What can you Not write songs about?

Subject: What can you Not write songs about?
From: alanabit
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 07:22 AM

I know most of us would abhor any form of censorship. Folk songs can show the world through the eyes of outlaws, slavers, whalers, murderers and adulterers. Novelists have long been able to show the world through the eyes of paedophiles, (Petronius's "Satyricon" and Nabokov's "Lolita"), a Nazi war criminal (Martin Amiss in "Time's Arrow") and a young fascist (Sartre's "Boyhood of a Fascist").
We songwriters seem to be a little less brave. I read Dylan's masterpiece "It's Alright Ma - I'm Only Bleeding" as an attempt to see the world through the eyes of a moralist, who is going mad.
How many songwriters do we hear though, who try to get inside the head of a war criminal, a serial killer, or a child molester? Does this problem arise because singers tend to be identified too closely with the characters, whom they portray? I am coming up with more questions than answers here. Would we understand the Holocaust better if we tried to understand the disaster from the point of view of those who filled out the grey paper forms, which made it all happen?
I am being the Devil's advocate here, perhaps. But if we are to have songs relevant for the age, should we not have songs, which portray the very bad as well as the very good?

Subject: RE: What can you Not write songs about?
From: JulieF
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 07:45 AM

I think it depends who you are.   

In the same way that it is more legitimate to make fun of your own community and beliefs than it is to make fun another community that you do not have the understanding of ( and dare I say - much , much funnier), then it must be more legitimate to write songs about the dark areas that you have some sort of association with rather than the ones you just read in the paper.

There again there are many difficult songs that do not come from the communities that were dealing with those issues. The one that immediately comes to mind is Stange Fruit.

So discuss. I'm off to find out why the update we sent out last night is causing all the computers to crash. I may be some time.

J

Subject: RE: What can you Not write songs about?
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 07:48 AM

I have already written some songs on the subject of war from the warmonger's point of view (Thieves of Innocence is already published, and A Traitor's Love might well end up on album No 7). I do agree with you alanabit that trying to understand the mentalities we abhor is beneficial - from the point of view that one can better guard against them, or against becoming like them.

Yet there some things I don't find it easy to write about, certainly not from the negative angle: Paedophilia is one such. My brain simply finds the desires of such people inexplicable.

But for the majority of crimes and vices (theft, murder, jealousy, greed, head in sand/"not my concern" etc) I don't think it is too hard to take the part of the evil-doer. That is because I believe that the "monster" is in all of us, and not too deep under the skin either. Indeed, most civilised society depends on people controlling their antisocial drives/urges, and provide rules and laws to that effect.

Subject: RE: What can you Not write songs about?
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 08:07 AM

Difficult. The song form is somewhat stunted compared to a book. A song will barely stretch to one side of A4 paper, and has to rhyme, whereas a book can go for a 1000pages and doesn't need to rhyme.

Subject: RE: What can you Not write songs about?
From: GUEST,saulgoldie
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 08:16 AM

It is academic, since I cannot write a song, period.

Subject: RE: What can you Not write songs about?
From: freda underhill
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 08:27 AM

I have an old copy of a song called "maid of australia" - recorded from a radio show of Alan Lomax collections. The Maid of Australia from memory describes a sailor coming ashore and raping a young aboriginal women. This is a good example, I think, of what not to write songs about.

Subject: RE: What can you Not write songs about?
From: alanabit
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 08:29 AM

Interesting points from everyone - and thankfully not a hint of flaming.
Falmenco Ted's point about the time you have to get the idea across is one, which occurred to me too. It is hard enough to make a good film from a good book. The song is even shorter.
El Greko is tackling the point, which I think is the most essential. We do not wish to become like some of the characters, whom we betray. I recall one actor saying that the comedian portrays the person, whom he most dreads becoming.
"The Long Black Veil" tells a story from the point of view of an aldulterer, who is executed, because his only possible alibi, would have been that he was sleeping with his best friend's wife. We can sing that one, because it is identified as being safely stowed away in history somewhere.
I wonder why no one has yet had the nerve to try to enter the mind of one of the butchers of Srebrenice? I am not interested in trying to whitewash the indefensible, but I want to try to understand why it happened.
It sounds like I should try and catch up on some of your back catalogue one day George.
Any more comments folks? I am not flaming, but I do wonder if we writers have been a little timid.

