Ain't No Senator's Son
I want to talk about lyrics this week. I don't mean I want to talk about their meaning or lack of meaning. I want to talk about the actual words and their use. Say you're driving along (or walking, depending on your city) listening to lyrics that go something like this:
Why is it acceptable to sing these phrases when you would never speak them? Maybe it's just me, but once I start noticing these things, it's hard to unnotice them. And then I start identifying other lyrical clichés. The use of the word "baby" without referring to an infant is particularly irksome. Try to imagine, if you will, a close friend talking about the plans that "me and my baby" are making without laughing. So remember that if you find yourself writing lyrics. At best I will be laughing at you when you sing these things.
Perhaps you know of an even more grating cliché.
I can't get no satisfactionAs I said, I don't care about the person in the car or on the radio or what it all means. But why is Mick Jagger all those double negatives? You've heard him actually speak, right? He would never say "can't get no." Now, I know what you're thinking (because I'm psychic like that)--you're thinking that Mick Jagger was just working within the blues idiom. His lyrical appropriation from the blues runs parallel to Keith Richard's (or Richards', depending on the year) musical appropriation. Fine, I can buy that. But, what about this:
I can't get no satisfaction
'cause I try and I try and I try and I try
I can't get no, I can't get no
When I'm drivin' in my car
And that man comes on the radio
He's tellin' me more and more
About some useless information
Supposed to fire my imagination
I can't get no, oh no no no
Hey hey hey, that's what I say
Oh don’t lean on me man, cause you can’t afford the ticketDoes Bowie use "ain't" in everyday speech? Or is Bowie a bluesman there? I mean seriously--Bowie? A bluesman? Bowie has created lots of personas, but that's not one of them (though, admittedly the blue-eyed soul of Young Americans comes close). Let's try something like this on for size:
I’m back on suffragette city
Oh don’t lean on me man
Cause you ain’t got time to check it
You know my suffragette city
Is outta sight...she’s all right
She ain't fancy, she ain't fineThose would be lyrics from everybody's favorite band, The Decemberists. The Decemberists are people who wouldn't be caught dead using "ain't" in the conversaion of their precious social circles. And yet there is Colin Meloy singing it, like he's Ronnie Van Zant.
While her fingers number only nine
She's the belle of the ball of the insurgency.
Why is it acceptable to sing these phrases when you would never speak them? Maybe it's just me, but once I start noticing these things, it's hard to unnotice them. And then I start identifying other lyrical clichés. The use of the word "baby" without referring to an infant is particularly irksome. Try to imagine, if you will, a close friend talking about the plans that "me and my baby" are making without laughing. So remember that if you find yourself writing lyrics. At best I will be laughing at you when you sing these things.
Perhaps you know of an even more grating cliché.
25 Comments:
Ooh yeah, I have one: over-analyzing rock lyrics.
Actually, you make a good point, and one that makes bad lyrics that much worse. God knows I'm an offender myself though, so who am I to judge? Who are you for that matter? You ain't my daddy, baby.
My apologies. It's late.
"The pumps don't work cause the vandals stole the handles"
I'll stick to hating fake british and country accents. The country accents are the worst, mostly it seems they're not from any particular part of the south, but from some hybrid of southern accents. And i'm pretty sure the some of these country arrists record contracts have 'accent clauses'.
Oh, and you know what else, when they have people in movies that are supposed to be from one country and when they speak they have an accent from somwhere else. LIke trying to pass an australian accent for a british or a mexican one for a cuban. And when they curse in spanish thinking no one can understand. Well I actually like that one. Turns out censorship apparently only happens in one language. There was a Seinfeld episode with a puerto rican guy who curses like a sailor in spanish. And a friend of mine bought the new Calle 13 record and bought the "all ages" version by mistake, and they bleeped out all the bad words in spanish, but left a 1 minute interlude in english that says the the fuck and mother fucker about 30 times.
Good point about the accents. I once recorded a band whose songs I had never heard before and one of their songs was sung by the drummer. He left the control room of that recording studio with an east Texas accent and entered the vocal booth with a "British" accent. I had to look up through the window to make sure it was him. When I asked him why he was singing like that, he had no idea that he was. Worse, he had a hard time not affecting an accent.
It's funny that they would let the Spanish cursing through on a Seinfeld episode. The FCC is gray about their rules, but they are pretty clear that they apply in any language.
