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English/American song lyrics is really special..
somehow in English the things that in other languages seem too simplistic or pretencious in English sound ok..
When The Beatles sang "I wanna hold your hand' it sounded like a young boy trying to express his sincere wish as good as he can... it was very simple but very convincing... in Italian, French, Russian, German translation it sounds funny and stupid (by the way I heard The Beatles' Gnrman version) but in English it works...
We should not forget that it's not real poetry - it should work with music - so it's difficult to judge lyrics without music..
and unfortunately professinal lyricists often produce quite poor works when they run out of time...
Just to name a few - Cole Porter was really special lyricist - his lyrics is so true that they sound almost like a natural monologue, imrovization.. he always has a phrase in his song that moves it all... he could find this phrase...
And he was not afraid to eb too low too conversational
you'd be so nice to come home to.. I've got you under my skin...
I like also Randy Newman's lyrics... he's dramatist, he is not afraid to sing from the name of different characters... his songs are monologues of very different people
'Body and Soul' is very simple but it just nails it all... 'you know I am yours for just the taking..' - 'body and soul' - with a good singer it can just tear you apart
'But beautiful' - there's so suddenly a switch from general specualation about what love is to such a personal: If you were mine I'd never let you go... very impressive and works great with music.
'Polka Dots and moonbeams' is also coll, to me it renders very well the feeling of this first meeting at the dances... suddenly I saw polka, dots and moonbeams all around a pug-nosed dream.. what else do you need?
Lots of songs.. I can't name it all
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08-14-2015 07:02 PM
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Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
And this reminds me of an episode from 'In the Actors Studio' with Elton John. Bernie Taupin writes the lyrics first and then Elton John puts the music to the lyrics. Elton John works really fast, often less than 15 minutes to set music to a lyric.
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Originally Posted by Jonah
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Originally Posted by fep
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Great lyrics?
"What a swellegant, elegant party this is"
Cole Porter strikes again. Written in the 30's and recorded in the 50's ? By Frank and Bing for the film "High Society"
One of my fave songs.
I still find myself saying ......"well, did you ever?"
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Your lips were like a red and ruby chalice, warmer than the summer night
The clouds were like an alabaster palace, rising to a snowy height
Each star its own aurora borealis, suddenly you held me tight
I could see the midnight sun
Leave it Johnny Mercer to rhyme "aurora borealis"; how'd he do that?
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This song is part of my youth. It was everywhere. I didn't really like it that much (I was too cool to like mainstream!) and never really listened to the lyric......apart from the chorus.....some crap about a Yellow Brick Road. I really had no idea what it was about.
But my daughter played me this version and it really moved me. It allowed me to hear the lyric. And what a brilliant lyric it is. One of my favourites right now.
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Originally Posted by Philco
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Well, heck, here's the lyric in full.
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
By Elton John
When are you gonna come down
When are you going to land
I should have stayed on the farm
I should have listened to my old man
You know you can't hold me forever
I didn't sign up with you
I'm not a present for your friends to open
This boy's too young to be singing the blues
So goodbye yellow brick road
Where the dogs of society howl
You can't plant me in your penthouse
I'm going back to my plough
Back to the howling old owl in the woods
Hunting the horny back toad
Oh I've finally decided my future lies
Beyond the yellow brick road
What do you think you'll do then
I bet that'll shoot down the plane
It'll take you a couple of vodka and tonics
To set you on your feet again
Maybe you'll get a replacement
There's plenty like me to be found
Mongrels who ain't got a penny
Sniffing for tidbits like you on the ground
So goodbye yellow brick road
Where the dogs of society howl
You can't plant me in your penthouse
I'm going back to my plough
Back to the howling old owl in the woods
Hunting the horny back toad
Oh I've finally decided my future lies
Beyond the yellow brick road
Songwriters: JOHN, ELTON / TAUPIN, BERNIE
© Universal Music Publishing Group
For non-commercial use only.
I never knew Elton was singing "(Back the the) howling old owl in the woods / Hunting the horny back toad."
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Bernie Taupin was always the real deal. The chord progression and melody are also stellar of course.
When pop was art.
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Oh and Elton responds to Sara's version and sings a duet with her!
This is her own song, Just beautiful.Sorry it's not jazz but........good is good.