Subject: RE: What can you Not write songs about?
From: Bobert
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 08:36 AM

"There's a man on TV
He's killed 23
Burned their bodies
and collected their teeth...

Seperatem pair of rights
lead to separate lifes
Woman on a talkl show
wants to be his wife
Another man decides
to purchase his knife
The court decides
he's got the right..."

(from a "Golden Smog" song entitled "I Don't Want to Walk Where He Walked", or something like that...

So, even the sick mind is not out of bounds when it comes to song writing...

Actually there ain't much that can't be written about but there are a few topics that will sho nuff sink the song. Like:

1. Songs that glorify racism...

2. Songs about bodily funtions...

3. Songs in praise of the Iraq War...

4. Songs about having sex with yer grannie or mom...

5. Songs boasting of one's wealth...

6. Songs about plots to commit crimes...

7. Songs that are intended to hurt another song-writer (Think Lynard Skinnard's song where they put down Neil Young... I thought that was tasteless...)

8. Songs about your late wife named "Honey" (think Bobby Goldsboro here)(makes one reconsider one's stand on capital punishement...)

I'm sure there are plenty more but those come to mind this morning...

Bobert

Subject: RE: What can you Not write songs about?
From: alanabit
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 08:36 AM

I wonder Freda. If the song disgusts you and makes you want to defend the aboriginal woman, it may have a positive effect. Isn't the problem more one of how it is done?

Subject: RE: What can you Not write songs about?
From: Tootler
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 08:44 AM

This is a good example, I think, of what not to write songs about.

Why not, Freda? I don't know the song you refer to. It may or may not be a good example of its kind, but is not writing in the sailor's perspective one, perfectly valid, way to try and explore and understand why such things were done and to ask questions about the morality or otherwise of such acts?

The previous poster has a valid point.

Subject: RE: What can you Not write songs about?
From: freda underhill
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 08:53 AM

I'm going to have to find it and listen now. You all have good points, but i haven't learnt the song and sung it.

Subject: RE: What can you Not write songs about?
From: greg stephens
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 08:58 AM

Freda Underhill:
are all versions of this song about a rape? I seem to recall it as more consensual, but I may be misremembering.

Subject: RE: What can you Not write songs about?
From: freda underhill
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 09:00 AM

Now i've gone hunting and found the lyrics, and it's not rape at all. It's a good song and can be found here

It's a sailor song where he goes away and nine months later she has a baby, but " we frolicked together in the highest of glee,
In the finest Australia you ever did see."

Subject: RE: What can you Not write songs about?
From: SINSULL
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 09:01 AM

No rape here, I think, Freda.

Subject: RE: What can you Not write songs about?
From: SINSULL
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 09:01 AM

Sorry. Try Here:
@displaysong.cfm?SongID=6656

Subject: RE: What can you Not write songs about?
From: freda underhill
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 09:02 AM

you can listen to the MP3, and this is the same one I have on tape somewhere. - yes, i think I'll have to learn it now!

Subject: RE: What can you Not write songs about?
From: freda underhill
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 09:15 AM

these are the words of the version i have linked to, Sinsull

The Maid of Australia   
Sung by Harry Cox.

Recorded by Peter Kennedy and Alan Lomax in Catfield, Norfolk, England, in 1953.

As I walked down by the Hawkesbury banks,
Where the maids of Australia do play their wild pranks.
Beneath a green shady bower I sat myself down,
Where the birds sang so gaily enchanted all round,
In the forest of native Australia,
Where the maidens are handsome and gay.
Additional verses:

[As I sat a-viewing this beautiful scene,
When a pretty fair damsel I happened to see.
She must be going swimming, or so it would seem,
For she laid down her clothing beside the clear stream,
By the stream of her native Australia,
Where the maidens are handsome and gay.

