Monday, December 8, 2008
Cream Calendar Goodbye Yellow Brick Road Benefit Thursday at 12th & Porter: Music vs. Lyrics, Round Whatever
Posted by Jim Ridley on Mon, Dec 8, 2008 at 12:11 PM
Which is more important: music or lyrics? Or more to the point: Can a great record have lyrics or music that are...well, not so great? It's an argument that neither beer nor pistols nor battles of the bands have managed to settle. And it comes 'round again as a stellar group of Nashville musicians plays Elton John's 1973 LP Goodbye Yellow Brick Road from start to finish Thursday night at 12th & Porter, as a benefit for NARAS' MusiCares Foundation.
In my even-uncooler-than-now high-school years, I literally wore this album out on cassette three or four times. (It was a bitch to rewind, as it was a double album and it kept unfurling in ribbons of confetti in my player. This annoyance now seems almost lovable in its quaint obsolescence.) But even then I kinda shrugged off the lyrics. Whatever the hell the title song is saying, with its menagerie of owls and horny-back toads and such, meant little to me: The sweep of the chorus and the vocals, however, never failed to choke me up.
That's why I'm looking forward to this benefit show less for the singers (including Edwin McCain, Don Henry, Jeff Black, Emerson Hart, Natalie Hemby and many more) than for the band, which throughout the night will feature players such as keyboardist Michael Webb, guitar monster Reeves Gabrels and drummer Dave Harrison, who calls this the easiest gig he's ever done. He says he's chomping at the bit to do the drum fill on "All the Girls Love Alice"--which gives you an idea what kind of devotion the record inspires, whether you care what it says or not.
Comments (1)
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I think it comes down to how important the lyrics and the words in particular are to not only you, but to others. No one can dispute the successes of Bob Dylan and Neil Young based mostly on what they said not how they said or in this case, sung it. Here are some of my lyrics (by the way, I have a nice voice too) and they have not been modified nor will they be, since I wrote them, I found music that fits beautifully!
Picasso’s Brush @ Copyright 2007
The hardened chips from long ago
Are all lined up in a row
A memory of a conquerable hill
Attempted devastation of one mans will
Circumstances I can now control
Hangs on an empty wall
A blank canvas that I see
Where a mirror used to be
Rising from the world below
With brushes lined up in a row
There’s shelter in something new
A vision within paints a Picasso
An exploration of my thoughts
With each stroke of a colored brush
Something smooth from something rough
Erases the pictures that meant so much
A recorded vision of what I see
Evokes the beauty of a new memory
Away with yesterday’s rain
A new collage and away with pain
Rising from the world below
With my brushes lined in a row
There’s shelter in something new
A vision within paints a Picasso
-end-
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