Do songs have to make perfect sense?

Subject: travelking orderly waits
From: Thomas the Rhymer
Date: 17 Aug 01 - 01:04 AM

I have been mulling this over for a while. Riddles often lead us to ponder, wonder, and to stretch a bit, and songs often stimulate revelation without achieving a common sense conclusion. When phrasing provokes a small confusion in the listener, doesn't that small appreshension sometimes lead to bigger and better things?

I know that this is a little out of place here, and yet on the other hand, it is exactly these seemingly unrelated metaphorical allusions that can make the old songs so good still.

What do you think?

So many songs with so many words,... trying to pinpoint experience, and I'm wondering if we have lost respect for the riddling ways of bards and sages past?
ttr

Subject: RE: Do songs have to make perfect sense?
From: Amos
Date: 17 Aug 01 - 01:23 AM

Don't generalize for all of us, TTR! Metaphor is half the power of good song and it is still alive and well, I am confident! It's as strong as a black horse on a white beach!! Alive as a Christmas baby in August!! As well as a deep hole in the ground...well...ummmm... never mind!

A.

Subject: RE: Do songs have to make perfect sense?
From: Clifton53
Date: 17 Aug 01 - 01:46 AM

I love a song that upon first hearing makes no bloody sense at all. I always ask myself, what is the bard thinking? Case in point, and this is purely personal, John Prine's " Jesus, The Missing Years".

It's not an 'old' song, and I like it very much, but I'll be darned if I can explain it. The studio version is quite nice, but he does a live version, full of audience response, and laughter that I cannot fathom. Have I just lost my grip on the public's taste? Or, are they laughing at something that I don't understand? Who decides?

No Thomas, I don't think you are out of place asking this question. I think we are talking about poetry here. And all I know about poetry is that no two people will interpret it the same way, and it will impact your life differently than it does mine.

I also think that this will be a good thread.

Clifton

Subject: RE: Do songs have to make perfect sense?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 17 Aug 01 - 02:13 AM

Does life?

If it does, I don't think you are doing it right.....

LTS

Subject: RE: Do songs have to make perfect sense?
From: Sorcha
Date: 17 Aug 01 - 02:33 AM

Of course not. Never.

Subject: RE: Do songs have to make perfect sense?
From: Linda Kelly
Date: 17 Aug 01 - 04:49 AM

If it does then my song writing days are numbered.....

Subject: RE: Do songs have to make perfect sense?
From: pavane
Date: 17 Aug 01 - 05:16 AM

I have pointed out before that corrupted, censored, bowdlerised, or misheard versions of songs often lose the point that the songwriter was trying to make, almost like telling a joke where the punch line is missing. This is particularly true of older songs, or songs in dialect, where a word or phrase which has become obsolete is replaced.

Even fairly recent songs are heading in this direction. If the result is still worth singing, then it will still be sung. And some songs are worth singing just because of the beautiful tunes.

Subject: RE: Do songs have to make perfect sense?
From: pavane
Date: 17 Aug 01 - 05:18 AM

Of course, the classic examples are nursery rhymes, many of which are believed to have started out as political satire.

Subject: RE: Do songs have to make perfect sense?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Aug 01 - 06:06 AM

You can't get more riddley and ambiguous than Bob Dylan. I get irritated when people try to pin down references and so forth - and of course I'm not talking just about Dylanology here - on a one-to-one basis, as if that explained what a song or a poem was "really" about. That just isn't how it works.

Mishearings and forgotten lines and changing meanings can be the source of the most powerful images. That happens collectively and individually - I mean I've found singing somas I've written that I'll misremember something, and the misrembering improves it. Any suggestion that the closer you can get to "the original" the better is way off. Often it's more that the original is a rough draft off what can turn out to be something far better in time.

Subject: RE: Do songs have to make perfect sense?
From: Bert
Date: 17 Aug 01 - 06:22 AM

I prefer songs that eventually make some sort of sense. But we need allsorts, just keep writing.

Subject: RE: Do songs have to make perfect sense?
From: Whistle Stop
Date: 17 Aug 01 - 08:33 AM

We've been carrying on a similar discussion on the thread about the meaning of the lyrics to "Desolation Row" -- drop in if anyone's interested.

Subject: RE: Do songs have to make perfect sense?
From: Peg
Date: 17 Aug 01 - 09:51 AM

I have always disliked songs which seem to be heavy-handed with a "message" or which proselytize some viewpoint or other...these to me are what is worst in the folk song tradition...to the point where I feel like someone must be scratching their fingernails on a chalkboard somewhere while I listen to them...

I enjoy a bit more subtlety and challenge. Some poetic imagery is nice too. There are a number of "pop" songwriters who manage to write great songs which are not always totally straighforward, sometimes downright inscrutable.