She stripped off her clothing, before me she stood,
As naked as Venus that rose from the flood.
She blushed with confusion and smiling said she,
"For these are the clothes that Australia gave me,
The day I was born in Australia,
Where the maidens are handsome and gay."]

Now, she dived in the water without fear or dread
Her beautiful limbs she exceedingly spread
Her hair hung in wringles, her colour was black.
"Sir," said she, "you ivill see how I float on my back
On the stream in my native Australia."
Where the maidens are handsome and gay.

Now, bein' exhausted, she came to the brink,
"Assistance, kind sir, or I surely shall sink."
As quick as the lightnin' I took hold of her hand
My foot slipped and we fell on the sand.
Then I entered the bush of Australia,
Just as the sun went down.

Noiv, we frolicked together in the highest of glee,
In the finest Australia you ever did see.
The sun it went down and the clouds did resign,
Then I left the fair maid of Australia,
Theft I left the fair maid of Australia,

Just as the sun went down.
Now, six months being over
and nine being come,

This pretty fair maid, she brought forth a fine son.
O where was his father? He could not be found,
And she cursed the hour that she lay on the ground,
In her native, the plains of Australia,
Where the maidens are handsome and gay.

Subject: RE: What can you Not write songs about?
From: Flash Company
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 09:39 AM

A guy I knew some years ago (Tim Norfolk) wrote a song about the hydrogen bomb, not as a 'Ban the Bomb' song, but from the viewpoint of a small-time dictator who was delighted with his bomb. He wanted to drop it on his neighbour!
Can't remember all of it, but the last verse was the sting in the tail:-

I've let off my hydrogen bomb,
I did it with utter aplomb,
A tale to be told when I'm wrinkled and old,
To my little grandaughter & son,
I watch them outside as they frolic and play,
But they may not be there at the end of the day,
For I hear that the fall-out is blowing THIS way,
From my little hydrogen bomb. BOOM!

As the man said, for every action there is an equal and opposite re-action.

FC

Subject: RE: What can you Not write songs about?
From: Genie
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 09:46 AM

Well, there's always "Sam Hall."

Also a song Hoyt Axton sang called "Water For My Horses."   IIRC, both those songs are sung from the unrepenting perspective of a convicted murder.

(I do think that it may be easier in a novel than in a song to make it clear that the narrative is from the perspective of someone other than the author.   Maybe because the song is sung more often than the novel is read aloud.)

Bobert's got a that "there ain't much that can't be written about but there are a few topics that will sho nuff sink the song. Like:

...8. Songs about your late wife named "Honey" (think Bobby Goldsboro here)(makes one reconsider one's stand on capital punishement...)
LOL

Not sure if I fully agree with some of your others, though, Bobert.

"...
3. Songs in praise of the Iraq War..."   
Tell that to Toby Keith.

" ... 4. Songs about having sex with yer grannie or mom..."
Well, how 'bout that Scots song that goes
"Oh, ye canny shtoop yer grannie on a bus ..." ?

" ... 6. Songs about plots to commit crimes..."
Hmm... I think it depends on the crime.

The Dixie Chicks' song "Goodbye, Earl" and Martina McBride's song "Independence Day" are both about "crimes" (already committed), but crimes where the public is likely to empathize with the "perp."

And, of course, trad, folk song is replete with songs sung from the viewpoint of murderers of one sort or another.

Genie

Subject: RE: What can you Not write songs about?
From: JulieF
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 10:00 AM

Its - you canny shove yer granny off a bus

or at least it was in my day !

J

Subject: RE: What can you Not write songs about?
From: GUEST,Baz
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 10:01 AM

Oranges, since nothing rhymes with them. Everything else is up for grabs though.

Subject: RE: What can you Not write songs about?
From: number 6
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 10:01 AM

Good thread Alanabit.

Steve Earl's song John Walker Blues comes to mind with this subject .. took a lot of guts for Steve to write and record it at the time he did.

