What songs do you 'see'?

Subject: RE: What songs do you 'see'?
From: Severn
Date: 06 Nov 07 - 02:46 PM

It's amazing how other people see them. I had someone tell me after I sang it that she had clear visions of Andrew McKay's "Lifeboat Horses" but that it was all happening on the shores of New England where she'd grown up, rather than Wales which I told her after I'd sung the song.

Subject: RE: What songs do you 'see'?
From: Whistlepenny
Date: 06 Nov 07 - 02:56 PM

"The King of Rome" (sung by June Tabor, can't remember who wrote it) - about a racing pigeon. The last verse when the wee birdie finally makes it back to his roost is like a scene from a Ken Loach film.

When played well, the Irish set-dance tune "King of the Fairies" has me visualising little winged humanoids skipping across a woodland glade. I once saw Clan Na Gael dance to it, and they were almost as weightless as fairies.

Finally, countless Stan Rogers songs. You can smell the flowers of Bermuda, feel the ice cracking in the North West Passage, see the broken man on the Halifax pier... they are so vivid, I love them all.

Subject: RE: What songs do you 'see'?
From: Amos
Date: 06 Nov 07 - 03:38 PM

Well, I usu8ally am caught up in the visualization of any song I am in the middle of singing, assuming it is not too abstract.

That's what enables the emotional force of the delivery, IMHO.


A

Subject: RE: What songs do you 'see'?
From: oldhippie
Date: 06 Nov 07 - 08:25 PM

I always visualize the people in the song "Kilkelly Ireland".

Subject: RE: What songs do you 'see'?
From: GUEST,Edthefolkie
Date: 07 Nov 07 - 07:53 AM

When I first heard Tam Lin & Matty Groves by the Fairports (Oh God, 1969!!) I instantly had very clear almost Cinemascope pictures in my mind, of Tam Lin holding Janet's bridle and the servant swimming across the millstream, and all the other incidents in the songs.

Unfortunately Vikki Clayton, who has I believe now gone to the Antipodes as punishment, came up with these substitute lines for Matty:

And how do you like my feather bed
And how do you like my sheets
And how do you like the curtains
I bought in the sale last week

Which rather ruined the effect.

Subject: RE: What songs do you 'see'?
From: GUEST,Chris Murray
Date: 07 Nov 07 - 08:08 AM

I see 'Arthur McBride' when Paul Brady sings it. Horrible!

Subject: RE: What songs do you 'see'?
From: Beer
Date: 07 Nov 07 - 08:47 AM

I'm with topical tom on the David Massengill's tune and most of Eric Bogle's stuff as well. However the one person that I consider a picturesque writer is John Prine. I find that most of his songs sad or funny you can be transported in a world of imaginary situations.
Beer (adrien)
P.S. Good thread Steve

Subject: RE: What songs do you 'see'?
From: Beer
Date: 08 Nov 07 - 11:38 PM

There is also a chap that resides in Hamilton Ontario that made me take note back in the 70's. Ray Materick. His earlier stuff absolutely blew me away. I've lost contact with his new material but I'm sure he is still a great writer and a picturesque one as well.
Beer (adrien)

Subject: RE: What songs do you 'see'?
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 08:44 AM

I find "Absent Friends." from Kieth Hancock to be a very,very moving song. I think it was Vin Garbutt who said. "This song means so much in many different ways". It's a song you just can't sing! You have to live in it while singin, else it just doesn't work... 'nuff said.
As Aye,
Phil

Subject: RE: What songs do you 'see'?
From: Jeanie
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 09:10 AM

Like a lot of people who have posted on here, I can't help but have the movie of a song's events going on in my mind's eye, whether I am listening to it or singing it. I wouldn't know how to stop that happening...not that I would want to !

Something I really don't enjoy is reading novels which go into great detailed descriptions. I much prefer to do that myself as I read. That is probably why I much prefer songs and poems, because when they are descriptive they are generally economical and to the point. My favourite reading matter is playscripts - all the way through, I am staging them in my mind's eye.

