Recently in the Comics Cave, we'd been talking about Blender's list of the 40 Worst Lyricists in Rock. The list is tremendously subjective, and as at least one of us pointed out, treats lyrics like poetry rather than part of a musical whole. What works when sung often lies flat on paper.
A good example of the subjectivity of "good" and "bad" lyrics. In his Secret Broadcast Cave, my friend Don just flashed back to Joe Jackson's "Breaking Us In Two." (With a video and everything; check it out.) I think Jackson is an amazing lyricist. At one point, describing the break-up, he writes
You don't do the things that I do
You wanna do things I can't do
Now, it'd be easy to tear those lyrics apart for being vague and inarticulate--hell, for rhyming "do" with "do". But as much as I love the whole song, it's these two lines that hit me the hardest. They're very plain, very bare. And in saying almost nothing specific, they really say it all.
Context isn't everything, but everything is context.
Rob
Friday, October 12, 2007
Tongue-tied and Twisted
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1 comment:
It's those two lines, Rob, that form the heart of the conflict in this song. Here are two people who can't, come into agreement, or even work out a compromise of some sort. But the singer hasn't completely given up hope...
Could we be much closer if we tried?
We could stay at home and stare into each other's eyes
Maybe we could last an hour
Maybe then we'd see right through
Always something breaking us in two
Is it poetry? Probably not. But it is great songwriting.
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