What lyricists do you like and why?

[cryophonik]

Frank Reader (Trashcan Sinatras). If you know who he is, then you probably know why. He's a brilliant lyricist IMO.

+1. And Weightlifting was just a incredibly brilliant album.

Ooh, good call. Think I'll give that one a listen at work today!

[jancivil]

I can change my mind
This really moves me:

These executives have plooked the f**k out of me
And there's still a long time to go before I've
Paid my debt to society
And all I ever really wanted to do was
Play the guitar 'n bend the string like
Reent-toont-teent-toont-teent-toont-teenooneenoonee

I've got it!
I'll be sullen and withdrawn
I'll dwindle off into the twilight realm
of my own secret thoughts
I'll lay on my back here 'til dawn
in a semi-catatonic state
and dream of guitar notes
that would irritate an executive kinda guy . .

Well, I guess that one did the trick
If they only coulda heard it
half-a-dozen of 'em woulda strangled
while they was suckin' on each other's dick

But that was only a bunch of imaginary
notes I played
just a little extra somethin'
to keep me goin' from day to day

But that's okay
I'll be gettin' outta here pretty soon
Then I won't have to live
In this ugly fuckin' room

I can't wait to see what it's like
On the outside now . .

[dellboy]

A good lyricists has the unique ability to say something profound in as few words as is possible. And the message is still the same in any age to come.

The one who instantly springs to mind without any thought or effort is of course Bob Dylan.

[Jafo]

Lately I've been on a Donald Fagen trip... #include standard reference about sardonic lyrics playing against the immaculate grooves and pristine sound. Much of Jim Morrison's words still stand up, as well. Very spooky. (When he's not just being fscking goofy.*) And it's completely coincidental that my favoritest epiano sounds are on "Babylon Sisters" and "Riders on the Storm." It's not like I was recently looking for how to get them last night or anything. Not at all. (I also like Dylan's head trip and Lennon's rawness, but that's kinda liking oxygen -- just kinda assumed, ya know?) And I seem to have really missed out on this Morrisey guy.

* "Mickey, you can't divorce Minnie because she's insane!" "No, man, I said she was fscking Goofy!"

[cryophonik]

Lately I've been on a Donald Fagen trip...

+1. I'm still a big fan of Fagen/Becker. Their lyrics have a way of putting you right in the setting. Same goes with Suzanne Vega, particularly "Ironbound", which is still one of my favorite songs ever, in terms of lyrics.

A few other notables for me:

- Neil Finn (and Tim, for that matter)
- Ian McCullough
- Aimee Mann

Robert Smith is another favorite. His words just have a way of painting pictures.

[SODDI]

I also really like Edward Ka-Spel. Half the time he's an outright fantasist, the other he's realist/personalist.

Aimee Mann - yeah. "Driving Sideways". I haven't kept up with her.

Don Van Vliet's dada blues. Gibby Haynes' acid beer hippy redneck stuff - he hollers real good.

[donkey tugger]

Mr Chuck D - if you're going to be angry, do it cleverly.

Billy Bragg - superb lyricist of the everyday kitchen sink drama - 'How can you lie back and think of England, when you dob't even know who's in the team?'

[aMUSEd]

Joni Mitchell
Patti Smith
Tom Waits
Kevin Coyne
Peter Hammill
Stina Nordenstam
PJ Harvey
Lou Reed
Suzanne Vega
Gil Scott-Heron
Jacques Brel
Linton Kwesi Johnson
Tricky

[xoxos]

Robert Smith is another favorite.

