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Rewriting someone else's song
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Subject: Rewriting someone else's song From: GUEST,Bullfrog Jones (on the road) Date: 26 May 02 - 04:22 PM The idea for this thread came to me me whilst reading through the 'Swimming To The Other Side' thread, in which various contributors casually discussed ways in which they might 'improve' the composer's lyric to an already published and recorded song. I've always taken the stance adopted (allegedly) by Cole Porter when Frank Sinatra bowdlerized the 'cocaine' references out of 'I Get A Kick Out Of You' -- 'If you don't like my lyrics, don't sing my song'. If I want to cover someone else's work I wouldn't dream of messing with it. Interpretation is one thing, but rewriting a lyric just isn't on. Equally, if someone likes one of my songs enough to want to sing it, I'll happily provide them with the lyrics -- but I'd expect them to stick to the lyrics I provide. When I eventually release a song upon the world, it's only after much honing and crafting. I would like to think that there isn't a single word in a song that I didn't intend to use. That's not to say that I don't occasionally come up with something better after I've been singing the song for a while, but -- hey, it's my song! So am I just being precious or do other songwriters feel the same way. Or is rewriting someone else's song just part of the 'folk tradition'? And do you put yourself down as co-composer when you righteously fill in those PRS forms?!?! |
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Subject: RE: Rewriting someone else's song From: Don Firth Date: 26 May 02 - 04:54 PM I would say that Puccini would have a legitimate right to scream like hell if someone were to rewrite portions of La Boheme. Same with Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Bruce Springsteen, or anyone else for that matter—with the option of taking legal action. BUT:— Without getting into the "what is a folk song" can of worms, some singer/songwriters insist that the songs they write are "folk songs." In my opinion, when they do that, they're just begging for anyone who wants to come along and folk process their stuff. What recourse does the writer of "folk songs" have when singers modifying folk songs to their own taste is traditional? I wonder what the legal opinion would be then. Don Firth |
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Subject: RE: Rewriting someone else's song From: khandu Date: 26 May 02 - 04:59 PM Hey Bullfrog, When I write a song, it is my song! Every word in it is the one I chose to be there. Sometimes I intentionally leave in what many consider a lousy line or rhyme. (I recently rhymed "whore" with "her" and every time I play the song, someone complains!) But what the hell! Should I put a big wide grin on Mona Lisa's face because I think Leonardo gave her a silly smile? Hell, no! That is his painting and I shall not touch it! If someone does one of my songs and changes it a bit, I grimace, however I don't gripe. I am honored that they like my song well enough to sing it, and it is their interpretation of it. khandu |
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Subject: RE: Rewriting someone else's song From: GUEST,Bullfrog Jones (on the road) Date: 26 May 02 - 05:04 PM Don, I guess I'm a 'folk singer' when I play one of my songs with an acoustic guitar at a session, but then by night -- Shazam! I stand up in front of an electric band and sing the same song. Is it still folk? (Who shouted Judas?) But seriously (while not equating myself with him) the same rules apply to Bruce.. or Bob -- they're 'folk' singers until the songs move out of the 'folk' arena. In my opinion (be it ever so humble) a songwriter is a songwriter is a songwriter. Never mind whether it's folk or bel canto. One of my songs would sound great sung by Boyzone. Another would suit Status Quo. Both of them are frequently played acoustic at a session, accompanied by 'folk' musicians. But they ain't 'folk' songs. BJ |
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Subject: RE: Rewriting someone else's song From: Celtic Soul Date: 26 May 02 - 05:04 PM I think that if you make every effort to contact the author to gain permission, there is nothing wrong with it. From my own experience, many such folks are wonderfully gracious. Tom Lewis liked our version of "A Sailor aint a Sailor" and allowed us to record "Sailors Prayer", Janie Manealy was very gracious and kind when we tweeked "Twiddles", and Meg Davis sent us a wonderful e-mail after hearing our take on "Swing the Cat". Had anyone expressed concern or anger when we first approached them, we'd have left their stuff alone. Conversely, when people have approached us to do a piece we wrote/arranged and copyrighted, we are far more likely to say yes than to those who don't bother with showing us that respect. I realize that there is a fine line these days between the "folk process" and "copyright infringement". So, my thoughts are, so long as you are respectful and considerate before you step on toes, these two issues can co-exist fairly peacefully. |
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Subject: RE: Rewriting someone else's song From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 26 May 02 - 05:19 PM Anyone wants to sing one of my songs, that's fine by me. And if they fancy changing it round a bit, that's fine too. If I like the changes I'll likely take them over. If I don't I won't. It's not like drawing a moustache on the Mona Lisa - even if I were the Leonardo of songwriting, at most it'd be like drawing a moustache on a print of the Mona Lisa, and I can't see that Leonardo would have worried too much about that. The original is still there untouched whatever anyone else might do with the copy.
