Complex metaphors in lyrics?

Subject: RE: Complex metaphors in lyrics?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Jun 02 - 02:29 PM

Why not? A rose isn't just a pretty flower, it is also a bearer of sharp thorns on which you can hurt yourself badly. In addition it is a tenacious and strong plant, a plant that can break a paving stone, for example.

The point is, when you take a real thing, such as a plant, as your image, that opens up other aspects of that thing which can also echo other aspects of the thing that the image is seen as standing in for.

An image of a river opens up the possibility of a bridge, a flood, of something that divides people, or brings them together...and so forth. The different aspects are linked, because they relate to the underlying (or overarching) image, but they can allow for an enormous range of meaning.

Subject: RE: Complex metaphors in lyrics?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 17 Jun 02 - 02:55 PM

X=Z
Ten years ago on a ccold, hard night,
Someone was killed by the town hall light,
The people who saw it they all did agree,
That the slayer that ran looked alot like me.

Y=Z
:She walks these hills in a long black veil,
Visits my grave when the night winds wail,
Nobody knows and nobody sees,
Nobody knows but ME.

MORE Y=Z (plus irony):
The judge says,"Son, what is you alliby?
If you were somwheres elde then you won't have to die."
I spoke not a word though it meant my life
I had been in the arms of my BEST FRIEND'S WIFE...

EVEN MOREY=Z
:The scaffold is high and eternity's near,
She stands in the crowd and she sheds not a tear,
But oft times and night when the cold winds moan,
In a long black veil she cries o'er my bones.

Yes, I see what you mean !!!
ART THIEME

Subject: RE: Complex metaphors in lyrics?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 17 Jun 02 - 03:02 PM

...and ie. I guess that's why X really does = Y.

Art

Subject: RE: Complex metaphors in lyrics?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 17 Jun 02 - 03:14 PM

And the "scaffold is high" but so is "eternity" some say. Yes, scaffolds equal and are like eternities from all the world's religions in the truly metaphoricalisticness to be found so compatibly and intrinsically encased, enveloped and even stuffed within by the poster in the first entry of this profound thread.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Complex metaphors in lyrics?
From: SharonA
Date: 17 Jun 02 - 03:39 PM

CapriUni: Hmmm... I'm trying to put together the specific metaphors you've mentioned, and I'm getting a bit somewhat very confused. So far we've got song, love, sword, cave, lover and rose. Pulling some of your comments pertaining specifically to this song, I get:


A song is insubstantial. When it is past, it leaves no trace. But when it is good, it is the sharpest sword that can bring down the mighty.

Love seems as insubstantial as a song, as dreamlike as a melody, and as fleeting. But when it is good, it is a deep and strong mountain cave where we can take shelter, and sing.

My love is a song, you are the earthly singer from whom this ethereal song rises.

A song is like X, Love is like X, Love is a Song. Therefore Love is a Song and X.

What I'm talking about is layering different images together in a song -- things that don't ordinarily fit together (the way roses and dew do) -- a bit like the five blind wisemen describing an elephant: It's a rope, a tree, a fan, a snake, and a wall.

Now, for the verse on the hidden strength of love, I'm using the ol' cliche of the rose -- but I'm expanding it from the typical metaphor of the blossom, (which fades) and thorn (which wounds) to the strong roots underground, which survive the coldest winters, and sends forth new life year after year. I think the same metaphors show up in song after song because of limited space of lyrics -- there's not much room for introducing an image the listener hasn't heard before. When you equate roses with love, you don't have to worry about the audience not getting it. The problem is, roses are not a good metaphor for a song -- at least, the quality of songs that I want to highlight: something that seems to be a trifle at the surface, but in actuality is the strongest human beings can create -- that can change the world: topple a despot, or heal a broken heart.


Okay, but that quality of song is not insubstantial; it does leave more than a trace in the mind and heart of the listener, and stirs both to action. Likewise when love is substantial.

So if you're going to mention the insubstantial sort of song and the insubstantial sort of love, you still need a metaphor for those in order to draw the contrast with the metaphors of strength and substance you've mentioned (the sword, the cave and roots of a perennial plant). Some opposites of the above three might be: the tender reed ("The Rose"), the house of straw (the story of The Three Little Pigs) – or the house upon the sand (New Testament) – and a rootless plant (New Testament).

