Monthly Archives: December 2012

A headful of Theme

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The theme of ‘Not With That Clown’ is in the subtitle ‘great songs of sexual jealousy’. We know the theme is sexual jealousy and then, being a various artists release, there will be different takes in each individual song. Whether it’s Billy Bragg in an odd signature or Paul Kelly declaring he’d rather go blind than “see you with another guy”, the theme remains throughout. It’s perfectly executed because the material has been selected to fit the theme rather than because there are contractual obligations or favours owed. This also has the effect of allowing the collection to wander in style and genre while remaining in the mood.

It doesn’t hurt that sexual jealousy is a powerful thing to write about, resonates with the listener (viewer/audience of some description), and features in chart busting songs aplenty

Nonetheless, even a calculated pitch can resonate if the delivery is superb. And if it sounds real that also counts.

Theme of a some place

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What immediately rushes to mind whenever I think of concept is the concept album. The way I would describe the concept is in taking the whole thing into consideration. ‘The Six Wives of Henry the Eighth’ could as easily serve as theme, subject, topic, as for title. There’s a mental shorthand we do when we think of the unfortunate spouses of a monarch with near absolute power and their respective fates. Whether this means a true critic would ignore what we know of the subject and divide each facet of this part of royal history up. I don’t see the need; not when it comes to knowing how to craft a song with the requisite strong concept driving the process.
The concept would be an LP (probably taking the natural division of the two sides into account) dealing with each of the wives in turn and framing this in a keyboard saturated musical environment that compliments each ‘story’

Likewise the concept of ‘Tommy’ is a rock opera about a deaf, dumb and blind boy who is amazingly proficient at the cool fad of the day, which happens to be pinball. That may not be the case, and there could be various reasons why he’s a pinball wizard and not a Mario kart wizard or Pacman prestidigitater (apart from Pete Townshend not being able to see into the gaming future)

So I see the concept as including the medium that the work is produced in and the way it is constructed, as well as the subject and theme. Concept is also a feature of preparation; often pre-dating the piece itself. You come up with the concept and from that a work emerges, with its own features. Obviously BBC producers and biographers have an interest in the six wives of Henry VIII and their concept would be different, even if the theme, subject, topic were the same as the Rick Wakeman album.

To draw in those other songs we’ve investigated under the topic of subject and the subject of topic, the concept is a little harder to get to in the space of one song but we can still say the concept of ‘Good Year for the Roses’ is a country song about suburbia. A feature of country songs is the repeated shattering of domestic bliss so that has to go in there.
The concept of ‘Rambling Man’ is a song celebrating the life of the drifter (with the songwriter having also masqueraded as a character called Luke the Drifter)

As with most synonyms, there is an easy passing between concept and theme, even if theme doesn’t take in the canvas or music sheet; the details of the narrative. A concept can also be cursory, needing the details to be filled in.

Them a tic

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Was I riffing with that last post on theme? Yes I was.

It’s not always easy to identify the theme, defined in Wikipedia as “central topic, subject, or concept the author is trying to point out”

The theme of ‘Rambling Man‘ by Hank Williams is compulsion to travel based on one’s God-given nature. You can argue the wording of this definition, but you get the drift: if you add the elements and listen to the narrative voice you get a fair picture.

It’s no wonder there has been confusion over theme and subject. Let’s take a look at another country artist’s song: ‘It’s Been a Good Year for the Roses’ by George Jones. Because the title is a counterpoint to the theme, subject and theme are separated in their meaning to some degree. The subject is an awkward meeting of lovers in the act of separation with the first person narrator recounting seeming domestic drudge distractions: ‘the lawn could stand another mowing’ ‘it’s been a good year for the roses’ but acutely aware of the real feeling in the room “the half-filled cup of coffee you poured and didn’t drink”

This is too much information for the theme. The theme would be divorce or strained relationship; the end of domestic bliss. Themes encapsulate rather than articulate.

What of the topic? The topic may be the same as the subject. There may even be an argument for the explanation proffered two paragraphs ago to be the topic, rather than subject. But consider the setting of an essay for exam conditions. This isn’t how you (necessarily) write a song but it gets across what a topic is in the scheme of things.
The topic is a rambling man. Because you’ve only got the half hour or the certain word count to do this in, the person assigning the topic has to keep it simple but potent enough with intent to allow you to come up with a good example and gain extra points. You don’t need to know what makes a man ramble to write an assignment on it; just use your imagination. The topic of a man whose urge to ramble is brought on by the sound of a train is not reliant on knowing anything else about him. Other rambling men may yet hitch rides into future song narratives and be quite different from the fellow in Hank’s song.

The topic in George Jones’ song is how the narrator is lead, through the hurt and ennui of the situation, to remark on the state of the garden.

The me

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Should we be thinking about the theme when we’re writing a song? I wouldn’t recommend it; only because my experience has been that the theme will form of its own accord. It’s more the job of the reviewer or academic to decide whether there’s a theme and, if so, how well the song develops that theme, or works within it.

The composer has a broken heart, has lost his/her job, is missing someone; these are the emotions that drive composition. But so is necessity, desire for glory, a nice turn of phrase. It’s not possible to dismiss any of these factors when they are so much in display in their respective corner.

This is a separate concern than that found in the ideal theme for a set of lyrics; one organically grown as a consequence of exploring the implications of the scenario presented in the song. This means, despite the fact you might be writing nationalist ditties for Skrewdriver or California ditties of either the Beach Boys or Dead Kennedys variety, your fidelity to the song is what drives it, not your projection as to its place in the charts, or the fine words spent in that Mojo review praising the finished product.

If you call your song ‘Kill the Poor’ or ‘Wouldn’t it be Nice’ either way a theme begins to emerge. This is then quailfied by the lyrics as we progress through the song. And when I say “qualified” I mean not just that it explores every facet of that main notion, but that it alters our sense of what is meant.

This is not a critical exercise, so I don’t want to explore in too much depth what Jane Fonda being on the screen does to perception of what this act (killing the poor) would entail, but it does colour the content of the song; the lyrics going in slightly different direction than the audience at first expects from the title or opening lines.