One of my favourites for visualizing is Long Lankin (I can scare myself silly even singing it in my head !)

- jeanie



- jeanie

Subject: RE: What songs do you 'see'?
From: GUEST,Barnacle (at work)
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 10:59 AM

... and I thought I was a freak. I have always "seen".

My most vivid pictures are for;

Bill Caddick's "Lily Marlene Walks Again" and
Cicely Fox Smith's "Jane Price of Swansea"

If I could draw or paint well enough, these two are so vivid they would make fantastic illustrations

In all tests I have done, I come out as a "hearer" and, true, if I have to learn facts for exams and the like, I put them onto tape and learn them that way, but when learning songs, I remember them by visualising the words on the page (I have even been known to "turn the page over"

I cannot understand how anyone can put meaning into a song without actually visualising "being there"

Subject: RE: What songs do you 'see'?
From: Fred Maslan
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 07:50 PM

Most of em

Subject: RE: What songs do you 'see'?
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 10 Nov 07 - 05:22 AM

I get strong visuals from "Lock keeper" and "Harris and the Mare" by Stan Rogers, "I polishes shoes" (by ??? - Johnny Collins sings it), several traditional songs (they did it well in them days).

Subject: RE: What songs do you 'see'?
From: Celtaddict
Date: 10 Nov 07 - 09:47 AM

Jeanie, I know what you mean about reading play scripts, one of my favorites too. And sometimes the long detailed descriptions in novels are too much; I sort of 'tune out' of them, but also I sometimes feel it is described 'wrong.' I had not thought about your point about songs and poems being short and to the point. I suspect one factor that makes something poetic is that reversal of the idea that a picture is worth a thousand words; the right few words are the picture.
Dorothy Dunnett was a master at this. Her descriptions may not even make literal sense, but certainly convey a picture.
"A blackbird spoke a cherried sentence."
"Dawn broke with a glory that bludgeoned the senses."
"He looked like an oak tree with dimples."

Subject: RE: What songs do you 'see'?
From: Jock O' Dreams
Date: 10 Nov 07 - 10:56 AM

I see all the songs I sings, thats the pleasure of singing them!and thats why I sing them. Songs like Westlin' Winds by Burns( " the Gorcock springs on whirring wings") or Where Ravens Feed by Graeme Miles ( "Where midnight stars are at their brightest, Where snow lies deep, where mists hang grey.) paint pictures for me. I find I particularly like some phrases so much (such as the ones above) that I cant wait to sing them once I've started the song.

Subject: RE: What songs do you 'see'?
From: GUEST,Greg Doucette
Date: 10 Nov 07 - 01:31 PM

"No Telling" Linda Thompson, "do you think that I do not know?" Priscilla Herdman or Martyn Wyndham-Read.

Subject: RE: What songs do you 'see'?
From: CET
Date: 10 Nov 07 - 04:16 PM

For me, it has to be Danny Deever. Peter Bellamy had the genius to see that the poem was meant to be sung to that tune (Derwentwater's Farewell) and as a result came up with a far greater song than the original ballad:

For they're hanging Danny Deever
They are marching of him round
They have halted Danny Deever
By his coffin on the ground
And he'll swing in half a minute
For a sneaking, shooting hound
And they're hanging Danny Deever in the morning.

Not a pleasant sight at all, but whenever I sing it I can feel myself on a dusty barrack square in India, with troops formed up in a hollow square.

Subject: RE: What songs do you 'see'?
From: FreddyHeadey
Date: 25 Sep 17 - 08:01 AM

Hill of Little Shoes
words: Clive James
tune: Pete Atkin
http://www.clivejames.com/books/enemy/shoes
as sung by Coope, Boyes & Simpson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0dcV5-0pAM

Subject: RE: What songs do you 'see'?
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Sep 17 - 11:06 AM

"Sugar Mountain" by Neil Young, Gavin's Woodpile by Bruce Cockburn.