What about the lover? What's to be your metaphor for him? Will there be a contrasting metaphor for his opposite, the false or insubstantial lover? (Just rhetorical questions, trying to spark your thinking here!)

Finally, I'd like to make the comment that since roses and love have been "equated" for centuries – with meanings assigned to the colors, even! – they may be considered to be "things that ordinarily fit together", which you seem to want to avoid. Maybe the use of the rose in the song makes it too easy for the audience; IMO the thing about metaphor that makes it work is the surprise of it, the little jolt that makes the listener sit up and take notice.

But if you want to stay with the rose as metaphor for love, then perhaps the thing to do is to have those blind wisemen describe that rose (the insubstantial fragrance, the substantial roots, etc.) in a song. Then the lover could be the one who sees the whole thing as what it is. Again, just a thought to spark more thought!

Subject: RE: Complex metaphors in lyrics?
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 17 Jun 02 - 04:16 PM

All this thinking about song metaphors popped a song into my head. Maybe it needs some work but here it is.

Love is Song -----Copyright June 17, 2002 Rob Dale

Our love is a ballad tender and true
As soft as the flower as sweet as the dew
Our love is a blues song bitter and sweet
it tests our commitment but know no defeat
Our love is a march tune, Brassy and bold
With powerful tempo to never grow cold
Our love is dance song with thundering bass
Wicked and nasty, a slap to the face
Our love is sweet music Our love is delight
Our love is a love song, We'll sing it tonight

Subject: RE: Complex metaphors in lyrics?
From: CapriUni
Date: 17 Jun 02 - 04:52 PM

Sharon, I realized something about myself while I was thinking about this:

I like to write rebuttals to "common knowledge" -- to make the song (or essay, or story) a bit like a dialogue.

Voice one: A song is insubsantial -- when it's over, there's no sign it was ever there.

Voice two: No, it's not -- a song can be the overthrow of a king, if enough people sing it.

V1: Love is fleeting, you can't trust it. When times get hard, your lover will leave you, just like the rose that falls in winter

V2: No, true love is stronger than hard times: It's the deepest root of the rose, that winds around the mountain stone, far below the winter's frost.

V2: Every song that ever existed that seems so ethereal now had to begin with a real flesh and bone person.

V2: And the love I feel began with you, my beloved. Let us go to the mountain, and build ourselves a shelter. Let us tend a rose garden, and sing to each other to keep away hard times.

Besides, the song (the real one, not the metaphorical one ;-)) isn't written yet -- these are just possible metaphors that have been vying for my attention (like a class of third graders: "ooh! Pick me! Pick me!"). I won't pick all of them, but I may pick two and combine them (as in that last verse)

It hit me this afternoon that I need to make the statement and rebuttal explicit, with the hook: "Wise men have told me all my life: _____ ... But I know: _____"

Subject: RE: Complex metaphors in lyrics?
From: CapriUni
Date: 17 Jun 02 - 04:57 PM

Love it, Jack!

But how about:

Our love is a march we parade through the town
With powerful beat to never slow down ?

Subject: RE: Complex metaphors in lyrics?
From: Mr Red
Date: 17 Jun 02 - 05:03 PM

The problem with complexity is that as the mix gets more tortured then the meaning the audience take from it becomes further from your intention &/or they differ amongst themselves.
I nail my colours to the "one metaphor run as a thread" mast (unmixed those metaphors). Per verse at least, in a long song it can get overworked if it is stretched beyond it's plastic limit.
Say in a four verse song start with A advance through B & C and maybe THEN to D or swing it back A. OR with skill try running the logic of the first instances to meld A B &/or C as a closing act in the final verse.
ie telegraph the complexity by pre-empting.

Subject: RE: Complex metaphors in lyrics?
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 17 Jun 02 - 05:49 PM

Nice couplet CapriUni, but I would never sing it. I'm not much of a parader.

