Further drafts

Posted on 18/07/2015 by admin

If you did get wind of that last turbine driven rockabilly number you probably found the syllable count to be the most contentious part.

You could argue about whether a commissioner of any energy system needs to act as a metaphor for the kind of interests displayed by the billies, if I can call them that (just recently I noticed that a new rock festival coming to Katoomba will feature, among other acts, one doing horrorbilly), and I don’t think a po-faced folk rendition would have worked in the context of leather jackets and quiffs. Can anything political invade rockabilly turf? The apocalyptic end of shockabilly variations is usually cast in terms such as This is the Day the Sun Burned Down – where they are definitely not discussing solar funding.

I have been writing in the exercise book again and finding that ideas tend to come out in a more scattered order. This elaborates on some of the experiences I was recounting in earlier posts but there is a tangent at play when the handwritten lyrics move from nine, say, drafts of whole songs to lyrics delivered out of order and not immediately working despite an expectation that, by fitting and being in context, it should.

The first two pieces came about from the news that a work experience kid had discovered an exoplanet. Considering how recently we were ooh-ing and aah-ing about the first ones to be visible in the new telescopes, this trajectory reminds me of climbing Everest or breaking the four minute mile. It starts as this amazing thing and then is absorbed; at least enough for the bright and talented to pick up and pass on.

None of this ends up in the draft as I am in too much of a reverie about the space in general that the exoplanet planned for the chorus.

[Shockabilly draft]

EXOPLANET
Now that our vision extends beyond the reach
A yearning for learning but what will it teach
Worlds inconceivable light years away
A vaccuum to a void disperse and display
Exoplanet

The telescope tells of hope
Think outside the envelope
Stars adrift in a cosmic shift
The odds of gods being Man’s greatest gift
Exoplanet

One’s elusive now exclusive
The astronomical pay purview
A dearth on the earth we are but few
No offer up to this effusive
Exoplanet

In the past till the last we looked up to the sky
Wondered where what was there we asked why
As all our fronteirs are receding
Process the progress still proceeding
Exoplanet

I wrote this on 25th of June so my thoughts about it have changed but, at the time, I decided the following day to try again. This time not looking at the first version but using one particularly strong line ‘The odds of gods being Man’s greatest gift’

The vastness of the cosmos impresses me no end
As we all turn in circles in these eternal circles
Fade into the shade where life begins again

The burnt out stars that we still see
Their dead state serves as company
Switching on each witching hour
Wishing on a meteor shower

Light years away we like to stray
Where time determines night meets day
Space in place across divides
The odds that gods alone decide

Beyond every notion that we ever had
A guide to the good, a bid for the bad
Averaging out each moment of doubt

The vastness of the cosmos impresses me no end
As we turn in circles in these eternal circles
Ignite in the light life begins again

I wrote it but realised that it, too, had not stayed on exoplanets or, indeed, had much to say about them at all. It would require its own title. This doesn’t commonly happen as I tend to write from titles but, yes, I settled on IN THE SPACE PROVIDED

I let it rest there and went off and wrote a piece called REINVENTION as that was something foremost in my life, about to be offered a package.

Anyway, that was fine

I then returned to the space theme although I didn’t planet and really the two snatches there are more pissing around than anything.

And still I don’t have an exoplanet song.

Getting wind of Rockabilly

Quote

Posted on 26/06/2015 by admin

I’ve had a bit of time to think about rockabilly. I’ve listened to plenty of punkabilly and shared in shockabilly. I remain partial to a double bass if it’s weilded well. I had kind of gone off handwriting poetry and songs, which is strange since it was the other way round for many years. Then this burst which was written on the train.

The Windfarm Commissioner

I’m the windfarm commissioner

I blow hot and cold

I’m the windfarm commissioner

and I do what I’m told

I don’t dig mines I’m not that kind

Won’t drill for oil Turn up on foreign soil

I’m the pointless product of a compromised position

Something of an ether/ORE proposition

But I knew when they drew up my comission

(CHORUS)

I’m not your hydro hero have no geothermal cooling

Sent to rescind the wind ah who am I fooling?

Tilting at windmills like one Don Quixote

Freezing out free air you don’t say

All the turbines combined aligned against me

(CHORUS)

Where the four winds blow it’s my business to know

While Grandpa’s gone fission, his rod starts to glow

There’s a Middle East crisis

a self-corrupting Isis

Meanwhile my timing’s priceless

I’m the windfarm commissioner

I blow hot and cold

I’m the windfarm commissioner

and I’m worth my waiting gold

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.

And no amount of mope eighties Melbourne bands can quell the flow.

Living Large in Liberland

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

Rockin’ Role

Posted on 04/04/2015 by admin

Does this draft conform to rock’n’roll? Or does it have the spirit of rock’n’roll? I’m going to say no to both: yes, it’s got a car and a girl, it deals directly with a relationship that’s taking place right now in the narrative. But it’s not simple; it tries to sneak too many things in and once you start getting layers you’ve moved on from old time rock’n’roll.

With both sexes behind the wheel as evinced by the Beatles’ Baby You Can Drive My Car and Big Black Cadillac with its memorable “she said Balls to you big daddy I ai’n’t never coming back”

There is quirk aplenty in rock’n’roll but you’ll find every novelty number stays assiduously with its premise, be it Monster Mash or Pommy Jackaroo. It’s more of a New Wave (i.e. the stuff that was around at the same time as punk rock) tactic to draw the listener down two different paths, never mind retain a radical indeterminacy. We’re used to these appearing in several of the rock genres but, if the thought had crossed those songwriters’ minds, they would have dismissed this as a distraction, a needless complication.

