Musical Words

Welcome To The Boomtown

Maybe this is turning into a musical summer. First we had an analysis of the lyrics for Beth Orton’s “Stolen Car”, then Cameron and Jeanette sent their own favourite lyrics in Love of Lyrics. There will be other posts in that vein written by Howard and Sarah soon. In the meantime, today’s post also ties in to music and fiction and stories.

Howard Coward send me this email:

Greetings Karl.

As I read through this I thought first of your assignment, then was simply impressed with his points, and when I got toward the bottom and saw some lyrics, I realized: Hey–I know this guy…

And an hour later and several YouTube dives back into the past, I thought: I think I need to forward this one.

Because of our age differences I’m guessing you won’t be familiar with the guy (but I shouldn’t sell you short!); I lived in Los Angeles in the 1980’s so the song lyrics he mentions were somewhat of an anthem at the time, and I often wondered what became of all that talent. Here’s a link to the song if you want to chase a rabbit.

Enjoy!

Here’s the song:

I didn’t actually know that song, but have now downloaded three of the tracks from that album as it reminded me vaguely of Roxy Music. :-)

Anyway, here is the article Howard references, which is worth skimming. I approve of looking for different ways to visualise our words and how they fit together. It matches key questions I like to ask: “What are the effects we are trying to achieve? How will we do so?”

Article link:

• David Baerwald on Taking Writing Lessons from Hans Zimmer. “Songs gain their power from repetition, while symphonies gain theirs from transformation.”

Aside

If you want some interesting new fiction to read, especially something that touches on the unexplainable, then here’s something to try: