How the words change

Subject: RE: How the words change
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 07 Dec 06 - 06:52 PM

One of the things appreciate most in folk music is the way that traditional tunes and somghs will exist in any number of variants, so that a familiar song can suddenly be heard again as a new song.

I think that is a privilege which should not be limited to old songs and anonymous songs.

Subject: RE: How the words change
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 07 Dec 06 - 05:33 PM

"If you are singing someone else's song you owe it to the writer not to mess around with the lyrics without their permission"...horse puckies!
If I've bought a CD or book I've paid the author already; If I've just heardthe song and feel that it would suit me better to fiddle a bit with the words, that's my right.

Subject: RE: How the words change
From: An Buachaill Caol Dubh
Date: 07 Dec 06 - 12:28 PM

McG of H instances the "scene-setting" employed in (this case) "The Green Bushes". Two wee points: first, in the version I learnt, the man who meets the "damsel" attempts to woo her with goods and gear:

"I'll give you fine beavers and bright silken gowns,
I'll give you smart petticoats, flounced to the ground,
I'll buy you rich jewels, and live but for thee,
If ye'll leave the Green Bushes and follow [with] me"

Now, just how widely is it known that his first gift would be a tall hat made of fur; or, would the listener unfamiliar with this C19th usage either deduce (eventually) from the context that it's some item of dress or imagine something wet and furry?

Secondly (a tangential point), there are at least three "voices" in this song; the narrator, the "damsel" and the "young man" (her "ould true love", i.e. her former swain). Now, when I sing this song I try to characterise/differentiate these; lighter for the woman, jovial for the suitor, a bit deeper and morose for the jilted one. The compass of the song is about an octave, so it's not difficult to alter timbre. However, when doing this kind of thing with another song involving several voices (a narrator, a young man and a soldier), I was roundly condemned; "you should NEVER 'colour' the voice....". Why not? Singers speed up or slow down, sing louder or quieter according to the words, and are indeed expected to do so. Why then is there any prohibition on altering timbre for expressive purposes when variation in tempi and dynamics are encouraged?

Subject: RE: How the words change
From: GUEST,memyself
Date: 07 Dec 06 - 11:48 AM

Nobody's overlooking that - at least, I'm not. I certainly have no desire that the line be altered. Some of us are just stuffed shirts who get our kicks by rattling on about questions of grammar and usage.

Although, to be sure, if you are one of said stuffed shirts, that line is likely not to have quite the required amount of punch, because one part of your brain will be doing a quick grammatical run-through as the next line goes by.

Subject: RE: How the words change
From: Scrump
Date: 07 Dec 06 - 11:41 AM

Yes, save us from people who would rewrite every song to be gramatically correct.

Subject: RE: How the words change
From: Amos
Date: 07 Dec 06 - 11:35 AM

The factor that is being overlooked here is that as written, "Last night I dreamed the strangest dream -- I've never dreamed before..." has just the amount of punch it needs, rules be damned. It sparks the line up in an unexpected and interesting way. Trying to make to grammatically correct by treating the phrase as a subjunctive -- a pluperfect subjunctive, at that -- is a contortion toward artifical normalcy which actually detracts from the liveliness of the original language. That's my two bits' worth.

A

Subject: RE: How the words change
From: Scrump
Date: 07 Dec 06 - 10:12 AM

I suppose if you were recording a song that kind of thing would be appropriate. But when it comes to singing I think we're all free to do what seems right, within reason. I don't fancy sitting in song circle with someone going through a textual anaysis of the variations in what they are singing from the version collected back in 1910...

Point taken (I wouldn't fancy it, either, to be honest). It's the 'what seems right, within reason' that concerns me. We probably all have our own ideas of what that means. I just feel there ought to be some safeguard against someone completely rewriting a song to suit their own tastes - then the original author, should they hear it, might not be happy. And others hearing the revised version might attribute it to the original author. Depends on how well it's done, I guess.

Subject: RE: How the words change
From: BuckMulligan
Date: 07 Dec 06 - 09:21 AM

I can't imagine not nodding off if someone launched into exegetical phumphering prior to singing a tune. Unless it's a class, of course, and then phumpher away. I'm doubtful about how much even an author "owns" a work once it's published. The ur-text simply becomes a seed for myriad unique readings & performances, each of which is a collaboration among author, performer, and audience. I certainly wouldn't expect a performer to expostulate on the musical variations from "the original" that s/he's introduced either.

Subject: RE: How the words change
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 07 Dec 06 - 08:41 AM

I suppose if you were recording a song that kind of thing would be appropriate. But when it comes to singing I think we're all free to do what seems right, within reason. I don't fancy sitting in song circle with someone going through a textual anaysis of the variations in what they are singing from the version collected back in 1910...

Subject: RE: How the words change
From: Scrump
Date: 07 Dec 06 - 06:44 AM

If you are the writer of a song, you can change the words however you wish, without asking anyone else's permission. Anyone who is covering your song already will be singing a different version, but that doesn't matter.

If you are singing someone else's song you owe it to the writer not to mess around with the lyrics without their permission, if it is possible to get this. If the writer is uncontactable or dead, then you should explain any changes you make, to your audience, and not attribute them to the original author. Likewise if you change a traditional song (like that old Devon song White Hare - chortle!) you should tell people what you've changed.

Subject: RE: How the words change
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 07 Dec 06 - 12:11 AM

the folk process is much like evolution--the vast bulk of the changes are not for the better, and they die off. The few that are favorable survive. As it should be.

Subject: RE: How the words change
From: GUEST,memyself
Date: 07 Dec 06 - 12:07 AM

It does?

Subject: RE: How the words change
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 06 Dec 06 - 05:51 PM

Well, I sing "I'd never dreamed before" which seems to solve most of the problems.

Subject: RE: How the words change
From: GUEST,memyself
Date: 06 Dec 06 - 01:35 PM

Well, yes, of course; as I said two posts ago, "we all know what it means" (what a quote, if I do say so myself). However, who was it that introduced the term "grammatically correct" into the conversation? 'Twarn't me. My point is that the line is so grammatically incorrect, and as a consequence so nonsensical, in a technical sense, that it really doesn't make any difference whether it contains the word "ever" or "never". Either way, it is indeed English as it could conceivably be spoken by someone somewhere in some circumstance.

Subject: RE: How the words change
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 06 Dec 06 - 01:17 PM

Language in songs or in speech can cover things like that.

I doubt very much if it actually "don't make no sense"; that is about as plausible as if someone were to say that they couldn't understand "don't make no sense" because it's not "doesn't make any sense".

Write it out in full and it'd be "Last night I dreamed the strangest dream; I never dreamed it before", sure enough. But leaving out the "it" is the kind of thing we do in speech. Grammar and syntax scurry along behind, trying to tidy things up and explain what we do, but they are the servants of language, not its masters.

Subject: RE: How the words change
From: GUEST,memyself
Date: 06 Dec 06 - 11:56 AM

"That doesn't apply when it's "never" - and in addition "never" indicates a slight pause after dream which the tune needs, and which doesn't really belong in the "ever" version.

Last night I dreamed the strangest dream, I've never dreamed before."

Too much of a stretch for me; it still don't make no sense. It would either have to be, "Last night I dreamed the strangest dream; I never dreamed it before" or "Last night I dreamed a strange dream I've never dreamed before". Or "Last night I dreamed a stranger dream than I ever dreamed before". Or "Last night I dreamed the strangest dream I've ever dreamed" ...

Subject: RE: How the words change
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 06 Dec 06 - 11:35 AM

To which I'd add non-deliberate changes because you misremember, or where there's an instinctive change to a word combination that comes easier off the tongue.

Which is why a change from "I never" to "I ever" - which is much harder to sing - is a strange one. I'd say it must have come from a singer learning the song from a written text which had it down as "I ever", and who had an excessive regard for the written words, which stopped them from instinctively changing it to the more natural "I never".

I'd disagree about the difference of meaning, because they both mean it's the first time the singer has ever dreamed that dream, though "never" does perhaps emphasise that uniqueness a little.   

I can see why Ed McCurdy would have been irritated at the change. It's clumsy - grammar as such ain't that important, but when you've said "the strangest dream I've ever dreamed" you've finished the sentence, and it sounds as though "before" is just stuck in to make it scan. That doesn't apply when it's "never" - and in addition "never" indicates a slight pause after dream which the tune needs, and which doesn't really belong in the "ever" version.

Last night I dreamed the strangest dream, I've never dreamed before.

Last night I dreamed the strangest dream I've ever dreamed before.

Tiny changes can make quite a difference.

Subject: RE: How the words change
From: GUEST,memyself
Date: 06 Dec 06 - 11:33 AM

With all due respect to the late great Ed McCurdy - and the doubtless great and, Lord willing, still with us McGrath and EBbarnacle - I can't see how the line "Last night I had the strangest dream I ever dreamed before" makes any sense at all, grammatically, with "ever" or "never". At risk of being redundant, I most emphatically state that it is completely nonsensical. However, at risk of being self-contradictory, I will most willingly allow that we all know what it means.