Some of my fave songwriters in no particular order: Ian Anderson, Robin Wiliamson, Neil Finn, Joni Mitchell, Todd Rundgren, Tori Amos, Sara MacLachlan (well, at first, anyway), Robert Cray, David Bowie, Nick Drake, John Gorka, Loreena McKennitt, Paul Weller, Donovan, Justin Hayward.

peg

Subject: RE: Do songs have to make perfect sense?
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 17 Aug 01 - 09:56 AM

Well, IMO, they should make some sense. Imagery is one thing; obfuscation is another and just babbling is a third. Sort of like the way that Japanese automakers name their cars--purely matter of what they think sounds nice, with no intrinsic meaning nor applicability.

Subject: RE: Do songs have to make perfect sense?
From: Thomas the Rhymer
Date: 17 Aug 01 - 10:16 AM

Nice list Peg! I do think that the art of stimulating extemporaneous visualization is practiced more in contemporary pop, than in folk, and I think I've just discovered why parodies bug me so often... It is because many are written because the listener was smitten (if you will) by some ambiguity in an excellent song and then,... goes on to rewrite the song, but without the little subconscious key that made it great.

But as in the case of nursery rhymes, the satire that makes the most sense is often shrouded in a smattering of nonsense...

As far as rewrites and modifications go, I find that each person has their point of view, and all are valid (except the stupid and mean, IMHO) but the ART of stimulating many different people into positive directions is a difficult goal. For instance, if people are in a sort of cultural denial about their collective efforts, the song that points this out effectively may not even make sense to anyone at first... even if it is not cloaked in gibberish.

It's all good! Top o the morning!ttr

Subject: RE: Do songs have to make perfect sense?
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Aug 01 - 11:15 AM

Depends upon the function of song. There are nonsense songs for fun and entertainment. For those, you wouldn't want "sense" as much as cleverness which is easily comprehended by all.

I think people have lost all sense of the different types of songs there are. Narrative songs tell stories, lyric songs communicate impressionistically. But all songs are an attempt to communicate, so yes, they do need to "make sense" to the listeners.

I think the difficulty some have is cultural. What makes sense to one culture doesn't necessarily make sense to another culture. So one's ethnic/ancestral upbringing and living environment as an adult makes a lot of difference.

If one is heavily immersed in mainstream Anglo culture, the cultural references to a traditional culture from Europe or Asia or Africa which isn't your own, often doesn't make sense. And vice versa, of course.

I've seen a correlation between the best contemporary singer-songwriters who compose mostly lyric songs, and who also paint. They seem to be able to create strong imagery which helps people "see" the metaphors in the lyric.

But that's probably just me.

Subject: RE: Do songs have to make perfect sense?
From: Kim C
Date: 17 Aug 01 - 12:08 PM

I like things that are a little mysterious. That gives the listener a little leeway to make up their own interpretation.

Subject: RE: Do songs have to make perfect sense?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Aug 01 - 12:10 PM

"I prefer songs that eventually make some sort of sense."

Well, if they are good songs they will eventually make some sort of sense. It might not be the sort of sense that the writer thought he or she was making. I've written songs, and only quite some time later made sense of them, and realised they were saying things I hadn't had in mind at the time I was writing it, and maybe tweaked the words to bring it out more clearly.

For example, when I wrote this one I had no idea it was about the peace proccess in Northern Ireland (and here is Áine singing it, I hope.

Subject: RE: Do songs have to make perfect sense?
From: Thomas the Rhymer
Date: 17 Aug 01 - 01:45 PM

You all make me real!

Guest,... I wish you would sit down with me and coexist in exploratory communion... you spike me right off the chart!

Subject: RE: Do songs have to make perfect sense?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 17 Aug 01 - 01:53 PM

Sometimes what the song doesn't say can be more intriguing than what it does say...

As for making perfect sense, I notice that very few of the things going on around me do, except when I observe the behaviour of wild animals, like birds or squirrels. They are very sensible.

- LH

Subject: RE: Do songs have to make perfect sense?
From: SharonA
Date: 17 Aug 01 - 06:10 PM

Some songs have to make perfect sense (those with a direct message that the writer wants to be sure will not be misinterpreted), but certainly not all songs do.

Wait a sec... maybe we need a definition of "sense". Most of Lou and Peter Berryman's humorous songs, for instance, sound like nonsense songs because of the clever phrasing and use of language in the lyrics, but they make perfect sense literally. So, how are we using the term "sense"?

Subject: RE: Do songs have to make perfect sense?
From: Mudlark
Date: 17 Aug 01 - 09:47 PM

For me, story songs have to make some kind of sense...like any story, without sensible progression through the tale, and at least internal logic, the IS no story. But there are many beautiful and mysterious songs that are as opaque, as powerful, as abstract art, that touch my heart through imagry rather than meaning. I'm thankful for both.

Subject: RE: Do songs have to make perfect sense?
From: Amos
Date: 17 Aug 01 - 11:31 PM

C'mon guys. You're standing on the boundary layer between semantics and raw untrammeled unboxed poetic beauty. As folksingers you know perfectly well that the semantic "perfect sense" that may or may not exist is never the whole story of a good song. If it were you wouldn't need to put music behind it -- you could just write little short stories.

Semantics vary with the power and intentof the author. Choose a language you like!!

A