singers portray character, a role
• Songs have narrative and plot
• Songs have to be performed
• Just like a play

. Poetry doesnt.
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The Secret
I'm here where I want to be Seven thousand miles
from infinity No one knows where I am It's quiet
here with me I'm filling in the spaces where the
killings used to be There's no phone and no way
home It's been a long time coming It's been a
long time I'm here where I want to be Seven
thousand miles from infinity No one knows where I
am but me
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How does the recording of these words shape their
texture?

• Timbre
• Voice(s)
• Pitch, register, phrasing, tone, harmony, accent,
  gender
• Echo
• Ambience
• The Secret by Meryn Cadell (1985)

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WORDS
MUSIC
PERFORMANCE/ RECORDING
A song suffers when any of these elements are
weak or dont mesh with the others
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Weak elements

• Bad Lyrics
• Poor Music weak arrangements
• Waiting Room (Fugazi/Emm Gryner)
• The Wall (Wrongs C/W rendition)
• Weak or Incongruent Performance
• Madonna sings American Pie
• Shatner sings anything
• Paul Anka .
• Weak Recording?

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From Exercise Good Lyrics have

• mood/evocative/emotive/passion
• Clarity/good production/balance/real talent
• Originality/ Contrast / Closure
• Humour/clever wordplay/wit
• Poetic craft good repetition/ narrative
• Structure/good length
• Honesty/EDGE
• Imagery/poetics/rhyme
• Simple/complex lyrics
• Strong melody/hook
• Variation
• Captures a moment/sensual lyrics
• Form own interpretation

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From Exercise Good Lyrics have

• Relate to them/ Universal/personal appeal
• Dynamics/energy/vibe/good climax
• Memorable/thought-provoking/depth
• Flow/cohesion/feels natural
• Instrumentation/fitting arrangement
• vocal talent phrasing/ delivery
• Timeless, but not obvious, message
• Strong persona
• Musicality/makes you move
• Guitar solos/memorable riffs

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Good Songs

• American Idiot
• Working-class hero
• Yesterday
• Heavy Metal Drummer
• Estranged (GR)
• 2Pac-Keep ya Head up
• Eyedea-Bottled dreams
• Walk the Line
• Yoshimi battles the Pink Robots
• Stairway to Heaven
• Fast Car
• The taste of Ink

• Cohen-Closing Time
• Bittersweet Symphony
• Old City Bar (TSO)
• Lateralus
• Talib Kweli-Get By
• Lauren Hill, DooWop
• Dallas Green-Hello Im Delaware
• Rush-Limelight
• In my Room
• Party Hard
• Blink 182-Dammit

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Good Songs

• Cold Play-Fix You
• Nirvana-come as you are
• Pink Floyd-Time
• Bob Marley-War
• Pixies-Tame
• Imagine
• RATM-Killing in the name of
• Neil Young-On the Beach
• Tomorrow Never Knows

• Oasis-Wonderwall
• Pride Tiger-Lucky ones
• Elliott Smith-Fond Farewell to a friend
• RHCP-Under the Bridge
• Foo Fighters-Everlong
• Sublime-What I got
• Metallica-Enter the Sandman
• Weezer-Say it isnt so
• Matt Good-Apparitions

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Good Songs 2

• Nirvana, Teen Spirit / Come as you are
• Marvin Gaye-Whats Goin On
• Eminem-Stan
• Hanson Great Divide
• Silver Chair-After all these Years
• Green Day-When Sept. ends/ American Idiot
• Freebird
• Jeff Buckley-Lover you should come over
• Beatles-In my Life
• Chapin-Cats in the cradle
• Marley-Redemption Song
• Queen-I wanna break free

• Neil Young-Old Man
• Cohen-Bird on a Wire
• Ben Folds-Brick
• Masters of war
• A man needs a maid
• Brand New-Jesus
• Smashing Pumpkins-Ava Adore
• SG-America
• NWA-Fuck the Police
• Bohemian Rhapsody
• Since youve been gone
• Lateralis
• God only Knows
• My generation
• PF-Wish you were here

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Good Songs 2

• John Butler-Daniella
• Marley-Getup Stand up
• Ballad of a Thin Man
• AC/DC-Back in Black
• Mute Math-Chaos
• It aint me, Babe
• Hooker with a penis
• Life on Mars
• Muse-Knights of Cydonia
• Into the Mystic
• Zappa-Dyna Moe Humm

• Oasis-Wonderwall
• Pride Tiger-Lucky ones
• Elliott Smith-Fond Farewell to a friend
• RHCP-Under the Bridge
• Foo Fighters-Everlong
• Sublime-What I got
• Metallica-Enter the Sandman
• Weezer-Say it isnt so
• Matt Good-Apparitions

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From Exercise Bad Lyrics have

• Excessive repetition
• Non-sense/annoying/ pointless/offensive lyrics
• Confusing metaphors
• Brand-naming
• Trendiness
• Recycled lyrics
• Unoriginal /mundane
• Poor structure
• Formulaic/pseudo-emo

• Poor mix/beat/tone
• Sing alongs
• Too obvious/predictable
• Commercially generated/ fabricated
• Derivative / no talent
• OTT / shock-value
• Avant-garde writing
• Silly rhymes/awkward
• Self-promotion
• Little/too much effort