How about the way college radio type kid talk is utterly dull, which isn't even the gripe, but that it is also like totally um affected.
When I was 19 I had to figure out the lyrics to the Stone's Get Off My Cloud for a cover band. It's actually a hard song to figure out and this was before they could just be pulled of the internet. Anyway all the "ain'ts" and "babies" struck me as funny as a kid but this particular Stones song was even funnier to me because it is also so British. Jagger talks about the Union Jack and winning 5 pounds for something called a "detergent pack." When I was done writing it out it struck me as very British and I couldn't help but read it back with a stiff upper lip.
And yeah I find the fake British thing annoying but over all just funny. There's a band in Chicago called the M's who have done really well with the Brit Rock sound. They are actually really good and if they come through Houston you should check them out. But I can't help making a little fun of them too.
They took a shine to my band THE LATEST and their bassist Joey recorded some of our early stuff in his basement studio so we got to hang out with him a lot. He totally looks like Paul Mcartney and when he sings it's very Paul. But he's from Arkansas. And in his studio we got him to do the Arkansas Razorback call which is like a hog call. So now when I see the M's I can't help but think about that.
I might have told that one before. It's a favorite.
I like to don my Texas accent sometimes in Chicago. I can wear it when I want to. I especially like saying wise stuff like "well fuck me running" which I noticed is a Sparrows favorite as well. Nice.
I don't really mind any of this stuff... I mean, yeah, it's a little silly, and in some cases there are things that cross the line that I DO mind, like Carlos's example of affecting an accent. I remember always hating having to hear that idiot in Green Day because he always sounded exactly like what he was, a California kid affecting a "punk" British accent. That actually does kind of bother me a little in general, but largely I view playing music as at least some small part performance, and who says performance has to be 100% sincere and true? It's not like his name really WAS "Johnny Rotten". (By the way Justin, I'm not saying anything bad about the topic, just saying it doesn't bother me as much, though I do recognize it.)
But, kind of piggybacking on Carlos's accent thing, I've also always kind of thought it was funny when you had singers who, as part of their performance, affect not only an accent but kind of a whole voice. Tom Waits does it, though I suspect he's been doing it for so long that maybe his voice has changed and become the singing voice he started using in the late 70s, but you listen to those early albums and they don't sound anything like what he sounds like later, when he's basically channeling Louis Armstrong. And then there's John Fogerty, whose voice is truly a thing of beauty, but who is most obviously NOT from the backwoods swamps of southern Louisiana. And the guy from Nazareth, Dan McCafferty, is freakin' Scottish, but you wouldn't know it from the way he sings.
I included the Seu Jorge version of "Suffragette City" in this week's podcast; it would be interesting to hear from somebody who speaks Portuguese about how he handles the lyrics. Is there an equivalent of "ain't" in Portuguese? I suspect not.
I like Mick Jagger singing like a black dude.
I like Robert Pollard from Guided By Voices singing like a Brit.
I hate Billy Joel Armstrong from Green Day singing like a Brit. It annoys me to no end.
I hate the dorkus from Oasis singing like a Brit. Go sweep a chimney little man.
I hate that guy who's married to Nicole Kidman because he sings country but he's from Austrailia.
I like some of Boris's music because even though their Japanese, when they sing they don't sound Asian.
I like when Ringo sings rockabilly with an utterly British accent. It's brilliant.
If musicians demonstrated hyper english skills, we'd bag on them for that. Everybody's just workin for the weekend. It's about lowest common denominator to reach as many people as possible. Backwoods fuckers ain't gonna get off on your big words.
And anonymous... for some reason I want to punch you in the back of the head.
I don't think I'd bag on anybody for having English skillz, but that's not really the point. What really interests me is why people adopt these affectations when they sing. In some cases the song is sung from the viewpoint of a fictional character. I'm OK with that. But when there is no discernible reason to slip into the idiom, it can overshadow the song. For me, at least. Maybe the big words get that same reaction for other people.