I change songs all the time anyway, whether they are mine or someone else's, or traditional - faulty memory is the way the folk process works, and that's the way all kind of improvements come. And sometimes there's a song a I like, but there's bits where I feel that's not how I'd say it.
I can't imagine why I'd object to someone singing a song I'd written a bit different. To imagine that the way I'd got it shaped meant that it couldn't possibly be better - I can't see it that way. Maybe if they changed it round so that it was saying something I disagreed with, it'd be different, I can't see that as too likely. If I know a songwriter I'd likely run my version past them, and I've never had one object to what I've done.
If I hear a joke from someone and pass it on, I'd be most unlikely to tell it exactly the same. Songs aren't that different. |
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Subject: RE: Rewriting someone else's song From: Amergin Date: 26 May 02 - 05:27 PM what mcgrath said....even to the point of finding a different tune for them...who knows might fit better... |
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Subject: RE: Rewriting someone else's song From: Clinton Hammond Date: 26 May 02 - 05:28 PM Guilty... I changed John Gorkas lyrics... simply because I didn't really know what scrapple was, and once I found out, there was no way in hell I woulda eaten it... So when I sing his song "People my age have stared looking gross", instead of singing.. Back in Colorado, I'd eat scrapple on toast I sing In North Ontario, I ate my poutin on toast...
Makes the song a little more personal, and give the locals something they can relate to... If John ever reads this, or hears me play it and hates it, he can tell me... maybe I'll stop... maybe I won't.... I also added a verse to Danny Carnahans "Dram To Warm The Piper", for the simple reason that there were simply not enough verses in such a great song to play for me... Danny's read 'em... never said if he minded or not... Silence implies consent... On the other hand I know of at least a couple of different bands who fancy themselves "Scottish" and when they sing "Barrettes Privateers", they sing "How I wish I was in Edenbourough (sp?) now", and for what it's worth, it sounds really lame and tosser-esque to me... Hard to say if Stan woulda really cared one way or the other... The trad crap... hell I change that stuff willy-nilly... rewrote The Black Velvet Band... rewrote Whiskey In The Jar.. added a verse to The Wild Rover... songs that lousy need all the help they can get... So, there's my muddy 2 cents for what they're worth... |
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Subject: RE: Rewriting someone else's song From: Celtic Soul Date: 26 May 02 - 05:32 PM Hey Clinton! You have me curious now...I know what scrapple is, but what *is* "poutin"??? |
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Subject: RE: Rewriting someone else's song From: Don Firth Date: 26 May 02 - 05:34 PM I have a great deal of respect for traditional songs and ballads, and I don't make changes in them indiscriminately, nor do I make them without giving the change some very serious consideration. But if there is a bad rhyme when I know of a better one that won't alter the meaning, or if a line sings awkwardly and switching a couple words around will clean it up, then more often that not I go ahead and do it. Also (not necessarily germane to this discussion) from time to time I have taken a couple of different versions of the same song and cobbled together a sort of composite version. I find that if I don't do this sort of thing when I'm learning the song, I wind up doing it later, unconsciously, and sometimes not as well. I'm not sure that any song, including original compositions, is immune from being "folk processed." Not that I'm recommending it. I think it just happens. Don Firth |
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Subject: RE: Rewriting someone else's song From: Clinton Hammond Date: 26 May 02 - 06:00 PM poutin Fries and gravy, covered in whey... or cheese, depending where ya get it... ;-)
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Subject: RE: Rewriting someone else's song From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 26 May 02 - 06:50 PM Sounds even less appealing than scrapple. But then that's the point of ths kind of cookery. And if the ingredients don't put off the outsiders, the name should - fancy some toad-in-a-hole, anyone? |
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Subject: RE: Rewriting someone else's song From: Clinton Hammond Date: 26 May 02 - 06:55 PM Well... I like fries... and I like gravy... and cheese is one of the staples of my diet, so the 3 together is just fine by me... *sorry fo the thread drift* LOL!!! Rewrites?? What of them? ;-)