..and exemplifies my comment perfectly

i thought i'd pull a kvr and instead talk about my sentiment about this thread rather than the actual topic. it's proper, like zoelzer or JOS.

you see, kvr we sell plugins. last decade the Body of electronic musicians congregated to usher in this new technology. if you weren't there, don't let anyone tell you about it. here's what happened: jeff made synthedit and the cryptocrats liked sean so everybody would know what to do. (edit: or, in proper crypto fashion, rather, what not to do..)

what we didn't get is a forum that's bad for plugin business but good for ideas and culture. the f**k is, that's what music is. that's what music is, folks. people here are trying to sell instruments, it's like switzerland, but you would be seeeeriously creeped out by a lot of how these guys here live. oh it's all cool until you get inside the underground and see the group sex.

i mean, cheap shots. "these guys" are "good lyrics" because all you know is f**king pop tripe shite. this is how the music industry works: some masons have a kid and that kid makes noises and they get sold to people who are kept in "very low states of cultural actuality" eg. *you* and they say some boring clever crap and some are famous.

it's very easy to be clever, and it's also very easy to be the next step up, what's called clever clever but it has balls all to anything worth anything.

you can be insidiously witty, use literary device or obscurity out your ass and be a bowie or any one of these other guys releasing music. the nescients will see you as mysterious and awesome because of what i said there --> "very low states of cultural actuality"

i mean robert smith is writing song after song to an audience incapable of *anything* close to me let's go to bed like all cure songs are solipsist. people think it's poetic or wit, but it's bloody ordinary when *you are accustomed to a subculture that looks down upon the "very low states" crowd*

does smith look clever from down there? probably. when/if you ever "get it" then you're up a bit. but not far, because as marion gold puts it, "we are the jet set society, and we don't care" and as much as you'd like to think otherwise or pretend when you listen to his song, "we" doesn't include *you*.

we could talk ass all day, eg. bob marley and his buddy peter tosh, brilliant lyrics, clever (tosh "burial" is a simple but confusing analogy), but also *kind* and humanist.

and when you think about it,

being *kind* is a lot more intelligent than being *clever clever* because kindness actually connects to f**king reason and logic. as in: the world, from birth to death, is a mystery, undisputably. not kicking its ass might be a good choice.

the message of "burial" by peter tosh is somewhat obscured by analogy because the actual message is a reward for people who have to put up with fuckholes, but generally, we're not being clever here, only honest. something i wouldn't recommend most self-professed "civilised" people attempt because you'll do yourselves an injury.

we're really dealing with the function of expression in music, obscure it as art, recreation, et c. and the problem today is that the music community came together to vie not out of unified appreciation of honesty and the subsequent advanced states of mind not being a deluded fuckwit brings.

no damage. people like robert smith and morrissey and whoever are born who they are where and when they are. it's not my fault they didn't go around saying "epistemological solipsism, folks".

we could have some really great talks,

i mean, damon edge, why celebrate his small contributions, certainly no outstanding recognition for lyrics,

but there's a freaking expanse between what it takes to parse damon edge and what it takes to parse i dunno.. who's "pop but sensitive" suzanne vega?

what's the old adage, go stick your head in a beehive?

i've spend a quarter century now developing procedural poetry/lyrics engines, and i've seen english (and approximations of it) spit split spun marsed and deflocculated a million different ways until sunday. it's pointless to even discuss how i parse language because most people are too dogmatic to tolerate any expression approaching reality.

how are we going to have a discussion when the "a list" populated by "my favourite cow milkers who seem to have real insight into my delapidated condition wow". just after high school my mate said of nirvana "it was like, who released this album about my life" then the guy died. my contemporary choice would have been dangers

i confirm
the age of the big drain
BE WARNED
an idea will arm
i'll take you for a ride but you won't get your money back

load of nonsense. swirls before pine

dem claim say dem claim say

so let the dead bury the dead
and those who will be fed, be fed



occasionally imitated, but not often it wears you out doesn't it.

[rp314]

A song writer who won the Nobel Prize way before Dylan: Rabindranath Tagore.

[jancivil]

Robert Smith is another favorite.

..and exemplifies my comment perfectly

i thought i'd pull a kvr and...

you see, kvr we sell plugins. last decade the Body of electronic musicians congregated to usher in this new technology. If you weren't there...

I wasn't there. I don't even care. I do think something about this fosters a certain group stupidity about music here. I have no idea how groupthink works. I'm kind of a deer in the headlights as to that.

what we didn't get is a forum that's bad for plugin business but good for ideas and culture. the f**k is, that's what music is.