Subject: RE: Complex metaphors in lyrics?
From: Lynn
Date: 17 Jun 02 - 10:43 PM

Was there a time when dancers with their fiddles/In children's circuses could stay their troubles?/There was a time they could cry over books,/But time has set its maggot on their track./Under the arc of the sky they are unsafe./What's never known is safest in this life./Under the skysigns they who have no arms/Have cleanest hands, and, as the heartles ghost/Alone's unhurt, so the blind man sees best.

Dylan Thomas

Shall we talk of metaphores?

Subject: RE: Complex metaphors in lyrics?
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 17 Jun 02 - 11:33 PM

What was Dylan Smoking?

Subject: RE: Complex metaphors in lyrics?
From: CarolC
Date: 18 Jun 02 - 12:14 AM

This conversation is mostly completely over my head. But I just want to say, in defence of the use of the word "wax", that I've been using the prase "waxing poetic" (when someone's regular speach starts to sound a little like poetry) for just about as long as I can remember. I have no idea where I first heard it, but I know I didn't make it up. I'm not that good.

Subject: Lyr Add: ON THE BORDER (Al Stewart)
From: pavane
Date: 18 Jun 02 - 02:57 AM

CapriUni: I was right about On the Border, it is mostly double meanings not metaphors.

I found the words easily by searching for 'on the border Al stewart' on Google. Here is a blickie to the site: Al Stewart Lyrics

I think One the Border is on his album 'Time Passages', but not sure. Well worth a listen, IMHO.

      F#m  
 The fishing boats go out across the evening water  
 D  
 Smuggling guns and arms across the Spanish border  
     Bm  
 The wind whips up the waves so loud  
     A                  G  
 The ghost moon sails a-mong the clouds  
     F#m              E           F#m               
 And turns the rifles into silver on the border             


  F#m  
  On my wall the colours of the maps are running  
  D  
  From Africa the winds they talk of changes coming  
  Bm  
  The torches flair up in the night  
      A                  G  
  The hand that sets the farms alight  
      F#m                E                    F#m  
  Has spread the word to those who're waiting on the border  
  
 A                              Em  
 In the village where I grew up nothing seems the same  
             D                                A  
 Still you never see the change from day to day  
          D                         C#   C# B A G#m F#m E F#m     
 No-one notices the customs slip away    

  
  F#m  
  Late last night the rain was knocking on my window  
  D  
  I moved across the darkened room and in the lampglow  
  Bm  
  I thought I saw down in the street  
      A             G  
  The spirit of the century  
  F#m             E                  F#m  
  Telling us that we're all standing on the border    


  A  
  In the islands where I grew up  
  Em  
  Nothing seems the same  
                D                             A  
  It's just the patterns that remain an empty shell  
                D                                   C#  
  But there's a strangeness in the air you feel too well    


  C# B A G#m F#m E F#m    


Repeat 1st verse, then end :  
 D                 F#m                repeat to fade  
 On the border,    on the border

Words & Music Al Stewart (I believe)

Subject: RE: Complex metaphors in lyrics?
From: pavane
Date: 18 Jun 02 - 03:00 AM

Oops, the chords slipped out of place!

Subject: RE: Complex metaphors in lyrics?
From: CapriUni
Date: 18 Jun 02 - 11:03 AM

The ghost moon sails a-mong the clouds

From Africa, the winds, they talk of changes coming

Late last night the rain was knocking on my window

I thought I saw down in the street
The spirit of the century
Telling us that we're all standing on the border

For all of these lines (key lines, I'd say), the literary device is personifican -- taking something that isn't human (the moon, the wind, the rain, the spirit of the century), and giving it human characteristics.

One other literary device that is used is synecdoche (the use of the part to represent the whole, or vice verse):

The hand that sets the farms alight

It's not just one hand, but people (who have and use hands) who set the farms alight...

Subject: RE: Complex metaphors in lyrics?
From: GUEST,Fred Miller
Date: 18 Jun 02 - 12:20 PM

Um, y'all are too quick for me. I just wanted to question whether the structural relation posted was really a syllogism. A syllogism involves logical concept relations like if/then, the little U-shape, reclining, and if and only if, and such, not the math equals sign used as shorthand for a metaphorical relationship. I'm still trying to think of a subject to big for song. It's easier to think of songs so petty they don't have a need to be sung. fred

Subject: RE: Complex metaphors in lyrics?
From: pavane
Date: 18 Jun 02 - 01:22 PM

Other devices:

The turning of rifles into silver may be both visual (reflected in the moonlight) and financial (assuming the smugglers sold them).