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Subject: RE: Rewriting someone else's song From: harvey andrews Date: 26 May 02 - 07:06 PM As a writer I think you sing the lyric or you leave it alone. However...how about translation. One of my favourite songwriters is Dave Mallet and I sing his songs for my own pleasure but being English I find great difficulty singing "There ain't no mansion on no hill" so I sing "There is no mansion on a hill"..but the road goes on forever! Now is that changing a lyric or is it singing it in my own language/dialect? p.s. I hate it when anyone changes a word of mine, but I'm sure my lyrics could be Americanised and not suffer at all. |
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Subject: RE: Rewriting someone else's song From: GUEST,ADG Date: 26 May 02 - 07:16 PM Pete Seeger says that "If I Had A Hammer" is a better song thanks to the changes that Peter, Paul and Mary made. Woody changed tons of songs. |
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Subject: RE: Rewriting someone else's song From: curmudgeon Date: 26 May 02 - 07:39 PM What did Lee Hays have to say about it? -- Tom |
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Subject: RE: Rewriting someone else's song From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 26 May 02 - 07:40 PM I'd call that changing the lyric to fit the way you feel comfortable singing; for a lot of people in England I'd probably feel more natural to sing "ain't no mansion on no hill".
As I said up the thread, that is fine by my way of thinking. But when you know songwriter has a strong objection to changes, it's only right to back off from making them. And chansonnier type songs like Harvey's are a different animal in a way from a lot of other types of songs written in the past few decades.
A lot of times you know a song from hearing it before you have any idea who might have written it. And when people learn a song orally from other people singing it, as happens a lot of time, it's inevitable that changes will creep in.
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Subject: RE: Rewriting someone else's song From: Jerry Rasmussen Date: 26 May 02 - 09:24 PM Maybe it's because I write songs, but I make a point of learning the correct words when I sing someone else's song. That is, if they are living. I take more freedom with "traditional" songs, because the recording I'm likely to learn it from is one variation that an individual has probably changed to his or her liking. How can I get nervous about changing the lyrics to a traditional song that has almost as many versions as recordings. But, unless I find a line awkward to sing, I still sing traditional songs the way that I've heard them by an individual. Even exceptions there, as someone said. I'll sometimes take one version and insert a verse of to from another version that I really like. Sometimes (although rarely) I'll write an additional verse to a traditional song if I have a "good" reason... it's just a fragment of what was undoubtedly a longer song and another verse might make the whole song make more sense. As for my own songs, I don't write folk songs. I write songs. I one or two of them over many, many years slowly evolve into something a little different, I'd just be pleased that people enjoyed them enough to carry them on. The dead don't know. :-) Jerry |
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Subject: RE: Rewriting someone else's song From: dick greenhaus Date: 26 May 02 - 11:09 PM If you write a song, and don't want the lyrics or music changed, don't sing it in public. Shakespeare gets changed every time a play is produced; so does Bach. So what? If it's good, it will last. If it's not, it will die. |
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Subject: RE: Rewriting someone else's song From: Bert Date: 27 May 02 - 01:15 AM Oops, I change just about everything I sing. Usually because the original doesn't fit my style of singing. I changed katlaughing's song "That's not my Colorado" right from the start, She sings it in a beautiful modal folky style which is way beyond my singing ability. So I westernized/countryfied it so that it I didn't murder the song by trying to sing it in a way that would kill the feeling. And NO, I couldn't NOT sing it. |
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Subject: RE: Rewriting someone else's song From: georgeward Date: 27 May 02 - 01:30 AM There's excess of ego, and there's want of taste. Excess of ego is what I'm guilty of if I imagine none of my songs can ever be improved or adapted to someone else's style - even though, as Bullfrog does, I labor over them and usually mean exactly what I write. It is what you are guilty of if you don't make a reasonable effort to figure out why I wrote something as I did (or why a traditional song has taken whatever form it has). Just because you didn't get it on first reading or hearing doesn't mean it doesn't work. Want of taste is mine when I imagine that I can successfully translate any song into my voice or my idiom. Music is not a universal language, as the sappy phrase would have it. Knowing what you can't do is as important as knowing what you can do. Some people have a real genius for cross-idiom or cross-cultural larceny. More of us (I plead guilty to this) only fancy that we do. Want of taste is yours when (metaphorically speaking) you bellow a request from the back of the room for something that is clearly out of the performer's idiom . Some people really do only want to hear "Freebird", no matter by whom.