Genreveal later

Posted on 15/08/2015 by admin

I believe songwriting is less about authenticity than it is fidelity to the song. While you can play games that you know beforehand are not going to come off, the preponderance of time spent in serious purpose, as it were, is on working up a song rather than working out a song or shoehorning a song.

That said, you have to know what you’re treading lightly around before you can do so successfully. The folk musics of Macedonia or Malta or Madagascar or Mali or Mexico are bound to have exerted their influence at some point in history and we have learnt from our own traditions as much as we have ignored, say, ritual music or rural music found nowhere else. It’s true that the blues and other regional music forms do make their presence felt in far off approximations. Regardless of what you think of the Bluesbreakers or Blues Influence or other variously identified by the music they play, bands. No matter what opinion you hold on the Yardbirds or any white group that did a blues cover ever.

One can readily say the same for jazz and rock’n’roll. Not to mention disco, funk, rhythm’n’blues, soul, gospel, rap,

Two things to bear in mind:

in the early pre-recording days of field music, songs were passed on from one musician to the next, often with embellisments or swapped lines;
nobody preaches authenticity to the makers of Moog sythesizer recordings nor trouble to argue the origin or adherence of someone with an emulator under their arm

I’m going to do something foolhardy and argue with the viewpoint of a black female singer and touring band leader, and say that I don’t think it’s as cut and dried as saying that it’s rock music when some white band plays it and then R & B when the black guy does it. Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley are in all likelihood the premier rock’n’roll singer-songwriters. What Buddy Holly wrote and Bill Haley didn’t write are essential part of the canon but they don’t have either the number of classics nor the resonance. There are enough covers of Who Do You Love? out there to sink a rockin’ battleship.

Swing and round about

Posted on 10/05/2015 by admin

So has ‘Out of Town’ succeeded where ‘Firing Squad’ failed? Well the whole notion of virtually placing the listener in peril – ‘you’re facing the firing squad’ is anathema to all forms of jazz. It dealt with controversial subjects aplenty but it did so in third person. Any second person would have been the more typical ‘how could you do me wrong’ variety.

By avoiding topicality, we’re left with a narrative familiar to many traditional structures. It is natural and neutral so there’s not a major stretch to have grouped instruments blasting in unison (in this respect, it has the cheek and irreverence; the upbeat stroll, to suit the cacaphony). No one will mistake it for something that Calloway left in a cab or Miller left in a glen but we are faced always with that dilemma whether to replicate the sentiment of the time in mere pastiche or adapt our own sensibilities and observations to the form.

Can we finish with ragtime, given that bebop is not a lyricist’s medium:

I’m Holding Out

My hands are tied
Around for the ride
I take it in my stride
I'm holding out

The place  has changed
The people estranged
Gone to great pains
to say I'm holding out

My friends already fled
No accounting for the dead
Exhibitions in 
Inhibitions ex
shed 
still I'm holding out

Dicks see land

Posted on 03/05/2015 by admin

For those pupils who are inclined to the view that this is not Dixieland; that it is, in fact, the style of writing I employ on a regular basis, I plead guilty.

This ain’t no Jazz Era number. Let’s keep going. My father was into Swing before he migrated to Australia took to the bush and embraced country. I’m sure I can make a hash of swing just as easily.

Now we don’t want to leaden proceedings by referring to things topical and sombre so let’s think of words worthy of accompanying all those instruments blasting off.

Hitherto I haven’t touched on the discard pile. This is often a scrap of thoughts or partial phrase that sounds promising until you see the blind corner and veer to something different.

Here is one I just experienced:

I move in the circles with Angela Merkel

The idea was to meet the prime requirements of remembering you have people out there on the dancefloor and inject a bit of wayward humour by playing on diplomatic circles and social circles and dance moves into the bargain. But what do I want to say about the German chancellor? She’s a strong sensible leader whom I’ve no wish to mock and she doesn’t have the traits that lend themselves to a metaphoric whirl.

Nor is it necessary to point out to the dance crowd that they are dancing. This happens throughout all styles and eras but it’s not what dominates Swing. It’s more about taking you out and being part of the hip and happenin’ times. There’s a lightness and joviality but you need that in wartime. Screamo is of a later age.

I think, if you are going to light on a clause or phrase that makes good material – still the way I proceed with many poems and songs – then just bear in mind the genre you’re in. It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing.

Out of Town

I could tell straight away
You were from out of town

Too neat to compete for our streets
far too fey for our gay cafes
Too beautiful too dutiful 
too dashing too smashing
Too altogether  taboo
from our point of view

You must be from out of town

Apart from how artful  you are
we have a fear of those from afar
We're just a sample of the simple way
Still stand strong for those who stay

But you're from out of town

Jazz o’ sighs

Posted on 18/04/2015 by admin

Before there was the phenomena of rock’n’roll there were various shapes of jazz encompassing full narratives and freeform instrumentals. Not to mention scats.

Sitting in a barber while then oldtime music was playing and I couldn’t help but notice how long the lead in was before Frank Sinatra starts singing. No attempt to barge in and startle the listener.

Lyricists have a licence to work with the structure of jazz in their own manner.

Apart from having heard the jazz standards at some point in my life, I can’t say it’s a field of expertise. To do a faux jazz piece, I’d be inclined to go with a tale that tinges sadness with drama and humour without wasting too many words.

Boom Crash Opera got in decades first with Onion Skin so we’ll have to set out sights elsewhere for subject matter. It doesn’t matter that I have several songs that suit a jazz treatment, we have to practice. I’m not qualified to tackle dixieland with any authority so I’d probably want to ape Miss Otis Regrets or something in that vein.

From the Sound of It

Tag Archives: jazz lyrics

Genreveal later

Swing and round about

I’m Holding Out

Dicks see land

I move in the circles with Angela Merkel

Jazz o’ sighs

Has your flag started to flag

Have the daze start to drag

You could be living large in Liberland

yeah

A chance to start anew

where the population’s few

and you’ll always have your view

in Liberland

You’re living large in Liberland

Liberland ho

Liberland show

You’re only six k’s long

Yet you’ve got your own song

and nobody else wants that strip

the leader was heard to quip

somehow living large

I tell you living large

in Liberland