"I'm just an American boy raised on MTV
And I've seen all those kids in the soda pop ads
But none of 'em looked like me
So I started lookin' around for a light out of the dim
And the first thing I heard that made sense was the word
Of Mohammed, peace be upon him

chorus:
A shadu la ilaha illa Allah
There is no God but God

If my daddy could see me now – chains around my feet
He don't understand that sometimes a man
Has got to fight for what he believes
And I believe God is great, all praise due to him
And if I should die, I'll rise up to the sky
Just like Jesus, peace be upon him

We came to fight the Jihad and our hearts were pure and strong
As death filled the air, we all offered up prayers
And prepared for our martyrdom
But Allah had some other plan, some secret not revealed
Now they're draggin' me back with my head in a sack
To the land of the infidel

A shadu la ilaha illa Allah
A shadu la ilaha illa Allah"


sIx

Subject: RE: What can you Not write songs about?
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 10:15 AM

Reading this thread, I think the question is really "What shouldn't you write a song about?" You have the "ability" to write a song about anything. My fifth grade teacher would be proud of me. For me, the question is neither of the above. It all depends on why you write a song. And who you are writing the song for. What do you want the song to do? Do you just want to shock people, or disgust them? To what purpose? Do you want to educate them? Do you want to activate them? Do you think that writing a song about child molesting will reduce the activity?

Finally, it comes down to how you write it. In the long run, that will determine whether the song has any chance of motivating people to work for change, or just disgusts them.

Jerry

Subject: RE: What can you Not write songs about?
From: Genie
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 10:26 AM

Good points, Jerry.

I think also a lot depends on the intended audience.   There are a lot of "Rugby Songs" and other bar songs that go over really well when your audience is a drunken lot of rowdies but that even THOSE folks wouldn't sing in other settings.

We have a rather lengthy thread here about "Songs About Farting," and I must admit I rather enjoy a lot of those songs.   That said, I've rarely found a setting where I can "share" those songs without fear that at least one person in the group (audience) will be offended.
(Guess I'll have to look up some of my old Rugger pals.) ;-D

Genie

Subject: RE: What can you Not write songs about?
From: number 6
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 10:30 AM

"motivating people to work for change, or just disgusts them. "

... or providing 'food for thought'

sIx

Subject: RE: What can you Not write songs about?
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 10:32 AM

alanabit,
you mentioned Srebrenica. Funny that - this was not about Srebrenica itself, but about that whole period. The three incidents referred to are part of history now. It tackles the "revenge" explanation for continuing vendettas between clans, which is one of the causes at the back of the troubles that eventually ripped Yugoslavia apart.

Revenge ?
George Papavgeris, July 2001

What turns a man into a beast?
What makes an enemy from friend,
A butcher from a farmer?
What causes man to fire a gun,
To separate father from son,
The baby from the mother?

We learn to take, and not to give,
And to accuse, not to forgive.
We learn of rights, and not of dues.
For those who're weak we have no use.
From jackals we're no better.


Who thought to go and buy some food
And pay for it with their own blood?
That's not what they were hoping.
Who sent the rockets into town
In blood the marketplace to drown?
Whose hate was there no stopping?

Who knew their names and who were they
Who won't see another market day?
And who decided, you or I,
That eighty people had to die
The day that Death went shopping?


We were eighteen and so in love
But I had God and you Allah
The crime we had to pay for.
We used to meet among the dead
The cold stone pillow for your head
But you were always playful.

You thought to dance among the graves,
The bullet caught you unawares.
What blasphemy and what disgrace
The sniper's cross upon your face -
A mark of love so dreadful.


He used to play with the other boys,
Their wooden guns their favourite toys,
Their legs like sticks from hunger.
He'd learned to cross without a noise
To get the water from the hose,
But he'll go there no longer.

Who saw a child crossing the road,
The water cans his only load,
Who saw my son and saw a threat?
Who aimed and shot to cut him dead
And thought his manhood stronger?



What makes a mob of decent folk,
What makes you hate the other bloke
And think his life is cheaper?
Is it religion, is it creed,
Or politics all mixed with greed?
No - revenge goes much, much deeper!

