Should we try to be 'original'?

Subject: RE: Should we try to be 'original'?
From: Paul Burke
Date: 30 Mar 06 - 05:44 AM

One common reason for basing a song on a previous one is to associate the new song with the old one. So to write a ballad, say, to the tune of "When the King Enjoys His Own Again" would be a political statement in the 17th century.

Subject: RE: Should we try to be 'original'?
From: Purple Foxx
Date: 30 Mar 06 - 05:41 AM

Dylan was & remains one of the biggest borrowers in the history of popular music (even his name was taken from someone else.)
Adapting & reworking other peoples ideas has always had a central role in all art forms.
Especially music.
Whether it is still actually possible to have a wholly original idea is a debate in itself (As is the question of how we would know that we had.)
I think "Hard rain's" debt to "Lord Randall" (to name but one of many examples) is self-evident.
I don't think Dylan has much cause for complaint.

Subject: RE: Should we try to be 'original'?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 30 Mar 06 - 05:40 AM

McGrath, I agree with you.

Subject: RE: Should we try to be 'original'?
From: Flash Company
Date: 30 Mar 06 - 05:38 AM

I can only cite 'Reuben James', it is not original, it's 'Wildwood Flower' in disguise, but it doesn't mean that it is any less valid a comment or any worse as a song. If anything, hanging the lyric onto a familiar tune makes it more poignant than trying to be original!

FC

Subject: RE: Should we try to be 'original'?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 30 Mar 06 - 05:38 AM

Well if a song is to be totally original then surely it should have a unique tune too? Yet many fine songs have been written to old pre-existing tunes, I will just quote the one, Yellow on the Broom as a good example.
I exclude however parodies from the originals category as they rely almost wholly on an old set of lyrics and tune for their existence.
So a song 'after the style of' or 'with acknowledgement to' an earlier writer is perfectly valid in my book.
Giok

Subject: Should we try to be 'original'?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Mar 06 - 05:26 AM

"If he can't be original why bother?" That's a quote from a comment in a current thread about a song. The song in question The lonesome death of Rachel Corrie was one where the writer, Billy Bragg had very deliberately, and, it seemed to me, for very good reasons, modelled his song on an already existing song.

Now I'm not trying to transfer the argument about this particular song over to this thread. But I think the comment that came back "If he can't be original why bother?", and the assumption underlying it, does open up an interesting issue.

It seems to me that there is a contradiction between the assumption that originality must be a central quality of any artistic endeavour and the principle that folk music and folk song is about building on tradition, and on building a tradition. Since people are different, originality is going to enter into how they do that, but my belief is that is a secondary thing. It happens and it's good that it happens, but it's not the object of the exercise - and there are times when it should deliberately be resisted.