I must say, at risk of being condescending, that I find the idea of McCurdy waxing indignant at the changing of the word "ever" to "never" rather amusing. (Sniggers in smug, superior fashion, and resumes his perusal of the Times).

Subject: RE: How the words change
From: Bill D
Date: 06 Dec 06 - 11:19 AM

(and about "Wildwood Flower"...there are many threads debating this one! ...as almost as many answers as posters. Botanists have chimed in with learned explanations of what plants 'might' have been referred to, and linguists have parsed the language. At the end, we mostly sing it like we learned it.)

Subject: RE: How the words change
From: EBarnacle
Date: 06 Dec 06 - 10:53 AM

Actually, it does change the meaning. "Never" creates the implication that the dream is a new idea and totally striking. It sets up the rest of the song. It is more of an intensifier than ever.

My point is that there are at least three types of change, deliberate alterations, those due to errors in hearing and those due to ignorance of the concepts of the song. The last types include mondegreens and spoonerisms.

Subject: RE: How the words change
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 06 Dec 06 - 10:32 AM

"Ever" and "never" in that line doesn't change the meaning. "I never" comes off the tongue more easily, as well as being more grammatically correct, so it's odd for people to change it to "I ever".

I think thta seeing all this kind iod thing in terms iof "mistrakes" is tey wrong way to see it. It's more akin to evolution, with spoontaneous mutations and natural selection. (But also with some intelligent song design.)

Subject: RE: How the words change
From: EBarnacle
Date: 06 Dec 06 - 10:15 AM

"Cast the glamour over"--It is my understanding that Romany men used "glamor," mare's sweat, as a cologne, with the intent of attracting women. So, casting a spell would be appropriate.

The author of "Last Night I had the Strangest Dream" used to become livid that people would change the word "never" to "ever," as in "Last night I had the strangest dream I never dreamed before."

In the "Ballad of Sammy's Bar," I change a verse to create a deliberate ambiguity because I like it better that way.

"Fiddler's Green" has a change that seems to have been stuck in "on Fiddler's Green" insteat of "in" as written because too many people do not seem to understand that Fiddler's Green, sailor's Heaven, is a place to be in, rather than being seen on the the Green. Even though it is counterintuitive, in is correct.

"Mary L. McKay" had quite a few errors creep in between the time that it was written and the time that Creighton recorded it that the best you can do is refer to the thread for a list. The most egregious is "a howler o'er the topsail" in place of "a howler o'er the toprail," which would create significantly sailing conditions.

Subject: RE: How the words change
From: Leadfingers
Date: 06 Dec 06 - 09:18 AM

I find that when I have learnt a song , if I look back at the original words , there are phrases that have changed . I think this is because what sounds perfectly natural to one person is not comfortable to another so over a number of airings , the occasional phrase gets skewed to be more comfortable for me to sing , entirelt unintentionally !

And Janine , I have heard at least one version where the line is 'cast The Glamour' over her , as in 'Put a Spell on !

Subject: RE: How the words change
From: JennyO
Date: 06 Dec 06 - 08:22 AM

I think songwriters often keep changing their words without even realising it, and sometimes not even remembering themselves what the original version was. The songs just keep evolving a little bit every time they sing them. I know I could paper the walls with all the abandoned and altered song lyrics I find lying around here.

"Time is a Tempest" by John Broomhall, is an interesting example of the folk-processing of a song. I learnt it from the singing of John Thompson (of Cloudstreet) when he was performing with Martin Pearson as "Never the Twain". It was a song we didn't hear much in sessions, and I seemed to be the only one I knew who sang it.

I was performing in a duo and we decided to make a CD. I was considering putting "Time is a Tempest" on the CD and just as I was wondering how to contact John Broomhall for his permission, I ran into him at a festival. We chatted for a while, and he told me that the version I knew was somewhat different from how he had originally written it - including the fact that there was another whole verse which I had never heard. He offered to write it all out for me in its original form, but he said he was quite happy for me to record it using whichever set of words I felt comfortable with. He didn't seem at all worried about the folk processing of the song.

I probably would have gone with the words I knew, adding in the new verse - it was a lovely addition to the song - but my singing partner and I had a major falling out halfway through the recording (not because of it - but that's a whole 'nother story) so I never got to record it. Pity really, but c'est la vie...

