Changing the words

Subject: RE: Changing the words
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 27 Apr 04 - 10:12 AM

Mary in Kentucky said:

That line about the new moon rising would distract me so much I couldn't enjoy the image or the song. (To me, a new moon is one night each month as listed on my gardening calendar when there is no moon...a black circle on the calendar.)

From my unabridged The Random House Dictionary of the English Language, under "New moon":

the moon either when in conjunction with the Sun or soon after, being either invisible or visible only as a slender crescent.

Also, see Sir Patrick Spens:

"Late, late yestreen I saw the new moon,
Wi' the auld moon in her airms"

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Changing the words
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 27 Apr 04 - 10:36 AM

There's often a uncertainty principle in songs as they are sung - there's a range of mini-variations within a particular variant; and likely enough a range of variants in addition.

I think expecting that a song can be fixed like a fly in amber is unrealistic. If it could be done it'd mean the song was probably dead. That doesn't mean that all the variations and the variants are equally good, or that there is anything wrong about someone who loves a song, and especially the person who wrote it, in the case of a recent song, trying to defend it against the kind of changes that weaken or distort it.

Subject: RE: Changing the words
From: YorkshireYankee
Date: 27 Apr 04 - 11:07 PM

I'll give some examples as this thread goes along of changes I've made in words and why,

So Jerry, besides the "new moon" change, what other time(s) have you changed the words of a song & why? Do you only change your own songs, or have you ever changed someone else's song -- or maybe a trad song?

YY

Subject: RE: Changing the words
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 28 Apr 04 - 07:13 AM

Hey, Yorkshire:

The changes that I make in lyrics of traditional songs are mostly when I feel that the line doesn't fit the rhythm of the song. I'll have to think for a minute of an example. Most recently, I guess, the bass singer in my quartet was having trouble with some of the words on a song he was singing the lead on, to the point where he was ready to give up on doing it. I ended up learning the words of the song, and took a word out of a line or two so that the phrasing fit the rhythm of the song, and he was able to learn it. The lines as written were:

You know that Daniel he prayed
Three times a day
God sent down an angel
And rolled the stone away

I just took "down" out of the third line because Joe was having trouble fitting all the words into the beat. That didn't really change the meaning of the song... just made it flow a little more comfortably (although I didn't have a problem singing it with all the words in..)

I'll have to think of some other examples. Mostly it's fitting the lines a little more comfortably to the rhythm (although there are plenty of songs where the lines don't fit, that I like just as they are.)

Now, on my own songs, I don't consider them finished until I've lived with them for a couple of months. Just to keep the song coming, I'll often write a couple of filler lines... lines that complete a verse that I'm not really happy with. As I live with the song, different lines will often come to me and I'll drop the old ones out.

Another thing that's different about writting songs more in the tradition of black gospel, which I've been doing recently, is that it's not unusual to change the lines to a song, within the song. For example, I just wrote a song, Lord, Send Me. I First was singing a line:

"If you're walking by my side, then I'll never be denied." The words fit fine, and the meaning of the line made sense to me. As I was singing it more, I changed it to "If you're walking by my side, then I'll be justified." That made sense, too. Now, I usually sing it "If you're walking by my side, then I'll be satisfied." But because the line is in the chorus, which is repeated several times, and when I do the song with the group, they are just singing "Ooooh" in harmony on that line, I may sing "justified" one time around, and "satisfied" another.

Writing a song is a process and the song evolves through time. For me, it usually reaches a final form that I am happy with and I rarely change a line, years later.

(I have no intention of changing the new moon rising line, for example.) The song it's in, Taste Of Sin is a humorous song about a guy who is picked up by a woman in a bar one night, and when she takes him out in the country in her car, they get in the back seat, and she has her poodle in the car with her. When he starts to make a move on the woman, the dog starts growling, and he twists the dog's ear to shut it up. She gets angry, and she throws him out of the car and he has to walk home. And he looks up and sees the new moon rising. Maybe you can see it rising better after you've had a few drinks.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Changing the words
From: Kevin Sheils
Date: 28 Apr 04 - 10:22 AM

On Martin Carthy's 1968 album But Two Came By I was surprised to hear him sing the opening lines of "The White Hare" as:

Near Howden town, near Howden town, as I have heard them say
There once was a white hare that used there for to dwell

Where I would have expected the first line to end in "tell", as I recall Joseph Taylor's and also The Watersons' version does. I put it down to a natural change, mistake whatever. The two tracks later on "Poor Murdered Woman" he sings the opening lines as:

It was Yankie(?) the Squire as I've heard them tell
He went out a hunting all on one fine day

where I'd have expected "say" instead of "tell". Strange that there are two changed oddities on one LP, which somehow complement each other.

Subject: RE: Changing the words
From: Alaska Mike
Date: 28 Apr 04 - 10:50 AM

As a performing songwriter, I usually sing my own songs throughout a set. As a forgetful old fart, I usually end up forgetting the lyrics to songs I have written. Thank goodness the "folk" process and my songwriter's brain allow me to re-write some of these lyrics on the fly.