[Some, of course,don't really want to hear it, but want to feel they've got the dynamics and/or to show off for their friends.] Sure, Dick. It is open season on anything any of us put out in public. But each of us ought to take responsibility for being sure of our target before we blaze away. Of course we only learn by trying. And Pete can say what he graciously wants to say, but I don't think PP&M did improve the Hammer Song. Popularize it ? Sure. And their alterations were part of that. That's one kind of good, maybe. But I found the original more musically compelling, and that sharpened the focus on the content. Knock enough of the edges off, push it far enough toward elevator music, and it won't matter any more what the lyrics say. It will no longer work as a call to conscience. It'll just become part of the incessant background racket that numbs us all out. There's a fine and invisible line there someplace.
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Subject: RE: Rewriting someone else's song From: Hrothgar Date: 27 May 02 - 04:30 AM I know a couple of songwriters who might not sing their own songs the same twice in a row. |
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Subject: RE: Rewriting someone else's song From: GUEST,Dita (at work) Date: 27 May 02 - 06:43 AM As a writer I would be sad if anyone tried to copy my version exactly. When I send songs out into the world, I want them to change and grow, and come back to me with new angle that perhaps I'd never thought of. Example - I have heard my "Where are you now , my son", a song about a mother who gave up a child for adoption, sung as if by a father who had lost touch with his children. As a performer I find, when I go back to my original source of a song that I have learned, and been performing for some time, that I have made changes and that is how the song now is for me. When I sing I think I recreate the song each time, be it mine or someone else's, and that is why it is different. It is not forgetfullness, or lazyness, but I believe part of the folk process. By the same token I am happy to put a new, or differnt tune to an old song or ballad, or rewrite another song to make it more relevent and performable. I know that some will not agree with this, but I think that this is what traditional singers have always done. Example I wrote additional verses to Ian Campbell's "Old Man's Song", to include the Thatcher era. Once the song is out there it is up to everyone to make of it what they will. The improvements will get incorparated by good singers of the future, and those changes which are detrimental will quickly be lost. love, John (McCreadie) |
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Subject: RE: Rewriting someone else's song From: GUEST Date: 27 May 02 - 06:55 AM Dick Greenhaus, Whilst I entirely agree with your first comment, to say: If it's good, it will last. If it's not, it will die is entirely questionable. But then we'd get into 'what is good' Even Robert Pirsig couldn't answer that one... |
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Subject: RE: Rewriting someone else's song From: dick greenhaus Date: 27 May 02 - 12:45 PM George- I never suggested that someone changing a sone and singing it (or even not changing a song and singing it should be immune from some forn or retaliation. But that comes from the audience, not the composer. Personally, I like to know the basis for what I sing. Others may not. |
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Subject: RE: Rewriting someone else's song From: Crane Driver Date: 27 May 02 - 06:32 PM When I write a song, some words are important to me - I spend a long time deciding on the right one, or maybe the right one comes and nothing I can do will convince me to change it. Other words are just links, joining up the important words. I don't always sing those the same myself. We were singing a song of mine for about the third time in public, and got in a real tangle in the chorus - half of us were singing "that" and half sang "which" - either could be right in context and I couldn't remember what I'd written at that point. It wasn't important enough for me to have noticed. (It was "which", I finally found, when I went back to my notes). So I'd never expect anyone to get one of my songs word-perfect without the notes! And yes, I'm one of those who instinctively change almost everything I learn - if I can't remember a line, something usually comes into my head to fill the gap before I can get back to the written copy, and then it's too late - I don't notice the change until I've learned it. Apologies to anyone I've offended down the years! Andrew |