Subject: RE: How the words change
From: GUEST,Janine
Date: 06 Dec 06 - 08:11 AM

'Wreck of the Old 97' sometimes has 'lost his average' instead of 'lost his air breakes' Easier to sing perhaps?
What does 'cast his gabriel over her' mean in versions of Gypsie Laddie? Did somebody mishear?
And why about the first verse of The Carter Family's lovely'Wildwood Flower'. Can anyone make it out?

Jan

Subject: RE: How the words change
From: Jim McLean
Date: 06 Dec 06 - 06:42 AM

A song I wrote had the lines

'It was busy in the jungle, all the animals they came
To console their friend the tiger who would soon be royal game.'

Sung in the West of Scotland, this was changed to
'It was busy in the jungle all the animals had came...

Subject: RE: How the words change
From: Mr Red
Date: 06 Dec 06 - 05:59 AM

Been there done that

One way to think of it is that it keeps it fresh

the other is that writing as song and learnig it are alien to each other. One is a divergent process - the other convergent. If you are a songwriter the liklihood is that you have by nature a divergent psychie. Memory also plays tricks.

Subject: RE: How the words change
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 05 Dec 06 - 08:08 PM

But isn't the changing of words and tune one of the basic elements of folksong? Certainly, not all changes are for the better--hopefully those will disappear with time. But oral/aural transmission is not apt to lead to perfect accuracy of reproduction.

Subject: RE: How the words change
From: Tootler
Date: 05 Dec 06 - 07:10 PM

In fact I don't like hearing men singing songs as a woman in the first person and vice versa. It ruins it for me completely.

I think it depends on the song. Some work better than others. I heard a man sing Water of Tyne the other night and it sounded superb because he had a fine voice. My wife thought he had had a classical training. I don't know whether he had or whether he was simply a natural bass, but the fact that the song is written from a woman's perspective in no way detracted from his rendering.

Subject: RE: How the words change
From: Emma B
Date: 05 Dec 06 - 05:56 PM

I think the funniest I ever heard was a slight misunderstanding of Stan Kelly's "Liverpool Lullaby"
http://www.feniks.com/skb/music/lull12.html
where "Nelly's working at the Lune" was transposed to "working at the loom" - a VERY strange occupation for The Everton Valley in those days!

btw - The Lune Laundry would not have been a top job either!

Subject: RE: How the words change
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Dec 06 - 05:44 PM

The traditional way of adjusting a first version song in this way has been some introductory verse of the form

As I was a walking one morning in May
To hear the birds whistle and see the lambkins play
I espied a young damsel, so sweetly sang she...

I suppose this is one way that songs get rewritten - but I doubt if its that common among traditional singers to have this kind of feeling you can't sing in the person of someone of the opposite sex.

I suspect failing memory is the engine that drives the folk process. Singers make up new words to fill in the gaps; and other singers rewrite verses where the replacement words don't seem to make too much sense.

Another source of change is the fact that some combinations of sounds make us stumble when we meet them, so instinctively we adjust so as to avoid them. That kind of thing is especially likely to happen where people have some kind of speech impediment - for example, a lisp or a stammer. But in some measure it applies to everyone. As a song goes around the rough edges get rubbed off.

Subject: RE: How the words change
From: Scrump
Date: 05 Dec 06 - 06:47 AM

In fact I don't like hearing men singing songs as a woman in the first person and vice versa. It ruins it for me completely.

This came up in another thread recently. Not long ago, I changed a song (with the author's permission) written in the 1st person female, to 3rd person, so I could sing it and have it make sense. It would have sounded rather strange if I'd sang it as a male, in the 1st person. But others would disagree and say you should never do this. However, as the song's author was happy for me to do it, that was good enough for me! The changes were minimal, and only those necessary to change the person ('I' to 'she' etc.) - I wouldn't dream of trying to 'improve' a song by a respected writer by tinkering with the words.

Subject: RE: How the words change
From: the lemonade lady
Date: 05 Dec 06 - 06:30 AM

I learnt 'Indians Lass' from the singing of Pete Grassby, but he sings the song from the man's point of view. I can't do this being a woman,(it axtually makes me feel uncomfortable) so I changed the frist line from "As I was a-walking on a far distant shore" to "As a sailor was walking..."

In fact I don't like hearing men singing songs as a woman in the first person and vice versa. It ruins it for me completely.