Subject: RE: What songs do you 'see'?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Sep 17 - 01:08 PM

Every single source singer we recorded "saw" all of their songs and provided pictures of what the characters looked at and how they dressed
Walter Pardon once sang 'The Pretty Ploughboy' for us, pointed out of his kitchen window and said, 'He used to plough that field over there'
You don't get more involved in your song than that
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What songs do you 'see'?
From: Jason Xion Wang
Date: 25 Sep 17 - 02:44 PM

The Emigrant Eyes songs BK mentioned above was written by Guy Clark. Guy was described by Tom Paxton as a song painter. I'd like to mention another one Guy wrote, She Ain't Goin' Nowhere.

Tom Paxton's On the Road from Srebrenica (the third verse especially) and Phil Ochs' Highwayman (though he didn't write the words) come to my mind. I'd think of Marty Robbins' El Paso and Harry Chapin's Taxi too, both have strong plots, but are less visual.

Subject: RE: What songs do you 'see'?
From: GUEST,left handed guitar
Date: 26 Sep 17 - 05:37 AM

Wonderful topic especially since I ve spent a good part of my life as a visual artist. Here s a few off the top of my insomniac head (too much coffee late in the day yesterday, I d guess).

1-Calico Silver - an under recognized gem by Michael Murphey.

2-Orange Blossom Special - anyone who plays it and sings the verse but I m fond of the old version by Seatrain

3 -Shake Sugaree -Danny Kalb

4- Old Yellow Moon - Emmy Lou Harris

5-John Riley

6-Sourdough/The Miner s Song- Bill Staines

7-Piney Wood Hills- Buffy St Marie

8-Nightingale- Judy Collins

9-Charlie Darwin- Low Anthem

10-Shenandoah

And Desolation Row, Dark Eyes, Pretty Peggy-O, Love Minus Zero No Limit, Hattie Carrol, Girl FromThe North Country; Well, you know, just about everything from my first muse: Bob Dylan

Subject: RE: What songs do you 'see'?
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Sep 17 - 08:51 AM

Another great "visual" song from Dylan is Black Diamond Bay. Woderful storytelling.

Subject: RE: What songs do you 'see'?
From: GUEST,Aaron Ververs
Date: 26 Sep 17 - 09:18 AM

Little Brown Dog - Taj Mahal

Puts you in the mind of an imaginative child, lying in bed and dreaming wondrous things just before sleep comes...

Subject: RE: What songs do you 'see'?
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 26 Sep 17 - 09:21 AM

Leonsrd Cohen's begins:
"Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river"

I've often wondered what " her place" is like, and what sort of river is Leonard thinking about.
For example, an industrial river near a city, or a tranquil inland piece of water.

Subject: RE: What songs do you 'see'?
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Sep 17 - 02:04 PM

I think he is talking about the St. Lawrence which runs through Montreal.

Subject: RE: What songs do you 'see'?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 26 Sep 17 - 05:51 PM

There were songs I learned as a child, either sung by my father to us at bedtime, or sung at hoots at our house in the Puget Sound area. Acres of Clams (The Old Settler Song) and a couple of songs written by Stan James to do with the beach. And songs like The Golden Vanity, I could really visualize that young man diving off the boat and boring holes in the other. The song with the Miller's daughter "swimming" after her jealous sister drowned her (the names of all of these will come back to me after I think about it a little) and so many others. The Jolly Rogues of Lynn. Etc. All come with well-fleshed out pictures in my mind's eye.

I think it's because I learned them as a child.

Subject: RE: What songs do you 'see'?
From: The Sandman
Date: 26 Sep 17 - 06:50 PM

every one that i sing or have sung

Subject: RE: What songs do you 'see'?
From: GUEST,pauperback
Date: 27 Sep 17 - 12:17 PM

Steppenwolf Magic Carpet Ride