Lyrics Vs. Lyrics

My teenage years I had spent appreciating many different styles of music...on the harder side, Aerosmith, Foghat, Rush, Kansas, Montrose, Deep Purple, ZZ Top, etc. On the more softer side, James Taylor, Jim Croce, Elton John, Billy Joel.

I was most intrigued by artists that seemed to be able to write tunes that variated between the "hard" and "soft" elements....the Eagles...Boston....Bob Seger...Bad Company...the Beatles. I mean, heck, on the sequencing of songs of "Hotel California", the Eagles went straight from "New Kid In Town" to "Life In The Fast Lane"!!

I have always been dabbling in amateur writing and poetry, so lyrics could be very important to me. I have come to realize through my music-listening experience that the music to a song was probably the most important to the general listener, but it could be something spectacular if you could flesh out that music with superb lyrics. New takes on old ideas.....analogy....simile....metaphor. For example, Lionel Richie, Jim Croce, and '70's bands like Firefall and Orleans tended to write great music coupled with more simplistic lyrics. Read the lyrics to "Three Times A Lady" or "I Got A Name" without the music being played. Actually, Croce had an exception to this with "Time In A Bottle", and he exhibited his strength more in "story" songs..."You Don't Mess Around With Jim"...."Operator".....Bad, Bad Leroy Brown". Firefall-"Just Remember I Love You"; Orleans- "Dance With Me".

Then you have lyric writers on the other end of the spectrum. What exactly is a Hotel California? The Eagles often wrote with great imagery in mind...they painted pictures with words. Henley had a great grasp on extensive vocabulary....no wonder....he was a Lit major. Dan Fogelberg was a prime example of excellent lyric writing...the metaphoric genius of "Leader Of The Band" , "Run For The Roses", & "Heart Hotels". He used words like "rapture" and stanzas like "where precious flesh is greedily consumed"....."once deceased, not easily exhumed". Kerry Livgren from Kansas was always very deep and poetic. Read the lyrics to "Dust In The Wind" or "Carry On Wayward Son". Of course, metaphor in the hands of an amateur can be disastrous. I always cringe whenever I hear the line from Meatloaf's "Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad"-- "There ain't no Coupe De Ville hidin' at the bottom of a Cracker Jack box...". Great thought....now go back and rewrite.

Some artists had a talent for lyrically crossing between these two aforementioned points. Bob Seger is one. From the more simple "Her Strut" and "We've Got Tonite" to the deeper thoughts of "Ship Of Fools", "Beautiful Loser", and "Mainstreet". Billy Joel is another. He has a real knack for writing great story lyrics--"Movin' Out"; "Piano Man"; "Only The Good Die Young", etc., but then blows me away with musical poetry like "She's Always A Woman" and "Lullabye". I can kinda compare it to James Whitcomb Riley vs. Robert Frost.

And then there are the lyricists who often transcribe their thoughts from some kind of alternate dimension. The Beatles' "I Am The Walrus"....."Polyethylene Pam"...."Across The Universe". And I have never really understood some of Bernie Taupin's lyrics that Elton sings on some of his biggest hits.... "Rocket Man", "Daniel", "Madman Across The Water". I mean, they are great ideas and I get the jist of it, but so much of it is really left up to the listener's interpretation. What the heck is "Philadelphia Freedom" really about!?!

I remember reading and discussing poetry in my 11th grade Lit class. I would study one poem and I would understand what the poet was trying to beautifully convey. My teacher never commented much about those poems. Then we would read one that I had no idea what the writer was talking about, and Mrs. Gliva would exuberantly lavish praise on the genius of that writer's creative skills. For a long time, I then associated that viewpoint with poetry.......namely, that the less I understood it, the better it must evidently be. : )

I have grown up since then.