The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #163899   Message #3915283
Posted By: Richard Mellish
05-Apr-18 - 04:47 AM
Thread Name: perfect lyrics
Subject: RE: perfect lyrics
We could waste a lot of time debating what constitutes perfection in song lyrics, but perhaps the OP could at least set out his criteria.

His example, Drink to Me Only, has some significance for me because my grandfather taught it to me when I was a nipper. He told me that an ancestor of ours, Colonel Henry Mellish, was responsible for the tune. Subsequently I have learnt that we may be descended from a brother or cousin of the Colonel rather than from him. I have also learnt that one set of words can have more than one musical setting. It may or may not be true that the tune that I learnt came from the Colonel.

As a child I learnt the words parrot-fashion. I didn't understand them until I revisited them many years later. So they are certainly not "perfect" for a child.