From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V19 #102 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Sunday, October 9 2011 Volume 19 : Number 102 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: How do you work this thing? [2fs ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 9 Oct 2011 15:40:59 -0500 From: 2fs Subject: Re: How do you work this thing? On Sun, Oct 9, 2011 at 1:01 AM, Rex Broome wrote: > > > My problem with his lyrics is completely apart from the problem I have with > those of, say, Billy Corgan, where the words are just garbage: Morrissey > seems to me to simply just not understand meter, as absurd as that seems > for > such a poetry-focused dude*. Corgan's words are insipid and his rhymes > lame, but they fit in his songs. Morrissey just crams words in there > ("take > me anywhere, anywhere, anywhereanywhereIdon'tcareIdon'tcare") or throws a > lot of moaning oh oh oh oh oh ohs or painfully stretched-out syllables in > when he runs out of words. > Well...that sort of thing has been going on in rock forever - listen to the catalogs of Van Morrison, Joni Mitchell, and that Zimmerman fellow, and you'll find plenty of similar examples. And the repetition in your example is, clearly, meant to be expressive (whether you think it works or not is, obviously, another issue.) Also - repeating words, to me, doesn't count re lyrical scansion - that's a singer singing, not a lyricist writing: a singer might choose to repeat a word or phrase that isn't repeated on the page. Sure, it's the same person here - and quite possibly the lyrics sheets show the words repeated...but we have no way of knowing whether those lyric sheets were proofed by Morrissey or whether some intern at Rough Trade or whatever was tasked with transcribing them. Certainly, I've seen inaccurate lyrics printed on albums before... I think you're on stronger ground re melody, at least in the early days: clearly, on the first Smiths album, even if you allow for an intentionally pared-down approach to melody, Morrissey took that so far as to be almost ridiculous - most those songs' melodies just oscillate (wildly...) among a few notes. Then again, Richard Butler used the words "stupid" and "useless" 7000 times each on the first Psychedelic Furs album, and no one accused him of having a limited vocabulary... I guess, also, variable meter just doesn't bother me - I get bored with lyrics that bounce along all sing-song - and outright irritated when singers force accents where they don't belong ("when the rain waSHIZ you clean"? Get out of here, Stevie!). But, y'know, pretty sure we could cite examples all day long and it wouldn't make a difference. And I'm sure the same is true regarding other artists others of us don't like or don't get despite general acclaim... - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.wordpress.com ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V19 #102 ********************************