So is it just my human fate
To spend my life in vengeful hate?
And am I blessed for being meek,
If love, and not revenge I seek -
Or fodder for the Reaper?

Subject: RE: What can you Not write songs about?
From: Paul Burke
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 10:37 AM

I think Leon Rosselson's song "Vile Violation" gets a bit near the bounds of tolerability:

As I roved out one morning on a trip to reconnoitre
Through wind and weather carelessly I flew,
I spied a pleasing prospect that caused me for to loiter
And I moved in closer for a better view.

"It's a vile violation of my airspace
and I warn the intruder to withdraw,
It's a vile violation of my airspace-
such aggressive acts can only lead to war"

It was written as a satire on Khrushchev's response to the U2 incident, "like an outraged maiden aunt" as someone put it. But taken as a whole, the song manages to make light of rape and nuclear war in one merry little ditty.

Subject: RE: What can you Not write songs about?
From: number 6
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 10:39 AM

Good analogy Paul ... thanks for posting this.

sIx

Subject: RE: What can you Not write songs about?
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 10:40 AM

And of course Tom Lehrer wrote about dropping the bomb (We will all go together), and incestuous love (Oedipus), and masochism (Masochism Tango), destruction of animals (Poisoning pigeons in the park), mass murder (My home town), drug pushing, you name it. More often than not from the point of view of the evil doer.

And he did it to educate.

Subject: RE: What can you Not write songs about?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 10:48 AM

Fiddle about on Tommy was about the child molester

I've written a murder ballad in my time

I'd say McTell's Bentley and Craig identifies with murderers pretty closely.

round here there is the ex-home of the skinhead band leader of Skrewdriver - a sort of shrine for nazi thugs

I think its out there - if we look.

but the rosy cheeked maidens, and hairy arsed miners (as long as they're not like that), and rambling sailor boy crap. well its most peoples choice for a good night out, and a folk radio prog.

Some of Randy Newmans work - my life is good , for example, is a very thoughtful and interesting look at the kind of citizens who screw everything up for everybody else.

Subject: RE: What can you Not write songs about?
From: alanabit
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 10:50 AM

Good point El Greko. I know and love those songs too. They are easier to perform though, because they make the perpetrators look absurd - and that is one of the reasons that the songs are so very funny. I liked the song you quoted and I very much enjoyed reading the lyrics of Steve Earle's "John Walker Blues". That is very much the sort of song I want to hear more of.
It is good to see this thread throwing light rather than heat onto the subject. Thanks to everyone, who has written in so far.

Subject: RE: What can you Not write songs about?
From: Genie
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 11:11 AM

Earlier, I said it depends on the audience & setting.   I'd take it a step further and say it depends on whether hearing the song is, at some level, satisfying.   It makes you laugh, makes you cry (but doesn't make you distraught), makes you think, makes you grow -- something like that.   But if it JUST makes you mad or depresses you makes you sick, you probably don't want to hear it again.

That's prob'ly why there aren't a lot of songs about vomit. Or gangrene.

G

Subject: RE: What can you Not write songs about?
From: number 6
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 11:20 AM

Good point in mentioning Randy Newman weelittledrummer.

Some song's by Newman that punch out some thought in us and are worth mentioning in this thread:

Rednecks

Sail Away

Politcal Science

In Germany before the War

I suggest if anyone is interested to go an google the lyrics.

sIx

Subject: RE: What can you Not write songs about?
From: Genie
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 12:56 PM

Thinking of Randy's songs, I'm also reminded that sometimes you get in trouble just for a song TITLE or a single line taken out of context.

Randy's song "Short People" was grossly mis-characterized by way too many people, including the media, because of lines like "Short people got no reason to live."

Satire and irony are all too often totally MISSED, especially when it's subtly done.   Or when people tune out as soon as they hear an "offensive" word, phrase, or line.