When I have heard others sing my songs, either recorded or live, I always notice the changes they have made to my lyrics. I am thrilled when they have chosen to learn and perform a song I wrote. It doesn't bother me in the least to have the words changed. Vive la difference!

Mike

Subject: RE: Changing the words
From: Betsy
Date: 28 Apr 04 - 11:00 AM

All I would add to your wonderful piece McGrath 27 Apr 04 - 10:36 AM
is, that with a written piece ,there is uncertainty at the time of writing , first time of performance , and maybe after a couple of more performances the writer may feel the need to "tweak" some parts of the song.
If someone feels they have to "tweak" the song or tune in order to learn it / to suit their limitations or capabilities - I as a song writer will not be unduly upset, providing the person who is singing my song , has his/her heart in the right place" - and I haven't found anyone who didn't.
Interpretation of a song is a slightly different thing, and I have only once fell victim to someone who did'nt understand that the "Song" was a happy nostalgic song and not a reflective dirge.

Subject: RE: Changing the words
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 28 Apr 04 - 11:00 AM

Barbara,

It was Carter and Ralph (both of the Stanleys) that I heard doing this version of Man of Constant Sorrow from and old radio broadcast dwn in Florida I believe. Carter died in 1966 so it's quite a while that it's been sung that way.

Re the general subject of lyrics changing, we used to call it the folk process. If the change works and people like it and sing it, it will live on. If it doesn't work it will die a natural death.

To me that's what makes folk music/fiddle tunes/banjo tunes/ songs etc so interesting. If all songs were written down once and always sung the same way I'd only need a fraction of the shelf space that I now need for my 78's, vinyl, tapes and CD's.

Subject: RE: Changing the words
From: Wolfgang
Date: 05 May 04 - 04:02 AM

Coming back very late to this thread.

If really nearly nobody notices a physical impossibility in a song, it isn't worth the effort to make the lyrics fit the reality.

I remember an article by Martin Gardner many years ago listing instances in pictures, poetry and prose in which wrong positions, shapes and motions of the moon have been shown or described. Many, many instances, whereas everybody gets the motion of the sun correct. It still seems a bit curious to me that everybody knows how the sun moves and not many notice how the moon moves. So if 'Farewell to Nova Scotia' would start with the words 'The sun was rising in the west...' I guess there would be more complaints though that also only requires the earth changing its rotation for a short while.

But as I said above, if nobody really notices ...

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Changing the words
From: GLoux
Date: 05 May 04 - 11:39 AM

The soundtrack to O Brother has four version of I Am A Man Of Constant Sorrow. To my ear, the only version close to Emry Arthur's version is Norman Blake's instrumental rendition (no words). The two bluegrass versions by the Soggy Bottom Boys are annotated with "Arranged by Carter Stanley". John Hartford's version is attributed to Ed Haley.

Interesting...

Subject: RE: Changing the words
From: GUEST,Conscience
Date: 20 Jul 04 - 07:32 PM

"theres always room for improvement

Not to the writer there's not Breezy!"
Harvey then

"then the frightened men... and stood before their wives"
Harvey now

Subject: RE: Changing the words
From: GUEST,Murkey
Date: 06 Sep 04 - 06:55 PM

I always like the story about Kate Rusby changing a name from Willy to Billy because she couldn't cope singing, 'Where is my willy'!

Subject: RE: Changing the words
From: GUEST,Paranoid Android
Date: 06 Sep 04 - 10:11 PM

POETIC LICENCE !!!!!!!!!!

Subject: RE: Changing the words
From: Joe_F
Date: 07 Sep 04 - 06:26 PM

Murkey: She preferred people to think she was looking for her nightstick?

*

Here is a change that annoys the hell out of me, because it was clearly deliberate & reveals that the changer did not understand the song. In "The Prodigal Son", Kipling wrote

My father glooms and advises me,
My brother sulks and despises me,
And Mother catechises me
Till I want to go out and swear.

The son (as we have heard) is only a *bit* of a swine. He will not, even in imagination, curse his mother at the dinner table -- no, he imagines excusing himself, as a well-bred person might do who needed to spit. Leslie Fish makes it

Till I want to stand up and swear

-- ruining a fine comic touch. (She also mispronounces "catechise", but that is far more forgivable.)

Subject: RE: Changing the words
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Nov 04 - 06:54 PM

hey always study

Subject: RE: Changing the words
From: Blissfully Ignorant
Date: 09 Nov 04 - 12:31 AM

I like the version of Man of Constant Sorrow on Oh brother...
Granted, i haven't heard any other versions...:0)

Just a thought on changing genders- it's a lot more fun not to. I once sung the Kinks' All Day and All Of THe NIght, including 'girl i want to be with you all of the time' and accompianied by a lot of, um, suggestive posturing...that got a good reaction. I did get hit upon by a couple of ladies afterwards, though! :0)

I recently heard the Whites Stripes song Fell in Love with a Girl sung as fell in love with a boy, and i just thought, 'well, it's ok-but what's the point?'