Re: misc, muse, Cloudbusting

[ag@sics.se (Anders G|ransson)]

In article <m0o0QxS-000ilhC@fciad2.bsd.uchicago.edu> 
chrisw@fciad2.bsd.uchicago.edu (chris williams) writes:


   Anders' opinion:
   >Good lyrics; "America" Paul Simon. 
   >Bad lyrics; "Heads we're dancing" Kate Bush.

      I don't know the Paul Simon song, and while I agree that "Heads we're
   Dancing" isn't Kate's best song, I would really like *someone* to watch
   the film "Hanussen" with Klaus Maria Branduar. I believe this film is
   the basis of the song, and (a la "Cloudbusting") is not complete without
   it's background story, and cannot be fairly judged.


Thank you for this reaction to my article! My little rusz^e;
introducing a specific comparison between lyrics apparently
worked even tough you didn't know 'America' by Paul Simon. 
This is a bit surprising to a Swede, a thought this song was
part of the great American tradition. I almost felt a little
guilty in choosing such an obvious example of 'good' lyrics to
compare with one of Kate's (* in my opinion *) worst.

So, "Head's..." are based on a movie and there is a background
story whit out which the lyrics cannot be fairly judged. I have
no idea of this, haven't seen the movie, so my judgement (given 
that your belief is true) is not fair. 
(And yet I feel that lyrics to a song has to give something in 
 itself and that it must be possible to react to it directly.)
As I have said repeatedly, an artist is of course free to choose
whatever method she likes in writing lyrics. 
What can be said of basing lyrics on movies, autobiographies,
books e t c thus craving a a lot of research on the part of the
listener to appreciate the lyrics in full is (minimally) that it
takes ardent followers to be successful. This group is of course
a full existence proof for such followers of Kate Bush.
Another "problem" with this method is that the movie in itself
may be based on some book, some historical facts e t c and
cannot be appreciated without checking this background out fully.
Takes some patience and an enormous interest on the part of the
listener to go through with this and , more importantly, a
confidence that the work involved will be rewarded. 
The reward is then my guess, not a overwhelming emotional
experience, but the satisfaction of having solved a puzzle!
I for one prefer lyrics that gives an emotional impact at the first
contact, without the need for laborious investigations. 


      From what we can tell, Kate *prefers* to make her lyrics obscure, so
   calling a lyric "good" or "bad" on the basis of how clearly it tells
   a story or communicates a specific mood is a bit arbitrary. If the
   yardstick is "is it as the artist intended" and the artist *intended*
   the lyrics to be obscure, (realizing that Kate has recorded lyrics in
   ways that her most ardent fans spent years deciphering), then the song
   is a success.

Quite true that there are different perspectives to this
'judging' the success of lyrics!
My point of view is that of a naive listener wanting to get
something in the likeness of that you get when reading a good
poem. So much for that!

Kate, hypothetically, wants to write obscure lyrics and there are
people devoting lots of time and energy in decoding the
lyrics, seems like a perfect match! 
Not my cup of tea tough!


best regards Anders

--


If you see Saint Annie, please tell her - Thanks a lot.