Similarly 'no-one sees the customs slip away' could refer to the Customs & Excise as well as traditional activities.

Subject: RE: Complex metaphors in lyrics?
From: CapriUni
Date: 18 Jun 02 - 01:29 PM

Sorry, Fred.

[McCoy] "I'm an English Major, James! Not a Mathematician! [/McCoy] ;-)

I only used X, =, and Y, etc. as substitutes for the parts of a metaphor, so that the discussion wouldn't get stuck on one metaphor or another. I wasn't trying to create a logical syllogism.

More like a word ladder -- where a word morphs to another word one letter at a time (To go from Hate --> Love in four "rungs", you'd go: Hate, Have, Hove, Love), but with images and ideas instead of letters and words.

For example, to go from love as: a rose, rose to thorn, thorn to sword, sword to ploughshare *G*, ploughshare to seed, seed to rose.

Is that a syllogism, or a metamorphoses? Or is there a difference?

Subject: RE: Complex metaphors in lyrics?
From: GUEST,fred Miller
Date: 29 Jun 02 - 08:55 AM

Oh, yeah, that's how I took it. I was responding to another comment, calling it a syllogism, not a metaphor. I decided to nit-pick because symbolic logic was the only thing I ever seemed to have a gift for, but I didn't pursue it, except to get out of taking math. fred

Subject: RE: Complex metaphors in lyrics?
From: CapriUni
Date: 29 Jun 02 - 02:15 PM

Welcome back, Fred!

Well, if you have a gift, flaunt it! That's what I always say (actually, that's not true... I say lots of other things, too, like: "Yes, I would like another chocolate chip cookie. Thank you!")

Anyway, just an update.

I've decided not to use metaphor for "Song" at all -- just to describe song's qualities: Brief and intangible, leaving no evidence behind after it is gone -- unlike a plough, which leaves a furrow, or a sword, which leaves spilt blood, or a hammer, which leaves a pounded nail -- but being stronger than all those things because of how it affects the mind and heart.

Then to describe "Love" in a similiar way: that it seems inseperable from the youth and innocence in which it begins. And since youth and innocence must pass, we fear that love will pass, too. But that it's only the heady intoxication of romance that passes, while the real love goes much deeper, and just as a song is stronger than a plough, sword and hammer, love is stronger than all of life's troubles.

I am contemplating using an analogy to the fable of the Ant and the Grasshopper for the first part, at least a version I vaguely remembered from years ago ... a discussion of which is here: Alt. version of Ant and Grasshopper tale (the argument that songs are weak being supported by the fable, countered with: "but the ants were supported in their labor by the song of the grasshopper"). Maybe. But that might be getting too complicated again...

Subject: RE: Complex metaphors in lyrics?
From: GUEST,Fred Miller
Date: 02 Jul 02 - 09:47 AM

so you're going that way? Tolstoy hardly ever used metaphors, just functional comparisons. There should be a term for the completely unannounced metaphor, the stealth metaphor--no "is" or "like" but just a thing described, which may seem to us to relate. Ripley's Percieve It Or Not. Tolstoy expressed a mistrustful view of the power of music in The Kreutzer Sonata, all mixed in with a bunch of crazed misogyny. But his stuff is similar to music in that it's hard to pin down why it's good. Seems to have to do with his feel for how time passes. Will we get to see "song"?

Subject: RE: Complex metaphors in lyrics?
From: CapriUni
Date: 02 Jul 02 - 10:36 AM

Yes, you will -- I hope. When it's finished, I'll post a new thread for it...

Subject: RE: Complex metaphors in lyrics?
From: GUEST,AtoZeka
Date: 13 Mar 11 - 12:29 AM

Not sure if this counts as a complex metaphor.
http://authspot.com/poetry/aoe-everlasting-book/