Comments on: Songs, Like Art, Can Range from Realism to Abstraction

By: Tony Conniff

Tony Conniff — Fri, 09 Sep 2016 06:28:03 +0000

In most cases, for my own writing, I agree with you. But just like Rothko’s painting ‘explain themselves’; they ‘are what you see’ and whatever that means to you, certain songs ‘are what you hear’ – their sound contains their ‘meaning’.
But most songs, because they involve words, have some kind of narrative. And as soon as we have an inkling of a story, our brains go to work putting the pieces together… and constructing ‘meaning’.
So Rothko went away from realistic painting, which to us would be lyrics and story, probably at least partly to get away from literal meaning. Some songwriters have gone pretty far in that direction too.
“If it sounds good, it is good.” – Duke Ellington
Thanks for writing!
Tony

By: Annie Dinerman

Annie Dinerman — Tue, 30 Aug 2016 18:34:24 +0000

Rothko’s work can really hit me in the gut. I always think, “You bas—-. You did it to me again.” Something visceral is communicated and without a single word. Admirable, to say the least.

Last night, I was watching a documentary on PBS about Walt Disney. It seems that the idea of Fantasia was to make art that would move people emotionally through abstract images and music.

However, I prefer words that clearly lay out the message. I don’t want anyone to have to go searching for my message in a library or in other writers’ works. I have something to say and I want to be heard and understood. And you?

By: Tony Conniff

Tony Conniff — Mon, 22 Aug 2016 18:07:19 +0000

In reply to jimi.

Jimi,
Thanks a lot for sharing your thoughts about this. As you can tell from my posts, I don’t always see things the way you do, but that’s one of the things that make this comment section interesting to me – songwriters sharing differing viewpoints on the craft and the business.
I appreciate that you shared yours!
Best wishes,
Tony

By: jimi

jimi — Wed, 17 Aug 2016 16:50:17 +0000

Art becomes subjective, as does it’s value.
I see Jackson Pollack’s work & think “Painter’s drop cloth”
There’s that elephant that slathers paint on a canvas & it’s called “Genius”
There are Spoken-word artists that recite poetry over drum machine presets & are “Hip-Hop artists” or over random found noise & now they are “industrial-Hip-Hop”
Stuff that was once considered poorly done, bad demos & “needs work” is now celebrated as it’s own genre, never mind that there is no rhyme scheme, story, prosody or any of the things we have learned or are taught.
And, THAT is the stuff that makes money & is popular.
And don’t forget parody.
Depending on which charts you look at:
EVERY top ten country song has drinking in it. EVERY ONE.
8 of those mention trucks.
So it seems reality for country fans is primarily about getting drunk & driving trucks. I wrote one exactly to that (along with other cliches) & guess what? a couple of producers picked it up to forward.
& I did it as a tongue in cheek JOKE.
They said sure the cliches are there, but it’s clever enough with anticipated rhymes & stuff to make it interesting.
Well, I’m glad at least some of the song craft was noticed.
But next, I plan to have a hot chick sing a random melody using an assembly manual in Spanish for lyrics over an 808.
I’ll bet it goes viral.
🙂