Thursday, July 30, 2009

It's all about the words

For somebody who considers himself a writer of sorts, I'm more of a melody and harmony guy than a word freak, which means that I tend to hear music the way a dog does. Where you may hear something like: "Well, she don't make me nervous, she don't talk too much/ She walks like Bo Diddley and she don't need no crutch," to me, that tends to register along the lines of "Woof. Woof woof woof. Woof woof."

That doesn't mean I can't appreciate a well-turned phrase. My current favorite line comes from the Flaming Lips' song "Do You Realize," which apparently some forward-thinking legislators in Oklahoma recently nominated for the state song. Unfortunately, there was a quorum of evangelicals maintaining vigilance in the statehouse to put the kibosh on such alleged tomfoolery, otherwise we'd have Okie schoolchildren singing the Buddhist sentiment "Do you realize that everyone you know someday will die" - which might be shock-inducing for a few of them.

Heartbreak is a primary component in the loam of the songwriter's muse, and there's nothing like a broken heart to kick a songwriter's ass into writing great stuff. "You're a Big Girl Now," one of my favorite Bob Dylan songs, from his 1975 album Blood on the Tracks, has its share of excellent lines in that regard. The final verse begins kinda weakly, with the couplet "A change in the weather is known to be extreme/ But what's the sense of changing horses in midstream," but then Dylan goes in for the kill: "I'm going out of my mind, oh oh/ With a pain that stops and starts/ Like a corkscrew to my heart/ Ever since we've been apart." Yep. Bob totally nailed that one.

On a lighter note, the Ramones opened their anthem "Rock 'n' Roll High School" with this great couplet: "Well I don't care about history/ 'Cause that's not where I wanna be." No angst-ridden French philosopher ever put it more succinctly.

I've tried to write a few songs over the years, and it's really hard to find the right words; melodies and chord progressions are easy. Most of my efforts are clunky, in the way Brian Wilson was on "Johnny Carson" from the 1977 "comeback" album The Beach Boys Love You: "When guests are boring he fills up the slack/ Johnny Carson/ The network makes him break his back/ Johnny Carson ...."

Yeah, that's about my speed as a lyricist. So I have a deep appreciation for people who can match words to music effectively. Even if it all sounds like "woof woof woof" to this dog's ears.

1 comment:

  1. I still see my brother behind his drums as he played in room.I would sit and watch him for hours. When he would let me. David Kambestad was my brother. I'm his sister,Jill Kambestad.

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