From: oldernow@dev.null
On 2024-04-05, geoff wrote:
> On 6/04/2024 8:48 am, oldernow wrote:
>> On 2024-04-05, Norbert wrote:
>>
>>> I didn't think it *was* about any major social issue and
>>> was skeptical, at first, about McCartney's response to
>>> Beyonce's version of the song. Then I found an older
>>> quote from Paul that supported it.
>>>
>>> I think a lot of the Beatles' songs aren't particularly
>>> about anything -- and I agree, that's fine. However, if a
>>> songwriter wants to tackle an issue, that could be great,
>>> too, especially if it's done well as with "Blackbird."
>>
>> My admittedly over the top response was more to "moderns"
>> hell-bent on hijacking something already amazing into the more
>> purely conceptual space of "Aboutness", as though the rest of us
>> somehow missed The Real Value, which new enlightenment/wokeness
>> predictably devolves further into shaming/canceling those who
>> don't acknowledge said "Aboutness" as though the actual - if
>> not *only* - value.
>>
>> Example:
>>
>> "There goes 'oldernow' again, being insensitive to the plight of
>> black girls by ignoring that Higher Truth in order to *merely*
>> praise the song/arrangement/lyrics/recording!"
>>
>> I swear said slope is getting slipperier by the instant.
>>
>> Then again, the wife and I are currently plagued by some respiratory
>> bug, so it could be the illness talking....
>
> Al contraire - so much these days would appear to be about nothing at
> all,or about trivial shit.
Well, and then there's that. :-)
I don't know how to rewrite what I did to address what I was feeling
at the time *and* what you're pointing out, which I don't disagree
with. But I'll try some meandering, and maybe I chance upon it:
I think part of what I was getting at was that I've tended to be more
into the music than the meaning of any lyrics. But that's not to say
I don't adore the *words* comprising the lyrics. However, for me the
important aspects of the words are more their pronunciation, syllable
metering, and musical notes underlying the vocalizing thereof.
Take "Help!", for example. Fantastic lyrics. And yet none of them
give me the kind of chills/goosebumps that the first "When" does.
The power of that "When" for me isn't what 'when' means: it's the
sound of the word, how it's vocally attacked, whatever musical note
is underlying it relative to its surroundings, and that it's a single
brief - yet sustained so exquisitely long - syllable sandwiched
between that wonderful descending guitar thing, and my all-time
favorite vocalist's voice entering the soundscape squarely in its
zone that's always moved/spoken to me - that voice itself.
Does that make any sense?
> As opposed to 'then', when music typically actually was 'about'
> something - although this may have gone over the heads of some at the
> time ....
My take is music is no doubt about something ("meaning of lyrics"
sense) to those who need it to be about something, starting with
the composer. And that's fine. It's just that any aboutness simply
hasn't typically added much to my joy over/with songs.
Another example: the harmony and duration of the sustain of the
final "yeah" in "She Loves You" reaches much more deeply into
me than whatever the song is about, whatever it meant to others,
to history, etc.
Of *course* I've chanced upon all such analysis of such over the
years, but whereas such tends toward 'tl;dr', the sound of that
word presented by their voices at that moment in the song still
drops my jaw involuntarily.
--
oldernow
xyz001 at nym.hush.com
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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