Sal

Subject: RE: How the words change
From: MartinRyan
Date: 05 Dec 06 - 03:37 AM

Changing song words is only a "problem" when people insist on joining in with their version of the words! I can remember how hard I had to work to standardise my set of words for a few favourite harmony songs. The discipline of having to keep to particular phrasings and breath-patterns seemed totally alien to me. Yes, as you get used to particular partners you learn how much flexibility remains - but there IS a real difference between the two situations.

Regards

Subject: RE: How the words change
From: Mr Happy
Date: 04 Dec 06 - 08:56 PM

.............as he continues to boldly go.......

Surely that should be baldly go?!!

Subject: RE: How the words change
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Dec 06 - 08:33 PM

There's spoken English, and there's written English, and they have different rules. And the best songs are spoken English. (I mean the best English language songs - but the same is true of other languages. Geiorges Brassens' French isn't exactly Academie Francaise French.)

Though in fact split infinitives are perfectly OK in written English too, as my 1926 Fowler's Modern English Usage confirms. That's early 20th Century. Mid 25th Century too - you can just bet Jean-Luc Picard has a copy of Fowler's on the Enterprise, as he continues to boldly go...

Subject: RE: How the words change
From: catspaw49
Date: 04 Dec 06 - 07:12 PM

The other reason Kevin is that some uptight asswipe has corrected the "bad grammar" and completely fucked the song up beyond singing! Your job is to split infinitives and dangle participles or whatever is needed so the message once again is clear.

Grammar may have originally enhanced communication but I really believe it has also stifled it as well. My wife is comfortable with words and quite well spoken, a very intelligent person. But thanks to the many "my-ass-is-so-tight-I-make-diamonds" English and Comp teachers she endured over the years, writing scares her to death.

Rules of grammar......yeah, right......(Spaw sticks his ass out) ...Just kiss my split infinitive...............(Now he grabs his dick)...I got your dangling participle right here.

Spaw

Subject: RE: How the words change
From: Mr Happy
Date: 04 Dec 06 - 06:51 PM

sorry, there shouldn't be a 'just'
in there.

It should read:


'Shotover River, your gold it is waning
And it's years since the colour I've seen.
And it's no use complaining and Lady Luck blaming
I'll pack up and make a break clean.'

Subject: RE: How the words change
From: Mr Happy
Date: 04 Dec 06 - 06:47 PM

...........an example as springs to mind is 'Farewell to the gold'
(Paul Metsers)

'Shotover River, your gold it is waning
And it's years since the colour I've seen.
And it's no use just sitting and Lady Luck blaming
I'll pack up and make a break clean.'


altered [to make more of a rhyme?] - & sung as:

'Shotover River, your gold it is waning
And it's years since the colour I've seen.
And it's no use just complaining and Lady Luck blaming
I'll pack up and make a break clean.'

Subject: RE: How the words change
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Dec 06 - 12:58 PM

Three ways words can change in the way you sing a folksong -

one is you heard it wrong

one is you remember it wrong

one is you deliberately change it.


And that last could be

because you think you have a better word or line that runs better,

or because the words don't make sense to you, because it's come to you in a garbled version, and you are trying to fix it,

or because the words as they stand don't mean what they are meant to mean, because language has changed.

Subject: RE: How the words change
From: SussexCarole
Date: 03 Dec 06 - 06:41 PM

Meanings change as well!

In a mediaeval song we sing, it refers to a 'punk' which in those days meant a prostitute and a 'whore' which means someone making money from dubious practices (not neccessarily sexual)

Subject: RE: How the words change
From: BuckMulligan
Date: 03 Dec 06 - 06:36 PM

The "rule" about split infinitives was never a rule of the language, it was, and is, and always has been a phony "rule" made up by relatively linguistically ignorant "grammarians" whose notion of "grammar" equated with "latin" in which a split infinitive is an impossibility. English is not, however, an inflective language but a distributive one, in which the only sin in splitting an infinitive is introducing ambiguity. And the sin there is in the ambiguity, not thte split infinitive. Self-consciously unsplit infinitives are far worse than unambiguous split ones. They sound funny. Has nothing to do with "breaking a rule often enough" - that notion just demonstrates unawareness of the fact that languages have their own rules, by which they always operate, and which people can't break. Language is an organic phenomenon of the human psyche, it is not something the human mind designed to follow "rules."

Subject: RE: How the words change
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 03 Dec 06 - 06:26 PM

There's the rewriting that you do when you're putting a song together. But there is also a subsequent process in which the song keeps on changing.