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Subject: RE: Rewriting someone else's song From: InOBU Date: 27 May 02 - 06:56 PM POUTIN!!!! Och McGrath, some day, when it is cold and wet and you find yourself in Quebec... OH BROTHER! That's the ticket, stick to your ribs and stop your heart good!!! As to the mater at hand... Hmmmm... McGrath has done great stuff to one of my songs, and as long as the intent of the piece is conveyed, I am all for it... however, in a thread titled "Rape", about one of my songs about the public gang rape of Hindu women in Bangladesh, some of the suggestions seemed to suggest taking the sting out of the subject, well, hell you put the songs out there and hope they are understood, and sometimes you just have to tighten your grip around your pint of Diet Coke... but I do wish my friends would consider as carefully as McGrath does, the intention behind the music. BUT HEY! Have a poutin and some Frute de Mere! Knock back a Labat for me up dere in da frozen nord! Ah toot aloor! (an ave a funny dey... as my pal Serge Luzon would say!) Cheers Larry |
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Subject: RE: Rewriting someone else's song From: Áine Date: 27 May 02 - 08:14 PM As to poudin. ya'll add a little boudin on the side, and Clinton, you and Larry can invite me to supper anytime! ;-) Oooohhh, just thinking about that combination makes me hungry... As to the subject of this thread -- whatever McGrath said is what I think, too. The man changed the lyrics to a song of my own, and he made it better. Once you let a song go, like a butterfly, it will flit here and there, landing in places you never imagined. All the best, Áine |
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Subject: RE: Rewriting someone else's song From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 27 May 02 - 08:24 PM Thanks, InOBU and Áine. (On the net no one can see you blush.)
Here's a song I wrote in a previous thread in the what-is-folk traditional cycle of threads. (The thread being What is Folk? IN SONG.)
Just because you made it
It's as true for a song
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Subject: RE: Rewriting someone else's song From: Bert Date: 27 May 02 - 11:48 PM If it's good, it will last! Ah Dick, If only that were so. So many good songs have been chewed up and discarded by Tin Pan Alley and will never be heard of again. |
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Subject: RE: Rewriting someone else's song From: GUEST,Al Date: 28 May 02 - 01:11 AM I change Steven Foster songs without a twinge of regret. You almost have to. Al |
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Subject: RE: Rewriting someone else's song From: KingBrilliant Date: 28 May 02 - 02:44 AM It seems that some people can't bear the words to be changed, others can't bear the music to be changed - but then if that's the case why not just play a CD? I have a long-running disagreement with friends who always want to listen to the record and "get it right" - but I genuinely can't sing that way (or can't sing genuinely that way might be the right way round). Could be similar to the "notation" vs "by ear" thing in another thread. Is "getting it right" sometimes a bit of a constraint? I suppose its two ways of approaching the beauty of a song or piece - one way is to get it right & thereby experience and feel the thing as it was crafted, whereas the other is to use it as an inspiration and a vehicle for your own creativity. So then, perhaps the latter is a little cheeky. Its like some people appreciate the engineering & design that goes into a wonderful gadget-thing, and others would like to take it apart to see how it works & then see what they could make with the bits. KRis |
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Subject: RE: Rewriting someone else's song From: InOBU Date: 28 May 02 - 07:31 AM Well, I've made a few changes... I hope it does not change the spirit of the song... Just because I made it I own the copywrite on it. Now MY! song has come to life, it's everybody's song. I'm so glad you did your thing, and gave me song a little sing, now that song is on the wing, My solisitor will be 'round in the morn. VERY MUCH kidding... lots of laughing... cheers Larry
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Subject: RE: Rewriting someone else's song From: InOBU Date: 28 May 02 - 07:33 AM PS I'd change the tune to the above as well,... I sing it to the wee tenor part of Bethoven's 9th.... Cheers again, Larry |