Subject: RE: What can you Not write songs about?
From: M.Ted
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 01:11 PM

For your consideration, here are the lyrics to a song by the Bloodhound Gang, who are a contemporary, and rather popular rock band. Does this song go to far? If not, how much more do you want?

A Lap Dance is So Much Better when the Stripper is Crying


        I was lonelier than Kunta Kinte at a Merle Haggard concert that night I strolled on into Uncle Limpy's Hump Palace lookin' for love. It had been a while. In fact, three hundred and sixty-five had come and went since that midnight run haulin' hog to Shakey Town on I-10. I had picked up this hitchhiker that was sweatin' gallons through a pair of Daisy Duke cut-offs and one of those Fruit Of The Loom tank-tops. Well, that night I lost myself to ruby red lips, milky white skin and baby blue eyes. Name was Russell.

Yes a lap dance is so much better when the stripper is cryin'
Yes a lap dance is so much better when the stripper is cryin'
Well I find it's quite a thrill
When she grinds me against her will
Yes a lap dance is so much better when the stripper is cryin'

Well, faster than you can say, "shallow grave", this pretty little thing come up to me and starts kneadin' my balls like hard-boiled eggs in a tube sock. Said her name was Bambi and I said, "Well that's a coincidence darlin', 'cause I was just thinkin' about skinnin' you like a deer." Well she smiled, had about as much teeth as a Jack-O-Lantern, and I went on to tell her how I would wear her face like a mask as I do my little kooky dance. And then she told me to shush. I guess she could sense my desperation. 'Course, it's hard to hide a hard-on when you're dressed like Minnie Pearl.

Yes a lap dance is so much better when the stripper is cryin'
Yes a lap dance is so much better when the stripper is cryin'
Well I find it's quite a thrill
When she grinds me against her will
Yes a lap dance is so much better when the stripper is cryin'

So, Bambi's goin' on about how she can make all my fantasies come true. So I says, "Even this one I have where Jesus Christ is jackhammering Mickey Mouse in the doo-doo hole with a lawn dart as Garth Brooks gives birth to something resembling a cheddar cheese log with almonds on
Santa Claus's tummy-tum?" Well, ten beers, twenty minutes and thirty dollars later I'm parkin' the beef bus in tuna town if you know what I mean. Got to nail her back at her trailer. Heh. That rhymes. I have to admit it was even more of a turn-on when I found out she was doin' me to buy baby
formula.

Yes a lap dance is so much better when the stripper is cryin'
Yes a lap dance is so much better when the stripper is cryin'
Well I find it's quite a thrill
When she grinds me against her will
Yes a lap dance is so much better when the stripper is cryin'

Day or so had passed when I popped the clutch, gave the tranny a spin and slid on into The Stinky Pinky Gulp N' Guzzle Big Rig Snooze-A-Stop. There I was browsin' through the latest issue of "Throb", when I saw Bambi starin' at me from the back of a milk carton. Well, my heart just dropped. So, I decided to do what any good Christian would. You can not imagine how difficult it is to hold a half gallon of moo juice and polish the one-eyed gopher when your doin' seventy-five in an eighteen-wheeler. I never thought missing children could be so sexy. Did I say that out loud?

Yes a lap dance is so much better when the stripper is cryin'
Yes a lap dance is so much better when the stripper is cryin'
Well I find it's quite a thrill
When she grinds me against her will
Yes a lap dance is so much better when the stripper is cryin'

Subject: RE: What can you Not write songs about?
From: Genie
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 01:18 PM

Chansons de verité, peût etre?

Subject: RE: What can you Not write songs about?
From: GUEST,Val
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 02:03 PM

My own pet theory... it's not so much about WRITING the song as PERFORMING the song. Performers are often (not saying always) more intimately identified - in their own mind & the mind of the audience - as the narrator or primary character in a song. Most of us do not wish to regularly put ourselves in the mindset of someone whom we abhor in order to get a good performance, and do not want to give the audience the impression that we actually support some ideas.