Sometimes that can get blocked when a particular recorded version gets seen as the final version. You even get people protesting when a singer insists on letting those changes happen - for example Bob Dylan gets knocked for singing songs differently from the way he sang them 20 years ago. Not so much because the changes are for the worse (which in some cases they may well be), but because they are changes to a quasi-sacred text.

And the same thing happens with traditional songs - particular variants, sung by a singer on a particular occasion, will be treated as definitive, rather than as a moment in the songs life. And I'm not talking about where people set out to rewrite songs, I mean where the changes happen through mishearing and misremembering, and trying to reconstruct a forgotten line or stanza - the natural stuff that has always happened.

I was reading something Sydney Carter wrote about this, because it was germane to something that came came up in another thread. I suppose that's what set me to start this thread:

Having made a song, you sing it, but to write it is another matter. Particularly if, like me, you seldom sing it the same way twice; fresh possibilities will keep appearing. You change a word, you bend a note,; did it work, or didn't it? What you put down in the end is nothing but a variant...There is nothing final in the songs I write, not even the words, the rhythm and the melody. This is not an oversight; I would like them to keep growing, like a tree.

Subject: RE: How the words change
From: GUEST,Val
Date: 03 Dec 06 - 05:14 PM

I wonder how many songs emerged full-fledged on the first draft? I know   the words *I* write down often get edited quite a bit before the first public performance, and sometimes afterwards based upon audience acceptance, my whim, or other factors. Who's to say the process of composing mightn't take years? (then the decomposing starts...*grin*)

Val

Subject: RE: How the words change
From: GUEST,Rathingle
Date: 03 Dec 06 - 02:17 PM

And some lyrics get changed because they are not politically correct.
But that's another story.

Subject: RE: How the words change
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 03 Dec 06 - 01:47 PM

How I'd put it is, anyone who objects in principle to changes in traditional songs which come about in the course of oral transmission would clearly not know much about the field.
........................................
"...seemed somehow to look dismayed"? No way, that'd be a change too far.

Anyway, as a registered pedant, I can produce ample justification for splitting infinitives. But that's another matter.

Subject: RE: How the words change
From: Scrump
Date: 03 Dec 06 - 01:46 PM

That's easy - just change it (either version) to ...seemed somehow to look.... But I understood that split infinitives are now gramatically correct (as tends to happen when a rule gets broken often enough by enough people).

To answer Kevin's point, yes, songs do evolve as the writer occasionally thinks of a better line.

Subject: RE: How the words change
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 03 Dec 06 - 01:45 PM

I remember, many years ago, changing the words of "The little pot stove" as some of it was past and some present tense and I felt it should all be past tense......guess I somewhat agree with you that songs can benefit from the change....yet another thread of prospective interest. Thanks.

Subject: RE: How the words change
From: Grab
Date: 03 Dec 06 - 01:45 PM

"Change is an entropic process and, hence, inevitably leads to loss", as someone said on another thread.

But your example shows that just ain't the case. The second is much better than the first. Change can (and often does) lead to gain/improvement. "Loss" in the sense that the previous version is replaced, sure, but "loss" in the sense of making worse - nope.

Graham.

Subject: RE: How the words change
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 03 Dec 06 - 01:35 PM

Kevin, please please unsplit the infinitive!

Subject: RE: How the words change
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 03 Dec 06 - 01:31 PM

Oh dear me no, you can't change on dot or comma in a traditional song Kevin. Goodness you are talking heresy there ny friend.
Giok

Subject: How the words change
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 03 Dec 06 - 01:22 PM

I was looking today at a song I wrote a few years ago, just to check the words - and it struck me how what I remembered now differed from what I wrote then.

For example I had two lines:

It was on a Monday morning, and so cold and dark and wet,
And the face there in the mirror seemed to somehow look upset

But how I remembered it, and would sing it now would be

It was on a Monday morning, and so cold and dark and grey,
And the face there in the mirror seemed to somehow look dismayed

And I could go through the rest of it, and the same kind of changes had crept in. I won't, because I'm not trying to start a thread about a particular song, but about the process of change. Changes for the better, questionable changes and changes for the worse.

If you check the lyrics on records against the lyrics in record notes it's pretty obvious that this happens to lots of people who write songs, probably most, I'd say. And I'd think that generally songs improve this way, with a process of unconscious as well as conscious rewriting.

The same thing happens with other people's songs, and with traditional songs, with words being misheard or forgotten, and often replaced. And I'm wondering, where do the scales stand between changes that improve songs and changes that damage them?

My instinct is that on balance songs improve through this process, not just traditional songs, songs in general. But I suspect some people wouldn't see it that way.