When I was a lad, it was quite the thing for people to sing at family gatherings. I had
relatives who would regularly ‘do a turn’ and entertain the company with a song
or two. At the time, I was too young and self-conscious or, later, too cool for
school to appreciate any of this. I didn’t really know much at the time and had
a slightly patronising view of folk who could (and would) get up and do a song
at parties; it all seemed a bit passé to me. Now that I can usually tell the
difference between my arse and a hole in the ground, I know that singing is a fun
thing to do and that it is also good for you. I’m sure there have been studies
carried out which can prove this scientifically (or at least
pseudo-scientifically) but all I can present is anecdotal evidence, carried out
by a sample of one, i.e. me. I feel better when I’m singing. I believe that when
I’m singing, it’s not just my vocal chords that are being exercised; I believe
that I’m taking my soul for a walk.
I wish I had known all this back then; I wish I
could have been relaxed and confident enough to join in with all that singing. I
get the impression that not as many folk sing at parties these days, although
it’s possibly just the case that I don’t get invited to the parties at which
people sing (although, come to think of it, I don’t get invited to parties,
full stop).
The generation that sang at social gatherings was,
in at least one respect, richer than their children and grand-children. They
didn’t have the gadgets, the disposable income, the satellite TV or the foreign
holidays, but they were familiar with songs that could be sung from start to
finish without embarrassment or, indeed, embellishment. And that lack of any need
for embellishment was a testament to the quality of the words and melodies of songs
that were written to be sung. The wonder of the popular song resides, as Clive
James put it, in “the way a colloquial phrase can be multiplied in its energy
by how it sits on a row of musical notes.” Some may think these examples a bit cheesy,
but old songs like ‘And I love you so’, ‘Spanish Eyes’ or ‘The way we were’ can
be sung from start to finish by anyone. The melodies are simple and memorable, the
lyrics evocative and universal; these are songs which do not rely on elaborate musical
backdrops to sound convincing. Their energy and pathos are, indeed, generated
by the skilful placement of colloquial phrases on rows of musical notes. We
might not know exactly how this magic works, but when we listen to a piece of
recorded music we make an unconscious assessment of at least one (and probably
more) of these components: melody, chords, words, rhythm, sound and context. Our
unique responses to these stimuli lead us to subjective conclusions about the quality of the song.
If it is true that there is not as much
unembellished singing going on today, then perhaps it’s the case that there are
simply fewer contemporary songs that are fit to be sung (beyond the realms of
karaoke). I’d suggest that advances in recording technology have altered the balance
between form and content within the popular song, to the extent that the sound of the recording has usurped melody
as the defining characteristic. Beyonce’s ‘Crazy in Love’ is a really dynamic
piece of music, but it’s not exactly rich in melody. And try singing along with
these number one hits without karaoke accompaniment: ‘Professional Widow’ by
Tori Amos, ‘Firestarter’ by The Prodigy or ‘Two Tribes’ by Frankie goes to
Hollywood.
If the sound of recorded music has improved (and not
everyone would agree that it has), has that improvement been matched by improvements
in song-writing? I generally don’t listen to chart radio, so I’m not aware of
how much rubbish and how much good stuff is around just now, but I’d hazard a
guess that it’s more or less the same amount of rubbish and good stuff as has
always been in the charts; every era has its share of great songs, good songs,
mediocre songs and bad songs. But how can we tell what is rubbish and what is
good? Without some objective measurement of quality, all we can really offer is
opinion. We know that if a song is popular it must be liked by large numbers of
people, but we could all name examples of terrible songs that were big hits and
great songs that never made the charts.
Longevity, I’d suggest, is a reasonable indicator of
quality.
To take one example, Stevie Wonder’s ‘My Cherie
Amour’ was a top ten hit in the UK in August 1969, yet that song is still sung
(and is still familiar) in a way that other successful tunes from that era are
not. These songs were all in the top ten at the same time: ‘Baby
make it soon’ by Marmalade, ‘Early in the morning’ by Vanity Fare, 'Goodnight Midnight' by Clodah Rodgers, 'Wet Dream' by Maz Romeo, ‘Make me an
island’ by Joe Dolan and ‘Conversations’ by Cilla Black. These songs all performed well in
the charts, they probably got played many times on the radio and were bought by
lots of people, but how many of them would be recognised or sung by anyone
today?
(Mind you, looking at that same chart, I’d imagine
that lots of folk could probably sing along with ‘Give peace a chance’ by the
Plastic Ono Band, despite it being a dreadful song).