I’m passing a whole significant history here but it’s because I think the esoteric flights of fancy that rock took in the early seventies were short on the kind of things that occur to The Cars or occur in cars. By the time there were groups called Eddie and the Hot Rods and Racing Cars, the idea of returning to short sharp bursts of song had returned with a vengeance and fast things – like motor vehicles – were good easy topics to write on to fit the frenetic pace.

The Rock’n’Roll Ethos

Posted on 04/04/2015 by admin

We all know that rock’n’roll has its roots in a slang word for sexual congress and originates with so-called race records. What became interesting is the way that this began to be hinted at in a more demure time. The music of rebellion was toe-ing the line.

So Susie’s frantic date tells her to wake up; they’ve fallen asleep at the movies and now their ‘reputation is shot’

Rock’n’roll is simple and lends itself to formula. Neil Sedaka with Calendar Girl springs to mind. Run through the months of the year finding nice things to say about the woman of your affection and you have your song.

The use of proper nouns provides for considerable leeway as you can say what you like about Margaret or Donna or Peggy Sue as long as you keep your story straight.

Rock’n’roll is self-referential; good time music that wants to draw your attention to the fact that you’re dancing, enjoying the performance and the music; you’re getting off on it. For the same reason, there’s numerous references to the dances and dance halls, the clothes everyone was wearing. There’s a fair percentage of songs about cars and girls.

To this day, major rock bands like AC/DC base a part of their large catalogue on rock’n’roll mythologising. But they now span forty years themselves.

Rock’n’roll is a music conceived as youthful differentiation, a celebration of teens from sixty years ago.

There’s little in the way of subterfuge. the Big Bopper tells us he likes Chantilly Lace and explains why. It’s her physical attributes and her movement.

There’s early sledging, like Bo Diddley’s Say Man and speed is celebrated as is action.

She Drove Me

She planted her foot on the accelerator

She said as she led so I’ll see you later

She drove me she drove me drove me

round the bend Where will it end?

She drove me up the wall

Waiting for a way to recall

If I’d ever been this way before

A map of the traps to explore

She drove me she drove me

to distraction gaining traction

From the perspective of the directive

we rode that road so well

that’s the cursive kiss’n’tell

A pocketful of Poesy

Posted on 04/01/2015 by admin

As you can see from the last post, what I have been saying about different forms holds true: it’s possible to use lines of poetry in song and lines of song for poetry; both examples show that. Why did I cut off down a different path for each then? Well in this case, the poem is concise and doesn’t need embellishment of either further words or of musical backing, while the song has a musicality in its lines that suggests how it might go – it doesn’t sound like something you’d just read out.

As imprecise as this all is, you only need to know what to do to write something that works. If you are going to present something ‘undernourished’, I suggest turning up with some ideas for how the song might go. Otherwise your sketch might be overlooked for something more ‘song-like’

Sure it’s story

Posted on 06/10/2014 by admin

I think you can see that, while there are songs that simply don’t translate, there are others where at least the broad narrative is intact. You can see the short story possibility in the events detailed in Ode to Billie Joe and imagine rendering An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge into song. They would lose the advantage the first has of repeated mention of the bridge in the chorus or of the shock denouement of the second if a mistimed turn of tune were to occur.

If writing a song called ‘Co-payment‘ you might want a different focus than a short story on the same subject. The song can cover more ground by doubling up on its meaning; a short story attempting this risks confusion. While short stories don’t need a big cast – I saw one consisting of a desperate text scribbled on a torn strip of wallpaper by a kidnap victim, so one first person narrative – there needs to be a protagonist and an account of what happens to them (or an allusion to same). Whereas a song on co-payments or the co-payment may expand on what it is, what effect it has, a short story will want an agent effecting co-payments or being affected by them.

I pay twice for good advice/For every prick is worth the price/Though sickened by this circumstance/It seems I have another chance

It appears there is enough here to start drawing character but, while that may be so, the sly double entendre of the second line is going to be hard to spell out in prose.

Novel impression

Posted on 04/10/2014 by admin

So what’s your next move? Take the piece straight to your band or songwriting partner. No messing about.

What not to do? Attempt to turn it into a novel. Or novella. Or prose fragment of any kind.

In Carbon Dating the language moves the story along and any analysis can only come afterwards. There are layers of meaning produced by this format that are impossible to replicate or equivocate and they’re all on show here.

You don’t have a protagonist. You might think you have but the cycle through first, second and third person narrative isn’t enough to assign names; singing in the shower, I got as far as Roslyn the paleontologist, Lyn the archaelogist and Max the biologist.

Tools are used matter-of-factly rather than in any way that could see them used outside scientific endeavour. Artistic licence precludes any need to know whether a chisel or ‘pickaxe’ is used on digs. What is here in the narrative is nothing like Maxwell’s Silver Hammer or the ax (or is it a croquet mallet?) in The Shining.

When I was writing it, I was staying focused on the tools and activities used in carbon dating and let the rest develop from that. I get a buzz when the song turns out to have these other things going on. Regardless of authorial intent, they’re an intrinsic part of the song.

There’s a literal reading and there’s a listener’s ability to see the great song metaphor of love running a parallel narrative. Whatever your experience, it stays firmly in the song construct.

It’s a very descriptive song when outlaying the sediment and the remnants found thereon. It does a fine job of expanding on carbon dating processes; at least as understood by the layman. Description is used only for place setting and immersion in a novel; it needs movement – character development, action – that is absent from the song.

The verses are all doing different things – perhaps describing different scenes – but not in a way that translates to a prose depiction.