To be fair, I’ll agree that Ozzy (or whoever wrote the lyrics) deserves points for using the word in two different senses. That deserves consideration. But still, my reaction when hearing it is, “What, he couldn’t think of a different word?”
I really like the Beatles’ song “Blackbird” and I think it sounds beautiful but I’ve since decided that it’s vapid and doesn’t mean shit.
AFAIK in “Blackbird” McCartney was celebrating the emancipation of black women during the civil rights changes. So I wouldn’t say it meant shit, though it’s debatable if he did so in a vapid way. I think it’s a beautiful song.
She had him right where she wanted him.
Whoa, hold the phone, Chuck… are you suggesting that country lyrics are deeper/better than rock songs? I’m not sure I’d agree with you on that. And I say that as a long-time die hard classic country fan.
I’d never thought about it until this thread. I strongly dislike rhyming verses that use the same word, in general, and I guess this example never peaked my notice because of the two meanings. Even that might not deserve a pass if the simile wasn’t so great.
I could be wrong about this, my memory being what it is, but I don’t think Sir Paul offered that explanation until after the year 2000 - the song was written in '68. I’m almost positive I heard him offer a different meaning earlier on.
Fair enough, but I think it’s a safe bet that in the same song as “ain’t the fire inside? Let’s all go stand around it”, “abandoned” was probably chosen as a convenient rhyme, not for any profound poetic meaning.
Considering all of rock music as one body of work and all of country music the same way, no, I wouldn’t say that.
What I would say is that in my entirely subjective experience, rock seems to have more music at both the upper and lower ends of the quality spectrum.
So if you’re a lazy-ass songwriter who just wants to spend five minutes scribbling down some words that you’ll call a song, you’re more likely to get away with it if you present yourself as a rocker. (And I do think “Take the Money and Run” is a fun little number, instrumentally.)
And that’s not to say I think all country music is polished gems of songwriting craftsmanship with lyrics that’ll comply with the standard rules someone would learn in a creative writing workshop. It’s most certainly not. But (and again, based simply on my own nonscientific experience with hearing music over the years) if that’s what you’re looking for as a listener, country is probably safer territory.
Dude, you fancy like Applebees!
Fuckin’ brilliant.
???
Edit, after googling “fancy like applebees”: Oh, my. That’s…unfortunate.
Yes, and far be it from me to judge… but those dance moves are not becoming to a 41 year old man.
Some time later, Van Halen released an album called “For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge.”
Since you mentioned the April Wine song, here’s the video. MTV actually played it, as did my local AOR station.
Ha…I’m not sure how you missed that country gem. It was everywhere for awhile. I like a lot of country, but not contemporary stuff unless it comes from Stapleton, Isbell, Simpson, etc. Too much of modern country comes with a side of bumper nuts and Nickelback/KidRock adjacency. I can’t escape it around these parts.
I’ll be here all week. Tip your waiter.
I like Walk Like an Egyptian, but the lyrics are odd.
Brian
Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” is a beautiful song… if you don’t mind lyrics about a love affair ruining two people’s lives but it’s OK because we had some great orgasms.
Most likely, the “old maids” reference in “Surrender” is a sideways way to say “lesbians”, and Mommy isn’t one of those; he’s known her all these years.
The British alt/New Wave band Cocteau Twins didn’t have anyone who was any good at writing lyrics, so they just strung together random words and used them as lyrics. Stereolab, whose singer Laetitia Sadier mostly speaks French, has done the same thing, in both French and English.
I don’t hear very much currently popular music of any genre these days. Just a little bit here and there. It’s not avoidance; it’s just that my normal day-to-day doesn’t expose me to it. I do spend no small amount of time poking around on Bandcamp and the Live Music Archive at Archive.org, though.
I totally get the idea of vocals as, primarily, another instrument in the arrangement. I may be misremembering, but I think I read an interview where Jon Anderson said that’s what he was doing in some Yes songs. If someone is taking that approach, I’m not sure I’d hold them to the same standard I would use to form an opinion about something like “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.” Judge them on the basis of how well you think they did what they set out to do.
When I saw this, I thought, “The guy from Foreigner, and before that King Crimson, critiqued a Beatles song?” No, he didn’t, but a bit of sleuthing revealed that a music critic whose really name was Ian MacCallum did.
I’m actually a big fan of music that has surreal, fragmented, or stream-of-conscious lyrics. One of my favorite Wire songs is “Kidney Bingos” and has lyrics like:
Love the way all those sounds meld together.