February | 2012 | From the Sound of It

I think it’s a good idea to spend longer on openings. They are integral to the finished song in all but the most obtuse examples.

Let’s stick with songs of renown and consider “In the Ghetto” by Mac Davis. He wasn’t always this downcast and solemn. (His “Oh Lord It’s Hard to be Humble” was a regular among rural youth get-togethers.) but there is no doubt about the statement of purpose where narrative is concerned in this song. It has a place-setting title but consider how different a work it would be if it started with a gun incident or a mugging. “On a cold and grey Chicago dawn/and another little baby child is born/in the ghetto” The first line lets us know it’s a bleak situation and the following lines throw forth the startling notion that the birth of a baby is a catastrophe here, not a cause for celebration.

You’ll notice that whenever nonsense lyrics comprise the title or the central coda, they often start off that way. It’s as if why not, or maybe having decided on lyrics that can’t possibly mean anything to the casual listener, they figure they better maximise their chances of getting away with it by getting in early before the person listening has had time to form an opinion.

The choral beginning of “Ba-ba-ba- Barbara-Anne” is an approach that works as it serves to prepare the lead who can then come in and tell us about his encounter with the subject of the song. Perhaps proper names share a similar association between title and opening as do abstract terms, for there are a number in the vast vault of Christian name ballads and first name laments that start right in addressing the subject of the song.

There’s no hard and fast rule on whether you use the title in the first line or save it for the chorus. Or not repeat it in the body of the song whatsoever.
My counsel would be that you see what natural shape the song wishes to take. It will become apparent when you learn to read what is developing, just where to place the varying elements, including title and opening line.

Whether you wish to place your song in some locale in the opening line (e.g. ‘In Dublin’s fair city’) or use some point in time to set the scene (e.g. ‘When I was just a lad of ten’), is as much a natural consequence of the construction as it is an act of volition.

In the above examples, if I want to sing to you about sweet Miss Molly Malone then I need to find some way of introducing her and I do this in ‘Dublin’s fair city’ ‘where girls are so pretty’. Now you may be writing your lines to fit in with the chords or melody you’re toying with, and that’s fine; it’s another approach, but that doesn’t stop the resultant words for serving the song well. Here we find the place – the big city in the case of an Irish folk song – to be full of pretty girls and so the narrator’s eye being caught by the song’s namesake is the more remarkable. In the best folk tradition, it doesn’t take long to tell us what the redoubtable MMM is up to. In this case, wheeling her wheelbarrow through streets broad and narrow hawking seafood.

In the case of “Lemon Tree” the narrator or songwriter, depending on your school of thought and/or critical focus is using the remembrance of the lesson he got at this father’s knee with the way this has panned out in his life. The simile of love and a lemon tree needs a bit of authority as it’s not a ready image one thinks of in the many musings ‘pon the subject of amor. Knowing the tribute paid to fatherly advice when the song was written, it’s about the readiest appeal to authority there is. Even if we don’t always look to Dad for pronouncements on the subject; it’s a bit down the blokey calendar from other topics of discussion.

In the writing of succint sentences and tidy lines, the opening line is a factor in providing the resonance of the whole piece or can be.

This doesn’t mean you have to come up with an opening line of a sufficient standard, or ability to dazzle, before proceeding. You can start with a line that will end up in the middle or the chorus. There are no hard and fast rules; provided this freedom doesn’t baulk the beginner.

I daresay you can readily pick the classics that launch in superbly with a poignant or pungent line. ‘I can’t remember if I cried’, ‘Busted flat in Baton Rouge/waiting for the train’ ‘How many roads must a man walk down?’

Like every line (well, almost), these famous opening lines are representative of certain fundamentals. They place you as the listener, even though these run across first, second and third person narrative. How is this possible? Well, our brains naturally adopt, and are receptive to, first person; whether this is thinking silently or speaking aloud.

Second person works perfectly well, especially when there’s the involvement of the narrator in the second sample. The character or voice relates the good times for themselves as much as for their cherished companion of yore. And so it does for the reader or listener or viewer.

The third person is exclusive to ‘a man’ so not a woman or a child. Our later age would barely allow that this wanderer is to represent all of humanity. That is a moot point when the lyric goes on to specify that the walking of a quantity of thoroughfares would ‘make you a man’ Women may be as wayfaring as they wish without fear of calibration

All this aside, it does the business because it poses a profound question. It makes us want to stick around to see what happens next; how the matter will be resolved.

This is why conversely some songs are so annoying; they fail in some way to live up to their promise.

Bob Dylan at the height of his powers was doubtless the greatest of his age. You are left astonished at the force and effusiveness and effortless effrontery. It’s altogether magic and he is guaranteed a place in the poetic pantheon. Rather than repetition or vague allusion, he let’s each verse build on the impression. This, to be fair, is not surprising given that he comes from the folk tradition where the habit is to tell a story. So if one is going to battle or about to be caught up in a typhoon, it still should start in the peaceful or vanished past. “Well I was walking down the street one day” “When I quit my job”, only with more of an image to take away with you.

It was said of Bram Stoker that he was not a genius but had written a work of genius, Don McLean may fit that slightly sad sub-circle. Although their other work doesn’t justify dismissal by any means.

The strength of his classic (McLean’s that is) is in the ‘guess who’ elliptical imagery that soon eclipses that first rumination on how upset [the narrator] is. But it would have been promising in many a context. That’s fine, as he doesn’t waste it whatsoever

Kris Kristoffersen kornered the marKet on being down at heel. Well, he had his corner as Tom Waits and Supertramp and Seasick Steve had theirs but to continue. His is outlaw territory, romanticising the non-conformist lifestyle. As all the Bowies and Gaga queens and madonnas have demonstrated time and again; adopting a persona is good business. It’s turning out a heartbreaking reminisce into the process that elevates the song into that strata were subsequent artists are going to want to interpret it or plain cover it unadorned.

‘Sunday Morning Coming Down’ is another hobo moment but one without a love interest.

From the Sound of It

Monthly Archives: February 2012

Opening gambit

We have an opening