Keating: Language was invented for one endeavor - and that is, Mr. Anderson? Come on, are you a man or an amoeba? (pause) Mr. Perry?
Perry: To communicate?
Keating: No! To woo women!
(from 'Dead Poets' Society', 1989)
If communication - or perhaps more specifically, poetic, lyrical and musical expression- really are rooted in woo, it shouldn't be very surprising that most lyrical content does concern some aspect of relationships. Typically, the focus is on the start or finish, the alpha or the omega; at what stage is a love affair more exciting, after all? In backlash to this preponderance of subject matter, there are some artists that religiously avoid the typical boy/girl subject matter, but most can't resist such a fertile source. I'd certainly count myself among the practitioners of the art; most of my lyrical content, in fact, lives on Omega Street of Lovesville, picking apart what has gone wrong and how it feels to have a relationship disintegrate. To paraphrase Don Henley, it's interesting when things die. I also find that happiness is often a rather diffuse feeling - it's hard to focus on an aspect or two to illustrate that happiness, even if the feeling is just as intense as sorrow. Perhaps bliss really is a form of intoxication, making it much more of a challenge to focus. Pain has quite the opposite effect, meanwhile - focus can be all too clear, and if anything, articulating those feelings may require some judicial restraint. It may be interesting when things die, but histrionics are a dead bore.
Obvious restraint, in fact, can work wonders in articulating sorrow and loss- perhaps because it is the fashion to conceal such emotions somewhat in our day-to-day lives. It may also be a little more poignant to observe someone soldiering on despite pain than it is to watch someone allow themselves a meltdown. The stand-out track from Pink Floyd's 'the Wall' is an excellent case in point (although it's fair to say that 'the Wall' is a woo-free album): after about 45 minutes of musical mayhem, brutality and histrionics, along comes 'Comfortably Numb', in which the protagonist has a moment of near-serenity, albeit due to sensory and emotional shut-down. The Waters/Gilmour/Ezrin team were at their best on that one, in my humble estimation - and it pulls the hat-trick of articulating pain by declaring its absence.
I can't remember if it was John Mellencamp or Don Henley who suggested that a song is not a profound thing and ultimately affects no change. This is probably a healthy view to take when songwriting (the process would be rather paralyzing otherwise), but my favourite songs are those from which you can take something - illumination of the human condition, or revealing some parallels between the dynamics of a romantic relationship and the behaviour of society, for example. I aspire to this in my own songwriting, and hope that I occasionally succeed. At the very least it's very engaging to try. Perhaps that's another reason why I'm not so motivated to write songs about how grand love is (even if it is); lessons aren't learned quite so thoroughly or often when things are going your way. It certainly doesn't mean my personal life is a melancholy mess - it's fair to say I could happily sit down for a coffee with any of my ex-girlfriends (and in fact do) or the few that 'got away'. I might just be a little cagey on the subject of where a few of my songs came from.
On that note - I hope you all had a happy Valentine's day and had no cause to scribble verse. ;)
Perry: To communicate?
Keating: No! To woo women!
(from 'Dead Poets' Society', 1989)
If communication - or perhaps more specifically, poetic, lyrical and musical expression- really are rooted in woo, it shouldn't be very surprising that most lyrical content does concern some aspect of relationships. Typically, the focus is on the start or finish, the alpha or the omega; at what stage is a love affair more exciting, after all? In backlash to this preponderance of subject matter, there are some artists that religiously avoid the typical boy/girl subject matter, but most can't resist such a fertile source. I'd certainly count myself among the practitioners of the art; most of my lyrical content, in fact, lives on Omega Street of Lovesville, picking apart what has gone wrong and how it feels to have a relationship disintegrate. To paraphrase Don Henley, it's interesting when things die. I also find that happiness is often a rather diffuse feeling - it's hard to focus on an aspect or two to illustrate that happiness, even if the feeling is just as intense as sorrow. Perhaps bliss really is a form of intoxication, making it much more of a challenge to focus. Pain has quite the opposite effect, meanwhile - focus can be all too clear, and if anything, articulating those feelings may require some judicial restraint. It may be interesting when things die, but histrionics are a dead bore.
Obvious restraint, in fact, can work wonders in articulating sorrow and loss- perhaps because it is the fashion to conceal such emotions somewhat in our day-to-day lives. It may also be a little more poignant to observe someone soldiering on despite pain than it is to watch someone allow themselves a meltdown. The stand-out track from Pink Floyd's 'the Wall' is an excellent case in point (although it's fair to say that 'the Wall' is a woo-free album): after about 45 minutes of musical mayhem, brutality and histrionics, along comes 'Comfortably Numb', in which the protagonist has a moment of near-serenity, albeit due to sensory and emotional shut-down. The Waters/Gilmour/Ezrin team were at their best on that one, in my humble estimation - and it pulls the hat-trick of articulating pain by declaring its absence.
I can't remember if it was John Mellencamp or Don Henley who suggested that a song is not a profound thing and ultimately affects no change. This is probably a healthy view to take when songwriting (the process would be rather paralyzing otherwise), but my favourite songs are those from which you can take something - illumination of the human condition, or revealing some parallels between the dynamics of a romantic relationship and the behaviour of society, for example. I aspire to this in my own songwriting, and hope that I occasionally succeed. At the very least it's very engaging to try. Perhaps that's another reason why I'm not so motivated to write songs about how grand love is (even if it is); lessons aren't learned quite so thoroughly or often when things are going your way. It certainly doesn't mean my personal life is a melancholy mess - it's fair to say I could happily sit down for a coffee with any of my ex-girlfriends (and in fact do) or the few that 'got away'. I might just be a little cagey on the subject of where a few of my songs came from.
On that note - I hope you all had a happy Valentine's day and had no cause to scribble verse. ;)