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Subject: RE: Rewriting someone else's song From: GUEST,Jim Krause who didn't log in properly Date: 28 May 02 - 08:46 AM I sense two things going on here in this thread. First there is this bit about taking a song, any song, and fitting it to the performer and the moment. That is what I call interpretation. Second is taking a Steve Goodman song for example, and without even a by-your-leave changing the words around to make it more palatable, or politically correct, or add something to it that wasn't there, or wasn't intended to be there, making the song a tool of propaganda. This is not the same as parody. That is something else. As to changing Stephen Foster songs, ummmmmmm, there I have real mixed feelings. Mostly I sing them when the audience and I have an understanding about the historical context of the song. The most offensive verses I leave out all together. Same with some of Henry Work's songs. Some audiences will accept them, some won't. But Bill Staines' songs, now those my friends, I would never change the lyrics of at all. The chords, yes. The lyrics, never. That's arranging. |
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Subject: RE: Rewriting someone else's song From: GUEST,MC Fat Date: 28 May 02 - 11:24 AM Not quite the same but re-writing a song that you've written to bring it up to date. I know Harvey Andrews sometimes posts his thoughts, indeed he's on this very thread so this question is for him . Am i right that you changed some words in Unnaccompanied to bring it up to date. I seem to recall you changing the lines to ' Fridays pay day etc' to ' Friday's dole day etc' or have I just dreamt that ? |
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Subject: RE: Rewriting someone else's song From: GUEST,chipinder Date: 28 May 02 - 11:43 AM I can perhaps understand performing a song with a different approach but I recently heard a group who admitted writing a whole new verse to a song by a well known contemporary songwriter. If I had been that songwriter I think I would have been slightly offended that the not so well known group thought my song incomplete and worthy of improvement. How does copyright work in these situations? Chip |
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Subject: RE: Rewriting someone else's song From: Jerry Rasmussen Date: 28 May 02 - 11:54 AM Guest:Chipinder:
Sally Rogers wrote another verse to a song that I wrote, thinking that the guy who wrote it was dead (a traditional song.) She was very embarassed when she found out that I wrote it. I wasn't offended. I told her that if she wanted to add the verse, all I'd ask is that she mention in her introduction that she'd added the last verse. I didn't add the verse, myself because I didn't think it improved the song. I've written an additional verse to songs on occasion to try to clarify the message of the song. I always mention that I've added the verse.
Rewriting someone else's song isn't so bothersome to me, although I don't record or sing rough drafts of songs I've written. What bothers me (and I'll accuse myself of this first) is when someone (like me) doesn't sing the words of the song as it was written or recorded because I'm too LAZY to pull out the record and get it right. I think most songs that get "rewritten" are not because of some deep soul searching that requires rewriting the song in order to make it personal to the performer. I think that the folk tradition is fueled by bad memory and laziness... not seriously deliberated rewrites. Having both a bad memory and being lazy, I can say that with some direct experience. :-) Jerry |
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Subject: RE: Rewriting someone else's song From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 28 May 02 - 01:40 PM Well, I wrote an extra verse for a song Seamus Heaney wrote, and he's got a Nobel prize. |
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Subject: RE: Rewriting someone else's song From: harvey andrews Date: 28 May 02 - 05:07 PM MC fat..no I didn't rewrite that one. One I did was "Gift of a brand new day" which had the verse; "We can take the baby out" which became "Now that the kids are grown" Time sometimes forces adjustments. Personally I don't mind if people change the tune a little to suit their voice or add chords I can't play but the WORDS are the product of my life's work and to change them is like adding to another painter's picture to me. If I don't like the words of a song I don't sing it, although, as I said earlier I might Anglicise it if it's American, but tthat's only changing the grammer as I don't sing in an American or Mid Atlantic accent.As will every British singer at the Queen's Jubilee Concert! |
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Subject: RE: Rewriting someone else's song From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 28 May 02 - 05:45 PM "I think that the folk tradition is fueled by bad memory and laziness... not seriously deliberated rewrites."
And that's the way the great songs got knocked into shape over the years. And knocked out of shape too,because it works both ways.
But the happy accidents probably have more staying power. If you search out an 18th or 19th century broadsheet version of a song that survived into the oral tradition, it seems to me that the version collected in some workhouse in Edwardian times always seems to turn out to be far improved.