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Originally Posted by Philco
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True. It's usually said that a songwriter should write about things that they could at least imagine themself doing.
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Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
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Originally Posted by mrcee
Here's one I always liked, "It's Money That I Love."
Donald Fagen and Walter Becker (Steely Dan) have written a lot of lyrics that are not (generally) taken to be about themselves but rather about scenes they wryly observe. But of course, they can 'deliver' those kinds of lyrics.
And then there's Blue Oyster Cult (-a fave of my teenage years). I wouldn't call these great lyrics but they were not the average fare either. ("Hot Rails To Hell", "Seven Screaming Dizbuster", "Baby Ice Dog", "Career Of Evil")
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Isn't defining good lyrics and lyric writing methods a totally subjective topic? Who is to say Don Van Vliet's line "Magnet draw day from dark, sun zoom spark, sun zoom spark" isn't as great as something written by Harold Arlen?
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Originally Posted by cosmic gumbo
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Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
Those lyric sites have pretty much all been pursued successfully to get properly licensed.
They were easy to spot because that's all they do - publish lyrics.
jazzguitar.be is less easy to identify as a place for such breaches.
So they just haven't noticed.
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Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
"Talk", for him, rhymes perfectly with "clock" for instance.
I ran into similarly swamp-land once working up some Français for a song section.
A handy French writer-pal, helping me through the process, baulked at much of my rhyming.
"Tu t'en vas, adieu, amour et moi" worked quite happily with my pronunciation, but offended his more rigorous pedantry. Simile with "pluie" and "aussi", or "veux-tu" and "perdu". To him there was an illegal difference. But I couldn't hear it.
With the English-style ready conflation of "F" and "TH", "troth-ful" rhymes very easily with "awful".
You fail to realise: accent, tone, pronunciation.
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Originally Posted by Lazz
By the way, is there a recorded version of "Lush Life" in which you think the singer is actually saying "troth full"?
(There's a difference between arguing that "troth full" could have worked and that "troth full" is what Strayhorn actually wrote. He may well have written it. If he did, I think it a poorer choice than "troughful".)Last edited by MarkRhodes; 08-15-2015 at 08:56 PM.
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08-16-2015, 07:51 AM #121destinytot GuestOriginally Posted by Lazz
But I can't reconcile it with Lush Life. Please could you expand?
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08-16-2015, 10:38 AM #122destinytot Guest
'The thot plickens'...
To my ears, there seems to be some unusual elision at @01:49. As the 'f' is enunciated in two instances earlier in the song ('life' and 'awful'), I rather suppose it's quite deliberate.
It sounds both odd and affected to me, but I do think Mr Strayhorn not only wears it well but makes it appear quite stylish. (Compared to other recordings, Billy Strayhorn's pronunciation sounds - er - distingué...) And, to me, that would be consistent with what Lazz has explained. EDIT Listening again, I do think the elision is deliberate - he's making the rhyme as close as he can.
Last edited by destinytot; 08-16-2015 at 12:30 PM. Reason: addition
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Sondheim should be mentioned too I think
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i think there's difference between
1) professional lyricist - those to whom composer or producers come with ready melody or a sketch asking to write words for it. These guys have to elaborate some approach, they should know tricks and use a lot of cliches.. and often it has nothing to do with self-expression or art or whatever... sometimes they do it better, sometimes worse - but what's important about them - they hire them because they can do it anyway
2) song-writers - those who compose it together words and music and for it's not the lyrics for melody but a song.. these would probably reject a job of just writing lyrics - especially if they do not feel like doing it... they are closer to poets, or 'bards', singing poets... they could be more pop in style like Cole Porter or Elton John, or closer to real poetry like Bob Dylan or Jonny Mitchell...
For example I mentioned The Beatles... obviously that MacCartney mostly wrote lyrics using lots of cliches - something about love, babe,... a couple of catchy lines and it's ok... more fun.. not too much obliging.. yt is closer to type 1
For Lennon in most cases it's personal experience - not necessarily direct - but still there's always something special behind his lyrics - even simple songs sound like 'true stories'.. like confessions.. he is more into type 2
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08-16-2015, 12:36 PM #125destinytot Guest
Bacharach & David.
The Guild Surfliner ... So much to like for so...
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