I guess kind of what I'm saying is that I think for some of these singers, the role of "singer" or "performer" or whatever is in some cases a part they're playing, a fictional viewpoint. Tom Waits is a good example... there's probably a good portion of that role that he plays that's really him, but a LOT of that is affectation. He's a man named Tom Waits playing a character named "Tom Waits" who is a musician. It's theatre as much as it is music. It's the same way that Sting could get away with singing in the manner he sings when he's obviously a total WASP, and the same way John Fogerty can affect his own accent and speech patterns that are from his conception of what a backwoods swamper would sound like, even though he's from California. Some people seem to be playing absolutely no role when they're singing, and just wholly being who they really are, but I think there's an equal number of people who just kind of slip into a persona when they go onstage, and slip right back out of it when they go offstage, and one of the primary ways actors establish the character they're playing is through establishing a Voice, with its own patterns and affectations. I imagine a lot of singers do that too.
Tom Waits is almost an exception here no? Good points though Charlie. It bothers me when the Stones do it... but that's probably because the Stones bother me in general. They're just penises to me. And anonymous, I'm sorry for punching you in the back of the head.
I think Tom Waits is the extreme far end of all that... I think it just demonstrates how far that sort of affectation can be taken, whereas most guys don't go all the way into character acting, instead just kind of subconsciously affecting speech mannerisms and other "rock" or "punk" mannerisms to kind of distance what they're doing with their real selves. Like I'm betting Billy Joe from Green Day doesn't go home and talk to his wife like a British punk rocker circa 1977.
What Tom Waits does is definitely affectation. What makes him different is that it's not an affectation that anybody else is doing. So even though he owes a lot of his vocal stylings to Satchmo, you kind of have to give him a pass for the originality of what he does with it.
I actually like quite a few Stones albums. Sticky Fingers and Let It Bleed are fine pieces of work. And, as I mentioned, Mick's affectations are easier to understand because he's just playing bluesman, rather than using that style of language devoid of context like, say, The Decemberists.
He has a wife? i thought he was thirteen.
I'm with you on the Stones albums... I have a particular affinity for their stuff from about 1969 to 1972 or so...
The Decemberists are not one of my favorite, say, 15,000 bands. But I think a lot of lyrical decisions like these are made on the basis of what fits the scansion, and "ain't" fits a lot of things a lot better than "isn't".
Bowie chooses personas all the time. Nothing he sings would surprise me. (I just read the book on LOW which is especially informative in this regard as well as a couple dozen others.)
Carlos, I always remember having panic attacks about what bands like Gerogerogegege and other japanese noise bands were actually singing when I was music director at KTRU-FM. On the one hand, I had every reason to assume it was some pretty foul things at least some of the time; on the other hand, it was in Japanese, and I certainly didn't know any better. I suppose the same is true for other languages, but the extreme Japanese stuff just stuck out to me as being the most obvious risk.
Not only does that fucking hobbit have a wife, he's pushing forty.
As for Mick Jagger, his affectations are not only legend, they're embarassing. That very element threatens to ruin their best albums: basically anything with Mick Taylor.
I think from now on, I'm going to start peppering my speech with things like "ain't" and "baby". And then when I write songs, I'll use proper English and consult handbooks on punctuation and grammar to hone everything perfectly. Just to be contrary, baby.
I think that's a fantastic idea, Charlie.
We should have a terrible lyricist award.
Well, Charlie won't win because his lyrics will all be honed. Maybe he could win for his everyday speech, though.
I'll go ahead and take the horrible lyricist award, and you're welcome.
After my band recorded "Waiting for the Axe To Fall", a sword-metal epic about a revenant who returns from beyond death to avenge himself against his betrayers, I realized that I was incapable of singing the song in anything other than a ridiculous quasi-English accent. Does that make me a bad person?
Now for those of you with English degrees:
It is a long and well established practice of Poets Throughout the Ages to use words that ain't 'xactly purty BECAUSE THEY FIT THE FUCKING METER. Or because they sound good, or because they're funny, or because they put someone in mind of something else. It's really not worth thinking about. It is an artistic device about as worthy of discussion as, say, turning on an effects pedal or restringing your guitar.
On the other hand, I think I did gang aft agley the other day, and I walked up to one of my coworkers and said, "I dare you to frame my fearful symmetry". Oft, I think of such things whilst contemplating thine blog posts.
So to sum up, if Robert Fucking Burns is guilty of shit like this, I hardly think it's worth taking Mick Jagger to task over it.
And finally, for the record, "ain't" was a word INVENTED BY THE FUCKING BRITISH.
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