And that process continues. |
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Subject: RE: Rewriting someone else's song From: Jerry Rasmussen Date: 28 May 02 - 05:59 PM Basic question: If none of us are writing folk songs (as I believe we aren't) what's the folk process got to do with the songs? I don't hear anyone rewriting Lennon and McCartney.. Just asking. Jerry |
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Subject: RE: Rewriting someone else's song From: Cappuccino Date: 28 May 02 - 06:48 PM There was a vast great debate on this a few months back, but I can't find the thing now to make a link. What really puzzled me a few years ago was interviewing a lady songwriter for a magazine. She said that she didn't like it if someone even altered the key of a song she'd written, because it altered the whole dynamic. I thought that was going too far... to try and pitch some songs in their original key would do my dynamics irreparable damage! - Ian B |
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Subject: RE: Rewriting someone else's song From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 28 May 02 - 06:51 PM I've heard Beatles songs sung with words and tunes a little bit changed. Come back in a couple of generations and they'll have changed some more.
But it happens a lot more with the kind of songs that you only hear in folk circles, and that people mostly learn from hearing them without knowing particularly who wrote them. Maybe that happens more back in the Old World? |
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Subject: RE: Rewriting someone else's song From: GUEST,Bullfrog Jones (on the road) Date: 28 May 02 - 07:30 PM I think Jerry has it right about laziness. Yes McG, we hear songs, even Beatles songs, sung with the wrong words and it really grates! And not just Lennon & McCartney ----there's a whole generation who, thanks to Mick Hucknall, think the line in 'Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye' is 'I can hear a lark somewhere WAITING to sing about it'. If I hear anyone sing that I slap them about the head and ask them exactly what a lark sounds like while it's waiting to sing? (Clearing its throat? Practicing its scales?) Then I tell them to go away and listen to Ella sing it.Sometimes the message gets through, but I worry that it will eventually become common currency, even though it's patently wrong. However, the point, when I started the thread, was that some people seem to feel that they have the right to decide that certain lyrics need to be changed, and they're just the person to change 'em by God! (Changing the chords is part of the interpretation and arrangement, but surely for any songwriter the lyrics are the meat of the thing.)If they feel that they have something to say on that particular subject why don't they go off and write their own song? The poor schmuck who wrote it was probably reasonably happy about what he'd written. I don't and I'm sure Harvey, Jerry, McGrath and others above don't put out a song until they're satisfied that it's finished; that it says what they want to say in the best way possible. I could name a dozen popular songs that have lines that make me cringe, that sound sloppily written, and could be revised very easily. But I don't want to sing them. When I hear a song that moves me enough to want to cover it I go to as much trouble as possible to make sure that I have the lyrics exactly right, and the melody as close as I can get given the limitations of my voice and guitar technique, but I pay the writer of the song due respect by singing it as he or she wrote it. BJ
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Subject: RE: Rewriting someone else's song From: Jerry Rasmussen Date: 28 May 02 - 07:33 PM I dunno, Kevin:
I don't ever remember hearing someone do a Bill Staines sang, having changed the words. Or Bob Franke. Of course, when the words are slightly different, you never know whether someone consciously "rewrote" them, or just forgot them. In a way, the whole idea of rewriting songs seems foreign (but not Old Country) to me because I hardly think of myself as "writing" a song. As often as not, the song "writes" me. I don't think I've set out to write more than five or six songs in my life. The others have flown naturally out of a conversation, a phrase, a memory, good times with friends or a dream. Now, if someone was singing one of my songs in a dream, and they "rewrote" it, that would seem perfectly natural. :-)
Over here, in the 60's, everyone was abuzz because Steve Gilette wrote Darcy Farell, and people thought it was traditional. There was a little bit of Fool The Folkies" after that, with people consciously trying to write faux folk songs. I suppose that it was an interesting excercise. I'm not sure that was what Steve consciously did, but he didn't make a habit of it. First of all, folk music doesn't sell all that well, so it seems like a misguided venture.
