re: Musical hot takes

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Lyrics are vastly overvalued relative to melody and overall songwriting. The best thought experiment that easily demonstrates this: if your favorite band,say, The Beatles gave you all the finished lyrics to The White Album and said "now go put these to music", would you find that harder or easier than the reverse situation?

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The last project I worked on, the guy writing the lyrics spent less than an hour, while my work on the music and arranging was well over 80 hours. At the end, he said it was great, then a day later he wanted half the music cut but all the lyrics retained. So I walked.

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The last project I worked on, the guy writing the lyrics spent less than an hour, while my work on the music and arranging was well over 80 hours. At the end, he said it was great, then a day later he wanted half the music cut but all the lyrics retained. So I walked

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I still think the single hardest act is writing vocal melody. This is why McCartney is at least arguably the GOAT. Myriad poets could have written lyrics equally or even more compelling than Yesterday. But man, try coming up with that haunting melody. It's what separates the men from the boys. It's also what annoys me about songwriting credits, where they are clearly always trying to convince the public that these singer/songwriters are really helping to write the songs. In most instances, they're coming up with a few lyrics and that's it.

Yeah songwriting credits are absurd. Henley and Frey were masters at doing very little to get onto a credit.

McCartney's vocal melodies are unmatched. Even album cuts like For No One have such great melodies. I'd argue Maybe I'm Amazed is one of his best as well.

And the Beach Boys are better than the Beatles by ANY standard

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On Oklahoma Rodgers wrote the music for each song in about ten minutes apiece, while Hammerstein spent several weeks deciding whether or not to use the word "Oh" in "Oh What A Beautiful Morning"

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None of that speaks to the difficulty. The point is that Hammerstein COULD NOT have written the music, no matter what, whereas Rodgers could have easily scrawled some lyrics nobody would have noticed.

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So it all evens out.

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nah

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The point is that Hammerstein COULD NOT have written the music, no matter what, whereas Rodgers could have easily scrawled some lyrics nobody would have noticed.

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Rodgers actually later wrote the lyrics for a show he did, and no one cared

People still remember these lines:

Chicks and ducks and geese better scurry
When I take you out in the surrey,
When I take you out in the surrey with the fringe on top.

Watch thet fringe and see how it flutters
When I drive them high-steppin’ strutters—
Nosey-pokes’ll peek through their shutters and their eyes will pop!

The wheels are yeller, the upholstery’s brown,
The dashboard’s genuine leather,
With isinglass curtains y’ c’n roll right down
In case there’s a change in the weather.

Two bright side lights winkin’ and blinkin’,
Ain’t no finer rig, I’m a-thinkin’;
You c’n keep yer rig if you’re thinkin’ ’at I’d keer to swap
Fer that shiny little surrey with the fringe on the top.

All the world’ll fly in a flurry
When I take you out in the surrey,
When I take you out in the surrey with the fringe on top.

When we hit that road, hell fer leather,
Cats and dogs’ll dance in the heather,
Birds and frogs’ll sing all together, and the toads will hop!

The wind’ll whistle as we rattle along,
The cows’ll moo in the clover,
The river will ripple out a whispered song,
And whisper it over and over:

Don’t you wisht y’d go on ferever?
Don’t you wisht y’d go on ferever?
Don’t you wisht y’d go on ferever and ud never stop
In that shiny little surrey with the fringe on the top?

I can see the stars gittin’ blurry
When we ride back home in the surrey,
Ridin’ slowly home in the surrey with the fringe on top.

I can feel the day gittin’ older,
Feel a sleepy head near my shoulder,
Noddin’, droopin’ close to my shoulder till it falls, kerplop!

The sun is swimmin’ on the rim of a hill,
The moon is takin’ a header,
And jist as I’m thinkin’ all the earth is still,
A lark’ll wake up in the medder…

Hush! You bird, my baby’s a-sleepin’—
Maybe got a dream worth a-keepin’.
Whoa! You team, and jist keep a-creepin’ at a slow clip-clop;
Don’t you hurry with the surrey with the fringe on the top.

Stevie Ray Vaughns “Voodoo Child” is better than OG Hendrix

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Never understood the love for Springsteen

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He was great when he was struggling, then he got rich and decadent. It's hard to be a working class hero when your daughter is riding her $200,000 horse in equestrian events.

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Happened even earlier when Jon Landau took over his production. Sound became very overproduced and deadened. BS and the boys should have just recorded like Meet The Beatles: come in at 9 and just play for 12 hours.

Check out "Rosalita" for prime BS

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I could try hard and not come up with takes this bad

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found the Budgie fan

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I still think the single hardest act is writing vocal melody

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From my experience as a songwriter, this is by FAR the EASIEST part of the process

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if your favorite band,say, The Beatles gave you all the finished lyrics to The White Album and said "now go put these to music", would you find that harder or easier than the reverse situation?

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I excel at taking music and adding vocal melodies and lyrics. One of the best songs I ever helped write, I wrote the lyrics literally in about 20 minutes.

On the flip side, I struggle mightily to take lyrics and write music around those lyrics. I can write music in isolation, but it’s a huge uphill battle to take lyrics I already wrote and then later try to figure out what chord progressions were in my head when I thought of those words. This is a common problem because I often come up with lyrics when I’m nowhere near a guitar, like while I’m at work or drinking at a bar. I just type out what I’m thinking in the notes section of my phone or in a word doc, and then kill myself trying to write music around it when I get home.