Parodies, satire, songs about witnessing evil, or songs where the evil-doer gets his/her due (even if sung in first person) are a different sort of thing - you're not putting yourself out there as if you're promoting the act. But if you sing about something like killing innocent people, sing as if you really mean it, chances are you'll at least get watched closely by the FBI and maybe locked up "for the public good".

A novel, in addition to having much more time to explore the subtleties of a mindset, also tends to be more dissociated from the author. Perhaps even written poetry can have that same sort of separation - the reader deals with the words as he/she wishes, without directly involving the author. A song, which is intended to be performed, is an immediate and involving experience that links performer & audience. That's part of why songs might arguably be more powerful than poems or prose, but also why many people avoid some topics.

~Val

Subject: RE: What can you Not write songs about?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 02:11 PM

It's not the topics the raise the probkem, it's what you are saying about the topics, and what you are trying to achieve.

Genocide, rape, slavery, lynching - there are songs about all of those which would have the effect on encouraging people to oppose all those things, and that could apply just as much if they were written in a way that was looking through the eyes of the perpetrators. Irony provides us with a ranbge of powerful tool.

Where there is perhaps a problem is when it comes to songs which seem to line up on the other side, maybe presenting some act of violence, for example, as somehow justifiable or heroic. I'm thinking, for example, of some traditional ballads, which can be seen as glamorising rape and murder.

I don't think that would justify excluding them, since there's normally a moral ambiguity which means they need not be seen as doing that, but there is a problem. And I know that there are more recent songs, for example some maverick Country songs, and some Rap material which both in content and performance seem to explour and encourage hatred.

And behind all that there is the question whethwer it is possible to hacve a song which is aesthetically a good somg, but ethically repugnant. And I think that the answer there is probably "yes".

But, regardless of the aesthetics, I don't think I can see myself writing or singing or even listening to a song like that (not listening more than once anyway. Some things are more important than aesthetics.

Subject: RE: What can you Not write songs about?
From: GUEST,Songster Bob
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 02:13 PM

Well, a friend of mine has the first line to a song that isn't much likely to get any further (at least not from me). It's a blues:

"I got a good woman, but my man don't want her around."



SongBob

Subject: RE: What can you Not write songs about?
From: alanabit
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 02:31 PM

I crossed posted with WLD, or else I would have said earlier that I agree that Randy Newman is a contemporary artist, who treads the ground I am talking about with wit and skill. The song by the Bloodhound gang, quoted by M.Ted, is another. I know nothing about the act, but although the narrator character clearly comes over as repulsive, the last thing most people would do is to identify with him.

Subject: RE: What can you Not write songs about?
From: GUEST,Whistle Stop
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 02:34 PM

Yeah, I was going to mention Randy Newman, but others beat me to it.

As for Steve Earle, I don't know about "John Walker's Blues"; I think that was an attempt at something different. But some of his other material certainly fits the profile. One of my favorites is called "All That I Can Do," which sounds at first like your basic love song, until you realize that it is basically written and sung from the standpoint of a stalker (You say you're gonna call the cops/But I ain't gonna run/'Cause you're the only one/And there ain't no way I can live without you, etc.).

Another person worth mentioning is Richard Thompson; some of his work is positively chilling, and he makes no attempt to sugar-coat it or add in a moral. For a good example, listen to "The Uninhabited Man"; spooky.

Personally, I think this can be some of the best songwriting there is. It's relatively easy to write something that echoes all the platitudes we've been taught about how we're supposed to behave; it's much harder, it seems to me, to write from inside the mind of a criminal or degenerate, and show how much that person has in common with the rest of us.

Subject: RE: What can you Not write songs about?
From: TheBigPinkLad
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 03:49 PM

I would think you can write and perform any song in your head, but not necessarily in public. That said, I'll bet there's an appreciative audience somewhere for every song no matter how purile the content. Sad.

Subject: RE: What can you Not write songs about?
From: Fullerton
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 05:35 PM

Nobody is writin' dee songs about dee gay old life on dee old plantation.

Good thing too.

Good riddance - nice tunes here & there though.