Although that chart from 1969 was probably typical
with regard to quality, I’d be willing to come off the relativistic fence for a
moment to suggest that, if we took an average pop chart from the mid-to-late sixties and compared it to an average pop chart from the 21st
century, we’d observe that the popular song is now painted from a somewhat diminished
palette. By that, I mean that it has lost some of its rhythmic variation (the
4/4 rhythm now seems more or less ubiquitous), it has fewer chords (and fewer
interesting chords; yes, that’s a judgement), the structures have simplified and
the subject matter (indeed, the vocabulary of pop) has narrowed. Songs used
to be written to be sung, but -with less of a focus on melody and words- it
seems that many of them are now made to be listened to. This is partly about who
is making music, partly about why they are making it and partly about the tools
they use, but it’s also a socio-cultural development and one that someone else should
write up for their PhD.
In suggesting that the songs of forty to fifty years
ago might have been generally ‘better’ because they had more emphasis on
melody, I’m perfectly aware that I’m:
a) Stating an entirely subjective viewpoint
b) Ignoring Paul Simon’s wise words about every
generation throwing "a hero up the pop charts"
and c) Sounding like an old fart.
But when an old fart claims that such-and-such is a
great song because people are still singing it fifty years after it was recorded, he
has a point. The fact that people are singing it means something. Lots of
modern songs may turn out to be great and timeless pieces, but we don’t yet
know if people will be singing them fifty years hence.
All of which leads me to reflect on my own efforts.
As well as being limited by ability and imagination,
my song-writing efforts are generally filtered through subjective judgement
criteria for melody, chords, words, rhythm and sound which were set many years
ago, when I listened to music on the radio or on the family record player. In
other words, I like my stuff to sound like other stuff that I believe to be good.
One of the reasons I’ve been talking about old songs is because the piece I’m
linking to below is something of an homage
to a certain type of old song, one that I have fond memories of.
I’ve stated in previous instalments of this ‘recording-an-album’
saga that I often find musical inspiration easier to access than lyrical
inspiration. I’m more equipped to emulate than innovate, so will often have a
particular feel in mind whenever I start composing; this ‘feel’ will sometimes be
based on something I’ve heard and admired before. The trick is then to disguise
the source material as the piece develops, but in this case I was inclined to
be faithful to the germ of the idea. The song started out as a doodle on the
piano and I knew, as soon as I stumbled upon the descending chord sequence of
the verse, that I was about to write something which would owe a debt of
gratitude to The Kinks, (by way of The Beatles and ELO).
Although I could quickly imagine how the recording
would sound, I had nothing in the way of lyrical content. As the structure developed,
however, it occurred to me that the ambience I wanted to create would best be
served by a direct lyric, a ‘story’ as opposed to an impressionistic poem. Once
I came up with the title, the story fell into place. The end result -‘Mr
McIntosh has left the building’- is about a man experiencing his last day in
employment. Having spent all of his working life in the same office job, he reflects
upon the speed with which the whole thing seems to have passed him by. I love
the sly humour of Ray Davies and the way he creates believable characters to
inhabit his evocative urban vignettes. But there is also an undercurrent of
melancholy in his work (in ‘Autumn Almanac’, for example) and I wanted my song
to have a touch of that.
‘Forty years have come and gone; he’s been there man
and boy and now he’ll leave without a fuss to catch that evening omnibus’.
Having decided upon the direction of travel, the deliberate
use of the archaic ‘omnibus’ was designed to place the piece in a sixties
context, as was the deployment of brass (splendidly played by Dave Webster). In
the chorus, the bass sits in E under the first four chords, a
device I’m much more likely to use when writing on the piano. It creates a bit
of tension, which -in this case- aids the purpose of lyrical exposition.
The character reflects that it ‘seems like two
blinks of an eye’ since he started the job; he realises, with a sense of numb
bewilderment, that decades of graft have amounted to not very much at all.
‘All the stories he could tell: they could fill a
book, but there’s one thing that is guaranteed: no-one else would want to read
it’.
I don’t like songs that sneer at the ordinary lives
of ordinary folk and I hope that the lyric doesn’t sound like I’ve tried to do
that here. The aim was merely to say something about the fleetingness of a life
spent in gainful employment and to capture the feelings of a man about to leave
work for the last time.
I was talking about the process of song-writing to a
friend recently (now you know why I don’t get invited to parties) and he
related a lovely quote from Leonard Cohen concerning the elusive and frustrating
nature of inspiration. The old boy said: “If I knew where the
songs came from, I'd go there more often.”
How that simple observation
resonates! I would happily slice off and eat my left arm to be able to write a
truly popular song; by that, I mean one that lots of people would like, buy and
want to sing along with.
But, if nobody wants to sing along with this song,
I’ve cunningly included a bit of whistling on the final chorus. To paraphrase Robert Duvall's Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore in 'Apocalypse
Now':
“I love the sound of whistling on a record. There’s nothing like it. It sounds
like … victory.”
