songs I wish I'd written

Subject: RE: songs I wish I'd written
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Jun 03 - 10:46 AM

Fred Eaglesmith's "Water In The Fuel" off Lipstick, Lies, and Gasoline (great CD title too) ...although I like Kasey Chambers singing it better.

Subject: RE: songs I wish I'd written
From: A Wandering Minstrel
Date: 18 Jun 03 - 07:58 AM

Yeah "Greensleeves" is a lot o sugary claptrap and is not a patch on Bluff Hals lesser known masterwork "Passtimes in Good Company"

Fie, the Minstreles Tongue be so encheeked! :)

Subject: RE: songs I wish I'd written
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 18 Jun 03 - 07:46 AM

(clicked the wrong button before)

... were I to leave now,
    there's nothing more I would regret:
    not hearing those songs
    that nobody has written yet....

I would gladly forego TODAY sight, touch and much more besides, to have the opportunity to hear the songs that will be written after I'm gone.

Subject: RE: songs I wish I'd written
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 18 Jun 03 - 07:43 AM

There's lots of good stuff out there, to please any taste. Thank God for the excellent songwriters we have had the privilege to benefit from across the years/centuries. But still,

Subject: RE: songs I wish I'd written
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 18 Jun 03 - 07:21 AM

What is interesting is that when people compile lists of "best song" and "worst songs" , the same songs pop up on each list. For example, lots of people hear Eric Clapton's " Wonderful Tonight" as a great romantic song, whereas lots of others think it's sugary nonsense , or condecending to women. You can't please all the people all the time. For example, I was amazed to hear somebody once say that they hated " Greensleeves". Surely, not ...

Subject: RE: songs I wish I'd written
From: Rapparee
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 09:22 PM

Good Lord! How can anyone...?

Mary Ellen Carter
The Idiot
And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda
Puff the Magic Dragon
This Land Is Your Land
It's Not Easy Bein' Green
Rainbow Connection
Seasons In The Sun
The Yew Tree ("...ma bonny yew tree/Tell me what did you see?")
Bold Fenian Men
Yankee Doodle
My Son John
Willie McBride
Queensland Overlanders
Lyndon Johnson Told The Nation
There But For Fortune
Sully's Bucket

and about 200 more. Literally.

Subject: RE: songs I wish I'd written
From: Stewie
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 08:56 PM

'White Squall' is the first track on 'From Fresh Water' Fogarty's Cove FCM-007-D.

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: songs I wish I'd written
From: GUEST,Fogie
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 06:49 PM

Which LP is white squall on? I've just crossed the Atlantic on a tall ship, and watched "White squall" on video after a force 10 gale , and I thought I'd got all of Stan's LPs. Can't stand the suspense

Subject: RE: songs I wish I'd written
From: yrlancslad
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 06:27 PM

MacColls Joy of living, Jez Lowes Indian Maid and Had away gan an. Probably a dozen more if I thik about it.

Subject: RE: songs I wish I'd written
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 03:43 PM

What makes a song great? Sometimes it's little touches that make a song " real", and lift it above the usual fayre. Take Steve Goodman's " Yellow Coat". The idea is an old one: for example, Willie Nelson's " Funny How Time Slips Away" and the ancient "standard "( 1930s?) What's New" tell the same story. A man ( or woman ) meets an old flame, and the listener hears one side of the conversation; now, in " Yellow Coat " the person doing the talking suddenly asks, " Did you ever get to buy that yellow coat?" That is a master's touch. It adds a terrific sense of "truth" to an already beautifully concieved song. Obviously, just around the time the couple split up the female half of the relationship had been admiring a yellow coat in a store window. This is a master songwriter at work. There are not many out there who could have written that song.

Subject: RE: songs I wish I'd written
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 03:19 PM

I wish I had written the town I love so well..I would change it a bit but not much...mg

Subject: RE: songs I wish I'd written
From: Wolfgang
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 03:04 PM

It's about time for a new thread with this theme.

An older thread (from last century) is here: Wish I'd written that song

Wolfgang

Subject: songs I wish I'd written
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 02:58 PM

I'm a bit of a songwriter, and I think I'm getting better but now and again I hear a song and I think, " Now, that's the way it should be done!"
My choice for the number one " folkie" type song that I wished I'd written, " White Squall" by Stan Rogers. Why? The lyrics, the tune , the sadness it evokes, and the drama of the tale that moves me so much - especially the way Stan delivers it.