Subject: RE: What can you Not write songs about?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 05:48 PM

But it would be perfectly possible to write a song about life on the plantattion, as it actually was. (For example, starting with this picture from South Carolina in 1856.)

It ain't what you write about, it's about what you write.

Subject: RE: What can you Not write songs about?
From: GUEST,Uncle DaveO
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 06:02 PM

Freda Underhill told us:

I have an old copy of a song called "maid of australia" - recorded from a radio show of Alan Lomax collections. The Maid of Australia from memory describes a sailor coming ashore and raping a young aboriginal women. This is a good example, I think, of what not to write songs about.

At least in the version of this with which I'm familiar, it's not a rape; it's a jolly consensual romp.

Remember that the Polynesians (with whom I'd classify the Maoris in Australia) in the early days of European contact, had a very free outlook toward sex. It's quite believable that the Fair Maid was as pleased with the incident as was the sailor.

And remember, of coure, that it's unlikely that the incident is factual. It sounds like erotic wish fulfillment, to me. If so, the songwriter/narrator is entitled to be believed in what he says happened. After all, it's HIS daydream.

I see/hear nothing in this song that suggests rape.

In case someone tells me that the Fair Maid, this being Australia, would more likely be Australian Bush(wo)man than Maori, I expect the same comments apply. In any case, the wish-fulfillment song comment seems to me highly likely.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: What can you Not write songs about?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 06:05 PM

I don't think you find that many Maoris in Australia, apart from tourists these days. At that time about as many as you'd have found in the Home Counties.

Subject: RE: What can you Not write songs about?
From: GUEST,Ingrid Frances Stark
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 07:11 PM

Many of the things I thought of when I first heard this thread name have already been covered. I still have some other reactions to the topic, though.

First of all, I think the question Alan really wanted an answer to is "What can you not perform songs about?". Most of us who are songwriters and/or poets have written a lot of things we would not consider performing. Some because they are just not really good songcraft.
One of the ways you get the good ones is by going ahead and writing whatever comes through, if only for the practice.

Also, some songs won't let you NOT write them.
I wrote one a few years ago about a friend's husband, who went down in the basement one day and blew his brains out. I have performed it exactly once, and will likely never do so again. But it needed to be written. I needed to write it, because putting it into the framework of a song/poem was the only way I could deal with the issue.

I have, over the years, written many poems and songs about issues that make people uncomfortable in themselves. In part, the writing is a personal catharsis. But almost every time I perform one of them, someone comes up to me later and thanks me for reminding them they are not the only one to feel that way. Often I've been told that I put words to something thay had been unable to say for themselves. Or that they now feel differently about an issue for having heard another side of it.

Whether or not to perform a given song is a personal decision, and should take both audience and message into account. Whether or not to write it? Doesn't your creative self have enough blocks without adding more? Besides, that very creativity is what can keep you alive in extreme situations. I know several songwriters who have written very painful songs about pain, seperation, loss, death, or illness in their lives. Often the very act of writing the song is what helps get you through that stuff.

I would say, go ahead and write! Edit later.

Subject: RE: What can you Not write songs about?
From: frogprince
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 09:38 PM

I wrote a lyric a few years ago, "For The Unnoticed Heroes", which included my respects to some people I knew personally. As originally written, I included a reference to a pediatric nurse I once dated, who went through some rough patches with multiple little patients dying. As originally written, a couplet went, "Some heroes spend all their days caring/ for kids who won't live to get well". After a little thought rewrote the line, as I felt it could actually put some poor listener "on the floor" emotionally. It was performed as "Some heroes spend all their days caring / for those who will never get well."

Subject: RE: What can you Not write songs about?
From: Peace
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 09:40 PM

"Often the very act of writing the song is what helps get you through that stuff."

Ain't THAT the truth.

Subject: RE: What can you Not write songs about?
From: bobad
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 10:20 PM

I was going to say appendicitis but then I remembered "The Martin Hartwell Story" by Stompin' Tom Connors

"Oh, Mr. Hartwell," said the nurse
"I pray that you will guide us
To save this woman with her child
And the boy with appendicitis."