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Bad Songs

• Fergie, Big Girls
• Real Slim Shady
• Lover Call
• Achy Breaky Heart
• Crank That
• Fergalicious
• Barbie Girl
• Girlfriend
• One more time
• Anything Nickelback
• Teenage Dirt bag
• 10,000 promises
• Mariah-Carey-Heartbreaker
• Fallout Boy-Sugar were goin down

• Beastie Boys
• Eminem-Without Me
• Country Grammar
• Trews-Not ready to go
• Vanilla Ice
• 50 cent-Straight Murder
• Hinder-Lips of an Angel
• Rihanna-Umbrella
• Spice Girls
• Fergie-London Bridge/ My Humps
• Paris Hilton
• BNL-One Week
• Simple Plan-Im just a kid

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Bad Songs 2

• Tutti Frutti
• Back street boys
• Everything Fergie
• Everything Nickelback
• Madonna-NY
• Everything Ashley Simpson/Paris Hilton
• 50-I got money/Candy shop
• Fallout Boy
• Chocolate Rain
• WS-Icky Thump
• Patio Lanterns
• Man I feel like a Woman
• Dream theatre

• St. Anger
• Rush-Dog Years
• OMC-How Bizarre
• I wanna hold your hand
• Mims-This is Why Im hot
• Prozzak-Sucks to be you
• Outcast-Roses
• All theory of a deadman
• Blink182-1st Date
• Warrant-Sweet Cherry Pie
• Holla back Girl
• Aqua-Barbie Girl
• Sum 41-Underclass Hero

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Some Aspects of Lyrics

• Plot
• Expression
• Voice
• Craft
• The unknown tongue
• Context

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Song lyrics can have

• 1. Plot (implied/explicit)
• Story/characters (back story)
• premise
• message
• effective hook
• Viewpoint World without Tears

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Song lyrics can have

• 2. Expression (oratory)
• Emotion (through diction/tone)
• Imagery
• metaphor/simile Time
• Accessibility through connection
• Humour/Wit

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3. Songs also have Voice

• Timbre/Accent (e.g. genre specific)
• Tone Volcano
• Style
• Cadence and phrasing
• Repetition Mad World
• Poetic/sonic framing
• often rhyme, assonance, alliteration

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4. Good songs have Craft

• A finished, rounded, work
• symmetry /asymmetry
• The art of the songwriter is to find the words
  which get at the right feeling, both in meaning
  and in sound
• "Ordinary Language put to extraordinary use"

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5. The Unknown Tongue

• "someplace between the incapturably transitory
  and the imperceptibly infinite
• Richard Meltzer, The Aesthetics of Rock (1970/87)
• It speaks to you it calls you
• Musical Punctum the sudden and inexplicable
  recognition/convergence of meaning
• Barthes, discussing the semiotics of photography

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East of Java
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5. The Unknown Tongue

• Great songs
• articulate a feeling rather than explain it
• "The content of a song becomes its effect,
  becomes what it makes us feel"
• balance sincerity / seduction
• unarticulated emotion vs "a way with words
• Simon Frith, Performing Rights

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5. The Unknown Tongue

• Music is a strange language understood by all
  without instruction, although its creation is
  foreign to most in the west
• Music is a way of holding off time, making the
  present fill all space. It joins us with others
  yet defends our privacy. It lifts the spirit,
  assuages grief, and sometimes teaches. Above all
  it creates values, along with a social structure
  that nurtures, defends and celebrates those
  values
• Philip Ennis, The Seventh Stream

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6. Context

• The collaboration of artist and audience is like
  that between the flagmaker and the wind (Ennis)
• The Contexts of time and place
• a piece of music is shaped by (and shapes) the
  context in which it is created
• Some contextual factors
• Location/audience
• Economic/technological
• Language/culture
• Social/political

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6. Social Context 7 Streams

• White Pop the main commercial music of the
  nation
• Black Pop the popular music of Black Americans
• Country Pop the popular music of US white
  South/Southwest
• The 'Purity' Streams
• Jazz predominantly a performers' medium that
  values mastery
• Folk everybody's ancestor non-commoditized
  music of the 'peoples'
• Gospel US religious music mostly vocal

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6. Social Context 7 Streams

• Rock the music of American youth
• which developed out of
• the first 6 streams during the transformation of
  US society after WW2 and
• the technological/commercial reformation of the
  music/media industry

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6. Social Context Musical streams

• A Musical Stream is
• A social reality made up of
• an artistic system
• an economic framework
• a social movement
• and an ethos.

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6. Social Context Musical streams

• 1. Artistic System (the Diamond) Basic Social
  Molecule of an Art
• its artists who create the pieces of art
• the distributors who select them for
  presentation to
• the audience whose presence and approval (or
  disapproval) is essential
• the critics upon whom the public responsibility
  for evaluation rests.

A B D C
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6. Social Context Musical streams

• Economic framework the market-place, 3rd-party
  choice, gift exchange
• Social Movement a social formation supporting
  (for example) a race, class, age group, region
• Ethos a set of cultural preferences
• e.g. Jazz, Gospel, Folk resist indiscriminate
  widening of their audience, while the 3 Pops
  encourage it. The 7 streams have different sets
  of value systems.

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6. Social Context Musical streams

• A Musical Stream is
• "The sound of ordinary life generating its tribal
  cries as it seeks its tribal ties.
• It's a 'loose' structure fluid, dynamic,
  intractable.
• It is not a style, a genre, or a form
• It contains and manipulates all of these.

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Reading

• Chapter 50 Where did the 60s go?
• Lester Bangs Of Pop, Pies, and Fun
• 230-236