It is, but culture isn't all it's cracked up to be.

i mean, cheap shots. "these guys" are "good lyrics" because all you know is f**king pop tripe shite.

This is very true here. To wit, the stupid reduction to a simple grid which gives everybody an excuse to only ever be straight derivative with melody.


I actually don't care a lot about lyrics. Zappa speaks to me but it's not, you know, Lizard Poetry.

Is it kind? Any Kind of Pain empathizes in the end with something he hates. It's a salient feature here.
By itself I don't think kindness is going to be real compelling in a musical situation, you kind of get Care Bears or, there's a touching dog food jingle here for yez now.

[deastman]

I also really like Edward Ka-Spel. Half the time he's an outright fantasist, the other he's realist/personalist.

+1

Everything you gave me lies within a trunk, within a drawer
I burned one hundred photographs or more
I fled across the ocean with another face, another name
Nothing but my soul remained the same
But still you came with cases I was forced to let you stay
You bought the locks, the box in which I lay

[jancivil]

one thing I find lacking in so much music which relies on words, is interesting scansion.
I may be using that word funny, but what I mean is how the rhythm of the syllables work with - and against - the pulse.

SO in Frank Zappa's Outside Now the way the lines work against that pulse is absolutely genius.
It provides the clue to his rhythmic language as an improviser, for one.

[jancivil]

My Python boot was too tight
couldn't get it off last night
A week went by, and now it's July
Finally got it off and my girlfriend cry

You got Stinkfoot
Stinkfoot, darlin
You're stinkin foot puts the hurts
to my nose
Stinkfoot, Stinkfoot, I ain't lyin
Can you rinse it off, do you suppose

[jancivil]

^honesty

Robert Smith is another favorite.

..and exemplifies my comment perfectly

i thought i'd pull a kvr and instead talk about my sentiment about this thread rather than the actual topic.

you can be insidiously witty, use literary device or obscurity out your ass and be a bowie or any one of these other guys releasing music. the nescients will see you as mysterious and awesome because of what i said there --> "very low states of cultural actuality"

I know just what you mean here.

i mean robert smith is writing song after song to an audience incapable of *anything* close to me let's go to bed like all cure songs are solipsist. people think it's poetic or wit, but it's bloody ordinary when *you are accustomed to a subculture that looks down upon the "very low states" crowd*

does smith look clever from down there? probably. when/if you ever "get it" then you're up a bit. but not far, because as marion gold puts it, "we are the jet set society, and we don't care" and as much as you'd like to think otherwise or pretend when you listen to his song, "we" doesn't include *you*.

That was my suspicion, and as a plebe, the sorts of misery an upperclass type exhibits is hard for me to sympathize with.

bob marley and his buddy peter tosh, brilliant lyrics, clever (tosh "burial" is a simple but confusing analogy), but also *kind* and humanist.

and when you think about it,

being *kind* is a lot more intelligent than being *clever clever* because kindness actually connects to f**king reason and logic. as in: the world, from birth to death, is a mystery, undisputably. not kicking its ass might be a good choice.

the message of "burial" by peter tosh is somewhat obscured by analogy because the actual message is a reward for ...

I lived with some people, a generation younger than I, who preferred this type of music.
My friend who was my pass into this situation - a cheaper space than most - now, she was kind. To me.
The others were flagrant assholes, and, well, takers. But anyway, I can't stand that music. It's boring and flat.

So there's the thing for me. I don't look to pop or rock lyrics for 'message'.
Was my friend kind out of cultural... well, pressure? Was her boyfriend a criminal POS behind the cultural messages? Then all of us who grew up on TV do the same things. I don't think it matters all that much.

I'm interested in music. Lyrics per se, no... I find a lot of this in the thread pretentious to art status while the music is dross. Doesn't work for me. Anyway, I avoided Robert Smith (and other things just like it I can't be arsed to conjure the names of) like the plague.