As for the good songs lasting, that remains to be seen. I don't know many songs written in the folk idiom that I thought were better than Here's To You Rounders, and it's already slipped below the screen. The irony to me of folk music and folk singers is that most of us bring a top 40, pop mentality to songs. I've seen so many musicians who are constantly trying to come up with new songs because they think that people will get sick of listening to the old ones. Man, if that was the case, there wouldn't be any old songs. I'll probably sing Old Dan Tucker and Down on Penny's Farm until I can't let out a squeak. And, I won't "rewrite" them to make them more relevant to me. One of the GREAT joys of folk music for me (and Art Thieme would give a rousing, "I second that!" is that they are a portal to the past and other cultures. That's why I wouldn't want to rewrite them. The choice of words and phrases is precious to me, and a major part of my pleasure in singing them.
As an old friend of mine used to say when he was upset about something someone had done, "They need a sound thrashing about the head and ears!" If that was changed to "They need a smack on the side of the head." it would have the same meaning but lose all of it's humor to me. Maybe that's another thread. We could take beloved old traditional songs and rewrite them into more contemporary, proper English. I think I'd be tempted to give anyone who did that a Whup on the side of the head, if not an actual sound thrashing ABOUT the head and ears. :-) Jerry |
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Subject: RE: Rewriting someone else's song From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 28 May 02 - 08:02 PM Maybe the word "rewrite" is the joker. When you sing a song you heard someone else sing, and you sing it a little different, either because you can't quite remember a line, or the line you remember doesn't seem top sound quite right to you, you probably don't go writing it down.
That example of Jerry gave just now - you can point that the other way round. Changing "They need a sound thrashing about the head and ears!" to "They need a smack on the side of the head" wouldn't be an improvement. But changing "They need a smack on the side of the head" to "They need a sound thrashing about the head and ears!" might well be.
For me, I work on getting my songs right - but as for not putting it out "until (I'm) satisfied that it's finished; that it says what (I) want to say in the best way possible" - well I don't think most songs are ever necessarily finished. I keep on changing them for years, and as I've said, I'm content for anyone else to do the same. That doesn't mean I'm not proud when I think I've got it right, and hope that any changes other people made are for the better, and probably think more often than not that they aren't...But I don't own a song I've written, except in a legal sense.
But of course I quite accept the right of other people to see it differently. And once again, there are some kinds of songs where this kind of thinking is less appropriate, and some where it's not appropriate at all. |
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Subject: RE: Rewriting someone else's song From: Whistle Stop Date: 29 May 02 - 08:39 AM It always surprises me how quick so many folkies are to impose rules; if there is any form of music that should be free of these types of restrictions, it is surely folk music. I write a lot of songs, and I'm generally pretty proud of them. Some come very easily ("out of thin air," seemingly), others require a lot more labor on my part. If someone improves on them, great; if someone takes them in a less positive direction, that's unfortunate, but I will just hope that the higher quality version (mine, perhaps) will ultimately prove to be more durable. I think people should feel free to exercise their creativity in music, including reworking music and lyrics as they see fit. From a legal perspective, I want control, credit, royalties, and anything else that is my due for having written the song. But beyond that, I don't want to hamper someone else's creative vision, whether he is a songwriter or interpreter. There's plenty of room for alternative versions of any and all songs. |
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Subject: RE: Rewriting someone else's song From: EBarnacle1 Date: 29 May 02 - 05:56 PM Whenever this issue comes up, I think of the first line: "Tho my sails be torn and tattered and my mast be turned about." Is there anyone who knows boats that this line does not grate upon? Some things call out for improvement, some should be left alone. When someone tells me that they wishto sing my song but they want to personalize it for their own use, I am thrilled that they like my song. Perhaps I need another decade or two to become jaded and crusty in my attitude. I am not writing the bible. If I were perfect, I would be upset when someone pays me the compliment but feels it needs a little tweak. I'm not either. When I have a Senior Moment" in the middle of a song, often I just throw a word into the breach in order to keep going. Anyone who has looked in Child knows that there is no one definitive version of most of the traditional ballads. Which one is right? Sometimes it is even possible to 'reconstruct' a more complete [and therefore more perfect?] version from the existing fragments. What is right? |
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Subject: RE: Rewriting someone else's song From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 29 May 02 - 06:36 PM "Tho my sails be torn and tattered and my mast be turned about." What's that from? Sounds a lively enough start. (I assume that the problem is that masts don't get turned about, unlike craft? So sing "craft" instead?) |
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